Military | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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  • 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://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/b81b71af-9ed9-43d1-8c68-dbe7a27bb20d.jpg D-Day and the Battle of Normandy (Plain-Language Summary)
  • Article

    Duel

    A duel is a formal armed combat between 2 people in the presence of witnesses, to settle differences or a point of honour.

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    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Duel
  • Article

    Exercise Tocsin B

    Exercise Tocsin B was a nationwide nuclear preparedness drill that lasted 24 hours between 13 and 14 November 1961. It was the last of three national survival exercises named Tocsin in 1960–61. It was also the largest and most widely publicized civil defence drill ever held in Canada. This Cold War exercise run by the Canadian Army simulated the impact of thermonuclear warfare in Canada. Its goals were to show how the state would warn Canadians of such an attack and how government would continue during the crisis. By raising popular awareness of the potential for a devastating nuclear attack, Tocsin B showed Canadians what was at stake in the Cold War.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/new_article_images/ExerciseTocsinB/EMO_excerpt.JPG Exercise Tocsin B
  • Article

    Fenian Raids

    The Fenians were a secret society of Irish patriots who had emigrated from Ireland to the United States. Some members of this movement tried to take Canadian territory by force, so they could exchange it with Britain for Irish independence. From 1866 to 1871, the Fenians launched several small, armed attacks. Each raid was put down by government forces. Dozens were killed and wounded on both sides. The raids revealed shortfalls in the leadership, structure and training of the Canadian militia, and led to improvements in these areas. The raids also took place at a time of growing concern over the threat posed by American military and economic might. This led to increased support for Confederation.

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  • Article

    First World War (WWI)

    The First World War of 1914–1918 was the bloodiest conflict in Canadian history, taking the lives of nearly 61,000 Canadians. It erased romantic notions of war, introducing slaughter on a massive scale, and instilled a fear of foreign military involvement that would last until the Second World War. The great achievements of Canadian soldiers on battlefields such as Ypres, Vimy and Passchendaele, however, ignited a sense of national pride and a confidence that Canada could stand on its own, apart from the British Empire, on the world stage. The war also deepened the divide between French and English Canada and marked the beginning of widespread state intervention in society and the economy. (This is the full-length entry about the First World War. For a plain-language summary, please see First World War (Plain-Language Summary).)

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/11751af0-ec83-4753-8f2b-bb38ed576b7f.jpg First World War (WWI)
  • Article

    Fort Amherstburg and the War of 1812

    A key site for controlling the western theatre of the War of 1812, Fort Amherstburg (now Fort Malden) owed its existence to the shifting boundaries on Lake Superior in the wake of British and American diplomatic and military disputes.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/d474d1e9-393d-4930-9241-243d33a89ef3.jpg Fort Amherstburg and the War of 1812
  • Article

    Guelph in the First World War

    Guelph, Ontario, was typical of small Canadian cities during the First World War. Of its population of about 16,000, more than a third, 5,610, volunteered for military service; 3,328 were accepted. Today, 216 of their names are engraved on the city’s cenotaph. While Guelphites served overseas, the war had a profound and lasting effect on their hometown — an experience that provides an insight into wartime Canada.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/e38f8065-b481-40c7-9d21-690d7e0a84dc.jpg Guelph in the First World War
  • Article

    Hill 70 and Canadian Independence

    Canada’s war of independence was the First World War. Unlike the Americans, our war of independence was not fought against the country from which we became independent, but alongside it. We started the war as a colony of Britain and ended it as an ally. The remarkable performance of the Canadian Corps and its first Canadian commander made these gains in autonomy possible.

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  • Article

    Hindenburg Line

    Hindenburg Line (Siegfried-Stellung), a system of fortified and entrenched reserve positions stretching 80 km southeast from Arras to Soissons, France, built by the Germans in the winter of 1916-17.

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    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Hindenburg Line
  • Article

    Canada and the Holocaust

    The Holocaust is defined as the systematic persecution and murder of 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews, including Roma and Sinti, Poles, political opponents, LGBTQ people and Soviet prisoners of war (POWs), by Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. Jews were the only group targeted for complete destruction. Nazi racial ideology considered them subhuman. Though Jewish Canadians did not experience the Holocaust directly, the majority endured anti-Semitism in Canada. Jewish Canadians were only one generation removed from lands under German occupation from 1933 to 1945. They maintained close ties to Jewish relatives in those lands. These ties affected the community’s response to the Holocaust. There was, for instance, a disproportionate representation of Jews in the Canadian armed forces. Jewish Canadians were also heavily involved in postwar relief efforts for displaced persons and Holocaust survivors in Europe.

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  • Article

    If Day

    If Day was a mock occupation of Winnipeg, Manitoba, on 19 February 1942 during the Second World War. The occupying Nazi force was portrayed by volunteers from the Young Men’s Section of the Winnipeg Board of Trade. If Day was intended to demonstrate what life under Nazi occupation might be like, and consequently, encourage people to buy war bonds (also called Victory Loans), which generated millions of dollars for the war effort. If Day was also a military exercise involving approximately 3,500 personnel, the largest in the city’s history to that date.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/If-Day/BondsorBondage.jfif If Day
  • Article

    Canada and the War in Afghanistan

    The war in Afghanistan (2001–14) was Canada’s longest war and its first significant combat engagement since the Korean War (1950–53). After the 2001 terror attacks on the United States, Canada joined an international coalition to destroy the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban regime that sheltered it in Afghanistan. (See 9/11 and Canada). Although the Taliban were removed from power and the al-Qaeda network was disrupted, Canada and its allies failed to destroy either group, or to secure and stabilize Afghanistan. More than 40,000 Canadian Armed Forces members served in the 12-year campaign. The war killed 165 Canadians — 158 soldiers and 7 civilians. Many Canadian veterans of the war in Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

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  • Article

    Iroquois Wars

    The Iroquois Wars, also known as the Beaver Wars and the French and Iroquois Wars, were a series of 17th-century conflicts involving the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also known as the Iroquois or Five Nations, then including the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca), numerous other First Nations, and French colonial forces. The origins of the wars lay in the competitive fur trade. In about 1640, the Haudenosaunee began a campaign to increase their territorial holdings and access to animals like beaver and deer. Hostilities continued until 1701, when the Haudenosaunee agreed to a peace treaty with the French. The wars represent the intense struggle for control over resources in the early colonial period and resulted in the permanent dispersal or destruction of several First Nations in the Eastern Woodlands.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/596cf750-11c8-4462-a70d-9aa0a300bd42.jpg Iroquois Wars
  • Article

    Canada and the Italian Campaign

    Canada’s longest Second World War army campaign was in Italy. Canadian forces served in the heat, snow and mud of the grinding, nearly two-year Allied battle across Sicily and up the Italian peninsula—prying the country from Germany's grip, at a cost of more than 26,000 Canadian casualties.

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  • Editorial

    Japanese Canadian Internment: Prisoners in their own Country

    Beginning in early 1942, the Canadian government detained and dispossessed more than 90 per cent of Japanese Canadians, some 21,000 people, living in British Columbia. They were detained under the War Measures Act and were interned for the rest of the Second World War. Their homes and businesses were sold by the government to pay for their detention. In 1988, Prime Minister  Brian Mulroney apologized on behalf of the Canadian government for the wrongs it committed against Japanese Canadians. The government also made symbolic redress payments and repealed the War Measures Act.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/c61c85b5-d92f-44a0-8602-7e2c38458873.jpg Japanese Canadian Internment: Prisoners in their own Country