Browsing by Author "Bercuson, David Jay"

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    A Disunited Front for Peace: The Experiences of Canadian Mennonites in the Second World War
    (2023-06) Voegtlin, Scott; Bercuson, David Jay; Palacios, Joy Kathleen; Marshall, David Brian
    From 1939-1945, the traditionally pacifist Mennonites who called Canada their home were faced with difficult decisions when it came to their participation in the war effort. Their leadership was ill-prepared for the outbreak of hostilities and hurriedly began meeting in May 1939 to resolve the question of acceptable service. The inability to agree on what alternative to violence they were willing to offer their government created instability within the community. Through the efforts of some bishops, pastors and other representatives, a proposal for civilian-run alternative service work camps was accepted. Many embraced this tradition of non-resistance, appearing before judges to defend their people's centuries-old tradition of pacifism, by offering alternative service work. Others felt their call to participate in the military, through combative or non-violent means, such as the Restricted Medical Corps. While the latter may seem like the abandonment of their peace principles, both forms of service came with their own challenges and sacrifices for the community. This created challenges post-war, where some Mennonites were hailed as heroes for defending their faith position, whereas others who fought were ostracised for discrediting it. Regardless of the debate, their services throughout the conflict, both domestically and abroad, led the group, who already began to integrate into Canadian society, to dramatically accelerate their own assimilation.
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    Balkan rats and Balkan bats: the art of managing Canada's media during the Kosovo air war
    (2005) Bergen, Robert W.; Bercuson, David Jay; Taras, David
    The competing interests of a conservative military given to secrecy in the interests of operational security and a liberal news media given to openness set the stage for predictable conflict during armed conflict. The emergence of the modem day news media as an environmental element Canadian military commanders must manage in the interest of operational security raises the question of whether the news media are able to provide independent oversight of the Canadian Forces' application of military skill in combat. Many factors come into play when commanders make operational security decisions regarding the news media including threat assessments and accumulated wisdom from previous combat operations. Careful consideration is also given to the tactical and strategic effects news reports may have on the operation including safety and security of the mission, the safety of military families at home, mission focus and morale. Whether the Canadian Forces management of the news media during the Kosovo aerial bombing campaign allowed an adequate opportunity for the English-language news media to provide Canadians with sufficient information to make informed judgments about the Canadian military's prosecution of the air war is the issue under examination.
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    Beheading Canada’s History: The Desecration of Sir John A. Macdonald’s image in the Canadian National Memory
    (2023-06) Walker, Kelsie Lynn; Marshall, David Brian; Marshall, David Brian; Bercuson, David Jay; Brodie, Ian Ross
    The image of Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, has rapidly deteriorated. In the 1950s, Macdonald was regarded as one of Canada’s greatest statesmen, where both historiographical and public esteem for him was at its peak. However, in the 1970s the desecration of his image began both in the public square and in contemporary debates about his stature in historiography. No figure in Canadian history has seen as drastic and unforgiving of a decline as Macdonald. Fuelled by growing trends of revisionism, presentism, and “wokeism,” Macdonald’s legacy is being destroyed as Canadian history is increasingly studied through the lens of morality, condemning imperfections and ignoring historical context. As a result, the grievances of contemporary Canada are placed on Macdonald as a way to help Canadians come to terms with the elements of Canada’s foundation that do not fit into the narratives of “progressivism,” “tolerance,” and “multiculturalism.” Macdonald’s image has been inaccurately distorted, questioned, and actively diminished, rendering him guilty of committing many of the injustices in Canada’s history. Today’s Macdonald is often viewed as a racist, genocidal tyrant, reduced to a caricature of his shortcomings and diminished as a drunk. However, movements to reclaim the accurate image of Macdonald are being undertaken. This thesis explores the current debate surrounding Macdonald’s legacy and examines how his image has changed throughout Canada’s history. I ultimately argue that to properly understand Macdonald, the two images that dominate contemporary historiography, one of him as a heroic nation builder and the other of him as a genocidal tyrant, must be examined in historical context and in tandem with one another. While the new, distorted image of Macdonald is loudly and viciously proclaimed, it is not welcomed by many.
