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The Second Battle of Ypres was fought during the First World War from 22 April to 25 May 1915. It was the first major battle fought by Canadian troops in the Great War. The battle took place on the Ypres salient on the Western Front, in Belgium, outside the city of Ypres (now known by its Flemish name, Ieper). The untested Canadians distinguished themselves as a determined fighting force, resisting the horror of the first large-scale poison gas attack in modern history. Canadian troops held a strategically critical section of the frontline until reinforcements could be brought in. More than 6,500 Canadians were killed, wounded or captured in the Second Battle of Ypres.

The battleground was designated as a national historic site in 1920, but is owned and administered by the Niagara Parks Commission. Called Chippawa Battlefield Park, it lies on the west side of the Niagara River Parkway.

The Last Post Fund is a nonprofit organization established in 1909. The organization’s mission is to ensure a dignified funeral and burial, as well as a military-style gravestone, to all eligible veterans. The fund is closely linked to Veterans Affairs Canada.

On 12 July, Hull crossed the Detroit River unopposed and occupied Sandwich (Windsor). On 20 July, the general issued a bombastic proclamation to the Canadian militia to throw off their British shackles and embrace American liberty. Reconnaissance revealed that Amherstburg was weakly defended.

41 Canadian Brigade Group (41 CBG) is a formation of the Canadian Army Reserve. There are 9 units in the group, including armoured, artillery, engineer, signals, infantry and logistics units. The units are located in Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Brigade Group headquarters is located in Calgary, Alberta. In total, 41 CBG includes about 1,700 reservists.

Mount Sorrel was the objective of an important battle between Canadian and German soldiers in the First World War.

The Military Service Act became law on 29 August 1917. It was a politically explosive and controversial law that bitterly divided the country along French-English lines. It made all male citizens aged 20 to 45 subject to conscription for military service, through the end of the First World War. As such, the Act had significant political consequences. It led to the creation of Prime Minister Borden’s Union Government and drove most of his French-Canadian supporters into opposition.

The Battle of Batoche, 9–12 May 1885, was the last major action of the North-West Resistance. Under the leadership of Louis Riel, Métis and their First Nations allies were defeated by government troops.

The Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) is one of three permanent, regular army infantry regiments of the Canadian Armed Forces. The regimental headquarters is in Petawawa, Ontario. Consisting of three battalions and a reserve battalion, the RCR has a proud history of military service dating back to 1863.

Fort Michilimackinac (Michigan) refers to three distinct military posts at the Straits of Mackinac between lakes Huron and Michigan. French explorers arrived by 1634, establishing a mission on the north mainland in 1671 and a fort in 1690 (St Ignace, Mich).

When the Second World War ended, more than a million Canadian men and women, serving in uniform, were set to return to their homes. A driving question for the country was: What was owed to the veterans?

The War Measures Act was a federal law adopted by Parliament on 22 August 1914, after the beginning of the First World War. It gave broad powers to the Canadian government to maintain security and order during “war, invasion or insurrection.” It was used, controversially, to suspend the civil liberties of people in Canada who were considered “enemy aliens” during both world wars. This led to mass arrests and detentions without charges or trials. The War Measures Act was also invoked in Quebec during the 1970 October Crisis. The Act was repealed and replaced by the more limited Emergencies Act in 1988.

1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (1 CMBG) is a formation of the Canadian Army. There are eight units in the brigade group: an armoured regiment, artillery regiment, combat engineer regiment, headquarters and signals squadron, two mechanized and one light infantry battalions and a service battalion. Brigade Group headquarters is located in Edmonton, Alberta.

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.

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).)

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.