BUILDING A WAR MACHINE

Some few words should be devoted to the personnel of the Government which immediately took supreme charge of the almost superhuman preparations which Canada undertook as her share in the gigantic struggle, and which were so successfully carried to a conclusion. Not only was this task which the Government faced a tremendous one, but it was of a nature extremely foreign to its supposed qualifications. To practically all of these men the science of waging war, or preparing for war, was as strange as it was to the majority of Canada's peaceful citizens.

Sir Robert Borden and his ministers had only been in office three years, and of their number only one had ever had previous experience as a Cabinet minister. It was essentially a Government for the handling of peace problems, so that there is little to be wondered at if minor mistakes were committed and occasional criticism did manifest itself.

The premier and his colleagues met the crisis and assumed their new responsibilities with a calm efficiency. There was nothing in the personality of the premier to make him a popular or a picturesque figure, but the fact remains that he so far fulfilled his responsibilities that at the end of the war he was one of the two premiers of the belligerent governments who had not passed from power—who still held the confidence of their people.

Associated with Sir Robert Borden was Thomas White (later Sir Thomas), Minister of Finance, whose experience in big-scale finance had been gained in Toronto business circles. To no small degree was the financial equilibrium which Canada maintained during the first few months of the war due to his ability.

Lieutenant General Sir Sam Hughes, as Minister of Militia, assumed an order importance in the Cabinet which his position had not warranted in times of peace. Bluff, frank, independent of public opinion almost to an unpleasant degree where his own convictions were concerned, he was the object of more criticism and censure than any of his colleagues. As an advocate of extensive military preparedness he had not been popular before the war and had often been denounced as a militarist and a jingo. Under his direction came the preparation for and the organization of the military forces which Canada was to send across seas to fight in France. In the main, what he accomplished speaks for him.

On the shoulders of these three men fell the main responsibilities of preparing Canada for assuming her share in the Great War.

The work of the other members of the Government brought them less into the public eye. These were Sir George E. Foster, Minister of Trade and Commerce, the one member who had experience in a previous administration; Robert Rogers, Minister of Public Works; J. Douglas Hazen, Minister of Marine, Fisheries, and Naval Affairs, under whose jurisdiction came the defense of the coast and harbors; Martin Burrel, Minister of Agriculture, who popularized the slogan "Patriotism and Production"; the Hon. C. J. Doherty, Minister of Justice; the Hon. Frank Cochrane, Minister of Railways; the Hon. W. J. Roche, Minister of the Interior; the Hon. T. W. Crothers, Minister of Labor; the Hon. J. D. Reid, Minister of Customs; and the Hon. A. E. Kemp and the Hon. J. A. Lougheed, ministers without portfolios. The interests of the two million French-speaking population of the Dominion were indirectly represented in the Government by the Hon. L. P. Pelletier, Postmaster General; the Hon. W. B. Nantel, Minister of Inland Revenue, and the Hon. Louis Coderre, Secretary of State.

Many and varied were the special war problems which the Government had to handle, but first and foremost was that of organizing and equipping a military force. With characteristic energy General Hughes hurried to this, his special task. On the last day of July, 1914, he had already hurried to Ottawa and there called an emergency meeting of the Militia Council, comprising Colonel E. Fiset, D. S. O., Deputy Minister; Colonel W. G. Gwatkin, Chief of the General Staff; Colonel V. A. S. Williams, A. D. C, Adjutant General; and Major General D. A. Macdonald, C. M. G., I. S. O., Quartermaster General. At this conference it was decided, subject to the approval of the governor general and the premier, that an initial force of 20,000 should be organized, equipped, and sent across if war was declared.

By the time that all doubt on that point was past General Hughes and his staff of assistants had already formulated their plan of action. From all parts of the country came offers of aid from men who had had military training.

Practically there was very little to build upon; Canada had barely a nucleus around which to create that big and efficient military organization which afterward became so powerful a factor in the military situation in France. The Royal Military College at Kingston had, indeed, turned out hundreds of young military officers, but most of them had accepted commissions in the British army and were now scattered all over the world in the British possessions as officers in British regiments.

Everything must be created anew. But the crude material, the man power, was there. According to the census taken in 1911 there were a little over a million and a half men between the ages of twenty and forty-four, of which a trifle over half were married, with families dependent on them. Allowing for a normal increase in the population, and for the fact that the military age was from eighteen to forty-five, and eliminating the physically unfit, Canada had available about a million and a half for active military service.

On August 6, 1914, the Government issued a call for volunteers for the formation of the First Army Division, to number about 21,000 men. The responses came immediately and in a volume greater than could be handled. To this first quota Ontario and the West contributed most generously. No more men were needed for the time being, though probably a hundred thousand men could have been obtained within those first few weeks, had they been needed. It was not till this first contingent had gone through its preliminary training and had been equipped and sent to training camp in England that the second call was issued, for another 21,000 men, in November, 1914.