Remembering Vimy Ridge

Presentation on the battle’s meaning to Canadians will be held Friday

April 9th marks the 100th anniversary of the most wellremembered Canadian victory in the First World War.

In a war of attrition noted for its bloody trench warfare, courageous soldiers led by stupid generals, seemingly unending futile attacks against virtually impregnable enemy positions and grisly carnage and massive loss of life for little to no gain, the Canadian success at Vimy Ridge in France stands out.

Here was a clear victory. In one historic day four Canadian divisions, fighting together for the first time as a corps, and using innovative artillery and infantry tactics, managed to achieve something that the French Army had twice failed to do – take the heights of Vimy Ridge.

On April 9th the Canadians did just that. Over a morning of brutal fighting the Canadians surged up the ridge, overcoming German resistance. By mid-day, Canadian soldiers standing on the heights could gaze down onto German-occupied territory and see their enemy in disarray.

The Canadians had punctured a hole in the German lines. The strategic goal of all the armies fighting on the Western Front had been achieved. The enemy’s front line was ruptured, the immobilization of trench warfare had been broken, and the way forward for a war of movement to drive the Germans out of France and Belgium beckoned.

But the price of victory in war in never cheap. Vimy Ridge cost the Canadians 10,602 casualties – 3,598 killed and 7,004 wounded – fully 25 per cent of the entire infantry complement who fought at Vimy.

And this one-day victory was soon squandered. Canadian troops on the ridge were ordered to hold their positions and not pursue the retreating enemy. High command feared a continued advance would lead the Canadians beyond the protective cover of their own artillery.

There was also another problem. The Canadian attack at Vimy was just a part of a broader British offensive at Arras, also commencing on April 9th, and it was this British attack that was planned to lead to the breakthrough of the German lines.

So the British reserve battalions were deployed at Arras, not Vimy, meaning that there were no fresh troops available at Vimy to take advantage of the remarkable opportunity the Canadian victory had presented to British high command. At Arras, however, the British failed to breach the German lines, with this battle becoming just one more of a litany of bloody British and French failures.

Meanwhile, after the Canadians had consolidated their gains on Vimy Ridge the fighting there abated for two weeks as the Canadian divisions were relieved and fresh Australian and British units took their place.

When the attack beyond Vimy resumed on April 23rd, these troops found, predictably, that the Germans had dug new trenches, placed new barbedwire entanglements, established new machine gun nests and brought up new reinforcements. The Germans had plugged the hole in their lines and stalemate had returned to the western front.

As we come to the centenary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge it is altogether fitting and appropriate that we commemorate the soldiers who fought there, and that we remember and relearn, from the historical records bequeathed to us from those who experienced this war first-hand, the nature of the war, its causes, its heroism and tragedies, and its sinister legacies.

On Friday, March 31, from noon to 1 p.m., my colleague Sean Howard and I will host a presentation at Cape Breton University designed to remember and reflect upon the meaning of Vimy Ridge to Canadians, past and present. Entitled “Birth or Bloodbath: The Battle over the Battle of Vimy Ridge,” this talk, open to the public and free of charge, will place the battle in historical context while assessing its many realities and myths.

The location for this event is the Sydney Credit Union Room, CE-265. All are welcome.

“In a war of attrition …, the Canadian success at Vimy Ridge in France stands out.”