Title: The “Foreigners” from Broad Street: The Ukrainian Sojourners from Ottawa who Fought for Canada in the First World War
Abstract: This article uses archival documents to create a group portrait of fifty-five sojourners from the Russian Empire who volunteered to fight for Canada in the First World War. It critically analyses the ethnic complexity of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) and its relationship to Canadian civilian society by tracing the men’s pre-war membership in Ottawa’s all but invisible Eastern European proletariat, through their wartime service in which one was awarded the Victoria Cross and two were sentenced to death for cowardice. It concludes by demonstrating how serving in the CEF helped to transform many of the men into immigrants. A methodology is described that can identify other unofficial groups of men who joined-up together, which has the potential to provide significant insights into how and why young men decided to fight and how the war reached into schools, workplaces and localities all across Canada.
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot