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Welcome to the CEF Study Group!
We are a group of enthusiasts
with an interest in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) and their role in the First
World War. The interests here are broad: Family History/Genealogy, Military
History, Weapons/Equipment, Tactics, Militaria Collecting etc.
If you are new to this and are
curious as to where to begin to research a Family Member, you may want to try
our page designed with the newcomer in
mind!
If you have already started
your research, or want to learn more about what tools are available to do your
research, or what other researchers are doing, you may also wish to check
out our CEF Study Group Forum:
There
is no cost to register and as soon as you complete that simple step, feel free to post a question
on the Forum where you will find some of the most knowledgeable and friendliest
people on the Internet. If you are not yet ready to register, please just
"browse the site" and see what we are doing.
If
you are just starting to research the Canadian Expeditionary Force, or trying to
find out where your grand relative fits in the "overall picture" of
Canada's military in the Great War, then you can visit our Matrix project:
Once inside the Matrix you will find
information on the structure of the CEF, details that are being assembled by
members on individual units; links to and transcriptions of war diaries; and a
host of utilities (definitions, reference lists, abbreviations, badges,
troopships, map links, summary tables and much more).
Once registered, you will also have access to other CEFSG
data bases, including a near complete collection of Nominal Rolls and other CEF
digitized information from other members.
Please do not hesitate to
make suggestions and submit your own
research that you would like to see posted here on this site. This is very much
a group effort and the more contributing members we have, the greater this site
will be!
Thank you for stopping
by,
Neil
Burns, Administrator
Neil_Burns@msn.com
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News at the CEFSG
The CEF Study Group is pleased to be able to announce the release of the new book on Canadian
Generals from the Great War.
Edited by Major Andrew B. Godefroy, PhD this 248 page book from the Canadian Defence Academy Press is being made available free of charge in Adobe
PDF format. Hard copies can be obtained shortly with details being provided on this website. In addition, the free Adobe pdf file will be available from a number of websites of members of the CEF Study Group very shortly.
From popular literature to reprinted memoirs and new media, over the last decade military historians have taken a renewed interest in Canada’s role in the First World War. In particular, their attention has focused greatly on the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) and its decisively lethal Canadian Corps, an ably-led and well-supported combat formation that was often unmatched for success on the western front. As the hammer of the British Army, the Canadian Corps soon earned the title “shock troops” and was often referred to as the “tip of the spear” in the Entente drive towards final victory on the western front. By the end of the war, over a half million men and women had served in the CEF and the Canadian Corps. Sadly, 64,944 of them never returned home.
Book Abstract
Examinations of military organizations cannot be considered complete without some consideration for those who lead, shape, and guide them through both war and peace. Yet, despite the renewed attention on the Canadian Corps itself, the study of those who commanded this juggernaut at the highest levels remains much less well defined than the mass of men and women who filled its ranks. This is somewhat odd given that there exist many detailed political, social, operational, and tactical studies on theca, and begs one to ask how historians have assessed the movements and actions of the body of the Canadian Corps without developed understanding of what was going on in the mind of this titan as it did so.
Great War Commands: Historical Perspectives on Canadian Army Leadership,
1914-1918, brings together Canada’s leading military historians of the First World War to conduct the first ever in-depth study of the senior leadership of the CEF. Although by no means exhaustive, this book presents major contribution to broadening the current understanding of how theca was led and why it performed as it did both at home and on the battlefields of the western front.
You can click here to see the Book
Index prior to the availability of the PDF file. |