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    Beyond Delusions of Grand Strategy: A Centrifugal National Security Strategy for Canada
    (2017) McAuley, William; Bercuson, David Jay; Nossal, Kim Richard; Cooper, Barry; Huebert, Robert; Nesbitt, Michael
    Canadian ‘grand strategy’ is a dangerous illusion. Just as even the brightest headlights have limited utility on a winding road, the common model of grand strategy is more myth than magic. Advocacy for the common linear conception of grand strategy as the solution to a complex contemporary security environment is misguided. This ‘Newtonian’ form of grand strategy has little utility for Canada. Traditional perceptions of grand strategy must be modified to account for a Canadian condition in which the ability to achieve adaptive advantage at the periphery supplants a central vision. The challenge for the forward looking national security policymaker is not how to impose a particular grand strategic objective on an uncontrollable environment, but to continually adapt and co-evolve with that environment in a manner that best satisfies specific interests. This work explores the utility of the grand strategy within a Canadian context. Intended to have resonance for contemporary policymaking, the behavioural phenomenon of grand strategy is examined with respect to its utility for real-time policy and strategy making in Canada. The assumption that the common concept of grand strategy has utility for Canada will be challenged on the grounds that it fails to account for the complexity of the Canadian policymaking environment. It will be shown that Canada has a more natural form of national security strategy that, rather than being based on a central vision, relies upon the optimization of emergent behaviour within a complex adaptive system. This unique form of national security strategy is characterized as being centrifugal rather than centripetal. Identification of this model illustrates fatal flaws in the common conceptions of Canadian grand strategy and provides greater utility for real-time Canadian policymaking in the contemporary national security environment.
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    Blurred vision: ethos and the Canadian forces
    (2003) Lépine, Pierre; Bercuson, David Jay; Zwerman, William L.
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    Bonds of brotherhood?: the experiences of labour in Calgary, 1903-1919
    (1990) Bright, David; Bercuson, David Jay
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    British Doctrine and Canadian Guns: The Evolution of Canadian Artillery Tactics in the First World War
    (2018-04-03) Torkelson, Cody Mackenzie; Bercuson, David Jay; Marshall, David B.; Huebert, Robert N.
    During the First World War, artillery was an integral component of military operations on the Western Front. The Canadian Corps, as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), relied heavily on the power of the artillery to support offensive operations. The Canadian Corps has been substantially analyzed by military historians, but the role of the artillery in the success of the Canadian Corps has been insufficiently studied. There is also considerable debate about the extent to which the Canadian Corps possessed a uniquely Canadian way of fighting. This raises the question: to what extent did Canadian artillery differ from prevailing British practice? By using archival documents and secondary sources, this thesis compares the Canadian usage of artillery on the Western Front with the development of artillery tactics and doctrine by the BEF. Through key decisions made before the war and from experience gained during difficult fighting on the Western Front, the BEF led the way in the development of artillery tactics. The Canadian Corps then effectively adapted and employed the tactics pioneered by the BEF during the Corps’ own battles, like Mount Sorrel, Vimy Ridge, and the Hundred Days offensives. Analyzing the tactics and doctrine of British and Canadian artillery on the Western Front demonstrates that the employment of the artillery by Canadian gunners did not differ substantially from the tactics and doctrine of the wider BEF.
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    Canadian Military Identity Constructions: Examining Civil-Military Relations in Canada
    (2021-10) Brush, Stephen Lloyd; Bercuson, David Jay; Terriff, Terry Richard; Peric, Sabrina
    This thesis examines the relationship between the armed forces and society in Canada. Traditional civil-military studies approach the topic to examine civil control of the military or by exploring the degree of integration between the military and civilian spheres. The approach adopted here focuses on the military institution as a sub-state actor that is a product of the Canadian state’s identity formation process. The military’s identity is a social construction under constant negotiation and is a product of the relationship between government, military, and citizens. Interviews with Defence Team members and a discourse analysis of the two most recent defence white papers, among other sources, outlines a complicated and multifaceted social process by which military identity formation occurs within Canada. The examination outlines how successive governments are the stewards of the military identity formation process and that they control the fate of the past, present, and future constructions. Defence white papers are presented as both sites of military identity construction through their inherently biased narratives and as determinants for the future of the military organization by virtue of their structuring effect on defence policy development. This study reveals a highly competitive discursive space whereby governments and their competitors vie for hegemony insofar as military identity constructions are concerned. The analysis exposes the underlying assumptions of the civil-military relationship in Canada. It warns against including idealistic discourse as part of the military identity formation process as the state’s very existence is hedged on cultivating the correct military organization capable of providing security.
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    Canadianization and the No.6 Bomber Group R.C.A.F.
