Thousands of young Canadian men responded to the call for military volunteers in the late summer and fall of 1914.
Most of them expected the European War to be a quick one, with victory assured. Some thought the fighting would be over as soon as Christmas of 1914, with the German military machine quickly crushed. The combined feelings of patriotism and militarism made them feel they should sign up at once or risk missing out on the fun.
Quite a number of farm boys signed up in the early months of the war, but the government stated rural men were more valuable in boosting agricultural output. As well, there were various efforts to encourage young men from the cities to seek work on farms.
Nothing turned out according to expectations. Rather than a quick war, the engagement in Europe stalled into a virtual stalemate that persisted long past Christmas, and into 1915 and 1916. The optimism and patriotism of the summer of 1914 turned out to be hot air. Along with the lack of success came reports of appalling casualty rates. That slowed the volunteer rate drastically, and by the end of 1916 virtually no volunteers came forward.
The Minister of Militia, the bloodthirsty and dim-witted Sam Hughes, realized that volunteers could never meet his commitment of 500,000 men for European service, a huge number for a country that then had a population of about eight million. The only solution for Hughes and the Borden government was to institute a military draft.
That move by the federal government was extremely unpopular in Quebec, which had supplied only about 5% of the volunteer troops, though about 30% of Canada’s population called the province home. The announcement of the draft resulted in civil insurrection across Quebec, and full-out riots in Montreal and Quebec City.
Though historians make much less of the situation in rural Ontario, the draft was just as unpopular here. Many farmers were of Scottish background, and saw no reason to fight what they perceived as a British war. As well, they believed they had been double-crossed by the government, which until that point had been urging farmers to boost their output.
Military authorities had a great deal of difficulty in enforcing conscription. First of all, they lacked the manpower for proper enforcement. Under the law young men were required to register for service, and undergo a preliminary medial examination. Thousands of farm boys simply ignored the requirement, and carried on with their farm chores.
Little happened during the fall of 1917, as authorities were overwhelmed with non-compliance. Those men who did show up under the draft flooded the existing military bases, and faced inadequate housing and supplies.
A handful of young men were resolutely opposed to the draft. During the winter of 1917-18 there was a flurry of hunting accidents, with guns mysteriously discharging into the toes and feet of young men, rendering them unfit for military service. Newspapers reported at least a dozen such incidents in Wellington County. Other men, when they were examined, feigned eye and hearing troubles. And quite a number continued to defy the law by not registering at all.
By January of 1918, military authorities were ready to clamp down on the shirkers. Their first victims in Wellington County were arrested in Maryborough Township during the third week of January 1918.
George and William Thompson, two unmarried brothers who helped their father operate the family farm, had refused to register for the draft and had avoided getting a medical examination to determine whether they were fit for service. Their presence on the family farm, and their defiance of the law, were well known. They ignored several pieces of official correspondence, and had scoffed at friends who warned them that they were asking for trouble.
Two weeks into 1918 an army officer, supported by four soldiers, showed up on the farm while the young men were doing their evening chores. The officer placed them under arrest at once, not even allowing them to change out of their farm clothes.
The prisoners asked for a delay, desiring to consult a lawyer and a local magistrate. The officer had neither patience nor a sense of humour. He told the brothers that all the lawyers and magistrates in Ontario would not prevent him from taking the pair to military headquarters. They were soon on their way to London.
The arrest received wide publicity. Most of the small-town newspapers in Wellington strongly supported the arrest. Some criticized the brothers for their lack of patriotism. Others, such as the Harriston Review, stated, “How young men of ordinary intelligence can be so absolutely boneheaded as to imagine that they can defy the Military Act is difficult to understand.”
The military intended the arrest and the publicity to be a warning to others to come forward and sign up for military duty. Other farm boys, probably the majority, kept a lower profile and maintained a less defiant attitude toward the draft. There were reports, none verifiable at this point, that some went into virtual hiding.
The Thompson brothers faced Magistrate A.H.M. Graydon a few days after their arrival in London. In short order they were convicted of violating the Military Service Act. The magistrate offered them an unpalatable choice: enlist in the army as the act required, or face a penalty of five years in jail.
Military authorities intended to make something of an example of the Thompson brothers, but as might be expected there were unintended consequences, causing farmers to be more subtle in frustrating the intentions of the military draft.
One of the more outrageous examples of military avoidance was that of Orbie McDermaid, a city boy who had enlisted in the 71st Battery of Toronto, then later deserted when he found military life not to his liking. He went to Colbeck, near Grand Valley, and was hired on as a farm worker with a succession of farmers, winding up with Tom McConnell.
In mid-March of 1918 county constable George Green arrested Orbie on a charge of theft. On Feb. 9 of that year he had taken a horse, cutter and harness from a Mrs. McAllister of Kenilworth. Later the same day he sold the horse and rig to Louis Mournahan of East Luther.
McAllister reported her loss immediately, and through dogged determination, Green succeeded in tracking down the missing horse.
The theft itself was nothing unusual – incidents of that type occurred with some regularity. What was surprising in this case was that McDermaid continued to wear his army uniform all the time he worked as a farm hand. No one questioned him about it, and if anyone suspected that he might be a deserter, they kept their own counsel.
McDermaid appeared before Magistrate Watt of Guelph. Normally hard nosed, Watt was very lenient in this case, sentencing McDermaid to a three month term in the county jail. Such a crime normally merited a stay of a couple of years in the penitentiary.
McDermaid, of course, still had some explaining to do to the military authorities. But thanks to his stay in jail, the war probably was ended before he could be assigned to the front lines.
The Thompson brothers and Orbie McDermaid were only two of the young men who became victims of the draft law during World War I. The legislation became more unpopular over time, and especially so when the government eliminated most of the exemptions in the spring of 1918. By the summer of that year the draft had become something of a farce, with widespread evasion and defiance.
Over 400,000 men in Canada were eligible for the draft. At the end of the war only about 125,000 of them had been roped into the armed forces, and barely 25,000 saw any sort of active service.
Fortunately for the authorities, the end of the war was by then in sight.