Featured Exhibition

After the War

Coming Home and Fitting in at the End of the Great War

Image: “13th Bn. men having a meal outside their dug-out. December, 1917” Canada. Dept. of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada/O-2332

Image: 14th Battalion (Royal Montreal Regiment). Arriving home in Montreal from the Great War, May 18th, 1919 / CCGW Collection / 2016.3.1.1-74

6 min

After the Armistice in 1918, the journey home for Canadian war veterans was far from over. They now faced returning to their country, their society, and their families after years spent in unimaginably violent and harsh conditions.

The challenge of successfully reintegrating, caring for, and supporting these veterans would change Canadian society forever.

Coming Home

Image: Buckingham Palace, London / CCGW Collection / 2016.3.1.1-154

By the end of the war, 250,000 Canadian soldiers needed to be demobilized. Even though the Armistice was signed, the limited availability of vessels meant that soldiers had to wait months before they could return home.

The primary concern for the Canadian Army at the end of the war was keep the waiting soldiers occupied. Organisations like the YMCA and the Maple Leaf Club provided entertainment, reading rooms, and hostels, all for use by the soldiers waiting in England to be demobilised. The Khaki University, an initiative established during the war, allowed soldiers to take academic or vocational training, that would help their resettlement when they arrived in Canada.

A booklet and advertisement by the T. Eaton Company on goods, services, and buildings available to soldier settlers. The Soldier Settlement Board granted veterans up to 320 acres of land, loans for farm equipment, and live stock. This advertisement included illustrations of house and barn designs by the Soldier Settlement Board for its clients.

Soldiers' Land Settlement Scheme, cover [1919]
Canadian War Museum
Hartland-Molson Library Collection
REF PAM UB 359 C2 S61 1919

The Canadian government created the Department of Soldiers’ Civil Re-Establishment in 1918 to help returning soldiers re-adjust to their lives at home. The Department’s initiatives included hospital care, employment assistance, vocational training, and a pensions program.

Pte. Arsène Bélanger with an unknown woman, c. 1918-1919
Canadian Centre for the Great War
2014.05.01.01-02

Fifth and Seventh Batteries, CFA arriving in Montreal PQ for demobilization, 1919.
Dept. of National Defence
Library and Archives Canada
PA-022997

"Your experiences in the great war are only incidents in your career, but they will mean much in your character building"

Oswald C.J. Withrow, Coming Back, 1919.

By the end of demobilization, the YMCA entertained and assisted 275,000 military personnel while they awaited their return to Canada.

Community Organization & Activism

Image: Veteran's Parade / Gift of J. Viktor Taboika / CCGW Collection / 2017.06.61

Community and soldiers' organizations at the end of the war had a similar goal: to help returning soldiers re-adapt to home life and to offer them assistance and advice throughout their journey home and beyond.

"We appreciate the noble deeds of valour performed by our soldiers, who, by their splendid conduct, have brought everlasting honour to themselves and our fair Dominion."

Welcoming card issued by the Women’s Auxiliary of the Great War Veterans’ Association, 1919.

Amputations Association
[of the Great War] convention
Sept. 12, 1932.
City of Vancouver Archives
AM1535-:CVA99-4257

Organizations like the YMCA, the Great War Veterans’ Association, the Salvation Army, the Canadian Red Cross, and the Khaki Club all provided much needed support services for returning veterans. These services ranged from hostels to long term care and advocacy.

Service Bureaus offered returning soldiers assistance in searching for employment. The Great War Veterans’ Association (GWVA) had 163 centers across Canada to give veterans assistance with applications and to represent them on government issues. The GWVA aided veterans free of charge, regardless of their rank and pay during the war.

[Membership card] Great War Veterans' Association of Canada
[no date]Canadian Centre for the Great War

Community groups shared similar goals in assisting returning soldiers. In 1925,
there were about fifteen community groups which banded together to form the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League. By 1926, the Canadian Legion was launched to provide services for veterans from the First World War; it still exists across Canada today.

[program] Canadian Corps Reunion Souvenir Program, 1938 / Canadian Centre for the Great War

During the period from 1919 to 1920, 5,000 returning soldiers found employment opportunities through veteran and government organisations.

