Segregation Pre-Unification

[Michael OLeary]

As the militia units became responsible for recruiting during the First World War, this unwritten policy, a belief in ethnic over national solidarity did play into the recruiting strategies of Canadian leadership.

Militia units were not generally responsible for CEF recruiting.  The CEF was organizationally separate from the Militia (and from the Permanent Force).  This was by Sam Hughes' design to attempt to bypass the existing politics of those structures. Many CEF units formed using drafts from local Militia units, but that was due to the convenience of a ready supply of willing and trained troops.  Militia units then continued their own recruiting, and provided later drafts to new CEF units as they were raised. The use of Militia Armouries as recruiting stations, and the provision of senior personnel from the Militia to new CEF units as they were authorized no doubt blurred the lines, but the CEF was responsible for its own recruiting as new units were authorized by General Order.

This recruiting scheme should also not be confused with the evolution of similarities of unit (unofficial) names, similarity in badges, etc., which was used to attract recruits to new CEF unit on a basis of local affiliation to the local Militia units, but it was not the Militia units directly recruiting for or marching off with, the CEF.

The lines between the Militia and the CEF, then and now, is probably one of the least clearly understood aspects of the Militia's history.

Yes, fully  black labour battalions were formed during the war. Black Canadians were, at the time, Canada's largest "visible minority," and this is unsurprising that wholy black units would come out of it.

Only one unit was raised of black soldiers.

Was it racist that they were delegated to labour roles? Probably.

It was racist by today's standards, but not of those of the day.  We also have to be careful to assess the actions of our predecessors by their own cultural and societal norms. While we can compare those standards to our own we should be careful not to judge them against a standard that did not exist for them.

Certainly black men would get to fight in the infantry with their local units, ...

A man would have “fought with his local unit” if he enlisted with it before it sailed for England.  Once it was in combat, the reinforcement system would not necessarily have provided only men from the same hometown. Even later in the war when the regionally based Reserve regiments were created, they were provincially based, so the description “local unit” can be a very difficult one to define.