Talk:Canadian units in World War I

From Linking experiences of World War One
Jump to: navigation, search

The Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group has a wiki covering Canadian units in lots of detail. Also it turns out that the units on this page with "Horse" or "Mounted Rifles" in the name actually are infantry, so I was wrong about that.--GavinRobinson (talk) 09:40, 19 November 2014 (PST)

At least it shows the value in the infoboxes, which can list them as type/role 'infantry' in contrast to the name which implies cavalry! --Mia (talk) 16:53, 3 December 2014 (PST)

War Diaries of the First World War appears to be the current source for official Canadian unit diaries, despite the 'archived content' message.

Official Lineages with 'charts for every authorized unit formed since 1855' is a comprehensive, prose listing for Canadian units. --Mia (talk) 08:05, 5 December 2014 (PST) Their Keyword list for Diaries is another good source of unit names. --Mia (talk) 07:15, 30 August 2015 (PDT)

The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum and Archives interests include 'First World War CEF Battalions perpetuated by the Queen's Own Rifles': 3rd Battalion; 83rd Battalion; 95th Battalion; 166th Battalion; 198th Battalion; 255th Battalion. --Mia (talk) 07:44, 13 May 2015 (PDT)

I think we need to sort out some naming conventions for Canadian units because the redlinks are all over the place. I'd suggest something similar to Australian battalions for CEF page names, eg 1st Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). Sources don't always agree on the names in brackets, some of them seem to have changed over time, and there could be similarly named militia units, so it's probably best to leave them out of the page names. I don't know what the canonical source is for actual full names of CEF units. The British Quarterly Army List gives the proper names of permanent and non-permanent militia units.--GavinRobinson (talk) 02:53, 30 August 2015 (PDT)

Do you have a digitised source for the Quarterly Army Lists? And does it matter which edition is used, given the way reserve units reinforced others?
We might need an extension template for Canadian units to include the place where they generally recruited (as per http://www.canadiana.ca/en/cef-register). There are two formats for alternate names - 56th Battalion (Calgary), Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) or 56th (Calgary) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) --Mia (talk) 07:15, 30 August 2015 (PDT)
That variation is another reason to keep the bracketed names out of the page names. The Internet Archive has the Quarterly Army Lists. These are the start pages for the Canadian sections in July 1914 and October 1918. These lists only cover militia units, not the wartime expeditionary force. The militia units already existed before 1914 and stayed at home throughout the war. I don't think they changed much. Soldiers who volunteered for overseas service had to transfer to the CEF.
Recording where a unit was mainly or initially recruited would also be useful for British Pals battalions. I was going to suggest a free text field similar to "disbanded" that could record information about how a unit was created. This could include where the unit was raised, unless you want to keep that separate with a view to automated mapping of geographical data.--GavinRobinson (talk) 10:34, 30 August 2015 (PDT)