Marking the Battle of Vimy Ridge
A hundred years on, First World War campaign seen as defining moment for Canada
OTTAWA — Vimy. The word conjures images of blood and death. Of men caught in barbed wire and mowed down by machinegun fire. Of the horror and senselessness of war.
But for many Canadians it also sparks a fierce sense of nationalism. It’s the moment, they say, when Canada was born — or at least came of age as a country.
On Sunday morning, millions of Canadians will stop for a moment to remember those lost during the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
Some will gather around the soaring white monument erected on the high point that thousands of Canadians — farmers, miners, teachers and lawyers — had fought and died to capture exactly 100 years ago.
They will stand with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other dignitaries, including Prince Charles and sons William and Harry, amid the mournful skirl of a lone bagpiper and a children’s choir singing In Flanders Fields.
Millions more will listen to the two-hour ceremony on their radios or watch on their televisions, or bow their heads at similar events at local monuments inscribed with the names of the dead.
Many like Toronto businessman Drew Hamblin, who will spend Sunday at Vimy with his father and two children, had grandfathers who told them about the rain and the cold and the rat-infested tunnels.
“I got to see how it affected my grandfather,” Hamblin said. “And he, in turn, passed it on to me. We were inseparable when I was a kid, and this is my way of honouring him and everyone who fought with him.”
Others have only sepia-toned photographs or letters and diaries to remember great uncles and distant cousins who were among the 10,500 Canadians killed or wounded during the four-day battle for the ridge.
And then there will be those for whom the connection to Vimy will be more symbolic, a recognition of the individual sacrifices and what they did for Canada and the world.
The battle marked the first time all four Canadian divisions fought together side-by-side during the war, advancing together into the sleet and bullets and bombs on April 9, 1917: Easter Monday.
Not only did the Canadians succeed where the English and French had failed by capturing the strategically important ridge from the Germans, they did it with several innovative approaches to warfare.
“It was important just as a symbol of bringing everyone together,” said Jeremy Diamond, president of the Vimy Foundation, the mission of which is to promote and preserve Canada’s First World War legacy.
“There’s a sense of accomplishment of what we did.”