    (1990) Nuttall, Leslie, 1935-; Bercuson, David Jay
    In December 1939 the government of William Lyon Mackenzie King signed the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan which directed much of Canada's war effort into the training of Commonwealth aircrew. Canadians were to constitute a very large proportion of the future graduates of the Plan. King's government at first intended that future Canadian airmen be grouped overseas into Canadianofficered squadrons under their own headquarters. Unfortunately King decided that his government could not afford to pay for these squadrons and he eventually agreed to send Canadian aircrew graduates overseas for service with the Royal Air Force. By 1940, the growing number of Canadians serving with the RAF were creating legal and public relations difficulties for their government. In July 1941, the Canadian Defence Minister for Air, Mr C. G. Power, went to Britain to discuss the implementation of 'Canadianization' measures designed to place Canadian airmen into their own units. As a major part of this policy, Power asked the RAF to form up a number of Canadian bomber squadrons and concentrate them into the No. 6 Bomber Group RCAF. During the summer and fall of 1942, the RAF's Bomber Command, with some reluctance, undertook to direct much of its expansion into Canadian squadrons based in Yorkshire and south Durham. The RAF also decided to equip the new and forming squadrons with the obsolescent twin-engine Wellington bomber and, during 1943, convert them to the flawed four-engine Halifax heavy bomber. These decisions were to hamper the operational ability of 6 Group for the remainder of the war. 6 Group was born on January 1 1943. Its birth was attended by a nasty row over the progress of Canadianization between high ranking British and Canadian officers. During 1943, the new squadrons performed satisfactorily until March, when they began attacking heavily defended targets in Germany. By July the statistics revealed that 6 Group morale was shaky. Too many Canadian crews were turning back, too many were being lost, and they were also being attacked at a greater rate than comparable RAF crews. Bomber Command investigated the causes three times suspecting that Canadian crews were poorly trained, of low quality, and suffering from leadership and discipline problems. However it was finally decided that these flaws were a consequence of the too-rapid squadron expansion and instability and, by December 1943, 6 Group squadrons were performing as well as and in some respects even better than their RAF counterparts. The process of Canadianization however had cost many lives and had taken a year to overcome.
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    Class dismissed?: a social history of the Calgary Labour movement 1883-1929
    (1995) Bright, David; Bercuson, David Jay
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    The Development of the 7th Canadian Reconnaissance Regiment in Normandy and the Scheldt
    (2019-04-17) McGowan, Victoria; Bercuson, David Jay; Bercuson, David Jay; Marshall, David B.; Terriff, Terry; Stapleton, Timothy J.
    The 7th Canadian Reconnaissance Regiment was created in 1939 to provide field reconnaissance for 3rd Canadian Infantry Division in the Second World War. Despite being present at a number of significant engagements, it has been overlooked by historians. Many assumptions have been made about armoured reconnaissance, including a belief that reconnaissance regiments were mostly or entirely support units, rather than combat units. This study aims to show that the 7th played an important role in the combat operations of 3rd Division in Northwest Europe. Building on the well-established histories of combat units in 3rd Division and First Canadian Army, it shows that the 7th developed new doctrine and filled a gap in operations between armour and infantry. On this basis, this study suggests that a closer review is needed of reconnaissance regiments to understand their full impact on the outcomes of First Canadian Army operations in Europe.
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    Doing their bit: Canada's Second World War military entertainers
    (2006) Halladay, Laurel; Bercuson, David Jay
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    The Empire's Smallest Regiment: The Gambia Company of the West African Frontier Force, 1902-1958
    (2020-09-23) Estep, Charles Joseph; Stapleton, Tim J.; Bercuson, David Jay; Apentiik, Caesar Roland
    Within the greater historiography of European led African colonial militaries, the history of the Gambia Company of the West African Frontier Force is largely unknown. The Gambia Company initially formed in 1902 from a nucleus of Sierra Leoneans. It continued to rely on Sierra Leonean recruits out of British fears of Gambian disloyalty and the belief that the small, seemingly insignificant Gambian territory would eventually fall under the administrative authority of the French. Such policies and mindsets initially limited the Gambia Company’s development into an efficient and independent military organization. Despite its smallness and structural shortcomings, the Gambia Company functioned as an effective unit in the African campaigns of the First World War. Following the war, the company finally transitioned into an all-Gambian force and secured its institutional independence after British realization that the Gambia would remain a British territory. However, imperial strategic concerns and training deficiencies during the interwar period forced the Gambia Company’s attachment to a larger military organization, the Sierra Leone Battalion. With the onset of the Second World War and the emergence of unforeseen territorial threats in West Africa, the Gambia Company expanded to unprecedented levels, a total strength of two infantry battalions. During the war, the now renamed Gambia Regiment contributed significantly to the defense of British West Africa and the Allied war effort fighting in the Burma campaign. Eventually, the company sized Gambia Regiment disbanded in 1958 after over 50 years of service for the Gambia and the greater British Empire. This thesis hopes to fill the historiographical void by providing a valuable history of the Gambia Company and shed light on the experiences of ordinary Gambian soldiers, while also exposing the greater historical trends of the British colonial military in West Africa.
