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12 211 The 4th Canadian Division “Trenches Should Never be Saved” ANDREW GODEFROY “G[eneral] O[fficer] C[ommanding] reports to Division that the attack is going well” —War Diary of 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade, 0610 hours, 9 April 19171 At 0530 hours on 9 April 1917, Canadian soldiers stormed out of their assembly trenches to assault Vimy Ridge. This was it. After months of difficult and meticulous calculation and preparation, the soldiers of the 4th Canadian Division surged forward to execute their well-rehearsed scheme and overwhelm the German positions they faced before the enemy could organize any sustainable defence. The plan was surprisingly simple and its tenets would form the foundations of success for the Canadian Corps for the rest of the war. Yet when the 4th Canadian Division executed its attack on the morning of 9 April, nothing seemed to go as it should. Within minutes of its start the assaulting battalions of the 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade were smashed to pieces, decimated by sustained enemy fire that ripped through the brigade’s leading elements and jeopardized the 12th Canadian Infantry Brigade advancing on its flanks. While other Canadian divisions were reporting slow but sure success all along the line, the 4th Division’s attack quickly became confused and appeared to stall; towards the end of the day there was even speculation that it was in complete jeopardy. The Canadian battalions in this division had suffered severe casualties right at the start of the attack, the situation on the ground was unclear to the commanders, and at the end of the day the enemy still held vital ground on the ridge. What went wrong? Despite the unquestionable importance of the Battle of Vimy Ridge to Canadian military history, questions such as these have received 212 ANDREW GODEFROY surprisingly little attention from scholars and academics. The most complete official overview of the battle remains chapter eight of Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson’s, Canadian Expeditionary Force: The Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War, which was published in 1962. OtherearlyinterpretationsincludeAlexanderMcKee’s1966publication, Vimy Ridge, and the 1967 book, Vimy Ridge! by Herbert Fairlie Wood.2 Pierre Berton’s popular history appeared in 1986, but since then the battle has seldom enjoyed centre stage in academic or popular works. As a result, assessments of the battle made decades ago remain the accepted version of events. The reason is obvious: Canadians consider Vimy Ridge an icon of national achievement. This chapter reexamines the battle on the left and most dangerous flank where the 4th Canadian Division was at the apex of the Battle of Arras and held the lynchpin to success for the entire Canadian Corps. It first examines the version of events from the official history and then suggests that a much more complex set of circumstances contributed to the initial difficulties of the 4th Canadian Division, as well as its subsequent hard-earned victory. The reputation of no other major unit at the battle of Vimy Ridge suffers more than that of the 4th Canadian Division. Much of Colonel Nicholson’s four pages on the division’s assault was consumed in identifying senior Canadian commanders, naming the units and citing the circumstances surrounding the awarding of two Victoria Crosses.3 The rest is devoted to describing what appears to have been a challenging but ultimately successful engagement against a nebulous group of German defenders with no identifiable leadership or defensive plan. The reader may also be left with the impression that “things did not go so well” initially on the north flank because A portion of German trench had been left undestroyed by the heavy artillery at the request of the Commanding Officer of the left assaulting battalion (the 87th), [Major Harold LeRoy Shaw] who hoped to put it to good use when captured. From this position machine-gun fire cut down half the 87th’s leading wave and pinned the right of the supporting 75th Battalion to their assembly trenches. Those who could pressed on, though harassed in flank and rear by machine-gun fire from the uncaptured sector, and from Germans who emerged from mine shafts and dugouts after the attacking wave had passed. Then came murderous fire from the second trench, whose garrison had been given ample time to man their positions. The entire left wing of the 11th Brigade’s attack broke down, and the 54th Battalion, its open flank under counter-attack...

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