Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment

Introduction

1 Introduction On the morning of Monday, 9 April 1917, troops of the Canadian Corps under General Sir Julian Byng attacked the formidable German defences along Vimy Ridge. The resulting victory was a remarkable achievement, though it came at a cost of 10,602 Canadian casualties, one of the highest casualty rates ever suffered in Canada’s history. In the ninety years since, generations of Canadians have become deeply attached to the symbol of Vimy Ridge. In recent years the editors of this volume have escorted scores of Canadians to the National Vimy Memorial Site near Arras in northern France. For many this visit marks a pilgrimage to an immense open-air cathedral. Walter Allward’s sculpture on Hill 145 forms the centerpiece of the park, soaring like an altar above the Douai plain. The monument is striking in its scale and beauty. Around its base are carved 11,285 names, each a Canadian killed in France during the First World War whose body was never identified. The park contains several small cemeteries where lie the remains of just a small fraction of the 3,598 Canadians who died there in April 1917. Most of the Vimy dead are found in the many Commonwealth War Cemeteries found nearby, or have no known grave. After contemplating Allward’s memorial, visitors are sometimes surprised to find that this cathedral also contains a vault. The Grange subway is one of thirteen tunnels that were used by the Canadians in the spring of 1917. Today young Canadian guides lead groups down into the damp chalk to offer insights into the lives of the men who prepared for battle here. A small maple leaf carved long ago into the chalk walls is now behind plexiglass, like an icon protected from the hands of the faithful. A casual stroll beyond the tunnel entrance takes one through winding trench lines that overlook deep craters named Grange, Duffield, Winnipeg and Montreal. The German lines are just 2 INTRODUCTION metres away. Grazing sheep stand vigil in the thickly cratered woods near the road, where a small, worn cairn notes (in English and French) that “This Land is the Free Gift in Perpetuity of the French Nation to the People of Canada.” As Jacqueline Hucker reminds us in her chapter, the planners of the Vimy memorial park wanted it to be a symbol of the Canadian nation. Anyone seeking to understand what happened here in the spring of 1917 may have to look elsewhere for answers. This project comes from a shared belief among a new generation of scholars that there is still more to ask, and much more to learn about the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Like the teams who recently restored Allward’s monument, we have started at the foundations to ask basic questions: Why were the Canadians fighting north of Arras in the spring of 1917? How did they achieve the victory at Vimy Ridge? And how did later generations of Canadians come to remember the Battle of Vimy Ridge? These three questions form the blueprint of the studies that follow. In setting the strategic picture of the operation, our first three contributors work from the basic assumption that the Battle of Vimy Ridge cannot be understood except as part of a wider (and largely unsuccessful) series of Allied offensives through the spring of 1917. These essays introduce important themes that are raised throughout the volume. British historian Gary Sheffield maintains that the Vimy memorial has obscured for the British public as well as scholars the British contribution to Vimy Ridge and the wider Battle of Arras. Paul Dickson reminds us that the preparations for Vimy Ridge coincided with a period of relative stability for the Canadian Corps, due partly to the departure of Sir Sam Hughes, Canada’s remarkable minister of Militia and Defence, in November 1916. Dickson also argues that by then the Corps had acquired a ‘culture’ that allowed leaders to innovate and adapt. Both agree, however, that there was still more to learn. Michael Boire knows the ground of Vimy Ridge well. His survey of the ridge makes the point that the Canadians were indebted to the French and British who fought there before 1917. In many ways, their initiatives and casualties made the Canadian success possible. The second part of this volume moves closer to the battlefield to explore the preparations and conduct of the battle itself. Mark Osborne Humphries reminds us that the Canadians’ efforts to break...