Canada's Bastions of Empire Halifax, Victoria and the Royal Navy 1749-1918

Halifax, NS: Formac. Very Good+ in Near Fine dust jacket. 2014. First Edition. Hardcover. 1459503260 . DJ and boards show very light shelf wear. Upper front corner of front free end paper has been clipped, a couple of pages dogeared on the bottom fore corner. ; A bright, solid book, dustjacket in Mylar, unclipped. Promotional sheet for book laid in. B&W photos and maps. ; 9.5 X 6.5 X 0.8 inches; 277 pages; "Brian Elson focuses on the significance of the bases for the all-powerful British navy at Halifax and Victoria through the 19th century and the First World War. As he explains, Halifax gave the Royal Navy the land base they needed to project British power along the whole east Atlantic coast of North America. Victorias Esquimault did the same thing for the Pacific coast.During the 1800s the United States grew dramatically, adding huge swaths of lands west, south and north that had belonged to France, Spain, Mexico, and Russia while pushing aside native peoples. More than once the American government came into conflict with Britain over British territory in North America. There were threats of war and annexation, and American popular support for absorbing Canada was strong. In this book Bryan Elson shows how the British presence in Halifax, and later in Victoria, stood in the way of US designs on Canada. American leaders knew that the British Navy, with its bases on both coasts, had the power to cut them off from the rest of the world with a naval blockade. The American threat to Canada was effectively countered by the British presence in these two cities.The two bastions played their most important role in the early years of the First World War. As Bryan Elson explains, in 1914 the United States stood aside while the British Empire, including Canada, took on Germany." .