HONORES AD MEMORIAM (Museums & Art Galleries in Ottawa)

Member Name: michaelhudson

Product:	Museums & Art Galleries in Ottawa
Date:	17/12/02 (301 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Moving, Well presented

Disadvantages: A little cramped

First established in 1880, the Canadian War Museum has stood at 330 Sussex Drive, between the Royal Mint and The National Gallery, since 1967. The three-storey castle-like building, which previously housed the Public Archives, commemorates Canadian involvement in conflicts ranging from the Anglo-French colonial battles and the War of 1812 through to the First and Second World Wars and recent peacekeeping operations.

THE MUSEUM

The cramped entrance is centred round a small ticket desk to the right of a central staircase. Pay here, collect a floor plan, and turn left for the Orientation Gallery, a long, plain space given over to pictures and text outlining the aims of the museum and Canada’s long participation in international conflicts.

This sobering first room opens into a much larger space devoted to the history of New France. A Viking sword hangs at the entrance, fronting displays relating to the collision of cultures between the indigenous First Peoples and the invading Europeans. A written explanation of the Iroquois Wars, which lasted from 1609-1701, hangs alongside an original Royal Court of Arms of France, sculpted in white pine and taken to England from the Porte Saint-Louis in Quebec City when the fortress fell in 1759. Eighteenth century British muskets are displayed alongside French armour and Native tomahawks. Artefacts from Louisbourg, an important base for French fishery on Cape Breton Island that was besieged and captured by the British, include an eighteenth century hand grenade found on a beach in 1973. For an overseas visitor many of the names and places will mean little, but all are presented with helpful text and illuminating pictures.

The Seven Years’ War of 1756 –1763 was undoubtedly one of the defining moments in North American history. Great prominence is given to its most famous protagonist, Wolfe, with plaster bust towering above a handwritten note from the General to a fellow officer a
ccompanying a gift of a magnifying glass. Battle artefacts include a Scottish hilt sword and the Cross of Saint-Louis, a medal introduced by Louis XIV and awarded for distinguished service. Maps and text detailing the defining Battle of the Plains of Abraham are poignantly presented alongside the chair and chess set used by Wolfe as he waited to go into battle.

Following the fall of New France, American Independence brought more than 40,000 Loyalists into Canada as refugees and another looming threat to British imperialism. The ultimately indecisive War of 1812, fought between the numerically superior US Troops and the far more organised British and Canadians, is brought to life by impressive artefacts such as the uniform, complete with bullet hole under the lapel, worn by Sir Isaac Brock when killed leading a head-on charge at Queenston Heights, medallions awarded to loyal Iroquois chiefs by the British and a reconstructed gun deck from a British vessel that patrolled the Great Lakes. King’s and Regimental colours adorn the walls above muskets, cutlasses, mortars and uniforms belonging to Lieutenant-General Henry Shrapnel, who invented the shell of the same name, and the wounded Captain Francois Dezery, with two hundred year old bloodstains clearly visible on the torn left sleeve.
The decades that followed the 1814 ceasefire were years of building and fortification. Uniforms of the Canadian Militias are displayed beside text outlining threats posed by the rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada and the Fenian Raids instigated by Irish-Americans hoping to spark further hostilities with the U.S. Canada’s first forays into international wars are covered by campaign medals from the Crimean War and weapons used by the Canadian boatmen who ascended the Nile in an attempt to rescue General Gordon from Khartoum.

The New Dominion entered the twentieth century with 73,000 of its men fighting alongside the British against the Boers in South Afri
ca. Uniforms, medals and rifles are displayed next to a 12-pounder field gun, boxes of chocolates dated 1900 and decorated with a picture of Queen Victoria and a scarf crocheted by the Queen herself, one of only eight given to courageous front line troops.

Of the 115,000 Canadians killed in twentieth century wars only 89 occurred during this first full scale overseas conflict. The next experience, however, would be far more horrific.

On the 3rd of October 1914 32,000 members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force sailed for Britain, a figure which would swell to 80,000 by 1916 and ultimately to in excess of 620,000. By the end of the war, Canada had lost over 60,000 killed with a further 172,000 wounded. Losses in the last three months of the war alone totalled 45,000 killed or wounded. The country’s coming of age was sealed with blood and confirmed when it entered the League of Nations in its own right in 1919.

Entering through a full size trench, visitors are thrust into a musty, pitch-black world of smoke filled horizons and sound effects encompassing machine gun bursts, muffled shouts and falling shells opening to an overwhelming array of battlefield remains: gas masks, rifles, grenades, helmets and flare pistols stacked beside trench signs from the ‘Vimy-Lievin Line’ and wooden memorial crosses.

An 1800-pound aircraft bomb is dwarfed by a life size model of an aeroplane once flown by Captain William Avery, who was one of the Allies’ top ‘aces’ with 72 kills. A German naval mine stands out of the corner given over to the 3,000 Canadians who served in the Royal Navy.

