Hell's Corner: An Illustrated History of Canada's Great War, 1914–1918

Martin F. Auger is a historian at the Canadian War Museum and the author
of Prisoners of the Home Front: German POWs and “Enemy Aliens” in
Southern Quebec, 1940–46.

Between 1914 and 1919, Canada—with a population of only eight
million—enlisted more than 600,000 individuals in its armed services.
Two-thirds of those who enlisted became part of the Canadian
Expeditionary Force (CEF) that was sent overseas. The CEF fought in some
of the most brutal battles of the Western Front at a cost of more than
60,000 dead and 173,000 wounded. At home, Canadians supported the war
effort in a variety of ways.

Hell’s Corner, by one of Canada’s most prominent military
historians, is a reassessment of the war’s impact on Canadians both at
home and abroad. Using a wealth of first-hand accounts, Granatstein
demonstrates vividly how Canadian soldiers faced the horrors of war and
the onslaught of new weapons technology (quick-fire artillery, machine
guns, poison gas). The accounts of life in the trenches at the Western
Front and of the battles fought there (Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele, in
particular) are horrible and compelling. Back in Canada, the war effort
is in full operation. Granatstein’s look at how the war affected
Canadians at home covers the important role of women in the labour
force, patriotic drives, politics, the conscription crisis, and the
defence of Canada.

The book is superbly illustrated, with more than 100 reproductions of
photographs, posters, paintings, sketches, and maps. Many of them have
never before been published or made public; most of them were selected
from Canadian War Museum collections. Hell’s Corner is by far the best
illustrated history of Canada and the Great War. It is definitely a
must-have for any person interested in Canadian history.