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| Sir Samuel Hughes |
In 1885 Hughes gave up teaching and purchased the Victoria Warder newspaper, witch he would soon use for mass propaganda of whatever he chose, specifically to promote imperial centralization and anticathlocisim. This was later sold to pay off his debts. 1891 would be the year his political career would begin when he challenged Augustus Barron for a seat in the house of commons. He won the seat and would hold it until the end of his political career in 1921.
Soon Hughes was off to fight in the South African war and became a recognized commander of irregular forces lead by british lieutenant-general sir charles warren in 1900. Through his arrogance and wrecklace behaviour though Huhges was discharged from the war, with orders to return to Canada, for military indiscipline by refusing to carry out critical orders from Warren and through criticizing the competence of the senior british command.
Infuriated, he returned to a life of politics and soon began a long campaign for not one but two victoria crosses for his "supposed" heroic actions in the war. Not only would he never receive even one, but it almost damaged his career when a general eventually advised prime minister Robert Borden that Hughes was a liability and should be disposed of. Borden did not listen to the advice but discovered the truth on his own in the years to come.
When Borden suffered personal defeat in 1904 Hughes offered him a seat in the house of commons. This was a favour Borden would never forget. In 1911 Borden returned to power and shortly after this Hughes wrote to Borden seeking appointment as the minister of militia. Borden dismissed the letter at first but then reconsidered it and appointed Hughes.
Once in power, Hughes strongly opposed Borden's attempts to reform inside civil service and resisted having the ministry of finance control the departments spending. His interest in the militia only grew and worked tirelessly to build it in size and strength, also improving the equipment and weaponry that were all made in canada. His arrogance for using only canadian made equipment and weaponry, in particular the ross rifle, and also his strong support of civilian soldiers rather than professional ones would lead to the downfall of his career.
At the beginning of the Great War, he hastily established the massive Valcartier camp in ontario in a matter of weeks to train the thousands of new recruits that were coming in. In three weeks the troops were ready to be shipped off to england but not without Hughes giving a very lengthy speech on horseback first. After the first battalion was created, Hughes created two more but then the numbers of volunteers failed to provide any usable amount of soldiers as the war progressed. He also founded the Shell Committee in 1914 to manufacture the incredibly large amount of ammunition needed.
The first battle of Ypres was one of the first large scale examples of trench warfare and Hughes had made two key errors that would cost thousands of canadians their lives. The first was the refusal to acknowledge that the Ross Rifle was inadequate and jammed frequently in trench warfare from the mud and the second was the use of only canadian equipment, witch was very poorly manufactured with many serious problems. These were both fatal errors when the canadian troops were practically slaughtered in all three battles of Ypres. Hughes still insisting on the use of the Ross Rifle, let only more lives be lost but eventually soldiers were issued Lee Enfield rifles against Hughes desires.
Later in WW1, Hughes style of unorganized leadership was not favoured by Borden and was more of a problem than an asset. Hughes shell committee was creating poorly manufactured ammunition, sometimes painting over cracks in the shells, and was soon replaced by the Imperial Munitions board headed by Joseph Flavelle, a torontonian businessman and self made billionaire from the exportation of bacon.
As the war progressed the militia became unorganized and Hughes failed to straiten it up. Borden was rapidly losing faith in Hughes and was soon trying to restrict his power. Hughes counteracted by going against orders and creating a sub-militia council overseas under his direct control, witch Borden found out about in the newspaper the next day. After this Borden demanded Hughes's resignation and Hughes finally resigned as the minister of militia on November 11, 1916. His political career continued to decline afterward until his death.
Sam Hughes died from pernicious anaemia in lindsay ontario on august 24th, 1921 with a legacy of controversies behind him.
Although Hughes legacy is mostly a series of bad or controversial decisions his impact is still visible today for assisting in the development of Canada's industrial revolution with the creation of the Shell Committee, sending the country into the 20th century, and creating the incredibly large Valcartier camp witch is now one of Canada's largest military bases in southern Quebec. His strong faith in canada is one we should all look up to.
