On Aug. 4, 1914, Britain declared war on Germany.
Canada, as a member of the British Empire, was automatically at war, and its citizens from all across the land responded quickly.
A month after war broke out, 32,665 volunteers arrived at the new camp at Valcartier, Que., in 100 special trains.
Thus began the growth of the colony's peacetime army from a pre-war force of 3,110 regular and 74,213 part-time militia members.
By the end of the war, Canada would have 619,636 service people in uniform, including more than 3,000 Nursing Sisters. The tiny peacetime force would grow nearly tenfold.
It was a huge army for a population of less than eight million.
Four long years of war would transform Canada from a colony to a nation. At a cost of nearly a quarter of a million casualties -- one in four of them fatal -- Canada would grow, with sorrow for the fallen and the maimed, yet with a new pride and a more confident awareness of nationhood.
It was a heavy price for national identity and peace in the world, a price Canada would pay again 20 years later and in the troubled years beyond. Eventually, Canadians would become peacekeepers to the world. Instead of fighting to restore peace, they would stand between combatants to preserve it.
This prime military role supports Canada's foreign policy to this day.
- Veterans Affairs
