Canadian Defence League

Not to be confused with Canadian Labour Defence League.

The Canadian Defence League was an organization that advocated military training for all men in Canada. It was founded in 1909, at the suggestion of William Hamilton Merritt III,^[1] and was formally inaugurated on September 10, 1910, in Toronto.^[2] The League operated from 1910 to March 1914,^[3] around the outbreak of World War I.^[2] Merritt was its president.^[4]

Ultimately, the organization favoured universal military service, on the Swiss model.^[1] Albert Carman, William Lash Miller, Maurice Hutton, Byron Edmund Walker, Reuben Wells Leonard, and Rufus S. Hudson were among the League's boosters.^[1] Many of its members favoured cadet drills in schools.^[5]

Desmond Morton argues that the League's efforts in favour of military training "failed miserably only months before the outbreak of war".^[6]

References

1. Morton 1978, p. 62.
2. Wood, James (April 20, 2010). Militia Myths: Ideas of the Canadian Citizen Soldier, 1896–1921. University of British Columbia Press. p. 197. ISBN 978-0-7748-5928-8.
3. Morton, Desmond (1993). When your number's up : the Canadian soldier in the First World War. Random House of Canada. pp. 1–2. ISBN 0-394-22288-1. OCLC 28218393.
4. Maroney, Paul; Harris, Stephen John (1998). "Merritt, William Hamilton". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved May 16, 2021.
5. Berger 2013, p. 254.
6. Morton 1978, p. 56.

Sources

• Berger, Carl (2013). The sense of power : studies in the ideas of Canadian imperialism, 1867–1914 (2d ed.). University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4426-6897-3. OCLC 852803516.
• Morton, Desmond (May 1978). "The Cadet Movement in the Moment of Canadian Militarism, 1909–1914". Journal of Canadian Studies. 13 (2): 56–68. doi:10.3138/jcs.13.2.56. ISSN 0021-9495. S2CID 151472092.

Further reading

• The Canadian Defence League. Toronto, Canadian Defence League. 1913. OCLC 1041670504.