For Canadians the Second World War traditionally evokes images of the invasion of Normandy, the Falaise Gap, and the ill-fated raid on Dieppe. Over the years Canadians who served overseas have been recognized but, at the same time, soldiers who served on the home front have been overlooked. This is because many of Canada's home defence soldiers were conscripted under the National Resources Mobilization Act, and were unwilling to go overseas. Thousands of Canadians, however, were denied entry into the regular forces because they were too old, too young, or classified as medically unfit. In British Columbia during the Second World War, these men were given the opportunity to enlist in a unique home guard unit called the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers (P.C.M.R.). The Pacific Coast Militia Rangers were organized in response to public pressure, and because existing coastal defences were inadequate. Composed of unpaid volunteers trained in guerilla tactics, the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers were a home defence force peculiar to British Columbia. The Rangers were not a typical military organization. Rather, they were a distinctively North American fighting force in the tradition of previous Ranger formations. A sense of historical tradition was evident in the designation of "Rangers" for British Columbia's Second World War guerilla home defence volunteers. In North America, since the 1700s, men born in and acquainted with the hinterland-frontiersmen, hunters, cowboys, and trappers proficient in the use of firearms-have been formed into irregular Ranger units in times of emergency. There is a long list of these North American Ranger organizations: Rogers' Rangers in the French and Indian War; Butler's Loyalist Rangers, the East Florida Rangers, and the Queen's Rangers in the American Revolution; the Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers in the revolution against Mexican authority; Mosby's Rangers in the U.S. Civil War; and the Rocky Mountain Rangers in the Northwest Rebellion. The Pacific Coast Militia Rangers were the twentieth century revival of this Ranger tradition. Throughout history, all Ranger units have used the same tactics: they employed guerilla warfare with an emphasis on surprise attacks, they operated in small units which were highly mobile, and they focussed on rifle training. A lack of formal military discipline has also been characteristic of all Ranger formations. The Pacific Coast Militia Rangers, then, were not an innovation in the Canadian military experience. They were part of a distinct military tradition of irregular troops adapted to suit North American frontier conditions. The Pacific Coast Militia Rangers reflected the character, fears, and internal conflicts of British Columbia's society. British Columbia was a predominantly white community and the P.C.M.R. mirrored the widespread white ethnic prejudices in the province. Ethnic groups were largely excluded from the Rangers and Native Indians, who were accepted as valuable recruits, were treated in a paternalistic manner. Militant trade unionism has been an important facet of B.C. history, and trade unionists were prominent in the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers. Trade unions fully supported the P.C.M.R. and Ranger membership was dominated by the working class. The labour movement's influence in the P.C.M.R. can be seen in the anxiety over the possible employment of Ranger units to break strikes. The role of war veterans in the P.C.M.R. also reflected the composition of the larger society. First World War veterans were a well-defined group in B.C. society, and their values and outlook were revealed through their Ranger participation. The veterans' zeal and rivalry with younger Rangers indicates that their patriotism was, at times, misguided, but it was rooted in a personal need to play a visible role in the war effort. The P.C.M.R. operated in a democratic manner: if the commander of a Ranger company was disliked by his men, he could be voted out of his position. Similarly, if Rangers disagreed with directives from P.C.M.E. headquarters they were quick to express their displeasure and threatened resignation. This would have been impossible in the regular army, but in the P.C.M.R.-composed of citizen-soldiers-it was a commonplace pattern. The social equality between ranks, and the egalitarian way in which the P.C.M.R. operated expressed the New World frontier values of British Columbia in the 1940s. The wartime fears and phobias of British Columbians showed in the actions of the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers. Life in British Columbia during the early years of the Second World War was, for the most part, as secure as life in other regions of Canada. This was changed, however, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The aggressiveness of Japan and the stunning success of her war machine, caused panic in the Pacific Coast province about the vulnerability of B.C. to an attack. In addition, the war sharpened the already existing white racial animosity against the Japanese, and _ provided a socially acceptable outlet for its expression. White British Columbia has had a history of fear of Asians and, subsequently, anti-Orientalism has been a current in the province's culture. In much the same way that anti-Japanese sentiment forced the federal government to intern and evacuate British Columbia's Japanese population, so too did public outcry prompt the formation of local home guard units. These two problems-the defence of British Columbia and anti-Japanese sentiment-became manifest in the history of the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers. From the Dominion government's viewpoint, the P.C.M.R. was a valuable organization. The Rangers provided military protection at a low cost, but they also comforted a frightened population which demanded protection from a Japanese invasion. It will be argued here that while the main purpose of the P.C.M.R. was home defence, the organization became much more than that to both the government and the people of British Columbia. Quite apart from its defence role, the P.C.M.R. provided reassurance, sustained the morale of a population at war, and acted as a means to indoctrinate civilians with military propaganda. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

