Attendrons-nous que les nôtres brûlent? Enrôlons-nous dans le 178ième Bataillon Canadien Français
A young woman in a red Phrygian cap, the emblem of France, reaches out with one arm and embraces a burning Gothic cathedral with the other; shell bursts and flames rise from its roof. The headline asks 'Shall we wait until our own burn?' and the text names a French-Canadian battalion and its commander (fear-appeal: the burning cathedral staged as the fate of 'our own'; transfer: the French national symbol and the cathedral's cultural weight attached to enlisting).
- Date
- 1916
- Period
- First World War
- Made by
- 178th Battalion (Canadien-Français), Canadian Expeditionary Force (recruiting; printer and artist not legible)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- Canada
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Military
- Regime
- Borden Government
- Leader
- Robert Laird Borden
- Audience
- Diaspora or minority
- Purpose
- Recruit
- Themes
- War and the military, Race and ethnicity
- Event
- World War I
- Techniques
- Fear appealTransfer
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published c. 1916, before 1931; LOC: no known restrictions on publication)
Anonymous, Canada. [1915?]. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-12673 (call no. POS - Can .A01, no. 76).
Text on the object
ATTENDRONS-NOUS QUE LES NÔTRES BRÛLENT? ENRÔLONS-NOUS et tout de suite Dans Le 178ième Bataillon CANADIEN FRANÇAIS Commandé par le Lt. Col. Girouard et six autres officiers du 22ième tous de retour du Front. Informations: Aux Quartiers Généraux, Sherbrooke, P.Q. ou coin St André et Ste Catherine Montréal [printer's mark, lower right, illegible]
Shall we wait until our own burn? Let us enlist, and at once, in the 178th French-Canadian Battalion, commanded by Lt. Col. Girouard and six other officers of the 22nd, all back from the Front. Information: at Headquarters, Sherbrooke, P.Q., or at the corner of St. André and Ste. Catherine, Montreal.
The photographed copy is bordered by Kodak colour and gray-scale calibration strips added for archival photography. A small printer's imprint at lower right is too small to read.
