<P> The Canadian War Museum contains several permanent galleries and other important display spaces . </P> <P> This gallery explores the history of war on Canadian soil and the way in which armed conflict affected the evolution of the country and its peoples . It includes First Peoples warfare, the alliances and conflicts that marked the relationship between First Peoples and Europeans, and the imperial rivalries that marked most of North America's early history . Content includes the Seven Years' War, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and conflicts in the Canadian West in 1870 and 1885 . </P> <P> Canadian forces went abroad in 1899 and again in 1914 to fight in wars as part of the British Empire . This gallery covers the South African War and the First World War, and ends with the Statute of Westminster (1931), which granted Canada and the other dominions political autonomy within the Empire . The gallery covers the battles and campaigns of both wars, but especially the trench warfare in France and Belgium from 1915 to 1918, and battles such as the Somme, Vimy, Passchendaele, and the Hundred Days . It also covers the home front, air and naval warfare, military medicine, artillery, the plight of enemy aliens, and strategy and tactics . </P> <P> This gallery starts with the rise of aggressive dictatorships in Germany, Italy, and Japan in the 1930s and follows Canada's role in the ensuing world war until it ended in 1945 . Early displays cover Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism including an infamous Mercedes limousine used by Hitler at Nazi rallies . The main exhibits cover Canada's initial land, sea and air responses to the fighting in Europe, the costly Battle of the Atlantic, and the gradual mobilization of the Canadian home front for a total war effort . Later displays include Dieppe, the air war, the fighting in Italy, Normandy, and the Netherlands, and the eventual surrender of the Axis powers and the cost of war . Homecoming is the final exhibit in the gallery . </P>

Canadian museum of history and canadian war museum