| Chapter 1: | Serial Monogamy or Constructive Bigamy |
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until it became obvious that the linchpin was even more theoretical than most academic constructions (Glassford, 2000).8 Borden and Meighen’s successors, Mackenzie King and R. B. Bennett, were more modest—indeed, almost reclusive—in their policies, but as King put it in 1923, if a “great and clear call of duty” ever came, Canada would be at Britain’s side in any new war, as it had been in the Great War. Even though King was realistic enough to care about Britain’s strategic security, it is probably an exaggeration to say he ever fully grasped that the military balance was shifting against Great Britain during the 1930s. King did not hesitate to refuse even public and importunate British pleas for help, moral and military, on such questions as a proposed war with Turkey in 1922 (known as the Chanak affair), and he dissociated Canada from attempts to shore up collective security in Europe later in the 1920s. Instead, King saw the true linkage between Britain and Canada not as a matter of security or of unity against foreign danger, but as a matter of values, featuring Canada, the “Britain of the West,” linked to the mother country. King was especially satisfied by the congruence of Anglo-Canadian policies over appeasement in the late 1930s; this was precisely the course of action required to remove any doubt in Canada, especially French Canada, that Britain was not the cause of the Second World War—thus furnishing a platform for Canada’s strong commitment as Britain’s sole (for the time being) North American ally.
King trod warily in his relations with the British and Americans during the Second World War. Canada was useful to both of its large partners, who fortunately most of the time were pulling in the same direction. High strategy seldom entered Canada’s concerns, but when it did, the Canadian government slowly but steadily differentiated its interests from those of Great Britain.9 There was no strong pressure in the other direction, partly because it suited the British government very well indeed not to disturb its Canadian partner, so large and so useful was Canadian aid to Great Britain. Indeed, British officials dealing with the Canadians sometimes verged on the ecstatic in their expressions of appreciation. Under the circumstances, if the Canadian government insisted on differentiating its policies from those of Great Britain on postwar aviation,