Fighting from Home: The Second World War in Verdun, Quebec.

Terry A. Crowley is a professor of history at the University of Guelph,
and the author of Agnes Macphail and the Politics of Equality.

The name Verdun evokes the disastrous battle of the First World War in France, but Verdun in this history serves as the site for situating the milder conflict played out in Quebec during the succeeding global conflict. Verdun was once a city adjoining Montreal, but today is so thoroughly incorporated into the metropolitan whole as to be virtually indistinguishable. Historically a borough with a higher anglophone than francophone population, Verdun also housed a large working-class population in low-rise tenements characteristic of Montreal Island.

University of Ottawa historian Serge Marc Durflinger’s study of Verdun during the years of  the Second World War is the first major intimate examination of the home front during the conflict. As such it exemplifies the trend during the last several decades to turn the old military history of generals and battles into a more comprehensive history of war and society. Durflinger’s analysis meticulously dissects the nature of the population and the character of its response to pressures to enlist and support the overseas efforts to defeat the Axis powers. Unusual for the number of residents with British and Irish backgrounds, Verdun was also home to one of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s earliest and youngest flying aces: George Frederick Beurling. The 20-year-old served as an icon for the war effort, though opportunities were restricted for French Canadians, even in Montreal. French Canadians wanting to serve were channelled into four infantry and one armoured divisions of the army since the navy was largely English-speaking and the RCAF was necessarily particular in its high unilingual standards.

Conscription, conflict, and clashes between French- and English-speaking Canadians immediately come to mind when we think about Quebec and the world wars of the 20th century, but not in Verdun. The local nationalist Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste was naturally tepid when its central organization preferred neutrality in the conflict, but its members supported francophone military enlistments. Violence did not occur locally until public fights between sailors and disaffected youths erupted in 1944. The latter are now the forgotten zoot suiters, or zooters, though they provided an element in youth rebellion between the flappers of the 1920s and the jive enthusiasts of the 1940s.

Durflinger’s excellent account does not shy away from erudite explanations of conflict, including protests over housing shortages, but most of his presentation concerns the ways in which the routines of life were altered by the war: efforts by city hall to help through such ventures as the Mayor’s Cigarette Fund; the activities of innumerable social and religious groups, including raising money for the war effort, where women predominated; rationing and housing problems; politics in the borough; and the slightly rocky road to reconstruction after 1945.

Through its balance, informed analysis, and clear exposition, Durflinger’s Fighting From Home will serve as a model for a series of historical studies examining the history of ordinary Canadians across the country during both global conflicts of the 20th century. Wars cannot be understood without taking into account the societies at their base.