Borden's Decision

In 1916, Prime Minister Robert Borden visited London for the Imperial War Conference where he spent time in military hospitals and spoke with wounded soldiers. He was moved by what he saw and became determined that Canada would send over more soldiers to allow the wounded ones to return home, as they might have had to return to the trenches if no replacements could be found.



Borden pointed out that Australia had more soldiers fighting in the war than Canada in spite of Australia’s smaller population. In his 1916 New Year’s message, he pledged 500,000 Canadian soldiers. It is possible that he was acting on emotional instinct without properly thinking it through because 500,000 was not an entirely realistic number for a country with a population of 7.5 million people and a sixth of men capable of fighting already in the infantry.

Another possible motivation could have been because Borden himself had a personal connection to the war and the Canadian military. His cousin was a commanding officer of a battalion in France and he is pictured inspecting the battalion when he visited Europe to see the situation for himself. Because of his personal connection through his cousin, the war would have hit closer to home for him and probably would have given him an extra motivation to help and give support to the soldiers fighting in the frontlines.