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Immediately after the declaration of war against Germany the Canadian government offered to raise an expeditionary force for service overseas alongside British imperial troops. The British government accepted the offer and voluntary recruitment for the ‘Canadian Expeditionary Force’ (CEF) began on 7 August 1914.
The troop convoy carrying the first contingent of the CEF left its assembly point in Gaspé Bay, Quebec, for the United Kingdom on 3 October 1914. The convoy consisted of 32,000 soldiers and 7500 horses embarked on 31 transport ships. It arrived at Plymouth, England on 15 October 1914. The Canadians were allocated a portion of Salisbury Plain, a large chalk plateau covering parts of the counties of Hampshire and Wiltshire, in which to set up their training camps and other base facilities. In 1916 the New Zealanders and Australians would also establish base camps on Salisbury Plain.
On 8 November 1914 No. 2 Canadian Stationary Hospital, Canadian Army Medical Corps, was transported across the English Channel and disembarked at Boulogne, becoming the first unit of the CEF to land in France.
The CEF served almost entirely on the Western Front. By the end of 1916 some 80,000 Canadian troops were in the trenches, serving in four infantry divisions that were grouped together as the ‘Canadian Corps’. This played a leading role in most of the British offensives on the Western Front from mid-1916, including the later stages of the Battle of the Somme, the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) and the breaking of the Hindenburg Line in late 1918. The most famous victory won by the Canadians during the war was the capture of Vimy Ridge (9–12 April 1917).
Western Front, 22 April 1915: Lance–Corporal Frederick Fisher, 13th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, fights a lone rearguard action to cover the retreat of a nearby artillery battery during the Second Battle of Ypres. Fisher, the leader of a machine-gun section, single-handedly holds off a German infantry attack after the rest of his section is killed or wounded. He is eventually overwhelmed and killed by the Germans, but the artillery battery is saved. For his actions Fisher becomes the first soldier of the CEF to be awarded the Victoria Cross.
A small unit of railway troops, the 1st Canadian Bridging Company, was sent from France to join the British and Anzac forces in Palestine in September 1918. It arrived in the region a month before the Ottoman Turks agreed to an armistice and carried out repair work on the rail network until February 1919.
Upon mobilisation men of the Royal Naval Reserve were called up to serve in the Royal Navy. They were soon scattered across the globe in all sorts of postings to all sorts of British ships and shore bases. It is thought that approximately 1 in 10 of the estimated 3000 Canadian Royal Naval Reservists called up during the war died while on active service with the Royal Navy.
The Compulsory Military Service Act was passed by the wartime Union government of Prime Minister Robert Borden. This was a fragile coalition between Borden’s Conservative Party and a number of members from the opposition Liberal Party. The Compulsory Military Service Act was opposed by every French Canadian Member of Parliament and caused much friction between the French Canadians of Québec and the rest of the country (the majority of which voted in favour of it).
Under the Act, all men aged between 20 and 45 were liable for service in the CEF. Only those deemed medically unfit for overseas service, working in civilian jobs essential to the war or officially recognised as conscientious objectors were granted exemptions.