维米岭战役是第一次世界大战中，西部战线的一次战役，发生于1917年。维米岭战役是阿拉斯战役的头幕，也是加拿大最有名的战役之一。
维米岭是法国阿拉斯市以北维米镇附近的山岭。这个地方是德国在整个西部战线守卫的最好的。因为维米岭是高地，所以双方都认为这是一个军事战略上重要的地方。英国和法国都在1915年进攻维米岭，但结果都是以惨痛的失败而告终。单法军方面，就有15万士兵阵亡。
1917年，盟军决定再次向维米岭进攻。此次执行进攻任务的是加拿大军。直至到维米岭战役，加拿大军在一战中的角色不大。为了赢得此战的胜利，加军将其4个师统一来参与维米岭战役，并制定了良好的作战方案。
加拿大军在1917年4月2日开始用炮轰击德军的战线。加军用了超过一百万的炮弹来轰击维米岭，此次轰击持续了一个星期，是在这次战役之前从未有过的。在4月9日，加军开始向德军的防线进攻。加拿大军投入大约3万名士兵，用了大约两个小时达到原本的目的地。
到4月12日，加拿大以3598名阵亡和7104名士兵受伤的代价控制了整个维米岭。而德军方面有大约有2万士兵阵亡，4千余人被俘虏。
因为在维米岭南面，英军和澳军没有达到它们的目的，加拿大得到的领土实质上没有太大的军事战略重要性。
可是在士气上，这场战役的胜利的重要性非常大，尤其是加拿大。这场战役是加拿大军第一次独立地参与一场战役。而且，来自加拿大全国9个省份（纽芬兰在1949年才加入加拿大联邦）的加拿大军人都有参与维米岭战役。有很多加拿大人说维米岭战役是「加拿大成长的日子」。
在1922年，法国政府把维米岭周围一平方公里的领土送给加拿大来感谢加拿大在此战役中的贡献和牺牲。现在，属于加拿大的维米岭是个战争纪念博物馆。（Wikipedia，自由的百科全书）
In Depth: Vimy Ridge remembered Shock and Awe, 1917
Last Updated April 2, 2007
Gary Graves, CBC News
Easter 2007 is the 90th anniversary of the First World War Canadian military attack on Vimy Ridge in France. CBC is commemorating the events with special broadcast coverage, online photo galleries: Four Days in April about the battle and Building the towers about Canada’s war monument, and thoughts from a young Canadian student visiting war memorial sites in Europe.
The towering 10-storey white limestone Vimy Memorial Monument near Arras, France, fell into disrepair as rain eroded the soft stone and winters cracked some of the building blocks. After three years of restoration work, which included dismantling and rebuilding much of the structure, the dedication of the restored monument takes place Monday, April 9.
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We may marvel at the firepower of the hundreds of missiles and smart bombs used in U.S. attacks on Iraq, but an overwhelming battlefield fusillade creating shock and awe is not a new idea. In fact, Canadian soldiers fighting in the First World War were pioneers of the tactic.
It was at Vimy Ridge, a strategic 14-kilometre long escarpment that overlooks the Douai plain of France. German occupying troops controlled the ridge using a network of trenches that snaked along the crest and down into the valley, connecting with another network of natural caves. 150,000 French and British soldiers had died trying to take it back. Allied commanders believed the ridge to be impregnable.
Combat Message Card used in the days before troops carried portable radios
Map of Vimy front lines, April 9, 1917 (Source: National Archives)
Map of Vimy attack plan, April 9, 1917 (Source: National Archives)
But the Canadians had a plan, the first battle strategy for this new nation’s commanders to conceive and execute on their own. Even military “experts” of the time admitted dubiously that the Canadians’ plan couldn’t be any worse than the British tactics at the Somme, which cost 24,000 Canadian casualties. So the Canadian army – all four divisions, totalling 100,000 men – got the go-ahead.
The ground assault had been planned meticulously for months. Full-scale replicas of the Vimy terrain were built to rehearse unit commanders on what to expect both from the enemy and from Canadian units on either side. Canadian spotters had identified and mapped about 80 per cent of the German gun positions. Five kilometres of tunnels were dug in order to move Canadian troops and ammunition up to the front without their being seen by German observers. And for a couple of weeks leading up to the battle, Canadian and British artillery pounded the Germans with 2,500 tons of ammunition per day.
At 5:30 in the morning on Easter Monday, April 9, 1917, the assault began. It was raining. It was freezing cold. And it began with a huge artillery barrage… shock and awe 1917-style.
