Canada wasn’t under the UK yoke. The Statute of Westminster gave Canada full control of its foreign policy in 1931. We chose to fight the Nazis of our own volition.
And Australia was federated in 1901 so neither were we. But we were all still under Empire mentally and felt obliged to help mum out. It was the 2 wars which really killed that final Empire connection and we drifted away mentally from them. And government Acts soon followed, for example, it was 1947 when Brits were no longer automatically Canadians too, the 1950s when they dropped the “Dominion” part of their name and 1977 when Canadians stopped being Brits automatically and 1980 when “O Canada” officially became Canada’s national anthem - Australia had similar Acts under a similar timeline. So whilst yes, I agree in principle, we all had a choice to not go to war, and we had our own self-governing countries, there was no chance we weren’t going because we had an obligation, if not ordered (a la India who were still under direct control).
The Dominion system, its phasing out and the subsequent formation of the British Commonwealth are part of our joint histories. Apologies for the wiki page but it’s a good starting point if nothing else.
Canada wasn’t under the UK yoke. The Statute of Westminster gave Canada full control of its foreign policy in 1931. We chose to fight the Nazis of our own volition.
And Australia was federated in 1901 so neither were we. But we were all still under Empire mentally and felt obliged to help mum out. It was the 2 wars which really killed that final Empire connection and we drifted away mentally from them. And government Acts soon followed, for example, it was 1947 when Brits were no longer automatically Canadians too, the 1950s when they dropped the “Dominion” part of their name and 1977 when Canadians stopped being Brits automatically and 1980 when “O Canada” officially became Canada’s national anthem - Australia had similar Acts under a similar timeline. So whilst yes, I agree in principle, we all had a choice to not go to war, and we had our own self-governing countries, there was no chance we weren’t going because we had an obligation, if not ordered (a la India who were still under direct control).
The Dominion system, its phasing out and the subsequent formation of the British Commonwealth are part of our joint histories. Apologies for the wiki page but it’s a good starting point if nothing else.