Sam Hughes

Sam Hughes, 1914

Sir Samuel Hughes KCB , PC (born January 8, 1853 in Clarington , Canada West [now Ontario ], † August 24, 1921 in Lindsay , Ontario) was a Canadian militia general and Conservative Party politician who served from 1911 to his Dismissed in 1916 as Canadian Minister for Militia and Defense in Borden's first cabinet .

Life

Hughes was the son of a father who emigrated from Ireland in the 1840s, who made a living as a farmer and teacher, and who had married the daughter of a British artillery officer stationed in Canada. The family had four sons, of whom Samuel was the third oldest, and seven daughters. Sam attended school in Durham and was also homeschooled, with a particular interest in reading travelogues and portrayals of military campaigns. As an adolescent he was also enthusiastic about sports, fishing and hunting. From the age of 16 he attended the Toronto Normal School to be trained for the profession of teacher. In 1872 he married his first wife, the daughter of a farmer. During this time he worked as a railroad worker in Wisconsin , USA. After the early death of his wife, he returned to Canada and remarried in 1875, this time the daughter of a financially well-off farmer and liberal MP for the constituency of Durham West. The young family moved to Toronto , where one of Sam's brothers was a school inspector. After a brief stint in a law firm, Hughes accepted a position at the Toronto Collegiate Institute , teaching history and English. During this time, he took courses at the University of Toronto to study history and modern languages, and to earn a certificate for work as a school inspector. Hughes had been a member of the Canadian militia since 1866 and rose to the rank of captain by 1878 .

In 1885 he gave up teaching and bought a newspaper, the Victoria Warder , a daily newspaper with a conservative orientation that appeared in Lindsay. He enjoyed the trust of the Conservative government of John Macdonald , which he actively supported as editor-in-chief and publisher. During this time he founded the Victoria County Rifle Association and became a member of the local Chamber of Commerce, a Masonic Lodge , the Oddfellows and the Orange Order . In 1888 he was a member of the provincial organizing committee of the Imperial Federation League , which campaigned for a close bond between Canada and the British motherland. In his newspaper, Hughes , who had converted from Presbyterianism to Methodism , advocated imperial centralism and strict abolitionism .

In 1891 he entered the constituency of Victoria North against the liberal candidate John Barron for the first time in a general election , but lost significantly. Hughes was not impressed by this and reached a by-election by petition, which he won against Barron in early 1892. He kept his seat in parliament until 1921. He was initially one of the backbenchers of his party, but attracted attention early on through speeches. It was about the defense against the attempt to introduce a separate Catholic school system in Manitoba ( Manitoba school question ), as well as defense issues, whereby he clearly positioned himself against the permanent militia. In 1894 he engaged in a high-profile feud with the commander of the Canadian militia, Ivor Herbert . He supported Prime Minister John Thompson , but was not very enthusiastic about his predecessor John Abbott or successor Mackenzie Bowell and welcomed the return of Charles Tuppers , who led the Tories in the 1896 general election . The Conservatives lost the election clearly by seats, if not in the popular vote, and Hughes was only able to narrowly maintain his seat. Subsequently, the Warder suffered from a decline in advertising revenues and Hughes gave up the newspaper business completely in 1898 to pay off his debts. He found solace in his militia career, which had brought him promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and command of the 45th Battalion in 1897 . Only years later did he achieve financial ascent again through shares in oil companies.

When the Second Boer War broke out in South Africa in 1899, Hughes wrote to British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain and Canadian Defense Minister Frederick William Borden to offer himself a command post. He deliberately ignored the chief of the militia, the British Major-General Edward Hutton . When the government set up a contingent under William Dillon Otter , Hughes, for his part, was passed over because of his unpredictability and lack of qualification and went to South Africa as a civilian. Thanks to his good relations with British circles, he was given command as the leader of an irregular formation that was used under Lieutenant-General Charles Warren . After minor successes in South Africa, he behaved very boastfully and at the same time made derogatory comments about the British commanders, so that he was soon sent back home. Among other things, he was of the firm opinion that a Victoria Cross had been withheld from him. The episode hardened his aversion to the professional military, be it Canadian or British.

