Wars | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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  • Article

    CGS / HMCS Canada

    Canada’s first purpose-built warship, the Canadian Government Ship (CGS) Canada, was launched in 1904, several years before the Naval Service of Canada was established in 1910. However, it was not the first ship commissioned into the navy (see HMCS Niobe and HMCS Rainbow). Canada was delivered to the Fisheries Protection Service before the Canadian navy existed. But from the time it was ordered, it was intended for a military function. Canada was commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy in 1915 and served as an antisubmarine patrol vessel during the First World War. The ship was retired in 1920 and sank in 1926 in the Florida Keys. Its wreck is a designated element of the US Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.   

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/HMCS-Canada/CGS-Canada.jpg CGS / HMCS Canada

  • Article

    Chesapeake Affair 1807

    Wars often have many causes. Some are long-standing problems between nations, while others are dangerous sparks that inflame attitudes and push nations to a call to arms. 

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    https://development.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Chesapeake Affair 1807

  • Article

    Chesapeake Affair 1863

    On 7 December 1863, during the American Civil War, 16 Confederates seized American coastal steamer Chesapeake off Cape Cod and diverted it to Saint John, NB. 

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    https://development.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Chesapeake Affair 1863

  • Article

    Chinese Canadians of Force 136

    Force 136 was a branch of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. Its covert missions were based in Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia, where orders were to support and train local resistance movements to sabotage Japanese supply lines and equipment. While Force 136 recruited mostly Southeast Asians, it also recruited about 150 Chinese Canadians. It was thought that Chinese Canadians would blend in with local populations and speak local languages. Earlier in the war, many of these men had volunteered their services to Canada but were either turned away or recruited and sidelined. Force 136 became an opportunity for Chinese Canadian men to demonstrate their courage and skills and especially their loyalty to Canada.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/media/new_article_images/Force136/Force136-India-w-guns.jpg Chinese Canadians of Force 136

  • Article

    Clayton Knight Committee

    The Clayton Knight Committee (Canadian Aviation Bureau) was a committee formed in 1940 to recruit American aviators to the BRITISH COMMONWEALTH AIR TRAINING PLAN (BCATP).

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    https://development.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Clayton Knight Committee

  • Article

    Canada and the Cold War

    The Cold War refers to the period between the end of the Second World War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. During this time, the world was largely divided into two ideological camps — the United States-led capitalist “West” and the Soviet-dominated communist “East.” Canada aligned with the West. Its government structure, politics, society and popular perspectives matched those in the US, Britain, and other democratic countries. The global US-Soviet struggle took many different forms and touched many areas. It never became “hot” through direct military confrontation between the two main antagonists.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/media/new_article_images/CubanMissileCrisis/7322067464_e858ddfc17_z.jpg Canada and the Cold War

  • Article

    The Conquest of New France

    The Conquest (La Conquête) is a term used to describe the acquisition of Canada by Great Britain during the Seven Years’ War. It also refers to the resulting conditions experienced by Canada’s 60,000 to 70,000 French-speaking inhabitants and numerous Indigenous groups. French forces at Quebec City surrendered to British forces on 18 September 1759, a few days after the crucial Battle of the Plains of Abraham. French resistance ended in 1760 with the capitulation of Montreal. In 1763, the Treaty of Paris surrendered New France to Britain. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 introduced assimilative policies that ultimately failed. They were replaced by the provisions of the Quebec Act of 1774. Although it helped spark the American Revolutionary War (1775–83), the Act also granted Canadians enviable conditions that resulted in generations of relative stability.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/JamesWolfe/Benjamin_West_DeathofGeneralWolfe.jpg The Conquest of New France

  • Article

    Conscription in Canada (Plain-Language Summary)

    Conscription is the drafting of people for mandatory military service. Canadians have been conscripted twice in history. Both times, only males were conscripted. The first time was during the First World War. The second time was during the Second World War. Conscription was an issue that divided Canada. Most English-speaking Canadians supported it. Most French-speaking Canadians opposed it. (This article is a plain-language summary of Conscription in Canada. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see the full-length entry.)

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/media/media/aab5fda7-e041-4148-b6de-40ea15191996.jpg Conscription in Canada (Plain-Language Summary)

  • Article

    Flower-class Corvettes

    Corvettes were small, lightly armed Canadian-built warships used for anti-submarine warfare in the Second World War. With the threat by German U-Boats to convoys on the North Atlantic from the outset of the war, Canada needed to produce ships quickly. The answer was the corvette, a vessel of barely 1,000 tonnes and about 63m long. Construction began early in 1940 and the first 14 appeared in the St Lawrence in the last months of the year. In total, Canada’s 111 corvettes comprised a quarter of its combat fleet; ten of those were lost in action.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/Corvettes/HMCS-Sackville.jpg Flower-class Corvettes

  • Article

    Crimean War

    The Crimean War, 1854-56, interrupted a half-century of peace between the European great powers.

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    https://development.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Crimean War

  • Article

    Crown Point

    Crown Point is a large peninsula strategically commanding the narrow passage of the southwestern portion of Lake CHAMPLAIN in upper New York State. It was initially the site of Fort Saint-Frédéric, built by the French in 1731 to defend French territory from English colonial invasion.

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    https://development.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Crown Point

  • Article

    D-Day and the Battle of Normandy (Plain-Language Summary)

    The Battle of Normandy was one of the most important operations of the Second World War. It began the campaign to free Western Europe from Nazi occupation. Canadians played a key role in the Allied invasion of Normandy (called Operation Overlord). The campaign began on D-Day (6 June 1944) and ended with the battle of the Falaise Pocket (7–21 August 1944). Thousands of Canadians fought on D-Day and in the Normandy campaign and over 5,000 were killed. (This article is a plain-language summary. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see our full-length entry, D-Day and the Battle of Normandy.)

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/media/media/b81b71af-9ed9-43d1-8c68-dbe7a27bb20d.jpg D-Day and the Battle of Normandy (Plain-Language Summary)

  • Macleans

    D-Day Vet's Memorial Centre Opens

    GARTH WEBB recounts his fundraising odyssey with bemused fascination, as if luck had everything to do with it. But the story of how the D-Day vet generated $10 million to create a memorial and education centre celebrating Canada's contribution to the SECOND WORLD WAR belies his manner.This article was originally published in Maclean's Magazine on May 26, 2003

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    https://development.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 D-Day Vet's Memorial Centre Opens

  • Article

    Dieppe Raid

    During the Second World War, on 19 August 1942, the Allies launched a major raid on the French coastal port of Dieppe. Operation Jubilee was the first Canadian Army engagement in the European theatre of the war, designed to test the Allies' ability to launch amphibious assaults against Adolf Hitler's "Fortress Europe." The raid was a disaster: More than 900 Canadian soldiers were killed, and thousands more were wounded and taken prisoner. Despite the bloodshed, the raid provided valuable lessons for subsequent Allied amphibious assaults on Africa, Italy and Normandy.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/media/media/98ce9487-a6b5-44be-bd1e-a65711432b95.jpg Dieppe Raid

  • Article

    Dieppe: The Beaches of Hell

    The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/media/media/b426e7bf-e0d1-4d4b-a592-700a96ab8f4f.jpg Dieppe: The Beaches of Hell