Nursing Sisters at a Canadian Hospital in France voting in the Canadian federal election. December 1917. Photographer: William Rider-Rider Source: Library and Archives Canada (Credit: William Rider-Rider / Canada. Dept. of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / PA-002279)
The following is an excerpt from the diary of Ella Mae Bongard, a WWI Canadian nursing sister:
"Voted tonight in the Canadian elections. A Canadian officer came out from Havre to arrange it. I feel quite important now. You may be sure I voted for conscription despite party politics for I don't want to see Canada drop out of the war at this stage."
--December 9, 1917.
When Bongard penned the above she had been in France less than two months and had experienced only one large convoy of wounded. This lack of experience may partially account for her eagerness to keep Canada in the war. But her entry seven days earlier, December 2, 1917, regarding a large convoy of wounded from the Battle of Cambrai, flatly contradicts her later eagerness:
"...I've never realized the war so much until this last convoy. I wonder if it's ever going to end. It seems so senseless to keep sending well men up the line to be shot to pieces..."
Excerpts from Nobody Ever Wins a War: The World War I Diaries of Ella Mae Bongard, edited by Eric Scott.
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