Dunk's Leaf AU Chapter 2

With the establishment of the British North America Act on July 1st, 1867, the freshly minted Canadian Federal Parliament was handed the responsibility of defense from their colonial mother. The three provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Canada (Ontario and Quebec) had previously all held some modicum of responsibility for their own defense through their colonial administration however, all of these tasks now had to be compiled into an already rapidly expanding list of responsibilities. Defensive considerations were some of the major topics in the talks leading to Confederation especially considering the American Civil War raging over the border to the South and most importantly, the Fenian raids had been encroaching into Canada for some time.


[photo here]

Named for the Fenian Brotherhood, an Irish Republican organization which was originally based from within the United States, these raids were a series of armed conflicts between these Militants and various local Militias present in the colonies that would eventually make up Canada. The Fenian invasion of Campobello Island, New Brunswick in April 1866 would be a unique event as it caused enough of a panic that the commanding British officer in Halifax dispatched a force of over 700 British soldiers by sea to face the raiders, eventually causing them to flee. While indeed helpful, this situation were the exception rather than the rule and Canadians were usually left to mainly fend for themselves against the raiders. Around this same time period ironically, the current British government had become rather incredulous of the value of assigning any major naval force to North American stations. While not explicitly advocating for full abdication of the North American stations, Britain wished for Canada to attempt to assist them more in various locations, mainly in reinforcing the Great Lakes and their surrounding areas with additional fortifications and troop emplacements. Westminster had put forward legislation in 1865 which allowed colonies the ability to create their own naval organizations alongside the authority to man “a vessel or vessels of war” alongside raising/maintaining a number of seamen and volunteers at the expense of the colony itself. This agreement ended with a stipulation stating that any of these volunteers had “entered on the terms of being bound to general service in the Royal Navy in an emergency.”

Some cities had operated naval militias under a separate act put into place in 1862, mainly consisting of several sixty strong companies based at Kingston, Hamilton, Garden Island, Oakville, Toronto, Port Stanley and Dunville. These had originally been formed to help ward off potential incursions across the border during the American Civil War but largely due to inadequate supplies of clothing and equipment, these forces had done little besides occasional spring and summer training exercises. Nova Scotia would also raise ten various companies of Naval Militias resulting in a 500-man strong force. These units were finally put to use at the Battle of Fort Erie in June of 1866 when the Dunville Company pursued fleeing Fenian forces across the Niagara River with the steam tug W.T. Robb while the Toronto Company would rent the steam vessels Magnet and Rescue for potential future action. While these rudimentary “naval” units were successful in their assigned roles, problems of almost non-existent training and lackluster overall ship specification showed a clear need for future investments.


[photo here]

Even regarding the fact these raids eventually failed in their original task of pressuring Britain to remove itself from Ireland, it solidified one of the major advantages of Confederation as a whole. Pooled defensive resources against any kind of internal or external threat would make any attacks on a singular territory much less likely to succeed or be considered entirely. While the majority of battles were fought on land by the Militias, the Naval Companies began to falter slightly especially once the United States had began interfering with Fenian operations across the border itself. As with many issues upon the founding of Canada, one of these was the permanent operation of Great Lakes gunboats and the naval militias that would crew them. The two gunboats Rescue and Michigan eventually were fully purchased by the Canadian government which made them the first naval vessels operated by the Canadian government. The British would later directly pay for the armaments, wages and crews of these vessels until 1868 when the British colonial secretary believed the major Fenian incursion had ended and Canada should take over upkeep for these ships. London would later echo this sentiment the very next year when they stated that Canada needed to rapidly decide the composition of its military strength, especially around the Great Lakes. London asserted that this must be done at the expense of the Dominion however, Ottawa refused and shot back that their admittance into the British Empire had put them under the protection of Britain. The pair of ships would be laid up and the Militias, now void of purpose, equipment or guidance, scattered to the wind or were folded into the newly forming land-based militias.

The foundation of upon which these Militias were built was rather uncreatively named the Militia Bill. This bill was put into order by the Minister of Militia and Defense George-Étienne Cartier in 1868 and as such provided Canada with a 40,000-man active militia and the provision to call up a reserve militia consisting of every able-bodied man in the age bracket of sixteen to sixty. This was hoped to provide a suitable force for internal matters while also allowing for a defensive force to be brought up in the event of a land war being declared. Expectedly, the need or even drive to create some naval organization was not present within the Canadian Government of the period. To cap the entire situation, the Militia that was propped up by the Government was reportedly poorly funded, this leading to early talks about curtailing numbers to a point where equipment could be more readily provided or to raise funding. The establishment of two vital ministries, namely Militia and Defense alongside the Marine and Fisheries clearly established the fact that the government was content to lay the responsibility of naval defense at the feet of the Royal Navy. With the original three “Canadian” founding provinces located on the North Atlantic coast and relatively close to British home stationed sea assets, no major issues was generated in their continued protection. In fact, the Eastern provinces were viewed as some of the most secure to attack from the sea of any colony under British rule, even with the recent Fenian raid in memory. As a result, Canadian defensive budgets were excessively low and allocated government funds were largely funneled into the building of the nation as a whole and the potential for lucrative transcontinental developments with other nations.

The Fenian raids would continue sporadically until 1871 but in a somewhat strange turn of events, it did not cause military spending to increase or raise popular interest in the potential for a major military force. Setting the precedent for the centuries to come, Canadians as a whole were not particularly interested in the establishment of any professional armed force, let alone a large standing army. Mainly reinforced by the fact that defensive natured responsibilities and military funding as a whole were rather vaguely placed under both British and Canadians governments, especially with Britain retaining sole control of practically all foreign policy. This early arrangement brought the Canadian government to the conclusion that British land and naval forces could be called upon during times of need, only requiring the Canadians to have a citizen militia in place to hold the line against localized attacks of a foreign power or possible civil unrest.


[Photo here]

As events would soon show however, this reliance on British naval power could have potentially dire implications whenever the interests of Britain would clash with that of her newest Dominion.