And then a highly symbolic 77mm German gun, deliberately destroyed by its crew in the face of the Canadian advance, dominates the display on Vimy Ridge, one of the most important events in the shaping of modern Canada. The contorted, mashed-up muzzle mirrors the pain and destruction of the troops who finally took the 7 &#
8211;kilometre long, heavily fortified ridge at the expense of 3,598 dead and 7,000 wounded.

A collection of trench signs stands at the exit, leading past the gift shop and back to the main entrance. Up the stairs on Level 2 the Hall of Honour is devoted to Canadian military heroes like Captain Avery, with uniforms, photos and medals placed in each individual display. Then, having barely recovered from the horror of the trenches, the Road to War exhibit speeds us through the rise of fascism, pausing to reflect on the 1,200 Canadians who fought against Franco in Spain, before hitting you with a dizzying array of newspaper headlines announcing the declaration of yet another war.
At the outbreak of WWII, Canada had a regular army of only 4,500 men and 51,000 reservists. Six destroyers made up the entire Navy and the Air Force was down to less than twenty aircraft. By 1945 the Royal Canadian Airforce was the fourth largest in the world, the Navy the third largest with more than 471 warships and Canada had lost well over 40,000 men in the fighting overseas.

The standout exhibit is probably Hitler’s Car, a black Mercedes purchased in 1970 and complete with bullet holes caused by Allied strafing, which stands next to a bronze bust of Hitler seized as a war trophy by an army chaplain. More emotive artefacts include a concentration camp dress worn by a member of the French Resistance and a display on the 1,975 Canadian troops present at the Battle of Hong Kong. The 590 men killed in the initial fighting and later captivity are represented by an emaciated model of a POW, his broken, desperate expression in stark contrast to the huge pictures of embarking troops marching in long, smiling lines to the great adventure that awaited them.

I paused in the old theatre – two rows of period seats facing a screen that plays Newsreel broadcasts on a continuous loop – for a while and reflected on the 58,000 men who enlisted for overseas
duty in September 1939 alone. A volunteer guide, an elderly man with campaign medals pinned to a cheap suit, explained why he and his friends went to war while a teacher shushed half the class and went in search of the rest. I stood frozen by ‘The Dead Canadian,’ a painting on a torn piece of tarpaulin by a German officer showing a dead soldier on the pebbled beach at Dieppe, a victim of a bungled raid in 1942 that left 807 dead and 1,946 in captivity. A simple photo captures the utter dejection of the troops as they are marched through the streets. Locals group in frightened clusters on the pavement, seemingly every bit as afraid to look up as they are to look down. The Canadians wear pained, knowing expressions that are all the more pronounced for the propaganda broadcasts full of boasting German voices playing in the background.

The ten weeks that followed D-Day saw the liberation of Caen and the loss of 5,000 dead and 13,000 wounded. A life size model of a German observation post at dawn on D-Day itself looks out at some of the 14,000 Canadian troops that parachuted into France that morning. Liberation and loss are combined in the final exhibits as paintings of Canadians in action lead into photos of War Graves and a return to the Hall of Honour.

Level 3 is dedicated to Canada’s Peacekeepers. Starting with weapons, uniforms and posters from the Korean War, where 516 of the 25,000 troops were killed, the exhibit continues with the development of NATO. As you cross a threshold a model of an East German guard flashes a torch and begins shouting. Sirens wail above the sound of running footsteps cut down by a sudden burst of machine gun fire. Past the collection of Warsaw Pact small arms, an explanation of Canadian Cold War participation is overshadowed by a Kiowa helicopter, which was used for observation purposes in the Canadian Artic. Gulf War uniforms and a Canadian crewed UN vehicle that was ambushed by 25 Serbs in Croatia f
ollow, the latter covered with more than 50 bullet holes, though the occupants miraculously survived and drove 15 kms to the nearest medical station for treatment.

The display ends with a roll call of Canadian dead on peacekeeping missions in Israel, the Middle East, Cyprus, Central America, Haiti and Africa. Ahead lie the stairs for the visitor and an uncertain future for the peacekeepers.


OVERALL

A deeply emotive look into four centuries of conflict and war, the Canadian War Museum manages to fit an extraordinary amount into its cramped surroundings. Leave two hours spare and make sure you visit.



ADMISSION

$4 Adults
$3 Children, Students and OAPs
$9 Family Ticket

Half-price all day Sunday.
Free between 4 and 8 pm on Thursdays.

TIMES

October 15 – April 30 Tuesday to Sunday 9:30 – 5:00

May 1 – October 14 Daily 9:30 – 5:00 8:00 on Thursdays.

WEBSITE

www.warmuseum.ca

FURTHER DETAILS

New premises for the Canadian War Museum are currently being constructed at LeBreton Flats to the west of Parliament Hill. Costing $105 million and spread over 7.5-hectare site, the new Museum will provide substantially larger space when it opens in 2005.

www.passingthetorch.ca

Vintage military vehicles, artlillery pieces and tanks are displayed at Vimy House in Champagne Avenue North. Tickets for the Canadian War Museum are also valid here.

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