Canadian War Museum to mark the centenary of the Hundred Days campaign with 100 social media posts and a lecture

MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate release

Ottawa, Ontario, August 1st, 2018 — In advance of the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, the Canadian War Museum is launching a social media campaign featuring 100 posts over 100 days. From August 8 until Remembrance Day, the War Museum will share stories of courage, sacrifice and perseverance from the final months of the war. During this period, now known as the Hundred Days campaign, Canada fought a series of decisive battles that greatly contributed to the Allied victory in November 1918.

“For the past four years, we have been exploring the history of the First World War from a variety of perspectives,” said Caroline Dromaguet, Acting Director General of the Canadian War Museum. “The Hundred Days social media campaign is another way to connect people to that history. It offers a deeper look at the Canadian resourcefulness and determination that was crucial to the Allied victory in the second half of 1918.”

The series of 100 posts (#Last100Days) will take followers through the key battles at Amiens (which launched the Hundred Days campaign on August 8), Arras, the Drocourt–Quéant Line, Canal du Nord, Cambrai, Valenciennes and finally Mons. The posts will draw heavily on the Museum’s collection of archival photos and documents, artifacts, and artwork to give voice to a wide range of Canadians who experienced those final weeks of the war, whether in the infantry or in the air, as field nurses or on the home front.

These voices include well-known Canadians like Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, who commanded the Canadian Corps throughout the Hundred Days campaign, and Major Georges Vanier, future Governor General of Canada. Also included are lesser-known voices like Captain Coulson Mitchell, a combat engineer who was awarded the Victoria Cross for preventing the destruction by Germans of a strategically important bridge at Cambrai. Others featured include Nursing Sister Gertrude Gilbert, who kept a diary while serving with the Canadian Army Medical Corps on the No. 4 Ambulance Train, and William Antliff, a McGill University student who chronicled his Hundred Days experiences with the No. 9 Canadian Field Ambulance in his diary and in letters home to his mother.

The start of the social media campaign will also coincide with a special lecture, Canada at War, 1918, on August 8 at 7:30 p.m. in the LeBreton Gallery. Jack Granatstein and Tim Cook, two of Canada’s foremost war historians, will share their insights into the final months of the First World War from the perspective of Canadians fighting overseas and struggling on the home front. The lecture is part of the War Museum’s World at War – International Speaker Series.

Both the online initiative and the lecture will help set the stage for the exhibition Victory 1918 – The Last 100 Days, which will open on October 26. Curated by Granatstein and Cook, this visual and evocative exhibition weaves artwork, artifacts, documents, film and photos together with powerful stories about the Canadian Corps’ role in the last, decisive battles of the First World War.

For more details about the lecture and exhibition, and a list of all War Museum offerings to mark the end of the First World War, visit warmuseum.ca.

The Canadian War Museum is Canada’s national museum of military history. Its mission is to promote public understanding of Canada’s military history in its personal, national and international dimensions. Work of the Canadian War Museum is made possible in part through financial support of the Government of Canada.

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Media contacts:

Avra Gibbs Lamey
Acting Manager, Public Affairs
Canadian War Museum
Telephone: 819-776-8607
avra.gibbs-lamey@warmuseum.ca

Daniel Groleau Landry
Social Media and Media Relations Officer
Canadian War Museum
Telephone: 819-776-8602
daniel.groleau@warmuseum.ca

For more information, visit warmuseum.ca. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.