World War 1 was one of the deadliest conflicts this world has ever seen, over 37 million died during it from countries all around the world. Civilians and military personnel were both killed during the war and it was absolutely horrible. For our first unit in Humanities this year we have been studying WW1 in a lot of different ways. We have studied what started it, what Canada contributed to it and most importantly how it shaped Canada as a nation. There has been a couple of projects that we have done for this unit and our final one has been a podcast. For this podcast we had to find a soldier that had served Canada in WW1 and research his life and what he was like. My soldier for this podcast is a truly amazing man named John Henry Foster Babcock.
John Babcock is a true Canadian veteran form the First World War, and what is most special about him is that he was the last known surviving Canadian veteran from the war. He was born on July 23 1900 and passed away when he was 109 years old on February 18 2009. John did not fight in the war because he was underage at the time and he was sent away to the Boys Battailion. He was rejected three times from active duty. While waiting to become old enough to fight, the war ended and he moved to the America to start a new life. He was rejected again in WW2 for being to old to be a pilot and he never got the chance to fight. John did not see himself as a veteran because he never fought in a battle but nevertheless he was celebrated and received a lot of recognition and medals from a lot people around the world. John had an incredible life and that is why I made my podcast on him.
By researching John I learned a lot about what it was like for people that had to fight in the war. I learned what they had to go through to get selected for battle and what it was like for them to get rejected. When they were rejected for battle they were put in reserve battalions and received extra training until they were ready for war. Some people never got the chance to fight in the war, or simply just did not want to and others fought in many many battles and lost their friends and family. All of this research went into the podcast and we we spent a lot of time revising it to make it as fantastic as possible.
There were other parts to this project as well. One of the first things we did was look at the Laurier era. This part picked up where we left off last year right after the gold rush and the construction of the rail road. This was when we learned about some struggles that the Canadian people had to go through before the war and how they dealt with the change on leaders at that point. After this part of the unit it was onto the actual war itself where we learned everything that Canada had to do with the war.
But what started WW1. Almost everyone can agree that the final part that caused it was the death of Franz Ferdinand, who was Archduke of Austria at the time. This was a part of the unit that was very important because without it there would be no unit to learn. We familiarized ourselves with this part a lot and we made a Blogpost and visual that explained why we think the war started. This was something that tested our video skills and how well we could explain what started the First World War. After this first part of the war we went on to learn Canada’s involvement and how they affected the war.
Canada did not voluntarily go into the war, that is something people get wrong a lot of the time. Because Canada was very closely tied with Britain at the time as soon as Britain declared war on Germany, Canada was in the war whether they wanted to or not. As soon as Canada entered the war, thousands and thousands of men started to enlist in the Canadian armed forces. The Canadian Forces were fierce fighters and proved these levels many times in the war. The most famous battle that the Canadians fought in was the battle of Vimy Ridge. This was one of the most fortified positions that the Germans held in the war. Many other forces like the British and the French tried and failed to take the Ridge. On the Canadians first attempt they took the ridge and lost thousands and thousands of soldiers during the fight. This was just one of the times that Canada proved themselves in the war and they were greatly rewarded. After the war Canada gained its complete independence form Britain. Canada was recognized as a strong and independent nation that others looked up to.
Going through this unit was very, very interesting. WW1 is something that I have always found very interesting and this unit helped expand my knowledge and interest of it. This was one into that I greatly enjoyed learning about everything from what started the war, to Canada’s contributions to it to the research and podcast I did on John Babcock. I hope that you have learned something from this post about WW1 and if you are interested then maybe you can research and learn more about from other sources.