By 1918, the Canadian Corps had acquired a reputation across the Western Front: shock troops. Assault specialists. The men sent in when the ground was hardest, the wire thickest, and the objective critical.

British command relied on them for complex, coordinated attacks. German reports warned of their aggressiveness. After Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Amiens, and the Hundred Days, a myth began to solidify - that Canadians were uniquely ruthless.

But was that reputation earned? Or constructed?

In this episode of Memory and Valour, we examine the battlefield reality behind the label. Drawing on the scholarship of Dr. Tim Cook and the voices of the soldiers themselves, we unpack how the Canadian Corps became known as “shock troops” , and what that designation truly meant in the brutal logic of industrialized war.

When the guns fell silent in 1918, the war did not end for thousands of Canadian soldiers.

In this episode, we explore shell shock during the First World War and how it reshaped the lives of those who returned home carrying invisible wounds. Through personal accounts, medical responses, and shifting public attitudes, we examine how Canadians struggled to understand trauma in an era before PTSD had a name.

The War That Stayed reveals how the psychological toll of WWI lingered long after the battlefield, and how its legacy still shapes our understanding of mental health today.

In a war defined by trenches, machine guns, and industrial slaughter, Canada sent horsemen into the storm. This episode follows the Canadian Cavalry Brigade from the mud of the Western Front to the desperate charge at Moreuil Wood; an action often remembered as one of the last great cavalry charges in history.

It’s a story of soldiers caught between eras, fighting a modern war with the tools of an older one, and proving that courage and adaptability could still shape the battlefield. Step into the saddle and ride through the final days of cavalry warfare in the Great War.