Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
History
Faculty/School
Faculty of Arts
First Advisor
Mark Humphries
Advisor Role
Roger Sarty
Advisor Role
Jane Nicholas
Abstract
This dissertation examines how Canadian soldiers of the First World War dealt with death on the Western Front. Members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force risked death, witnessed it and lived alongside it while serving in the trenches. Circumstances of death in the frontlines differed from those in civilian life; death of the very young by disease was replaced by violent death of adult men. Even conflicts of the preceding fifty years provided little indication of what soldiers would face during the First World War. Canada’s death rate during the First World War was nearly three times that of the South African War and the vast majority of those deaths were due to enemy action. This dissertation argues that the scale and violence of death on the Western Front pushed soldiers to develop multiple means of coping and grieving. Reactions varied; emotional reserve, sadness, communal grieving and gravesite rituals appear in men’s writings alongside anger and dark humour in response to the deaths of comrades. Even as the Western Front presented new and challenging circumstances, the men of the Canadian Expeditionary Force often turned to and adapted their civilian death customs to manage their emotions and experiences with the dead.
Recommended Citation
Dunn, Brittany Catherine, "Grief Amidst the Guns: Death in the Canadian Expeditionary Force on the Western Front" (2024). Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive). 2639.
https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/2639
Convocation Year
2024
Convocation Season
Spring
Included in
Canadian History Commons, Cultural History Commons, History of Gender Commons, Military History Commons