Conscription Crisis

Superior Essays
The year of 1944 led the nation of Canada into despair over the issue of the WW2. The current situation at that times steered people to believe that Conscription was the only solution to the problem. Conscription was the compulsory enrollment in armed forces which had once tore apart the nation of Canada back in 1917. The after math of was that the conscription crisis of 1944 in Canada, which was an unnecessary action that created bitter disputes between the French & English citizens, which reduced the war effort and also tested the Governments decision-making from preventing another civil disorder within the nation. Also the Conscripts weren’t needed overseas due the large amounts of active volunteers in the war, which allowed Canada to still …show more content…
Since conscripts were being forced to fight against their own will, their lack of motivation was very minimal which often impacted the effort displayed. Usually at times when conscripts were sent majority refused to take any action which evidently reduced them from fighting in many battles, for their participation in any battle was useless. It was recalled that the conscripts had one main battle that consisted of the Hochwalds Forest. Not only this but conscripts weren’t needed on the battlefield due to the large amount of volunteers that were already actively participating in the war. One particular incident that occurred during the war was a miscalculation on the amount of conscripts needed. Originally what had happened was the “General of Defense McNaughton indicated at one point that 10 000 additional conscripts would be dispatched if needed as reinforcements but in the end it was discovered that the previous estimates made were miscalculated because Italy was transferred out to northern Europe along with the Germans who collapsed earlier than expected” (Granatstein, J. L. p. 246). As a result even without the reinforcements provided by the NRMA men, there would have still been a remaining “8,500 men in the reinforcement pools” (Granatstein, J. L. p. 246). Proving that there was more than enough men for the war and lastly the conscripts were not needed. Even when the Canadian conscripts were sent overseas “only 2463 men reached the frontlines” (en.wikipedia.org) out of the 12,908, which is really about 19% that proves 81% of the conscripts did nothing of whatsoever. Taking all this into consideration it’s evident that the conscripts didn’t contribute to the war effort as was expected but rather reduced, thus proving the absence of conscription would have still allowed

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