| It is
difficult to determine with any kind of precision the levels of
participation of Canadians of French origins in the Canadian
Expeditionary Force of the First World War. History books tell
us, and correctly so, that French-Canadians did not demonstrate much
enthousiasm for that war which some considered the business of
England. At the same time, relations between French-Canadians and
their English-speaking brethren in the early XXth century were
strained. We must remember the imposition of Rule 17 of the
Ontario Education Act in 1912 which forbade the use of French as a
language of instruction in all schools of the province of Ontario after
grade 2. Thus, the question of the French-Canadian participation
in the war effort must be understood within this poisoned climate. In 1964, Col. G.W.L. Nicholson published the official history of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. One passage in this lengthy tome is worth quoting in the context of the present discussion: It is impossible to
authenticate the various "statistics" concerning
French-Canadian enlistments that were bandied about in the press and on
the public
platform during this period and since. In official military records all
Canadian-born were
treated alike as "Canadian". When attesting a man on enlistment into
the Canadian
Expeditionary Force no attempt was made to establish his nationality
beyond recording the
country of his birth. The only question on the Attestation Form bearing
directly on this
point read: "In what town, township or parish and in what country were
you born?" Thus when
Sir Robert Borden gave the House of Commons figures "furnished to me by
the
Department of Militia and Defence", showing that up to 31 March 1918
there had been
despatched overseas, 147,505 Canadians born "of British descent", and
16,268 Canadian-born "of French descent", the accuracy of
his information must be questioned. (Nicholson, Canadian
Expeditionary Force 1914-1919, 1964:317)
The database of Pilons and Pillons from Canada who
participated in the First World War, as developped by Pilon International and found
elsewhere on this site, tends to support the proposition advanced
by Col. Nicholson. Moreover, these data offers us a way of
qualifying the numbers used by Prime Minister Borden and thereby
suggest more meaningful and reliable estimates of the levels of
participation of French-Canadians in the Canadian war effort between
1914 and 1919. |
| Analysis
of the Pilon/Pillon Soldiers Database en français Back |