Army Reserve

Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson's Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 was first published by the Department of National Defence in 1962 as the official history of the Canadian Army’s involvement in the First World War. Immediately after the war ended Colonel A. Fortescue Duguid made a first attempt to write an official history of the war, but the ill-fated project produced only the first of an anticipated eight volumes. Decades later, G.W.L. Nicholson - already the author of an official history of the Second World War - was commissioned to write a new official history of the First. Illustrated with numerous photographs and full-colour maps, Nicholson’s text offers an authoritative account of the war effort, while also discussing politics on the home front, including debates around conscription in 1917. With a new critical introduction by Mark Osborne Humphries that traces the development of Nicholson’s text and analyzes its legacy, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 is an essential resource for both professional historians and military history enthusiasts.

In September 1939, Canada’s tiny army began its remarkable expansion into a wartime force of almost half a million soldiers. Building the Army’s Backbone tells the story of how senior leadership created a corps of non-commissioned officers (NCOs) that helped the burgeoning force train, fight, and win. This innovative book uncovers the army’s two-track NCO production system: locally organized training programs were run by units and formations, while centralized training and talent-distribution programs were overseen by the army. Ultimately, this two-pronged system produced a corps of NCOs that collectively possessed the necessary skills in leadership, tactics, and instruction to help the army succeed in battle.

Bury's definitive account of the origins, evolution and impact of controversial British defence policy, the Future Reserves 2020 (FR20), one of the most significant organisational transformations of the army since the abolition of conscription.