Total Waste of Time, Total War: Canada

After the declaring war on Germany, Canada was excited to join Britain on the battlefield. As a result, many Canadians ran to sign up for World War I. They were desperate to prove their existence and capabilities as a nation to Britain. By 1918, the Canadian Government Robert Borden had spent over $1.5 billion and more than 600,000 Canadians had joined the war. Thus, the Canadian Government demonstrated the idea of total war by putting strain on the nation’s economy, people and resources in order to achieve Britain’s recognition as a nation.

The first aspect that signifies the desire of total war is the amount of money spent throughout the war and its impacts on the Canadian Economy. Firstly, according to statistics, the Canadian government had spent about $1,665,576,000 to fund the war (Simkin). Factories’ primary task is to focus on producing mass amounts of supplies, weapons, artillery shells, ammunitions or any other beneficial war-purposed items. Resultly, many companies were bankrupt (Hallowell 225). Secondly, the Canadian government introduced victory bonds. After a year, in 1915, the money spent on military was equalled to the total national expenditure in 1913. In order to help fund the war, Robert Borden issued victory bonds to the citizens of Canada where a specific amount of interest will be paid back after a certain number of years. Though proven to be very successful by bringing in over $100 million on the first issued bond (W), the amount required to be paid back was an astronomical amount. At the end of 1918, the national debt rose to $2.5 billion (Hallowell 226). Thus, it jeopardized future generations. In conclusion, the mission to fund the war cost Canada a colossal amount of money in which most was obtained by...

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...diers but still was not able to capture Passchendaele. Canadian Arthur Currie had planned for the worst, as predicted Canada suffered from 15,000 casualties to “capture five square kilometres of mud” (Ferguson 275). In conclusion, the defeat and the casualties sustained during these purposeless battles had cost Canada thousands of lives.

In conclusion, the Canadian Government demonstrated the idea of total war by utilising all of the nation’s wealth, wits and power it could offer to support its belligerent effort of victory. In order to achieve this, Canada had put stressed on the economy from the over production of weapons and the creation of victory bonds, made use of conscription, propaganda methods and had sent countless men to die for no specific reasons. Thus, World War I was a meaningless event in history that had cost Canada substantially in many ways.