Hughes in 1905

In Canada, the relatively inexperienced Robert Borden had meanwhile taken over the leadership of the Conservative Party. He needed experienced men like Hughes, and despite their differing orientation, the two were soon joined by mutual recognition, especially after Hughes helped Borden to a new seat in 1904 after a personal defeat. In the general election of 1911 , Borden's party was able to clearly defeat the liberals of long-time Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier , and Hughes, who had always been loyal to Borden through all the crises, was appointed Minister of Militia and Defense, but not without Borden's prior approval had complained of his impetuous tactlessness when calling for the post. From 1912, Hughes sought in the Militia Council , although this was contrary to the statutes of the militia, to enforce his appointment as major-general, which he succeeded only in 1914. He also successfully pushed for an expansion of the Non-Permanent Active Militia and the military facilities without accompanying this with suitable measures to train junior officers. In 1914, the defense budget was nearly double what it was when he took office. In office, Hughes was characterized by his ruthless patronage of officials close to him, idiosyncrasy and fear of intrigues directed against him.

Hughes on a visit to the front in August 1916

During World War I , Hughes organized the formation of the first contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1914 , which was assembled in Valcartier that August , and traveled personally to England to meet the CEF Commander-designate, British General Edwin Alderson . He installed his close colleague John Wallace Carson in his vicinity to observe Alderson . He intervened deeply in the command structure of the CEF through personal appointments, which was usually not beneficial for the troops. In Canada, meanwhile, the recruitment of volunteers proceeded continuously and relatively smoothly, so that by the beginning of 1916 an army of 500,000 men was formed. Only then did the success of the recruiting campaign drop sharply. Hughes traveled a lot during the war, spending about a third of the time out of the country. In Canada, he regularly attended training camps and performed at public events across the country. During a stay in the mother country, he was awarded the KCB in August 1915 on the recommendation of the then Colonial Minister Andrew Bonar Law . While Borden described this as "well deserved" in diary entries, the reality was far more complex and less favorable to Hughes in the judgment of most historians. His ministry's problems included:

• poor equipment of the CEF, including the Ross rifle , which was unusable in trench warfare (which Hughes had campaigned for for years)
• Equipment procurement scandals, some of which Hughes may have been involved in, but which he had at least caused by filling his positions
• Problems with the integration of the Canadian contingent into the British expeditionary army and with the accommodation of the Canadian troops in England
• The momentum of the recruitment campaign slackened significantly in early 1916

Borden attempted to address some of the problems by curtailing Hughes' skills and hiring experts in key areas such as procurement, but when Hughes began to frustrate the prime minister's policies in 1916, his patience was exhausted. In October 1916 he created his own Ministry of Overseas Military Forces for the interests of the CEF under the direction of George Halsey Perley and shortly afterwards demanded Hughes' resignation, which took place on November 11, 1916. Hughes' successor was Albert Edward Kemp . Sir George Eulas Foster , Minister of Commerce under Borden, commented: "The nightmare is over."

Hughes, who was still a member of parliament, tried unsuccessfully in the spring of 1917 to rally support for a third party aimed at introducing compulsory military service . In October 1918, during the crucial Hundred Days Offensive , he accused the commander of the Canadian Corps , Arthur Currie , in a letter to Borden to sacrifice the "life of Canadian boys" pointless. After the war, he made these allegations public and demanded a military tribunal against Currie. He used his immunity as a parliamentarian to protect himself against possible proceedings for defamation. The underlying reason for Hughes' behavior is believed to be in his jealousy of Currie's successes compared to the relative failure of his own son Garnet Hughes as a general.

In the last years of his life, Hughes had an impressive summer home built in Glen Eagle, in the highlands of Haliburton County . Bad health, increasingly confined to bed and suffering from pernicious anemia , he died in Lindsay in August 1921.

literature

• Robert Craig Brown: Hughes, Sir Samuel . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . tape 15: 1921-1930 . University of Toronto Press, Toronto 2005, ISBN 0-8020-9087-7 ( English , French ).

Web links

Commons : Sam Hughes  - collection of images, videos and audio files