Robert Borden and the policy of the conservative government of Canada during the First World War
The article covers the study of policies pursued by the Conservative Government of Canada led by Robert Borden during the First World War. The presentation of events begins on August 4, 1914, when Canada entered the War after Great Britain, and ends on October 12, 1917, when a new Coalition Government of conservatives and liberals was created in Ottawa. The purpose of the study is to reconstruct the details of the military course pursued by Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden during the war years, which can answer the question about the degree of imperial loyalty of Canada and its willingness to participate in the War on the side of the mother-country. Based on legislative acts of the Dominion Government, Parliamentary debates, annual historical and statistical collections and newspaper publications of the provincial press, it analyzes the Canadian Prime Minister’s attitude to the War and Canada’s participation in it. It studies the content and mechanism of the implementation of the Canadian government’s conservative military government program, which was concentrated around the formation and sending of expeditionary forces to Europe, as well as the creation of an internal Guard to protect the dominion territory from possible enemy invasion. It examines the process of adoption of two legislative acts (on military voters, on the extension of the term of office of the Parliament), which intended to help the Conservatives remain in power until the end of the War, as well as public discussions that accompanied this complex process. Finally, it reveals details of Robert Borden's involvement in imperial military bodies and political consultations with British ministers and others statesmen. In general, during the war years, the policy of the Conservative Government of Robert Borden was aimed at implementing the idea of imperial integration with the active participation of Canada in the War on the side of the Allies. The Prime Minister regarded participation in the War as an inevitable necessity, considering that Canada should do its imperial duty with honor. Therefore, his activity was centred around the formation and sending of Canadian volunteers to Europe. Realizing that the continued participation of the Dominion in the War depended on whether Conservatives remained in power or not, he passed a law to extend the Parliament’s term of office and vested soldiers with suffrage. During the four years of the War, he made several trips to the continent and attended meetings of imperial bodies, solving strategic issues of dominion's participation in the War. The contribution that Canada made to the Allied victory was a common merit of the entire Canadian people and the Conservative Government of Robert Borden.
Keywords
history of Canada,
World War I,
Robert Borden,
Prime Minister of Canada,
Government of Canada,
Canadian ParliamentAuthors
| Simonenko Ekaterina S. | Primorskaya State Agricultural Academy | eka-1982.82@mail.ru |
Всего: 1
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