Wednesday, August 13, 2014

How's the war(s) going?

If you are still following the War of 1812+200, it's still out there. The British have just opened their siege of Fort Erie, Upper Canada, still held by the Americans despite their recent reverses on the Niagara Peninsula. The White House is soon to burn. Peace negotiations have recently begun at Ghent in Belgium.

That other war much in the news lately will go quiet for Canadians for a while. Now that we are through August 4, 1914+100, the war doesn't really start for Canadians until next spring, with the second Battle of Ypres and the first massive Canadian casualties.

Not so for the Europeans. In August 1914, the French army lost about 75,000 killed, more than Canada would lose in the entire war, and the other European powers were not far behind. That's just the western front, with all kinds of conflict in the Balkans, the Russian front, and even Togoland, occupied by Britain and France in August 1914. As they say, war has always been a reliable way of teaching young men geography.
 
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