Tim Cook is the Great War historian at the Canadian War Museum, as well as an adjunct professor at Carleton University. His books have won numerous awards, including the 2009 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction for Shock Troops. He lives in Ottawa with his family. |
WARLORDS
BORDEN MACKENZIE KING AND CANADA'S WORLD WARS
Two portraits flank the doors leading into Canada's House of Commons: Sir Robert Borden to the left and W.L.M. King to the right. While each man appears flatteringly stern, wise, and charismatic, it is the portrait plaques that are of particular interest. Borden's caption reads: "World War I War Leader, 1914–1918," while King's caption is similar: "World War II War Leader, 1939–1945." No other dates are given.
Perhaps that definition makes sense for Borden, who did little of note before the war; it does not ring true for King, Canada's longest serving prime minister. Yet in both cases world wars shaped their careers and legacies. They ushered in massive government changes: income tax, health care, and conscription; changes to society through industrialization, enfranchisement, and patriotic unpaid labour; and they raised enormous armed forces from a civilian base.
Warlords is a fast-paced narrative that humanizes the war effort through the eyes of the prime ministers. Set against how our senior politicians governed themselves and the nation during these difficult times, it offers an invaluable perspective of war and war leaders.
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he man who led Canada during the Great War came from
the village of Grand Pré, Kings County, Nova Scotia. Born
on June 26, 1854, into a loving if not wealthy family, Robert
Laird Borden was anchored to his community. After he left to find
success, he often looked back on Grand Pré with affection: “In all
my journeyings throughout Canada and elsewhere in the world,
I have yet to see any spot more beautiful than that which is still
enshrined in my earliest memories.”1
Such thoughts may not have preoccupied the younger Borden.
Robert was an intense and serious youth, rarely known to joke
or play games. While he helped his father, Andrew, work the
farm, neither were men of the soil, and Robert admitted that he
never mastered “the mysteries of building a load of hay,” and
found hoeing vegetables “extremely disagreeable” and the sawing
of cordwood for winter fires “unpleasurable.”2 He resented the
work, partly because it took him away from his studies.
Robert’s mother, Eunice, was an avid reader, and there were
rousing discussions of literature and politics in the house. Such
talk stimulated the boy, and his parents often found him next
to the fireplace reading late into the night, embers smudging
his books and clothes. The emerging scholar was so dedicated
to his studies that he drew up charts to schedule his day more
effectively, which elicited some jibes from his normally compassionate
mother. His younger brother, not nearly as gentle, teased
him about the schedules that allotted time to reading, study, and
even bathroom breaks. It is not surprising that Robert did well in
school. He taught himself Latin and Greek, but was drawn to the
law, which was a good fit considering his nature. The Bordens,
however, could not afford to send him off to university, and he
seemed destined to be a small-town teacher, a profession he had
already entered at the tender age of fourteen.3
Although he liked the title “The Professor,” bestowed on him
by students in one of the single-room schools where he taught,
Robert understood that teaching in rural Nova Scotia would
leave him with few opportunities for advancement, either professionally
or socially.4 So in 1874 he began four years of...
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Tim Cook is the Great War historian at the Canadian War Museum, as well as an adjunct professor at Carleton University. His books have won numerous awards, including the 2009 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction for Shock Troops. He lives in Ottawa with his family.