The interwar militia in Vancouver is a poorly understood institution, partly because scholars have come to associate the militia with militarism. However, the militia has important non-military functions and the interwar militia regiments were more than social clubs. This thesis compared the activities of two of Vancouver's militia regiments by examining their archival holdings to see if they had documentary evidence to support the notion that they functioned as a proto-fraternal society during the interwar period. The militia regiments functioned as fraternal associations providing mutual aid as well as congeniality. In the immediate post World War One period and during the Great Depression, with successively lower militia appropriations, militia regiments were forced out of necessity to come up with innovative ways to recruit and keep men on strength. Service in the militia was voluntary with members turning their pay back to the regiments to enable many of the militia regiments to function. The militia regiments held suppers and dances, and paid transportation costs to get members out for parade nights. The militia also played an integral role in the ceremonial life of the city. The ceremonial and symbolic values of militia units on parade were accepted features of public ceremonies in the city. It reaffirmed Vancouver's "Britishness." This thesis compares two of Vancouver's militia regiments during the interwar period, the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and the British Columbia Regiment. The ethnic affiliation of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada to the city's Scottish groups was a remarkable feature of Vancouver's elite unit. The militia allowed ambitious and patriotic young men to follow a British aristocratic career pattern: formal education at private schools, post-secondary training and military service. Militia regiments were part of an active social network within Vancouver between the wars. They conferred status, provided aid, and supported dominant values such as in Vancouver's society. This thesis provides some insight into the functioning of these two regiments as fraternal organizations and how they connected to the larger community. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

Local Self-Defence Militias as Counterinsurgents The Possibility, Willingness and Rationality of Selective Violence against Insurgents Autor: Jakob J. Gilg Submitted: 31.07.2019 Abstract How do local self-defence militias (LSDMs) influence violence against civilians in civil conflicts? Compared to other types of pro-government militias (PGMs), LSDMs are active in their home area. This results in abundant local information that can be used to identify and target insurgents and their supporters selectively. Furthermore, LSDMs are part of the local community, resulting in strong social ties, making indiscriminate violence against the community less likely. Finally, since LSDMs are dependent on popular support and cannot move on to a new area after violent acts, they are incentivised to retain local support by abstaining from civilian targeting. Therefore, I hypothesise that LSDMs are more likely to employ selective violence, and that their deployment decreases civilian fatalities in civil conflicts. To empirically test this claim in a global sample, I use 1) a logistic regression to assess the likelihood of selective violence of PGMs (H1), and 2) a negative binomial regression to evaluate the expected number of civilians killed by the government (H2). The results for the first hypothesis suggest an increased...

The Tanzania Peoples Defense Force (TPDF) was established as a people's army entrusted with the traditional roles and missions of defending the United Republic of Tanzania against external enemies. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union changed the strategic environment. Refugees from conflict torn areas, poaching, small arms proliferation, political fundamentalism, drug trafficking, transnational terrorism, and environmental degradation threaten internal security. At regional level, the Tanzania Peoples Defense Force with the militaries of other countries has been deployed in conflict areas through regional bodies such as the East African Community (EAC) and South African Development Community (SADC) on issues of collective defense and security. Technological developments also call for a military with the capability to operate modern weaponry systems and to operate in a complex environment. This thesis argues that innovative thinking has to be developed to enable the TPDF to meet conventional and unconventional military demands through the development of its human resources. / Tanzania Army author.

