EDMONTON ‘HIT HARD,’
The Edmonton Journal’s front page on Nov. 11, 1918, is a picture of triumph.
“HUN SUBMITS” shouted the main headline, in two-inch type. Below a cartoon of a British lion smacks his lips after devouring a German general. “’Nuff Sed,” reads the caption over the big cat. Details of the German surrender fill the eight dense columns.
The armistice that ended what came to be known as the Great War was greeted with celebrations in Allied countries around the world. But the Journal’s front page that day concealed a city that was sick with Spanish flu, tired and badly depleted by the war.
“There were peace demonstration when Nov. 11 came,” said Ken Tingley, Edmonton’s first historian laureate and an expert in the city ’s wartime history. “You’ll see photos of people out at these demonstrations, and they’re all wearing flu masks.”
“It seems the atmosphere of the city was just very depleted and exhausted by everything. Everyone knew someone who’d had the flu or lost someone (in the war). The impulse to go out and sort of cheer and march up and down was very muted.”
In the lead up to the First World War, Edmonton was booming.
Tingley said 1912 still stands as one of the city’s busiest years in terms of construction — High Level Bridge was under construction that year, as were the Hotel Macdonald and the Princess Theatre. That all changed in 1913, when the global economy crashed. Work slowed down, and no new construction began during the war years due to labour shortages.
“It really hit Edmonton hard,” Tingley said. “Things had already slowed down considerably by the outbreak of the war.”
When hostilities began in the fall of 1914, Edmonton became a major enlistment centre. Many men who did not live in Edmonton signed on to military units based out of the city.
The famed Edmonton Regiment, later called the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, became a point of pride for the city. While other municipally raised regiments were broken up for reinforcements, the Edmonton regiment refused to be separated.
“Lt. Col. (William) Griesbach, who was the commanding officer, fought against it,” Tingley said. “So the Edmonton Regiment lasted through the war, and there was a very unusual bond preserved there.
“We really identified with the Edmonton Regiment.”
While troops were overseas, Edmonton’s population dwindled. In 1914, the population stood at 72,516. By 1917, it had fallen to around 56,000 — worn down by enlistment, economic downturn and internment. Hundreds of people from Germany, AustriaHungary and later Turkey and Bulgaria were shipped to camps in the mountains, where they were held under brutal conditions.
Edmonton was further depleted by the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak — one of the deadliest pandemics in modern history.
The deadly contagion is believed to have killed 4,000 people in Alberta in 1918-19. On Armistice Day, the Journal carried a report saying there had been just 27 new cases that day, leading doctors to believe the sickness was “rapidly subsiding.” Edmonton’s public health officer estimated that at least 10,000 Edmontonians had contracted the flu in a span of three months — 455 of whom died.
“The people dying were comparable to people dying in the war,” Tingley said.
The society to which soldiers returned was very different. Prohibition came into effect in Alberta during the war years, backed by the powerful temperance groups and the United Farmers of Alberta. Certain women also gained the right to vote in 1918. Returning soldiers helped strengthen the labour movement.
Tingley said the First World War was a crucible from which Edmonton didn’t really emerge until the Second World War.