Friday, 14 October 2011
Welcome!
Welcome to the Sam Hughes blog! For the people who do not know Sam Hughes was the canadian minister of militia during WW1, and probably one of the most controversial figures of the time. Feel free to read posts and pages and leave comments. To view older posts you must click the small, grey "Older posts" button on the bottom right of this blog.
French and english canadian relations affected by Sam Hughes
After WW1 began, Canada became a nation in disarray. After a usable number of new recruits failed to be provided after the onset of the war Robert Borden looked to conscription as the answer.
During this time, Quebec had never possessed a fighting unit whereas other provinces had and for french canadians who still wanted to join the armed forces, Sam Hughes failed to provide language help for them and were forced to work in all english battalion's and read english instructions. The french canadians were starting to feel like they were second class citizens and the introduction of Robert Borden's conscription policy later in the war only made this worse, even to the point where riots broke out in the streets of some major cities. The french did not feel loyal to Canada whereas the english felt quite the opposite, willing to do anything for their country. This is because the french were usually new immigrants, or their canadian history did not reach back as the far as the english's did.
Even though the short term effects of this series of bad decisions were devastating, the present impacts of WW1 on french/english relations are blurry but can still be seen through various means of political and social separation from the english, with also hints of anger between the two. An example not related to WW1 but most likely a product of the late aftermath of the events in Canada during the war are the beliefs of the Bloc Quebecois party.
This is just another example that could be used to question hughes competence and leadership. For failing to provide any language help for a significant amount of the population, he is partly responsible for the state of chaos canada was facing increasingly throughout the war.
During this time, Quebec had never possessed a fighting unit whereas other provinces had and for french canadians who still wanted to join the armed forces, Sam Hughes failed to provide language help for them and were forced to work in all english battalion's and read english instructions. The french canadians were starting to feel like they were second class citizens and the introduction of Robert Borden's conscription policy later in the war only made this worse, even to the point where riots broke out in the streets of some major cities. The french did not feel loyal to Canada whereas the english felt quite the opposite, willing to do anything for their country. This is because the french were usually new immigrants, or their canadian history did not reach back as the far as the english's did.
Even though the short term effects of this series of bad decisions were devastating, the present impacts of WW1 on french/english relations are blurry but can still be seen through various means of political and social separation from the english, with also hints of anger between the two. An example not related to WW1 but most likely a product of the late aftermath of the events in Canada during the war are the beliefs of the Bloc Quebecois party.
This is just another example that could be used to question hughes competence and leadership. For failing to provide any language help for a significant amount of the population, he is partly responsible for the state of chaos canada was facing increasingly throughout the war.
Valcartier camp: 97 years later
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| CFB Valcartier training procedure |
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| CFB Valcartier 2011 |
Valcartier camp was originally built in a matter of weeks under the supervision of Sam Hughes to train the thousands of new canadian recruits that were pouring in at the start of WW1.
Now it remains an essential military base for Quebec and Canada both for it's present actions and it's historical significance throughout the 19th century.
http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/land-terre/environment-environnement/programs-programmes/LFQA-SQFT/valcartier-eng.asp
This is an article on the canadian forces website about a recent environmental problem discovered at Valcartier that originated from activity on the site in the past.
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=76480
This is a Video of Sam Hughes and the australian premier in England.
This is a Video of Sam Hughes and the australian premier in England.
The origin of a deadly personality
Sam Hughes arrogant, egotistical personality, lack of empathy, a need to disobey and old fashioned, hardened and stubborn ways of thinking dragged him to make serious mistakes in planning and decision making, also scuffing his image with many controversies, some of witch cost thousands of canadian lives. But what could have caused such traits in him?
Some examples of Hughes many disobedience's and mistakes have been the Ross Rifle controversy that cost thousands of lives in the battles of Ypres, the Shell Committee witch produced poor quality ammunition and incredibly unsafe factories, the usage of his newspaper the Victoria Weber as a propaganda source depicting his views, his strong support of civilian soldiers rather than professional ones, his strong faith in canadian made equipment in general that was very often poorly made and caused thousands of soldiers to suffer in the trenches and on the Salisbury Plain in England, and his formation of the sub militia council overseas to counteract the Prime Ministers attempts to limit Hughes power.
His personality could have originated from a number of sources.
Growing up in a family of seven daughters and three other brothers, his need to disobey may have originated from the possibility that he had a difficult time getting attention from his parents and therefore disobeyed the rules in an attempt to have his parents focus on him more, even if they focused anger. Also, his lack of empathy may have come from his need to compete with his siblings for practically everything and therefore needed to not have empathy for his siblings to overcome them and earn what he desired. A side effect of his lack of empathy could have been his likeness of hunting and fishing.
