Manpower and the Armies of the British Empire in the Two World Wars

A retired infantry officer with more than twenty-seven years of service in the Canadian Armed Forces, his military career began when he entered Royal Roads Military College at Victoria, British Columbia in 1983.  Four years later, he graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) at Kingston Ontario with BA (Honours) in History.  

Commissioned into Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) as a second-lieutenant, he served for four years with the Third Battalion of his regiment at Victoria, B.C, where he held appointments as rifle platoon commander, intelligence officer and company second-in-command.  In 1991, Captain Delaney was posted to the Canadian Airborne Regiment at Petawawa, Ontario, where served as a rifle platoon commander in 2 Airborne Commando and as a reconnaissance platoon commander.  From 1993 to 1996, he was a staff officer (plans) at 1st Canadian Division Headquarters.  

In 1996, he returned to regimental duty with 1 PPCLI, where he held the posts of adjutant and company commander.  In 2000, after finally completing his MA in War Studies through part-time study at RMC, then-Major Delaney returned to his alma mater to pursue a doctorate in War Studies, which he completed in 2003.

Lieutenant-Colonel (retired) Delaney’s military qualifications include Canadian land forces command and staff course, combat team commander, combat intelligence officer, basic parachutist, and military freefall parachutist.  He has completed three operational tours of duty: Cyprus (1988), Somalia (1992-1993) and Kosovo (1999).

Since 2002, he has been a professor of history at RMC, where he lectures on the military history of Canada and the British Commonwealth, strategic studies, and the two world wars.  He is a past head of the Military and Strategic Studies undergraduate program (2004-2006) and a former Chair of War Studies (2007-2012). 

His first book, The Soldiers’ General: Bert Hoffmeister at War (UBC Press, 2005), won the 2007 C.P Stacey Prize for the best book on a Canadian military history topic and his second monograph, Corps Commanders: Five British and Canadian Generals at War, 1939-1945 (UBC Press), was published in 2011. Some of his other publications include Turning Point 1917: The British Empire at War (UBC Press, 2017) with Nikolas Gardner; Capturing Hill 70: Canada’s Forgotten Battle of the First World War (UBC Press, 2016) with Serge Durflinger; “Army Apostles: Imperial Officers on Loan and the Standardization of the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand Armies, 1904-1914”, War in History (2016); and “Mentoring the Canadian Corps: Imperial Officers and the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918,” Journal of Military History (2013). 

His most recent work is The Imperial Army Project: Britain and the Land Forces of the Dominions and India, 1902-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Source: Royal Military College of Canada