Defence of the Undefended Border: Planning for War in North America, 1867-1939

315 Pages·1978·19.415 MB·English

by  Richard Arthur Preston

The Defence of
the Undefended Border
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The Defence of
the Undefended Border
Planning for War
in North America
1867-1939
Richard A. Preston
MCGILL–QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY PRESS
MONTREAL AND LONDON 1977
© McGill-Queen's University Press
International Standard Book Number 0-7735-0291-2
Legal Deposit fourth quarter 1977
Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec
Design by Hjordis Petersen Wills
Printed in Canada by
John Deyell Company
This book has been published with the help
of a grant from the Social Science Federa-
tion of Canada using funds provided by the
Canada Council
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS vii
PREFACE ix
Introduction
The Military Factor in Canadian-
1
American Relations
1
Anglo-American Confrontation
(1775-1870) 9
2
"Left without Home Protection"
(1870-1878) 45
3
Imperial Defence (1878-1885) 69
4
North American Issues (1885-1894) 95
5
Venezuela and After (1895-1900) 125
6
Canada's Dilemma (1900-1908) 149
7
Lingering Confrontation (1908-1917) 181
8
From War Planning to Alliance
(post-1919) 213
NOTES 235
NOTE ON SOURCES 279
INDEX 285
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ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Lt.-Col. W. H. D. Jervois' map of de-
fences for Hamilton, January 1865 (Devon
County Record Office) 33
2. Lt.-Col. W. H. D. Jervois' map of de-
fences for Toronto, January 1865 (Devon
County Record Office) 34
3. "The Future Great Republic," New
York World, Dec. 1, 1888 (Public Ar-
chives of Canada) 106
4. "The Annexation of Canada—the
Prince of Wales Hoisting the American
Flag," Once a Week, March 16, 1889
(Public Archives of Canada) 107
5. "Alleged Plan for the Invasion of
Canada," 1916 (United States National
Archives) 194
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PREFACE
The late Robin Strachan, whose premature
death was a tragic loss for scholarly publishing in
Canada, suggested that I should write a book on
the military factor in Canadian-American rela-
tions. The validity of the mythology of the well-
publicized "longest undefended border in the
world'' had, of course, already been thoroughly
examined by Colonel Stacey, who had also writ-
ten the classic study of the British army in
Canada down to the end of the Confederation
period. Stacey had demonstrated the relation of
defence problems to the development of respon-
sible government in Canada and had shown that,
despite the agreement on naval limitation on the
Great Lakes, fortification building had continued
on both sides of the line. Defence against the
United States figured largely in his story. Later
books by J. M. Hitsman, Kenneth Bourne, and
Robin Winks have given more details of British
defence planning which continued vigorously
until 1870 and even after. However, in course of
preparation of my Canada and 'Imperial De-
fense9 it had become clear to me that there still
remained grave deficiencies in our knowledge of
the history of Canadian military policy and of the
militia after Confederation because other histo-
rians of the later period had been content to re-