Camp Hughes
Backgrounder
Camp Hughes is situated south of the Trans-Canada Highway, 132 kilometres west of Winnipeg, Manitoba, near Provincial Road (PR) 351.
This former military training camp is the most intact First World War battlefield terrain, created for training purposes, remaining in Canada and one of a dwindling number worldwide. It retains – in whole or in part – many key features including the training trenches (approximately ten kilometres of the main battalion trench system), rifle range, grenade training grounds, artillery observation posts, building foundations, and a camp cemetery. The trenches and rifle range, in particular, speak to Canada’s efforts to provide training tailored to the specific tactics and conditions of the First World War. Camp Hughes provides a powerful and evocative illustration of Canada's participation, contribution and sacrifices during the First World War.
When Canada went to war in 1914, it had a regular army of only 3,000, though a militia of some 60,000 had trained in 1913. With the declaration of war, thousands of Canadians flocked to enlist. By the end of 1914 the target strength for the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) was 50,000; by the summer of 1915 it was 150,000; and on 1 January 1916, Prime Minister Borden promised 500,000 Canadian soldiers.
Camp Hughes was established as a militia training camp in 1909. With the outbreak of war and the formation of the CEF, the camp was quickly expanded to train large numbers of new recruits. It reached its maximum size and capacity in 1916 when 27,754 troops were trained at the camp. To accommodate the troops, permanent and semi-permanent military buildings were constructed, including a headquarters building, Commandant’s Hut, kitchens, canteens, medical stores building, operating theatre, veterinary horse hospital, paymaster’s and post offices, barbershops, shooting galleries, three moving picture theatres, a photographer and newspaper stands. There were a number of restaurants, in one or two of which “the owners were detected selling liquor.”
During the war more than 38,000 troops of the CEF trained at Camp Hughes. By 1916, it had the largest population of any “city” in the province, outside Winnipeg. For the remainder of the war, perhaps due to a decline in recruitment, Camp Hughes was not used for training. The Canadian military continued to train soldiers at the camp after the war until 1934, when troops were moved to nearby bases at Shilo and Winnipeg and the camp was dismantled.
The soldiers who passed through Camp Hughes “faced a war situation quite different from that foreseen by the generals on both sides in the pre-war years, and trained for in the militia camps.” The development of machine guns led to the belief that these weapons could ensure a quick and successful offensive, but in fact the opposite was true. Machine guns ensured that those on the defensive could mow down their attackers, and early offensives were quickly stalled.
The war of movement soon turned into a war of entrenchments, as each side tried to outflank the other.
Training in trench warfare and artillery would thus become a priority for those troops heading to the front. The new realities on the battlefield necessitated new tactics and weaponry as well as instructors who could provide the most up-to-the-minute training. The Camp Hughes trench system was developed to teach trainee soldiers the lessons of trench warfare being learned on the battlefields of Europe.
The physical traces of Camp Hughes speak to Canada’s role in the First World War and to its undertaking to train men to fight in a manner and in conditions that were specific to that conflict. They recall the thousands of soldiers who spent twelve weeks training in its trenches and on the rifle range; strolling in their off hours along the Midway; or swimming in the camp pool, the “largest in the west”. Camp Hughes retains many of its original landscape features and appears to be the most intact and unaltered First World War battlefield terrain created for training purposes and remaining in Canada. It is a rare and highly evocative link to a defining event in Canadian history, the First World War.
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