Surviving Trench Warfare: Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914-1918 Second Edition/Canada's Bastions of Empire: Halifax, Victoria and the Royal Navy 1749-1918

Bill Rawling. Surviving Trench Warfare: Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914-1918 Second Edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. x, 325 pp., illus.; Paperback ; ISBN: 9781442626782; $34.95.

Bryan Elson. Canada's Bastions of Empire: Halifax, Victoria and the Royal Navy 1749-1918. Halifax: Formac Publishing Co., 2014. 277 pp., illus.; Hardcover; ISBN: 9781459503267; $29.95.

Canadians are fond of their military even though they don't know much about its history. Beyond a smattering knowledge of the Somme battle, cinematic references to unspellable Passchendaele, and the glorious victory at Vimy, the First World War is largely terra incognita, especially when compared with the Second World War. Most Canadians are surprised to learn that military forces even existed in Canada before 1914.

The two books under review, Bill Rawling's Surviving Trench Warfare: Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914-1918 and Bryan Elson's Canada's Bastions of Empire: Halifax, Victoria and the Royal Navy 1749-1918, go a long way toward redressing this knowledge gap. They are essential reading for anyone interested in how Canadian soldiers earned their spurs in the Great War, and how Canada's military capability evolved from colonial dependency to national autonomy. While Rawling is the more academic of...