Immediately after the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1, it became obvious that the King government was seriously contemplating taking Canada into war. Le Devoir, a nationaliste French-Canadian newspaper in Montreal, had always firmly opposed such a course for Canada. Canada was its own master, it argued, and while it might and perhaps should have sympathy for Britain and France, Canada's national interests required that this country stay out of war: "Canada is not a European country ... the main editorial's headline asserted. "That's a fact we shouldn't forget these days." For the rest of the war, Le Devoir took a sceptical view of the promises of the King government to avoid conscription and a repetition of the painful experience of the First World War.
