In 1914, at a time of intense nationalism and imperial competition, war broke out in Europe. What started as an isolated assassination in Serbia of Archduke Ferdinand in July 1914 triggered international treaties and alliances, and within months Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, Belgium, Italy, Japan, the Austro-Hungary, Canada, Australia, South Africa, India, New Zealand, the Dominion of Newfoundland , Greece and others were all at war.

The fighting soon reached a scale beyond what anyone could have imagined. The conflict spread to many regions of the world and eventually became known as the Great War. Fighting on such a magnitude and of such relentlessness had never been known before. By November 11, 1918 when the final gun fell silent, 9.5 million had been killed, and the lines of battle on the Western Front in Europe were essentially back where they had begun. Canada was a small nation of 7 million in 1914, yet 68,000 never returned from the battlefields.

In 1919 the Paris Peace Conference drew up treaties and revised national boundaries that in many cases revived national tensions. Today we still live with the political consequences of those decisions. The Paris Peace Conference also decided on ‘reparations’, or economic punishment, for a defeated Germany who was to pay for the death and destruction it had wrought.

At the Peace Conference, American President Woodrow Wilson was insistent that an international organization be established to prevent future conflicts and the League Of Nations, the forerunner to the United Nations, was created. But ingrained nationalism remained strong and the League Of Nations received inadequate support. The League was unable to prevent the next war in 1939, WWII that killed more than 60 million. The United Nations was founded in 1946.

The experience of WWI helped bring about social changes. The historic class system was further eroded. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) was created to bury the more than 1.1 million dead from the Commonwealth countries. The Commission decided that officers and ordinary soldiers would be buried in the same cemeteries with little distinction. This had rarely been done before. Officers had traditionally been from the ruling classes and had given special privileges even in death. In the name of equality the Commission also decided that officers would be allowed no special grave monuments but instead would share the same headstone design as all other soldiers. The completion of the CWGC cemeteries took many years, even decades, and Canada still contributes to maintaining them.

On returning home many WWI veterans, having fought for freedom abroad, felt they had the right to ask for better wages and working conditions at home. They became involved in labour activism and the union movement. In 1919 many veterans took part in the Winnipeg General Strike. Tragically, in the violence of that strike, there were veterans on opposing sides. There is no doubt that the Russian revolution of 1917 and the dream of the Communist ideal also contributed to the general agitation, but there is also no doubt that the drive for labour rights and social equality was widespread.

Canadian women finally got the vote in 1921, having contributed so much to the labour force during the war when so many men had been absent. First-Nations soldiers achieved recognition and a degree of equality in the army that they were not given at home in Canada. But many minority groups, having fought for Canada abroad, returned home to discriminatory conditions that would not be rectified for a long time. For example, Japanese-Canadians veterans of WWI even though they had fought bravely for Canada were not recognized as citizens of Canada until 1931. Many francophone Quebecers had ambivalent feelings about the fighting in Europe, and when the Canadian government brought in conscription in 1917 there was strong resentment.

It is said that Canada emerged as a more confident nation after WWI. Its soldiers had earned respect on the battlefield, particularly at < Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele . Canadian politicians and senior officers had gained more independence from British command. Canada was given a seat at the Paris Peace Conference as an independent nation, rather than as a member of the British Commonwealth delegation.

At writing, only three WWI veterans remain alive in the world. The last Canadian veteran died in February 2009 at age 109. When all are gone the book of living history will be shut forever. We must forget neither them nor the war they fought. The earth has not forgotten. Battles such as Passchendaele , the Somme and Verdun were so intense and prolonged that more than one hundred thousand bodies were never recovered. Even to this day soldiers’ remains surface in the fields of France and Belgium and are gathered for burial in some of the 6,000 war cemeteries. We too must not forget. The families and descendants of these 68,000 Canadians must know that they are remembered in our hearts and in our nation’s history.

For further information on Canadians in WWI please visit the Virtual War Memorial at www.vac-acc.gc.ca or go to www.collectionscanada.ca , www.warmuseum.ca, www.cwgc.org, www.passingofthegeneration.org.uk/index.html, www.iwm.org.uk, www.historica-dominion.ca, www.historysociety.ca, www.nfb.ca, www.ancestry.com or www.inflandersfields.be.