Enlistment into the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) during the First World War was restricted to soldiers aged eighteen to forty-five, but thousands of eager young teenagers managed to make it to the front lines. By 1916, approximately thirty-eight percent of soldiers arriving in Europe were underage managing to enlist through […]
Shell Shock
8 posts
William John Roberts was born and raised in King’s Cove Newfoundland, a small fishing village notable only for its lighthouse. Roberts’ parents both died when he was a baby, and so he was raised by his uncle, Kenneth Monk. Although Monk was a poor fisherman, he worked hard to ensure […]
John Coulson did not have an easy start in life. Born with a severe mental handicap to a poor family in Chesterfield England, Coulson’s father was an abusive alcoholic who abandoned his family forcing John’s mother to care for the family on her own. With a severe mental handicap and […]
Shell shock affected many soldiers who fought in the First World War, both during and after combat had ceased. Little understood, the trauma that active military service members experienced manifested itself in different ways. For Private Edmond Montgomery, shell shock appeared in the form of seizures and a debilitating speech […]
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration that can be awarded within the British Empire. During the First World War, seventy-three members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force were awarded the Victoria Cross, one of them was Filip Konowal. Born March 25, 1887 in a small Ukrainian village near the […]
After being discharged in October 1919, Lieutenant Gaskin began his post war struggles with mental illness. Gaskin served four years in the First World War in both France and England, beginning his service with the 106th Battalion as a Corporal and concluding as a Lieutenant in the 78th battalion. […]
The digitization of Canada’s First World War veteran pension files offers a new glimpse into the early life of one of Canada’s most famous leaders, Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lester B. Pearson. Born in 1897, Lester Pearson was a young man when the First World War broke […]
On April 22, 1915, chemical gas was introduced on the Western Front, killing and irreversibly damaging hundreds of British, French, and Canadian soldiers. James Gordon Baker was one of those Canadians. As an underage-enlister out of Toronto in September 1914, seventeen-year old Baker joined the 3rd Battalion, Toronto Regiment, and […]