War news and public relations (PR) was a critical consideration for the Canadian Army during the Second World War. The Canadian Army developed its PR apparatus from nothing to an efficient publicity machine by war’s end, despite a series of growing pains. Canadian Military Headquarters in London appointed the first PR Officer, William Abel, in January 1940. PR services overseas grew along with the size of the army. The early days were marked by lack of coordination and often jurisdictional and personality conflicts between Abel and the other PR Officers and organizations. The 19 August 1942 Dieppe raid was the low point for both the accuracy of war news and Canadian PR involvement because Lord Mountbatten’s Combined Operations Headquarters minimized Canadian PR’s involvement in planning. This resulted in early portrayals of the raid as successful and the British censored a more honest explanation by the Canadian Army. The Sicilian and Italian campaigns provided a learning experience for the PR units. In Sicily, the news coverage of the Canadians was a public success, but PR had trouble with their allies in gaining national recognition and representation. Additionally, the question of correspondents’ priorities and delays getting to the front and transportation difficulties angered the press. Many of these problems continued in Italy until the appointment of Richard Malone, who enjoyed support from the politicians, press, and military. Applying the Mediterranean experience and participating in Allied publicity planning contributed to the excellence of Canadian PR during the Northwest Europe Campaign. PR maintained the confidence of the press while still controlling the correspondents. The army also largely overcame the temptation to censor bad news although this sometimes embarrassed Ottawa. Allied regulations sanitized war news preventing the reporting of the more disturbing aspects of war. Through censorship, the army exercised a great deal of control over the news media, yet this hegemony was incomplete because of need to keep the press friendly. Although a large sceptical minority remained, most Canadians considered their war news to be accurate. In sum, Canadian Army PR was generally successful, portraying the army positively and attracting media coverage.

This dissertation examines relations between Canadian soldiers and German civilians from March 1945 to April 1946. This study will show that Canadian relations with German civilians were, in part, an extension of relations with civilians in liberated countries, but were also something new altogether. At the beginning of the invasion of Germany, most Canadian soldiers did not wish to associate with Germans and followed a fraternization ban that had been put into effect. Canadians were more likely than American soldiers to believe in the ban. Soldiers were fed a propaganda campaign that told them all Germans were evil and needed to be punished for starting the war. As the invasion proceeded further into Germany, more Canadians realized that all Germans were not Nazis and began to fraternize with the ban still in place. In the Netherlands, where Canadians have been remembered as liberators, relations at times were also tense and bitter after the war ended. Canadians also had to deal with large number of Displaced Persons (DPs), who caused more headaches than German civilians for the occupation authorities.

Ce mémoire porte sur la nature et l'importance du travail des infirmières militaires canadiennes en service outre-mer pendant la Première Guerre mondiale. L'histoire de ce groupe, composé de 2003 infirmières, une proportion d'environ 37% de l'ensemble des infirmières pratiquant leur métier à cette époque, reste largement méconnue. Par l'analyse d'entrevues (25) effectuées avec ces pionnières au sein des Forces armées entre 1914 et 1918, cette étude veut démontrer que la contribution majeure des infirmières à l'effort de guerre canadien tient à la spécificité de leur travail de soignante, un travail alors associé à un ensemble de qualités dites "féminines" et à un savoir spécialisé acquis dans le cadre des écoles d'infirmières. Le prestige dévolu à ces "héroïnes" de la Première Guerre rejaillira finalement sur toute la profession d'infirmière. / Québec Université Laval, Bibliothèque 2013

