1917

Drawing on contemporaneous accounts of the First World War from Canada and the United States, freelance journalist Melina Druga offers readers an insightful exploration of early-20th-century attitudes toward the conflict, in A Tale of Two Nations: Canada, U.S. and WWI.

Following its victories at Ypres and Courcellette, the Canadian Expeditionary Force secured yet another hard-won victory, this time at Vimy Ridge — an escarpment in northern France that both French and British troops had previously failed to hold. This historic win would later be viewed as Canada’s coming-of-age, but were the news reporters back home aware that a watershed moment had transpired across the Atlantic?

After years of speculation in the United States, President Woodrow Wilson finally declared war on Germany, plunging America into the international conflict. The prediction that U.S. involvement would provoke a German surrender proved false. A wave of patriotic fervor washed over the country — even as domestic unrest continued to stir among U.S. pacifists — in spite of the fact that the American military was ill-prepared. Thus did the United States finally enter the fray.

1917 is the fourth installment of the A Tale of Two Nations series.