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1/ My thoughts on #Vimy. A thread. [Sorry...it's long...]
Today is the 102nd Anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. A battle often referred to as the day Canada was born or at least changed from colony to nation. PM Trudeau said it again today. I think that's a pile of
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![1/ My thoughts on #Vimy. A thread. [Sorry...it's long...]Today is the 102nd Anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. A battle often referred to as the day Canada was born or at least changed from colony to nation. PM Trudeau said it again today. I think that's a pile of .](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D3wDunPU0AAO6YY.jpg "1/ My thoughts on #Vimy. A thread. [Sorry...it's long...]Today is the 102nd Anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. A battle often referred to as the day Canada was born or at least changed from colony to nation. PM Trudeau said it again today. I think that's a pile of .")
Today is the 102nd Anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. A battle often referred to as the day Canada was born or at least changed from colony to nation. PM Trudeau said it again today. I think that's a pile of
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2/ The battle is tremendously important in Cdn military history, but not for the reasons popularly assumed. It was a time of great loss for Canada. Over 4 days the Cdn Corps lost nearly 3,600 dead and another 7,000 wounded. April 9 was the costliest day in Cdn military history.
3/ It was the first time the four Divisions of the Corps fought together, and there is symmetry in the thought of Cdns from coast to coast advancing up the ridge side by side as "Canada's Easter Gift to France" but it didn't change much. Other battles were far more important.
4/ Hill 70 is in many ways a more impressive battle by the Corps (at least the first part, not the attack on Lens) and the Cdn part in the Last Hundred Days Campaign starting with Amiens on 8 Aug 1918 had a direct role in the closing stages of the war.
5/ It must be remembered that Vimy was only a small part of the bigger Arras offensive which lasted for over a month, which in itself, was only a diversionary operation for the much larger French Nivelle offensive in the Chemin des Dames which launched on 16 April.
6/ It wasn't even a particularly Cdn battle. Sure the 4 Cdn divisions lead the attack, but much of the arty and other support troops were British. The Cdns strongly benefited from British leadership. LGen Byng, who commanded the corps, was British as were many staff officers.
7/ The Canadians also benefit from Royal Flying Corps support and the presence of British divisions, including 5th British Division as part of the Cdn Corps. Nic Clarke, whose article on Vimy I strongly recommend, states that 75,302 of the 172,485 men in the Corps were British.
8/ This doesn't even count the many (majority?) of Canadian soldiers in the Corps who were born in the UK.
9/ PM Trudeau's statement today on the battle was filled with much of usual, and tiresome, rhetoric (“Some say Canada was born that day") but his comment that "soldiers from all across Canada – Francophones, Anglophones, new Canadians, and Indigenous peoples" was refreshing.
10/ What does all this mean? This thread is not an attack on Canadian memory or pride in the battle as @gwhayes66, Andrew Iarocci, and I were accused when we published our edited collection on Vimy. (Shameless plug, but we don't get any royalties!) https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/V/Vimy-Ridge3
11/ In every conceivable way, the Canadian capture of the Ridge was an impressive feat of arms, especially for a nation that essentially had no standing army only three years previously. The bravery of the men who advanced on that snowy day is without parallel.
12/ But we have to disentangle the battle and its true context in the overall war effort from all the nationalist syrup that surrounds many Canadians' understanding of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
13/ So you want to learn more, but where do you start?
A quick, easy read that provides more detail on what I say here is Nic Clarke's article on @ActiveHist : http://activehistory.ca/2017/04/feet-of-clay-canadas-vimy-ridge/
A quick, easy read that provides more detail on what I say here is Nic Clarke's article on @ActiveHist : http://activehistory.ca/2017/04/feet-of-clay-canadas-vimy-ridge/
14/ Tim Cook's Vimy is magisterial tour de force. He tells the story of the battle but even better, he examines Canadians' changing views of Vimy since the battle. His findings about who we are as a nation are better than any colony-to-nation myth.
https://www.amazon.ca/Vimy-Battle-Legend-Tim-Cook/dp/0735233160
https://www.amazon.ca/Vimy-Battle-Legend-Tim-Cook/dp/0735233160
15/ And one final suggestion. While I can't recommend McKay and Swift's The Vimy Trap, I do suggest you ready @gwhayes66's review of the book. You won't be disappointed! http://canadianmilitaryhistory.ca/review-of-ian-mckay-and-jamie-swifts-the-vimy-trap-by-geoffrey-hayes/