La force militaire est une composante indissociable de l’appareil étatique. Dans les Forces armées canadiennes (FAC), les composantes marines, aériennes et terrestres jouent un rôle de médiateur dans les conflits internes et internationaux. Leur réputation pacifique influence des valeurs associées à la carrière militaire, telles que : le dévouement, la discipline et l’obéissance. L’esprit de sacrifice, la solidarité et le sens de collectivité, valeurs essentielles au bon fonctionnement interne des FAC, semblent être des valeurs paradoxales dans une société canadienne dite individualiste. Dans ce contexte particulier, l’individualisme est au coeur la culture occidentale. J’entends ici par individualisme l’aspect d’une société de droits et libertés individuels. De ce fait, une question s’impose : quelles sont les motivations des individus à s’enrôler dans les Forces armées canadiennes en sol québécois ? Le but de la recherche est ainsi de mieux saisir les motivations d’un individu à joindre le corps militaire, dans un contexte où le Québec s’inscrit dans une trajectoire historique où l’individu est l’élément central, notamment aux niveaux social, économique, juridique et politique. L’objectif principal est de comprendre les motivations d’enrôlement des militaires, vétérans et candidats en processus d’enrôlement au Québec. Les sous-objectifs du projet de recherche sont quant à eux : (1) explorer, au travers d’une approche ethnographique, de quelles manières les participants à cette étude conçoivent les motivations qui ont guidé leur processus d’enrôlement; (2) comprendre de quelles façons ils expliquent leurs expériences des valeurs des FAC, dont le sens de la collectivité dans une société dite individualiste. C’est avec les méthodes de collecte de données qualitatives que sont l’observation participante et les entretiens semi-structurés que nous analyserons les relations hiérarchiques entre les membres des Forces armées canadiennes pour mieux saisir les dynamiques organisationnelles reliées à la culture militaire au Québec. Ces méthodes viseront également à identifier s’il existe une marge entre les dires et les actions réelles des militaires sur le terrain. Ces données seront analysées en lien avec l’échantillon d’étude afin d’éviter toute généralisation. Comme la démarche ethnographique est inductive, sans pouvoir affirmer ceci avec certitude, nous nous attendons à voir des motivations d’enrôlement « typiques » chez les participants, ainsi que la possibilité de profils récurrents chez les militaires. / Military forces are an inseparable component of the state apparatus. In the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), the sea, air and land components play a mediating role in national and international conflicts. Their peaceful reputation influence values associated with the military career, such as: devotion, discipline and obedience. The spirit of sacrifice, solidarity and sense of community, values essential to the proper internal functioning of the CAF seem to be paradoxical values in a so-called individualistic Canadian society. In this particular context, individualism is at the heart of Western culture. I mean here by individualism the aspect of a society of individual rights and freedoms. Therefore, a question arises: what are the motivations of individuals to enlist in the Canadian Armed Forces on Quebec soil? The goal of the research is thus to have a better understanding of the motivations of individuals to join the military corps in a context where Quebec is part of a historical trajectory where the individual is the central element, particularly at the social, economic, legal and political point of view. The main objective is to understand the enlistment motivations of soldiers, veterans and candidates in the enrollment process in Quebec. The sub-objectives of the research project are: (1) to explore through an ethnographic approach in what ways the participants of this study conceive the motivations that guided their enrollment process; (2) understand how they explain their experiences of CAF values, including the sense of community in a so-called individualistic society. It’s with the qualitative data collection methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviews that we will analyze the hierarchical relationships between members of the Canadian Armed Forces to understand better the organizational dynamics related to the military culture in Quebec. These methods will also aim to identify if there’s a margin between the statements and the actual actions of the soldiers on the ground. These data will be analyzed in relation to the study sample in order to avoid any generalization. As the ethnographic approach is inductive, without being able to affirm this with certainty, we expect to see “typical” enlistment motivations among the participants, as well as the possibility of recurring profiles among the military.

This thesis explores the impact of the Korean War on the evolution of the role of the French language in the Canadian military between 1946 and 1954. It explains how the Korean War acted as both a catalyst for a more accommodating stance towards the French language in the Canadian Armed Forces, and an immediate impediment to the implementation of such changes. Particularly, this thesis explores the conflict that emerged between various officials in the Department of National Defence concerning the place that should be made for the French language, and how best to recruit more French Canadians. It shows that there was serious disagreement between the Minister of National Defence, Brooke Claxton, who wanted more bilingualism in the Canadian military, and the Chief of General Staff, General Guy G. Simonds, who resisted further concessions to francophones. Moreover, this thesis reveals the extent to which there was goodwill within the Canadian Armed Forces on the part of both anglophones and francophones on the frontline in Korea. This constituted the basis on which the Department of National Defence was able to begin the process of implementing a more bilingual system. In this respect, this thesis shows the Canadian military to have been ahead of the federal Civil Service.