Canadian Army Command and Staff College (CACSC)

CACSC will deliver high quality, relevant and progressive education and training in order to prepare officers for employment in command and staff positions at the tactical level.

Army Operations Course (AOC) 29:

Tutorial 1 (DL):  25 Apr - 13 Jun 13

BV Trg:  19 - 21 Sep 13

Tutorials 2 & 3 (Res):  23 Sep - 5 Dec 13 

Primary Reserve Command Team Course 2013:

17 - 21 Jun 13 

Primary Reserve Army Operations Course (P Res AOC) 2013:

Tutorial 3:  6 - 20 Jul 13 

Command Team Course (CTC) 2013:

16 - 24 Apr 13

IMO (1301) Course Dates:

8 - 19 Apr 13

Course Dates for Instructors, 25 Mar - 5 Apr 13

Post Course Admin, 22 - 24 Apr 13

The first Staff Course to be organized by the Canadian Army was conducted at Ford Manor in England in 1941. Eleven subsequent War Staff Courses of four to six months duration were held at the Royal Military College, Kingston. In 1946, the Canadian Army Staff College was made a regular establishment of the Canadian Army. The following year the College moved to its present location at Fort Frontenac. The four to six month Staff Course was conducted annually from 1946 to 1958. In 1959, the course was extended to two years. In 1965, the one-year course was reinstated and maintained until 1973. In 1974, a new staff training system was initiated by the unified Canadian Armed Forces. The three tiered system consisted of a ten week Junior Staff Course, followed by a five month Land Forces Staff Course, and finally by the year long Canadian Forces Staff Course. Initially called the Junior Command and Staff Course (Land), the course was 16 weeks in duration. In 1975, it was decided to drop the word 'Junior' from the course title and rename the course "The Canadian Land Forces Staff Course" and extend the length of the course to 20 weeks. At the same time, the College was renamed "The Canadian Land Force Command and Staff College".In 1996, the College closed its doors for a year to re-design the 20 week course, the result of which was two new courses. The Land Force Staff Course (LFSC) was an 18 week course conducted twice annually. The Land Force Command and Staff Course (LFCSC) was a 20 week course conducted once annually for graduates of the LFSC.As a result of an Army Officer Professional Development Review in 1999 - 2000, the College once again changed its course structure to allow for all officers to receive formal command and staff training. Up until 2000, only selected officers received this training. Thus in 2001, the College reverted to a one course model, this time designated as the Transition Command and Staff Course (TCSC). The TCSC is a 16 week course, the first six weeks of which are taught via the Internet using Distributed Learning (DL) teaching methodologies. The TCSC is the temporary precursor to the Army Operations Course (AOC) which is an 18 week course, the first serial of which will be conducted in 2003.

In 1868 the owl resting on crossed swords and surmounted by a crown, together with the motto "Tam Marte Quam Minerva' was adopted as the crest of the British Army Staff College, Camberley. The design was due to the joint efforts of Captain (later Major-General) JN Crealock, a student at the College, and Brevet Major (afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel) AS Jones, VC, the Adjutant at the time. Captain Crealock was a gifted amateur artist, and seeing that the College did not possess a crest he offered to design one. Minerva is the goddess of war and of wisdom in roman Mythology, and the owl was her favourite bird.

There are various translations of the motto, but one of the best seems to be that given by Field-Marshal Earl Wavell when making the Haldane Memorial lecture in January, 1948. The Field-Marshal translated the motto as: "By fighting as much as by writing" or "By kill as much as by skill", which he said was a reminder that operation orders do not win battles without the valour and endurance of the soldiers who carry them out. In 1956, the senior Classics master at Wellington College, Berkshire, when asked for his opinion, gave it that the Latin used in the motto is a correct Latin phrase, and since the construction placed a trifle more stress on Mars than on Minerva a free translation he suggested might be "With understanding and with force of arms" or "Practical as well as theoretical soldiering here". This seems to fit in well with Lord Wavell's translation quoted above.

In 1946, a Canadian adaptation of the Staff College Camberley Crest was drawn up. This adaptation was basically similar except a band was carried across the base with the word CANADA on it. On 23 April 1946, the Staff College Camberley notified their complete agreement with the Canadian adaptation and a few weeks later approval of the Military Members of the Army Council was granted. On 30 May 1946, the War Office was consulted and stated it had no objection to the use of the Canadian adaptation of the Staff College Camberly Crest by the Canadian Army Staff College, and this latter date is construed as the date that it became the official crest of the Canadian Army Staff College. In February 1977, the present form of the College crest was officially authorized as the crest of the Canadian Land Force Command and Staff College. It was felt that the Snowy Owl was more emblematic of a Canadian Staff College and accordingly the Canadian Snowy Owl replaced the Horned Owl.

