Censorship and Reliable Sources

Of course, many soldiers wanted to tell the truth about what was happening at the front line, but the censorship officials were not tolerant of any mail having to do with bad things about war. The Defense of the Realm Act was passed in 1914, which lead to all soldiers written letters to be censored by a censorship official, of whom checked for any scandalous messages that may give unwanted attention to the war. Messages pertaining to Canada’s strongholds, troop numbers, locations, and anything else that could potentially be fatal for the enemy to know were strictly prohibited. This is particularly dangerous to the historians of Canada since a survey conducted among them suggests that 97% of Canadian historians consider handwritten manuscript records as ‘somewhat important’ or ‘very important’.