Academic literature on the topic 'French-Canadian Battalion'

In the North American British colonies, the 1812 war led to a great mobilization of militia corps to protect the Empire’s possessions. For colonial authorities, such context represented an opportunity to measure local militia officers’ loyalty to the Crown, particularly those who resided in the French traditional countryside. What can we understand of the French-Canadian involvement in the War of 1812 as officers? What is the impact of their relation to the Crown on their capacity to hold on to positions in their respective communities? By bringing to life a few case studies, this paper wishes to examine the formation of the French-Canadian identity through the involvement of local elites in the militia. This study is based on an analysis of the correspondence of the principal officers of the battalions with the central authorities and prosopographical research of those same officers in the rural regions of Lower Canada. The analysis of the strategies, values and interests of the militia officers, will serve to enlighten the parameters of the collaboration between the local elite and the colonial elite.

This thesis explores three issues relating to the Canadian experience during the First World War, but more specifically, to that of the 22 nd (French-Canadian) Battalion (commonly referred to as the 'Van Doos'). It first considers the assumption that the 22nd Battalion suffered from a disciplinary problem, and determines whether this was the case in a meaningful comparative context. Several Canadian historians have examined the unit's discipline. While some have argued that its thousands of infractions and five executions demonstrate that it suffered from a disciplinary problem, others believe that without proper comparison with other units of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), these figures are meaningless. By examining the disciplinary records of the other three battalions of the 5th Brigade (the brigade of which the 'Van Doos' were a part) and comparing them to that of the 22nd Battalion, this thesis conclusively demonstrates that the unit did suffer from a disciplinary problem, and confirms the assumptions of several historians. This thesis also examines in detail the unit's disciplinary problems, and attempts to explain why it suffered from such aberrant behaviour. Evidence suggests that poor morale was the likely cause. One of the most important elements in combat, morale can spell the difference between a disciplined and a disobedient unit. This thesis demonstrates that the arrival of hundreds of untried reinforcements after the Somme offensives of 1916, and the loss of the unit's commanding officer (Lieut.-Col. Thomas Tremblay) had a significant impact on the spirits of the men, which subsequently led to poor discipline. Finally, this thesis considers the issue of illegal absences. Not only were illegal absences the most common infractions in the 'Van Doos', they were also for the entire 5th Brigade. For so considerable a problem amongst the soldiers of the CEF, the subject surprisingly has yet to receive the full attention of Canadian historians. This thesis thus attempts to find factors that could explain why soldiers would risk courts-martial, and perhaps their lives, by leaving their units without permission. Several factors were discovered such as battle exhaustion, poor conduct, and neuropsychological issues.