Over 1,100 cannons of various descriptions, from British heavy naval guns mounted on railway cars miles behind the battlefield, to portable field artillery pieces dragged into place by horses, mules or soldiers just behind the Canadian lines, fired continuously – in some cases until they exhausted their ammunition.
Canadians under fire at Vimy (Source: National Archives)
The Canadian battle plan was simple: the withering barrage provided a screen for the Canadian troops to hide behind. Hundreds of shells would land at once, spraying plumes of muddy earth upward like a polluted version of some giant decorative water fountain. Every three minutes the 850 Canadian cannons would aim a little higher, advancing the row of shellfire forward by 90 metres.
The attacking Canadian foot soldiers were expected to keep up, advancing, taking and occupying German positions, moving forward, never stopping, never racing ahead. Falling behind would make them clearer targets for German guns mounted higher up the ridge. Getting ahead of the artillery would put them in danger of being blasted by their own guns.
The giant naval cannons focused on the reinforced concrete bunkers protecting German heavy gun emplacements. The immense but inaccurate shells sent plumes of dirt, concrete and shrapnel skyward with every impact. The craters left behind were as large as houses.
The fight to take Vimy Ridge cost Canada dearly, but it would become the cornerstone of the nation’s image of its place in the world. In four days, 3,600 Canadian soldiers died, another 5,000 were wounded. But the ridge was taken, much of it in the first day. The valour of the troops, the originality of the plan, the success where larger, more established armies had failed, all contributed to a new nation’s pride.
The battle was hailed as the first allied success of the long war, achieved mostly due to the innovation of using a creeping, continuous massive artillery barrage to protect squads of advancing troops. Both sides used the tactic in future battles.
But even today we’re paying the cost. At Vimy and other former First World War battlefields, the ground is so full of unexploded ordnance that visitors are warned not to stray from marked pathways. The risk from shells that fell and never exploded is still so high that it’s too dangerous, nearly a century later, to walk onto the actual battlefield to search for remains of soldiers listed as “missing.”
Today, there’s a large park at Vimy Ridge, dedicated to Canada. The striking memorial features a 30-tonne limestone figure carved from a single block, a hooded figure representing Canada herself, gazing down on a single tomb overlooking the Douai plain.
The twin stone pillars list the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers who died in France and whose remains were never found.
What Was The Battle Of Vimy Ridge?
Monday April 9, 2007
The Battle of Vimy Ridge is widely considered to be a defining moment in Canadian history, a point when our nation ceased to be merely a fragment of the British Empire, instead emerging as an independent nation capable of international greatness.
Vimy Ridge also earned the Canadian military and its soldiers great respect around the world, though it came at a considerable cost of human life with more than 10,000 killed and wounded.
Vimy Ridge itself is an elevated seven-kilometre stretch in the north of France that offered the German forces a brilliant view of the allied forces as a strategic stronghold during the late stages of the First World War. French and British forces tried for years to push the Germans back, and the French lost 150,000 men in attempts to claim the Ridge during 1915 alone though it was only defended by a few thousand Germans.
In April of 1917 fresh but well-proven Canadian troops were handed the unenviable task, and the offensive marked the first time that all four Canadian Corps were brought together.
The Canadian forces had prepared diligently, training in mock trenches in the weeks leading up to the planned attack, one that was scheduled to the second and executed brilliantly behind a massive week-long wall of artillery fire, the largest in history to that point featuring more than one million artillery shells. The bombardment took a physical, but more importantly mental, toll on the German forces, and they came to know it as “The Week of Suffering.” The attack was so loud it could be heard in England.
And then came that fateful day. On April 9, Easter Monday 1917, Canada went over, storming the front with more than 15,000 men around 5:30am just as the dawn broke.
Against unprecedented amounts of enemy fire, the infantry bravely pressed on even as its officers fell. The result was that even as Canadian troops were slaughtered, others pushed on through the barbed wire and eventually forced the surrender of German troops in protective dugouts. Eventually, the Ridge’s most important spot, Hill 145, was seized by the Canadians in a frontal bayonet charge. Three days later the victory was final. It was the first Allied victory in more than a year and a half.
It’s on Hill 145 where the famous Vimy Monument now stands and the Ridge, as well as the surrounding area was ceded to Canada in perpetuity in 1936 and since it now stands on Canadian soil, the monument is tended to by Veterans Affairs Canada.
In total, 3,598 Canadians were killed and over 7,000 injured.
