Canadian Army

The Canadian Army traces its institutional roots to colonial militias in New France and British North America, formalized as the Active Militia of the Province of Canada under the Militia Act of 1855 and continued as Canada's primary military land force after Confederation in 1867, though it was not formally renamed the Canadian Army until November 1940, during the Second World War. Rather than mobilize its existing militia units for the First World War, Canada instead raised the separate Canadian Expeditionary Force, which by 1918 fielded the Canadian Corps, described by contemporaries as the most powerful self-contained striking force on any battlefront, out of more than 620,000 Canadians who served and roughly 60,000 who were killed. In the Second World War, following partial mobilization in August 1939, Canadian Army units fought in the invasions of Sicily and Italy, the Battle of Normandy and the liberation of the Netherlands, with the First Canadian Army growing into the largest field force Canada has ever assembled, more than 450,000 personnel strong, out of some 730,000 total wartime service members and 24,500 dead. The Army went on to contribute the 25th Canadian Infantry Brigade to United Nations forces in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, and today it stands as the largest of the Canadian Armed Forces' three environmental commands, organized around four geographically based divisions with a regular force of roughly 22,500 personnel.