The Great War

Kendra Jones
The damage of war is immeasurable. War has the ability to devastate a
countrys economy, spirit, and leave wounds in society that will last for many
generations to come. The twenty-eighth of July in 1914, to the eleventh of
November in 1918, is an example of such a thing. No one could have anticipated
the death, brutality, debt, and lack of humanity that the Great War would bring. The
Great War, later known as World War One, would cause destruction to the financial
aspect of Canada for years and would leave Canadians with the true image of war.
The Great War truly was the war that changed Canada in every aspect.
All wars have a cost, but not every war costs 2.5 million dollars a day, as it
did for Canadians in 1918. The average Canadian makes approximately two million
dollars in their lifetime, and Canadians have an average life span of eighty-one
years. So, in eighty-one years a Canadian will make almost two million dollars, and
the government was spending over two million dollars a day to fund war efforts. In
the beginning of war, there were already countless layoffs, and severe cut backs
that the railway business would suffer, leaving many Canadians already feeling the
burden of the war before it began. The reasoning for budget cuts was because the
government already wanted to place more money into the war rather than
construction or domestic issues. Spending less money in other departments allowed
the federal government to place the saved money towards sustaining massive
amounts of soldiers abroad. Before the war began, the war federal budget was 185
million dollars. That number increased to more than 740 million dollars by the time
the war began. The countrys debt quadrupled to 1.2 billion dollars as well. By the
end of the war, Canada was over two billion dollars in debt. The actual amount of
money raised abroad for the war was ten times less, thus passing the incredible
amount of debt to future Canadians to pay. Although, the majority of the money
owed was to Canadian citizens because of victory bonds issued by the
government.
Not only was the war building onto Canadas debt, but the surviving Canadian
soldiers were welcomed back with no guaranteed or even available jobs. Supplying
their family with food, water or even a roof over their head was a war that many
Canadian veterans would not win. Extremely high unemployment rates were not
simply the only thing to blame for veterans not being able to find a job. Thousands
of soldiers were suffering from Shellshock, which is now known as PTSD. Victims of
Shellshock were unable to support themselves because of their symptoms.
Shellshock caused veterans that suffered from it to become severely unbalanced
and to experience violent nerve spasms, walking down the street was extremely
difficult due to staggering and the loss of spinal reflexes. These soldiers were unable
to do simple tasks, none the less find a job or even fit into society. Many soldiers
with Shellshock were said to have minds that the dead have ravished, so those

surviving soldiers may just as well have been dead with the weight of the murders
they witnessed and memories of bullets they shot that found targets. Shellshock
took the military and medical world by surprise, as they had never seen anything
like it before. Further studies and tests were constructed by doctors that specialized
in war fare, later conclusions lead to doctors firmly believing that shellshock wasnt
a physical disorder at all, but one of the mind. Many doctors found that their
patients minds were so distressed that it crippled the body, and later studies would
confirm their theories. Shellshock could be shown by cold skin, low blood pressure,
and dangerous peripheral circulatory failures that could lead to organ failure.
Untreated Shellshock could lead to death in some cases. Even with medical
evidence, the military often denied that Shellshock could be caused by anything
that was not a physical wound. It is unfortunate that in the time after the war that
the gender stereotype for soldiers was men should be able to control their feelings
and mask their emotions because this thought lead to a feeling of shame
surrounding the disorder, so many men that could have been treated were left to
suffer in silence and embarrassment. No amount of respect that Canada earned for
their admirable war strategies could ever make up for the suffering of those soldiers
that fought so bravely.
The ultimate outcome of the Great War was World War II. When the Great War
ended in 1918, it left destruction in its wake. It was not only high profit factories
that collapsed, but homes did as well. Thus, France wanted payment for the damage
they suffered, Britain agreed with a fair settlement and terms, and the USA
obviously agreed with France and Britain even though they had been in the war for
the shortest amount of time. On the twenty-eight of July in 1919, the treaty of
Versailles was created in Paris. This peace treaty was really an agreement for
Germany to sign, to agree that they were to blame for all of the damage war
brought. Also known as the war guilt clause, the German agreed to sign the
Versailles treaty. After the treaty of Versailles was signed and countries were
suffering from the after effects that war brought, Germany already had their share
of sufferings, not to mention the terms of the treaty would not help them prosper to
recovery. The terms of the treaty included 132 billion gold marks in payment to the
Allies, even though Germany themselves had spent over thirty seven billion to
supply their war efforts. In the western dominion, Germany was forced to return
Alsace-Lorraine to the French, even though Germany had captured the area more
than forty years earlier. Over all, the country sacrificed over sixty nine thousand
kilometres of European dominion, almost thirteen percent of Germanys European
land. With the land, Germany also had to give up the seven million German people
that resided in the areas. The seven million citizens that lived in the districts
distributed to the Allies made up one tenth of the German population, after
Germany already lost three million lives to the war. The Treaty of Versailles left
Germany shocked, angry, and revengeful which directly lead to the losses of the
Second World War.

The damage war brings with it is not able to be fixed by any amount of
money or success. A human beings life is more than a number when it is lost, and a
human soul is worth far more than any dollar amount. The Great War brought debt,
it brought death, and the Great War brought the Second World War. The losses
Canada endured during the First World War should always be remembered, the
soldiers, nurses, and civilians who must always carry on in our memories; for they
too were mothers, fathers, daughters, and son as we are. War is not a thing of
Canadas past, it is happening everyday even if it is nowhere as traumatic as the
Great War it still exists in the world today. The Great War shaped all wars, and we
must learn more about Canadas past to learn from our mistakes.