Vimy remembered
Museum at Citadel to open early for three days in honour of First World War battle
The war museum at the Citadel in Halifax is opening this weekend as the nation marks the anniversary of a historic battle that helped shape the country.
“A wonderful success. The grandest day the Corps has ever had. The attack was carried out exactly as planned. The sight was awful and wonderful.”
— General Arthur Currie, commander 1st Canadian Division, on the Battle of Vimy Ridge
The national memorial at Vimy Ridge evokes awe and pride in what Canada accomplished on Easter Monday 101 years ago – a battlefield victory that was the only success of the French-british Arras campaign.
And one can’t help but feel sorrow for the 10,600 killed or wounded during the four-day battle, as well as the approximately 60,000 Canadians killed during the First World War, and the 11,285 soldiers who died in France who have no known grave. (Their names are etched in the memorial at Vimy Ridge.) The white stone monument dominates the sevenkilometre-long ridge with its huge base and two soaring 30-metre high pillars overlooking the Douai Plain of northern France. There are 20 allegorical carvings of figures that represent truth, justice, hope and faith, and at the front of the memorial, the statue, Canada Bereft, mourns her fallen sons.
It is a place of reflection and remembrance. And to many, it’s become a symbol of when Canada came of age.
“On Easter Monday, the 9th of April, 1917, the Canadian Corps attacked Vimy Ridge with all four divisions. For the first time, Canadians from east to west, north to south, shoulder-to-shoulder, French speaking, English speaking, native, black, all Canadians
together, achieved what the French and British armies could not do — capture this important, strategic piece of ground,” said Ken Hynes, curator at Army Museum Halifax Citadel.
In his book, Vimy: The Battle and Legend, historian Tim Cook explores the development of the
Vimy “legend” and how the battle and monument came to be a significant part of Canada’s national story. He traces its rise and fall in the public consciousness and how governments, historians and others “have all elevated Vimy into representing a crucial milestone in our development
as a nation.”
At the place where Canadians fought as one force for the first time and where so many died, and where a unique, majestic monument stands to Canada’s Great War dead, it is understandable that Vimy would resonate with Canadians for more than a century.
“Tears come easily while standing on the memorial. These are not tears of uncontrollable grief but tears of something else, something more profound. They are the tears invoked by the memory of a grandfather, by a few lines from Mccrae’s In Flanders Fields, and even by a surprising flash of patriotism.
“There is power in the Vimy legend — the ridge, the memorial, the meaning — that is not easily put into words. The memorial is for the dead, but it is remade generation after generation by the living,” writes Cook.