Last Updated April 2, 2007
\nGary Graves, CBC News<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/background\/vimy\/gfx\/message_card.jpg\")
\nCombat Message Card used in the days before troops carried portable radios<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/background\/vimy\/gfx\/map_frontlines.jpg\")
\nMap of Vimy front lines, April 9, 1917 (Source: National Archives)<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/background\/vimy\/gfx\/map_attack.jpg\")
\nMap of Vimy attack plan, April 9, 1917 (Source: National Archives)<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 all four divisions, totalling 100,000 men \u2013 got the go-ahead.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2026 shock and awe 1917-style.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 in some cases until they exhausted their ammunition. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/background\/vimy\/gfx\/vimy_shells.jpg\")
\nCanadians under fire at Vimy (Source: National Archives)<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/photogalleries\/cdn_memorial_vimy\/images\/01.jpg\")
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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/photogalleries\/cdn_memorial_vimy\/images\/04.jpg\")
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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/photogalleries\/cdn_memorial_vimy\/images\/06.jpg\")
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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.<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The twin stone pillars list the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers who died in France and whose remains were never found.<\/p>\n
What Was The Battle Of Vimy Ridge?<\/strong><\/p>\n Monday April 9, 2007<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n In total, 3,598 Canadians were killed and over 7,000 injured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u7ef4\u7c73\u5cad\u6218\u5f79\u662f\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u4e16\u754c\u5927\u6218\u4e2d\uff0c\u897f\u90e8\u6218\u7ebf\u7684\u4e00\u6b21\u6218\u5f79\uff0c\u53d1\u751f\u4e8e1917\u5e74\u3002\u7ef4\u7c73\u5cad\u6218\u5f79\u662f\u963f\u62c9\u65af\u6218\u5f79\u7684\u5934\u5e55\uff0c\u4e5f\u662f\u52a0\u62ff\u5927\u6700\u6709\u540d\u7684\u6218\u5f79\u4e4b\u4e00\u3002 \u7ef4\u7c73\u5cad\u662f\u6cd5\u56fd\u963f\u62c9\u65af\u5e02\u4ee5\u5317\u7ef4\u7c73\u9547\u9644\u8fd1\u7684\u5c71\u5cad\u3002\u8fd9\u4e2a\u5730\u65b9\u662f\u5fb7\u56fd\u5728\u6574\u4e2a\u897f\u90e8\u6218\u7ebf\u5b88\u536b\u7684\u6700\u597d\u7684\u3002\u56e0\u4e3a\u7ef4\u7c73\u5cad\u662f\u9ad8\u5730\uff0c\u6240\u4ee5\u53cc\u65b9\u90fd\u8ba4\u4e3a\u8fd9\u662f\u4e00\u4e2a\u519b\u4e8b\u6218\u7565\u4e0a\u91cd\u8981\u7684\u5730\u65b9\u3002\u82f1\u56fd\u548c\u6cd5\u56fd\u90fd\u57281915\u5e74\u8fdb…![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.citynews.ca\/images\/2007-04\/apr0907-vimy4.jpg\")
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