
Filling the Ranks
Manpower in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918
- Publisher
- McGill-Queen's University Press
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2017
- Category
- General
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780773548770
- Publish Date
- Mar 2017
- List Price
- $39.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9780773549111
- Publish Date
- Apr 2017
- List Price
- $39.95
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Description
Manpower is the lifeblood of armies regardless of time or place. In the First World War, much of Canada’s military effort went toward sustaining the Canadian Expeditionary Force, especially in France and Belgium. The job was not easy. The government and Department of Militia and Defence were tasked with recruiting and training hundreds of thousands of men, shipping them to England, and creating organizations on the continent meant to forward these men to their units.
The first book to explore the issue of manpower in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Filling the Ranks examines the administrative and organizational changes that fostered efficiency and sustained the army. Richard Holt describes national civilian and military recruitment policies and criteria both inside and outside of Canada; efforts to recruit women, convicts, and members of First Nations, African Canadian, Asian, and Slavic communities; the conduct of entry-level training; and the development of a coherent reinforcement structure. Canada’s ability to fill the ranks with trained soldiers ultimately helped make the Corps an elite formation within the British Expeditionary Force.
Based on extensive research in British and Canadian archives, Filling the Ranks provides a wealth of new information on Canada"s role in the Great War.
About the authors
Richard Holt (1948-2017) was a retired lieutenant colonel of the Royal Canadian Regiment and an independent researcher and historian.
TIM COOK is the Great War historian at the Canadian War Museum, as well as an adjunct professor at Carleton University. He is the author of five other books, including Shock Troops, which won the prestigious Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction in 2009. He was also awarded the Ottawa Book Award and the J.W. Dafoe Prize for At the Sharp End. Cook lives in Ottawa with his family.
J. L. GRANATSTEIN is the author of over 60 books, including the bestsellersWho Killed The Canadian Military? and Whose War Is It?, along withYankee Go Home?, Victory 1945 and The Generals, which won the J. W. Dafoe Prize and the UBC Medal for Canadian Biography. A distinguished research professor of history emeritus at York University, he was a member of the RMC Board of Governors and is chair of the Advisory Council of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. He lives in Toronto. Visit Granatstein atwww.whosewar.ca.
Other titles by Tim Cook

Lifesavers and Body Snatchers
Medical Care and the Struggle for Survival in the Great War

The Fight for History
75 Years of Forgetting, Remembering, and Remaking Canada's Second World War

Canada 1919
A Nation Shaped by War

Vimy
The Battle and the Legend

Fight to the Finish
Canadians in the Second World War, 1944-1945

The Necessary War, Volume 1
Canadians Fighting The Second World War:1939-1943

Warlords
Borden;mackenzie King And Canada's World Wars

Clio's Warriors
Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars

No Place to Run
The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War

The Madman and the Butcher
The Sensational Wars Of Sam Hughes And General Arthur Currie
Other titles by J.L. Granatstein

Canada at War
Conscription, Diplomacy, and Politics

Canada 1919
A Nation Shaped by War
Politics of Survival
The Conservative Part of Canada, 1939-1945

Trudeau’s World
Insiders Reflect on Foreign Policy, Trade, and Defence, 1968-84

Canada's Army
Waging War and Keeping the Peace

The Weight of Command
Voices of Canada’s Second World War Generals and Those Who Knew Them

The Greatest Victory
Canada's One Hundred Days, 1918

Mobilize!
Why Canada Was Unprepared for the Second World War

In the National Interest
Canadian Foreign Policy and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909-2009
