More than half a million Canadians served in the First World War. Their return to civilian life presented an enormous challenge to government and social institutions. The degree to which that challenge was met and the far-reaching implications of the veterans’ politicization form the core of this study by two eminent Canadian historians.
Desmond Morton and Glenn Wright point out that Canada was a leader among its allies in devising plans for the retraining of disabled soldiers. Canada’s pension rates were the most generous in the world. From soldier settlement to returned soldiers’ insurance, Ottawa had prepared for returning Canadian armies with a care and foresight that was virtually unique among belligerents. In those carefully laid plans, and in the veterans’ organization and struggle to create their own version of civil re-establishment, were the roots of the modern welfare state.
But in the end, the momentum of the veterans’ political drive was slowed by diminishing government support and dwindling resources, and veterans ultimately lost their ‘Second Battle.’ The story of that defeat, never told until now, reveals a great deal about Canadian government, pressure group, and politics in the interwar period.

DESMOND MORTON is professor of history at the University of Toronto and principal of Erindale College. He is the author of ministers and Generals: Politics and the Canadian militia, 1868-1904, A Peculiar Kind of Politics: Canada’s Overseas Ministry in the First World War, A Campaign (with J.L. Granatstein), and numerous other books.

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GLENN WRIGHT is a specialist in military and veterans’ records with the Public Archives of Canada.

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