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William C. C. Claiborne found himself a stranger in a strange land. Almost more a colonial governor of a European power rather than an American statesman, Claiborne grappled with maintaining a militia force for the Territory of Orleans, now the present day state of Louisiana. He built upon the volunteer companies he found within the city of New Orleans, but had little success molding the entire militia into an effective, efficient military force. Claiborne, hoping to use the fear generated by the January 1811 slave revolt to spur militia reform, maintained an active correspondence with the state's legislators, the area's military commanders, the members of the Louisiana congressional delegation, and even the President of the United States for assistance with militia matters. Ultimately, Claiborne failed and the British attack on New Orleans in 1814/1815 made the matter of reform academic.

For two hundred years the history of the Battle of New Orleans has suffered from the neglected state of the historiography on the War of 1812 and the static state of the Battle's orthodox narrative. This dissertation identifies and deconstructs the central themes of the Battle's orthodox narrative. It reveals how these long standing presumptions surfaced through the Battle's public commemoration in the nineteenth century and have fostered misleading perceptions about Louisiana’s involvement in the war, the defense preparations undertaken in New Orleans prior to Andrew Jackson's arrival, and the so-called unity that was achieved through the victory. By incorporating the actions and experiences of women and the enslaved into the Battle's history, this dissertation exposes the traditional marginalization of these groups in accounts of the Battle and its subsequent memorialization. It shows that the absence of women and the enslaved in the cultivation of the Battle's public memory was a deliberate measure taken by white slaveholding elites to preserve racial and social divisions that were blurred by the Battle's symbolic message of the power of unity. The actions of a third group, free men of color, are examined to illustrate how critical they were to the victory and how dangerous the memory of their service was to white slaveholding elites, especially in the 1850s. These new perspectives on the Battle and its public commemoration challenge the unchanging nature of the Battle's history and indicate that there is far more to the Battle's story than has ever been told. / acase@tulane.edu

A tese versa sobre os milicianos pardos de São Paulo que atuaram no Regimento dos Úteis (1797-1831). As milícias de pardos e de pretos remontam ao século XVII e se caracterizaram como uma força militar fundamental para o Estado e um canal de expressão social e política para os seus integrantes até serem extintas, em 1831. Os problemas de que trata se desdobram em três eixos articulados entre si, a saber, a história militar, social e política. No primeiro deles, se examina a milícia parda em meio à estrutura militar colonial e à trajetória das milícias de cor luso-brasileiras. Ademais, aborda-se a sua estrutura de funcionamento e o seu papel nas atividades militares paulistas. O segundo eixo explora a origem e a condição social dos milicianos pardos, com destaque para as questões da formação do grupo de pardos livres e libertos, a vinculação dos milicianos a formas de trabalho compulsório e aos universos indígena, africano e mestiço, e a formação de famílias. Trata, igualmente, da condição socioeconômica dos milicianos, atentando para seu perfil ocupacional, níveis de riqueza e posse de escravos. Finalmente, o terceiro eixo considera a articulação da milícia com a política e encara o universo militar como um campo de tensões. Nele os problemas da oficialidade de cor e da existência dos seus corpos militares, fundamentais para a compreensão da atuação da milícia parda na conjuntura da independência em São Paulo, são examinados a partir das dimensões entrelaçadas do Estado, das autoridades militares locais, da competição entre oficiais brancos e pardos, e das relações de poder internas à milícia parda. A sociologia eliasiana constitui o principal referencial teórico e a tese se ampara em farta e diversificada documentação primária, com destaque para as listas nominativas, fontes paroquiais e especialmente os registros produzidos a partir das atividades cotidianas da milícia, tais como os requerimentos e o livro de matrícula dos milicianos pardos de São Paulo. / This doctoral thesis is about the Pardo militiamen of São Paulo who acted in the Regimento dos Úteis (1797-1831). That Pardo and Black militias dates back to the seventeenth century and were characterized as a fundamental military force for the State. Moreover, they were a sort of a canal of social and political expression for its members until they were extinguished in 1831. The problems in question unfold in three articulated issues: military, social and political history. In the first one, the Pardo militia is examined in the midst of the colonial military structure and the trajectory of the Luso-Brazilian militias. In addition, its operational structure and its role in the military activities of São Paulo are discussed. In the second one, it will be explored the origin of the Pardo and they social status as militiamen. This aspect emphasis the formation of the group of free and liberated Pardo, also the linking of militiamen to forms of compulsory labor and the Indigene, African and Mestizo universes, and formation of families. It also deals with the socioeconomic condition of the militiamen, considering their occupational profile, levels of wealth and the possession of slaves. Finally, the last aspect considers the articulation of the militia with politics and regards the military universe as a field of tensions. The problems of color officers and the existence of their military corps, which are fundamental to understanding the actions of the Free Colored militia in the context of independence in Sao Paulo, are examined from the intertwined dimensions of the State, the local military authorities, the competition between White and Free Colored officers, and from internal power relations to the brown militia. Eliasian sociology is the main theoretical reference, and the thesis is based on a large and diversified primary documentation, with special emphasis on the nominative lists, parish sources and especially the records produced from the daily activities of the militia, such as the requirements and the book of Registration of the Pardo militiamen of São Paulo.