Finally, his stubborn, hardened and old fashioned personality might have come from his various services in the armed forces at very young and susceptible ages in the 1800s when modernized warfare was not implemented yet. Seeing the true extent of armed conflict firsthand could have toughened him and only amplified the negative aspects of his personality, also cementing his views about war and making him very hard to adapt to modern warfare.
Although his personality did do much damage to his life, the positive aspects of it were his incessant passion for everything he started and a need to persevere and conquer any barrier. If these traits had been focused on then he would have been an incredible leader and politician. Unfortunately, psychology in the 1920's was considered largely hokum.
Some examples of Hughes many disobedience's and mistakes have been the Ross Rifle controversy that cost thousands of lives in the battles of Ypres, the Shell Committee witch produced poor quality ammunition and incredibly unsafe factories, the usage of his newspaper the Victoria Weber as a propaganda source depicting his views, his strong support of civilian soldiers rather than professional ones, his strong faith in canadian made equipment in general that was very often poorly made and caused thousands of soldiers to suffer in the trenches and on the Salisbury Plain in England, and his formation of the sub militia council overseas to counteract the Prime Ministers attempts to limit Hughes power.
His personality could have originated from a number of sources.
Growing up in a family of seven daughters and three other brothers, his need to disobey may have originated from the possibility that he had a difficult time getting attention from his parents and therefore disobeyed the rules in an attempt to have his parents focus on him more, even if they focused anger. Also, his lack of empathy may have come from his need to compete with his siblings for practically everything and therefore needed to not have empathy for his siblings to overcome them and earn what he desired. A side effect of his lack of empathy could have been his likeness of hunting and fishing.
Finally, his stubborn, hardened and old fashioned personality might have come from his various services in the armed forces at very young and susceptible ages in the 1800s when modernized warfare was not implemented yet. Seeing the true extent of armed conflict firsthand could have toughened him and only amplified the negative aspects of his personality, also cementing his views about war and making him very hard to adapt to modern warfare.
Although his personality did do much damage to his life, the positive aspects of it were his incessant passion for everything he started and a need to persevere and conquer any barrier. If these traits had been focused on then he would have been an incredible leader and politician. Unfortunately, psychology in the 1920's was considered largely hokum.
Hughes and the Prime Minister
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| Prime Minister Robert Borden |
Canada and had close relations to Sam Hughes. After Borden fell from power, Hughes offered him a seat in the house of commons, possibly as a gamble to have close and good relations to the Prime Minister should Borden ever rise to power again, and soon he rose back to being at the Prime Ministers desk with Hughes a close colleague.
After appointing Hughes as the new minister of militia, WW1 started and Borden quickly viewed Hughes as more of a liability than an asset from his poor decision making and bad planning leading to controversies such as the Ross Rifle and the Shell Committee that cost thousands of lives, and started to restrict his power. Their relationship began to degrade and soon Hughes saw borden as an enemy when Borden ordered him to resign from being the minister of militia after Hughes, against orders, set up a sub militia council in europe to regain the control over the militia witch Borden had taken.
Valcartier camp
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Set up in a matter of weeks, the soldiers completed only three weeks of training in the camp before they were shipped off to England. Hughes kept the training so short for two main reasons; he knew the camp would not survive the harsh winter witch was shortly to come and also because he strongly supported the idea of having civilian soldiers rather than professional ones.
Once the first battalion was finished training they were ready to ship out but not before Hughes gave a lengthy pep talk on horseback. Soon, the decision to ship the soldiers out became a mistake as they stayed on the Salisbury Plain in England with the wettest winter they had ever seen creating an incredibly muddy and cold landscape. Spending their nights and days soaking wet, cold, and starving with very little blankets, their poorly constructed canadian made boots let water pour in through holes. It could have been somewhat helpful to prepare them for the even worse conditions of trench warfare.
Ross Rifle VS Lee Enfield rifle
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| Ross Rifle |
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| Lee Enfield rifle |
Because of his strong belief that all weaponry and equipment should be locally made, Sam Hughes issued all canadian soldiers going overseas Ross Rifles, witch were excellent sharpshooting weapons but preformed incredibly poorly in the new conditions of trench warfare by constantly jamming from the sea of mud the troops trekked through on a daily basis. To survive, soldiers needed to, against regulations, take more rugged, better constructed Lee Enfield rifles off the bodies of their british allies.
In the time of the battle of the Somme, the new commander in chief of the british Expeditionary Force Douglas Haig ordered many new british lee enfield rifles to replace the Ross rifles. Nevertheless, Hughes still believed the Ross rifle had no flaws and it took a large intervention to eventually make him realize the truth. If hughes arrogance had not blinded him from the truth than thousands of canadian lives would have been saved.
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