The political and administrative Control of the Canadian military forces by the Government of Canada during the First World War, 1914–19, presented several novel problems to the Canadian system of cabinet government. A detailed examination of the relations between the Government of the Dominion (a clean word in 1916), as represented by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, and the military organization overseas, as represented by its chief staff officers, is useful to students of both cabinet government and public administration. This paper seeks to throw light on two facets of these political-military relations: first, the problem of making cabinet control effective over an army physically separated from Canada by geographical distance and relatively primitive communications; second, that of the extent to which effective political control over an army establishment beyond her borders enhanced the de facto meaning of dominion status.
In 1919 dominion status did not mean quite what it had come to mean in 1931. On the whole the control over high matters of war and peace lay beyond the powers of the Government of Canada. The British North America Act, 1867, had not foreseen the possibility that the advisors of the Governor General should assume control over the conduct of a great war. Even if it had been appropriate for Sir Robert Borden or his colleagues to direct policy in war, Parliament appeared to lack the power to legislate beyond the shores of Canada. When, after two years of war, Canada had placed a substantial army overseas, it became necessary to alter constitutional practice to fit the new facts produced by the war. This effort was considerably to modify the meaning of dominion status.