The First World War (1914–18) profoundly affected the history of many countries in the early 20th century. Canada, a colony of the British empire, took part as was required by constitutional convention. As a result, the country did not escape the major upheavals caused by the war.
The Western Front settled into years of ghastly skirmishes and inconclusive trench warfare, during which more than 61,000 Canadians lost their lives and more than 172,000 were wounded. Dominion autonomy and the transformation of the empire into the new British Commonwealth of Nations were born of the Great War.