Fort Frontenac occupies a site of national historic significance. Not only is the Fort central to the military history of Canada, it is also the earliest site of permanent European habitation in Ontario. Located at a strategic crossroads of major water routes, the Fort and the ships based in its harbour, were intended to control all east/west and north/south traffic in eastern North America.

Louis de Baude, Conte de Frontenac and Governor of New France, established the first fort in 1673 in an attempt to control the Iroquois. It consisted of palisades, earthworks and log buildings.  The first Commandant, Robert Cavalier, Sieur de LaSalle, was to become one of Canada's great explorers and he used the fort as a base for his explorations into the interior of the continent.  It was LaSalle who, in 1675, replaced the wood and earth structure with stone walls and bastions and it was during his command that the first ships on Lake Ontario were launched in Cataraqui Harbour.

A few years after the fort was constructed, open warfare resumed with the Iroquois and the advanced French posts at Niagara and Cataraqui came under close siege.

By the spring of 1688, most of the French garrison had died of scurvy and within a year this post was abandoned.

Reoccupied in 1695, the fort played an important part in the subsequent French push into the interior and in their strategic efforts to encircle the English colonies.

In 1758, Lieutenant-Colonel John Bradstreet of the 60th Royal Americans with 3,000 men landed near what is now Queen's University, and moved quickly to set up siege lines around the fort.  The small garrison was caught by surprise and after some light resistance, the Commandant, Captaine Pierre-Jacques Payen, Sieur de Noyan, surrendered.  Bradstreet proceeded to destroy the French ships captured in the harbour and after patrolling the garrison, he made some ineffective efforts at demolishing the fort's stonework.

Fort Frontenac lay abandoned until July 1783, when Major John Ross of the British Army arrived with a small detachment and built barracks on the site of the fort's ruins.  Major Ross' barracks covered the crossing site over the river to the dockyard and about 1789, were named the Tête-de-Pont (bridgehead) Barracks. 

This temporary post attracted merchants from Carleton Island anxious to ensure continued enterprise on secure ground.  These merchants clustered on the grounds adjacent to the garrison and began the civilian occupation of the townsite.  Kingston, as the new town was named, became a designated Loyalist re-settlement area, and beginning in 1784 the Loyalists took up their land grants in the town and in the townships to the west.

In the years prior to the War of 1812, the Kingston garrison was normally one or two companies in size at best.  Although regular regiments were always stationed in Canada and often occupied the Barracks, the need for troops in the European War encouraged the formation of provincial units and Tête-de-Pont Barracks were occupied at times by some of the earlier Canadian regulars such as the Queen's Rangers, and the Royal Canadian Volunteers.

During the War of 1812, Kingston became the army and navy headquarters for Upper Canada.  Men and money flowed into the town and the impetus given by these infusions would see Kingston boom for the next thirty years.  Hasty defense works and batteries were thrown up about the town and the first fort was built on Point Henry. 

Tête-de-Pont Barracks became part of an extended military complex in the area. Troops moving to and from the western battlefields passed through the barracks and here too, troops were assembled for amphibious attacks on Sackett's harbour and Oswego.

During the period 1821-1824, the Fort portion of the Barracks was improved by the construction of stone buildings.  The outer wall, the officers' mess, the two barrack blocks, and what is now the central heating plant all date from this period.  This new construction saw the razing of most of the remaining French fortress.  A tower, which stood in the south-east bastion of the old fort, and which appears in several old drawings of the fort, was removed in 1832. Part of the tower's foundation tower and bastion are now exposed in the sunken garden inside the Fort.

Throughout the first half of the 19th Century, Kingston was the key to all defence planning for Upper Canada.  Supremacy on the lake was essential to any defence and thus a secure naval station was required.  The Rideau Canal and Fort Henry were built to supply and defend the dockyard, and troops in garrison at Fort Frontenac were a key element in the defence plan.

After confederation, relations improved somewhat with the United States, and this allowed the British government to withdraw its garrison from Canada.

To maintain the forts and armaments transferred to the Dominion government, two batteries of milita artillery were activated; one in Kingston, one in Quebec city.  The Kingston battery was stationed at Fort Frontenac and was given an increased establishment of horses to allow riding to be taught to RMC cadets. This set the tone for the Kingston battery, and in 1905, it was designated as the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery.  Fort Frontenac would remain the home of the RCHA until December 1939 when they marched out to the gate, onto a waiting troop train and went to war.

With the departure of 1 RCHA on active service in 1939, the fort became a personnel depot, and after the war in 1947, it became the home for the Canadian Army Staff College and the newly created National Defence College.

In conclusion, Fort Frontenac, in its different configurations, has witnessed over three hundred years of Canadian military history.  Troops have mustered within its walls for service in every Canadian campaign from the Iroquois Wars to World War II, and since 1947, the Fort has been the centre of professional education for army officers.