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THE ATTITUDE OF QUEBEC ON THE PROBLEM OF CANADA’S ENTRY INTO THE FIRST WORLD WAR // Tomsk State Pedagogical University Bulletin. 2018. Issue 5 (194). P. 81-86

Within the new direction of social history, the subject field of which is the study of the social processes that accompanied the global conflicts of the 20th century, forms an objective idea about the attitude of the French-Canadian population on the problem of Canada‘s participation in the collective defense of the British Empire during the First World War. The paper examines the views of various groups of French-Canadian society (provincial government of Quebec, Roman Catholic Church’s representatives, French Canadian nationalists, provincial press of different social and political orientation) on the question of sending French-Canadian battalions to Europe. The chronology of the described events includes the first five months of the First World War (August – December 1914). As a result of the research, it estimates the level of imperial loyalty of the population of Quebec on the question of Canada‘s participation in the imperial wars. It studies the objective and subjective factors of the passivity of voluntary recruitment in Quebec (lack of military experience of the French-Canadian population, insufficient number of provincial police forces, traditionalism of the the rural population, anti-militarism propaganda of French-Canadian pacifists and nationalists, imperial policy of Department of Militia in Federal Government). It determines the role of the social movement for the creation of separate French-Canadian battalions in the process of activating recruitment and sending volunteers to the front.

Keywords: First World War, Canada, Quebec, French Canada, volunteers