Q: I forget where but I remember hearing that the Germans respected and even feared the Canadians more than the Americans, British, and even Russian soldiers. Is this true?
This isn't me trying to say Canadians did better than the other allies. Let's not forget the debacle at Dieppe. A disastrous day for Canadians and a smear on our reputation. I was just looking for sources of Germans talking about Canadians specifically in WW1 and 2.
A: By Mike Bowerbank, Quora.com
I don't know about "the most" respected, but the Canadians were the country the Germans watched most closely. They did this because they knew wherever the Canadians were headed, that's where the big push would come from. The Germans called the Canadians "Stormtroopers" and the Germans then made their own version of them (Stosstruppen).
Here's what British PM David Lloyd George wrote about the Canadians who fought in the Battle of the Somme:
"The Canadians played a part of such distinction that thenceforward they were marked out as storm troops; for the remainder of the war they were brought along to head the assault in one great battle after another. Whenever the Germans found the Canadian Corps coming into the line they prepared for the worst."
Canadian Captain J.B. Paulin, in a speech given at the Empire Club of Canada, in Toronto, Ontario, on May 23, 1918, seems to corroborate that as well:
"[Canadians] are called 'The storm troops of the British Empire' by the Kaiser, and his own 'storm troops' are the biggest men of his various divisions; and when he speaks of the Canadians as being the 'storm troops,' it means that in his estimation, they are the best troops of the British Empire. I think the Kaiser has come more nearly to the truth there than he has ever done in anything else."
--more at Quora.com
This isn't me trying to say Canadians did better than the other allies. Let's not forget the debacle at Dieppe. A disastrous day for Canadians and a smear on our reputation. I was just looking for sources of Germans talking about Canadians specifically in WW1 and 2.
I don't know about "the most" respected, but the Canadians were the country the Germans watched most closely. They did this because they knew wherever the Canadians were headed, that's where the big push would come from. The Germans called the Canadians "Stormtroopers" and the Germans then made their own version of them (Stosstruppen).
Here's what British PM David Lloyd George wrote about the Canadians who fought in the Battle of the Somme:
"The Canadians played a part of such distinction that thenceforward they were marked out as storm troops; for the remainder of the war they were brought along to head the assault in one great battle after another. Whenever the Germans found the Canadian Corps coming into the line they prepared for the worst."
Canadian Captain J.B. Paulin, in a speech given at the Empire Club of Canada, in Toronto, Ontario, on May 23, 1918, seems to corroborate that as well:
"[Canadians] are called 'The storm troops of the British Empire' by the Kaiser, and his own 'storm troops' are the biggest men of his various divisions; and when he speaks of the Canadians as being the 'storm troops,' it means that in his estimation, they are the best troops of the British Empire. I think the Kaiser has come more nearly to the truth there than he has ever done in anything else."
--more at Quora.com
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