Injuries & Disability

Image: "Canadian Ambulance. Hit by shell [ASE label]" filling in a shell hole beside a damaged ambulance at the Battle of Passchendaele / 2016.3.1.1-126

By the end of the Great War, approximately 172,000 Canadian soldiers experienced wounds during their service. These ranged from minor injuries to more serious amputations, disfigurement, or debilitating mental illness. Canadians were faced with the question of how to provide for their returning servicemen, particularly those needing
long term care.

"Making artificial limbs for crippled soldiers of our allies", Hangar Artificial Limb Company, 1917
Canadian Centre for the Great War 2017.06.01

"The care of the sailors and soldiers
disabled in the War is a duty which
should be assumed by the State."

in “Employment for Sailors and Soldiers Disabled in War”

Care eventually divided into two streams; public, through the federal government, and private, through beneficent societies and charities. Pensions offered by the Pension Board were reserved for veterans suffering from a war-related injury and were adjusted based on their rank and position. Pensions were paid to veterans at the end of every month and could be reviewed at the discretion of the Pension Commission.

Charitable groups like the War Amputations Club (now the War Amps) and the Institute for the War Blinded provided wounded veterans with additional care. By the end of the First World War, approximately 3,460 Canadian soldiers had suffered from injuries that led to amputations, and roughly 200 were discharged as permanently blind.

An estimated 12% of the invalidated
soldiers who returned to Canada suffered from psychological injuries.

Victory Over Wounds
The Soldier's Return, [1914-1918]Library and Archives Canada
Acc. No. 1983-28-697

Government Support

Image: Labour Day. Cologne. 1918 / CCGW Collection 2016.3.1.1-106

The Canadian government realized returning soldiers required programs to help them reintegrate into Canadian society, as philanthropic acts were no longer sufficient to meet their needs.

Japanese Veterans Association, c. 1918.
The Nikkei Museum, NNM 1994.70.27

The Income War Tax Act was introduced in August 1917 as a temporary measure to provide the Federal government with the necessary funds to assist veterans with employment, housing, medical attention, as well as their pensions and allowances.

It was so profitable, however, that the government decided to continue it after the war, forming the basis of the Income Tax Act that we currently have today. Revenues collected under the Act were put towards expanding social programming; much of it in the years after the war was directed towards soldiers and their dependents.

[pamphlet] A Message from the Canadian
Embarkation Camp, Havre, [no date]Canadian Centre for the Great War

"It is a new departure in Canadian methods of raising money for Federal purposes."

Easton R. Burns in The Income War Tax Act 1917: A Digest, 1917.

In 1917, the Soldier Settlement Board (SSB) was set up by the Canadian government to provide returning soldiers with farmable Dominion land in Western Canada. Veterans could obtain 160 acres of land free of charge if they held a residency for six months per year for a period of three years. Dominion lands came at a cost, however; much of the offered land belonged to the Indigenous peoples of the prairies, who lost jurisdiction in favour of returning soldiers.

Speedwell [Hospital] Convalescent Ward.
[Department of Soldiers Civil Re-establishment, c. 1918] Peake & Whittingham/Library and Archives Canada/PA-0680906

As a result of the Soldier Settlement Act, over 85,000 acres of Indigenous reserve lands were ceded and sold to returning non-indigenous soldiers.

The Cost of War

Image: 14th Bn. R.M.R. / CCGW Collection / 2016.3.1.1-98

"Canada will help in every way possible to re-establish yourself in civil life BUT the measure of what Canada can do for you is governed by the measure of your own efforts in this direction."

Department of Soldiers Civil Re-Establishment Information
and Service Handbook for Members and Ex-Members of
the Canadian Naval and Military Forces (1919)

The life-long strain of having lived through the war also took its toll. Pte. Thomas Austin Bradford and his brother William Colborne Bradford enlisted with the Canadian Corps in 1916 and 1915 respectively. Both survived the war, but never really recovered. Colborne struggled with alcohol and Austin was found dead in September 1929, while working as a firefighter in northern Manitoba. His family continues to believe that he committed suicide.

Pte. William Colborne Bradford, c. 1915.
Gift of B. Bradford, Canadian Centre for
the Great War, 2017.03.01

[book] Twenty Years After, edited by Maj. Gen. Sir Ernest Swinton, c. 1938.
Canadian Centre for the Great War

Angus Goodleaf, a member of the Mohawk Nation from the community of Kahnawake, enlisted in 1916 and was seriously wounded in August 1917. Goodleaf originally received a pension from the Pensions Board, but after a 1931 decision that turned over pensions administration to Indian Affairs, he was no longer eligible for the same amount.