The nation-state of Texas was forged in the crucible of frontier warfare. From 1822 to 1836, the embattled Anglo-American settlers of Colonial Tejas and the Texas Revolution formed an adaptive mounted arms tradition to facilitate territorial defense and aggression. This evolution incorporated martial influences from the United States, Mexico, and Amerindians, as the colonists first adapted tactically as mounted militia in Anglo-Indian warfare, and then adapted organizationally as nationalized corps of rangers and cavalry during the Texan War for Independence. While the colonial conflicts centered exclusively on counterguerrilla interdiction and expeditions against Native opponents, the revolutionary contest included simultaneous engagement in unconventional and conventional campaigns against tribal warriors and the Mexican Army. These combat experiences resulted in a versatile frontier cavalry tradition based in mobility, firepower, and tactical adaptation, which subsequently served Texas throughout a century of border and wartime conflicts. / text

On June 1, 1866, one thousand heavily-armed Irish-American Fenian insurgents invaded Upper Canada across the Niagara River from Buffalo, NY. The next day near the town of Ridgeway, 800 Fenians battled with 850 Canadian volunteer soldiers, including a small company of 28 University of Toronto students who ended up taking the brunt of the attack. The Battle of Ridgeway (or Lime Ridge or Limestone Ridge) ended with a disastrous rout of the Canadians who in their panicked retreat left their dead and wounded on the field. It was the last major incursion into Canada, the last battle in Ontario and the first modern one fought by Canadians, led in the field exclusively by Canadian officers, and significantly fought in Canada. The Fenian Raid mobilized some 22,000 volunteer troops and resulted in the suspension of habeas corpus in the colonial Province of Canada by its Attorney General and Minister of Militia John A. Macdonald, but the battle which climaxed this crisis is only prominent by its obscurity in Canadian historiography. Almost everything known and cited about Ridgeway springs from the same sources—four books and pamphlets—three of them published in the summer of 1866 immediately after the event and the remaining one in 1910. This dissertation argues that the history of the battle was distorted and falsified by these sources and by two military board of inquiries staged to explicitly cover up the extent of the disaster. This study investigates the relationship between the inquiries and the contemporary author-historians of two of the sources: Alexander Somerville, an investigative journalist in Hamilton, Ontario, a recent immigrant from Britain with a controversial history; and George T. Denison III, a prominent young Toronto attorney, a commander of a troop of volunteer cavalry, a former Confederate secret service agent, author-commentator on Canada’s military policy and presiding judge on both boards of inquiry. This study describes the process by which Ridgeway’s history was hidden and falsified and its possible scope and significance in Canadian historiography. New archival and published sources are identified, assessed and assembled for a newly restored and authenticated micro-narrative of the battle.