Review: Clio's Warriors

Abstract

CLIO'S WARRIORS Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars Tim Cook Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006. 352pp, $29.95 paper (ISBN 0774812575)The discipline of Canadian history owes much to the official history programs run by the Department of National Defence, particularly when one considers the number of prominent scholars who spent part of their careers there. Names like Charles P. Stacey, J.M. Hitsman, S.F. Wise, J.M.S. Careless, J.L. Granatstein, Desmond Morton, and Norman Hillmer are familiar to most students of military, diplomatic, and political history in Canada. And yet, as Tim Cook points out in Clio's Warriors, the lot of an official historian is not an easy one-torn between the expectations of different professions and interest groups, fellow scholars, military officers, ordinary veterans, politicians, and the public.Although Cook introduces a host of influential figures (not all of whom are connected with the government) over the course of the book, two stand out: Archer Fortescue Duguid, the official historian of the Canadian expeditionary force in the First World War, and Charles Stacey, the official army historian during and after the second World War. Duguid and Stacey laid the foundations for the serious study of military history in Canada through their determination to create, save, and catalogue as much material as possible to preserve the memory of Canada's wartime activities. Duguid is a largely forgotten figure today, overshadowed by the work of international counterparts like Sir James Edmonds of Britain and Charles Bean of Australia, who oversaw highly regarded multivolume projects on their respective countries' armies in the First World War, and by the prolific and energetic Stacey. That Duguid was an engineer by training seems to explain both his meticulous methods (he was a believer in history as a science, not an art), and the fact that he was never able to come to grips with the enormous amount of material at his disposal to complete the official history of the CEF that he repeatedly promised to his superiors and the Canadian public. Stacey, by contrast, was trained as a historian, and produced numerous outstanding works during and after the war that were appreciated by his military superiors, academic peers, and the general population (98).Stacey's achievements are even more impressive when one considers the circumstances in which he worked. During the war, he and his small staff had unprecedented access to top commanders like Andrew McNaughton, Harry Crerar, and Guy Simonds. This access and cooperation, however, limited his ability to criticize the generals' plans and judgements. He also faced obstinate politicians who saw the historical section as an easy target for budget cuts. Brooke Claxton, minister of national defence after the war, made the incredible statement that nobody would be interested in reading about the second World War after 1948. Not only does this seem ridiculous with hindsight, given the enormous amount of literature, television, and film devoted to the war in the decades since, but even at the time it was a naive or disingenuous prediction. Great War veterans were still publicly clamouring for their story to be told in the late 19403, and calling for Duguid to make good on his decades of promises or let someone else do the job. …