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    Falling short: suboptimal outcomes in Canadian defence procurement
    (2018-09-26) MacMillan, Ian; Bercuson, David Jay; Huebert, Robert N.; Hiebert, Maureen S.; Nesbitt, Michael E.; Boucher, Jean-Christophe
    Why do Canada’s military procurement projects often fall short of their primary goals? Otherwise known as a suboptimal result, defence acquisitions regularly fall short of established delivery schedules, accruing cost-overruns, sometimes resulting in cancellation of key materiel. One-hundred percent of the twenty-five Major Crown Projects at the Department of National Defence have experienced delays in achieving key milestones. Aside from cost, suboptimal results are injurious to Canada’s tri-force military. Fortunately, the matter has not gone unchecked. A fairly recent surge in procurement research has generated a critical mass of Canadian-focused literature. Preliminary research for this study shows a connection between suboptimal results and the organizations and personnel that populate procurement processes. Based on the bureaucratic politics model, a competitive interaction between uniquely conditioned policy players causes suboptimal delays and costs. Players orient outcomes to suit personal and organizational interests. The advantage of the bureaucratic politics model is the clarity with which it illustrates decision processes. Its simplistic structure serves as an ideal model for comparing three cases in Canadian procurement. Taken from the Department of National Defence’s Status Report on Transformational and Major Crown Projects, this study tests the bureaucratic theory against the Tank Replacement Project, the Joint Support Ship Project, and the ongoing project(s) to replace Canada’s CF-18 Hornets. The objective is to see if these cases share common findings contributing to suboptimality. The bureaucratic model assists the methodological goal of a structured, focused comparison. Two of the three cases demonstrate the competitive interaction between players as a factor in determining delays and cost-overruns. Although the Joint Support Ship Project included a host of unique players competing to determine decision outcomes, the factor that contributed to schedule slippage was the result of widespread agreement on a build in Canada approach. This consensus led to reliance on one underequipped shipyard to approach an overambitious project. Based on the overall study, three findings prevail. First, reports by bureaucratic institutions like the Parliamentary Budget Office and the Office of the Auditor General have tremendous political capital. Second, domestic production schemes are noble, but sometimes unrealistic. Third, competition for goods is always necessary.
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    Fighting as Colony? 1st Canadian Corps in Italy, 1943-1945
    (2014-01-20) Leppard, Christine; Bercuson, David Jay
    In the summer of 1943, Canadian Minister of National Defence J.L. Ralston and Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Ken Stuart pressured the reluctant British Chiefs of Staff to send 1st Canadian Corps to the Italian Campaign. This decision was not popular with all of Canada’s top brass. Army Commander General Andrew McNaughton argued that fighting in Italy was not in Canada’s best interest. He urged Ralston to visit Washington and insist on taking part in strategy sessions of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Then the Canadians could decide their best course of action with an eye on strategy. Ralston replied that he could not do so. Canada was fighting as a junior partner in a coalition war, and had adopted a position of “contribution without representation.” This dissertation assesses the implications of the Canadian government’s disconnection from Allied strategy-making for 1st Canadian Corps in the Italian Campaign. It also examines whether Canada’s national interest— which, second to the defeat of Nazi Germany, was defined as waging a recognisable, independent war effort without imposing conscription—was advanced when fighting within the coalition of nations in Italy from 1943-1945, as manifested in the Anglo-Canadian relationship. It argues that the Canadians made decisions about 1st Canadian Corps and the Italian Campaign without ever having a clear picture of Anglo-American strategic objectives for the theatre, caused by serious problems of Allied communication for which both the British and Canadians were complicit. This led to tension and resentment in the Anglo-Canadian alliance, which had knock-on effects on the operational level. The Canadians eventually realised that their interests could only be protected by considering strategy, but it came too late for the situation to be meaningfully remedied.
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