Framing Canada's Great War: a case for including the Boer War

Abstract

This article notes the dearth of reference to the South African War in the growing literature on Canada's participation in the Great War. It argues a case for assessing the military and civilian legacy of the South African War upon Canada's management and experience of the Great War, its mobilisation, leadership, behaviour and perceptions; suggesting that the South African conflict had a greater influence upon Canada's response to the Great War than historians have assumed, an influence out of proportion to Canada's relatively limited contribution to the South African War.