Aftermath: Canada, Great Britain and Developments in International Affairs, 1913–14

Abstract

Germany assumed rather quickly that the failed Churchill-Borden programme to deliver three Dreadnoughts at a cost of CAD$35 million was a definite position that the Canadian Government could not reverse. Both the German chargé d’affaires and the naval attaché in London reported back to Germany that Canada was left with a continuing debate about its naval future.¹ Great Britain to the satisfaction of Germany was not going to get the ‘windfall’ of Dreadnoughts that Churchill and Borden had worked hard to achieve. It was also possible for German reports to suggest that Canada had not responded to the warmongering of Winston Churchill or the heralded threats to world peace that Churchill had promoted.² Not all Canadian newspapers were taken in by Churchill’s jingoism or the ‘handmaiden’ role that Borden appeared to have put himself in. Also the future Canadian Prime Minister and Liberal, William Lyon Mackenzie King, was publicly critical of the Borden’s Government naval strategy and wondered out loud whether or not an emergency had actually existed.³