Vimy Ridge Essay

In Canadian historiography, the Battle of Vimy Ridge has often been portrayed as the day “we became a full fledged nation with an army of our own.” The problem with this statement, and any narrative that sees Canada evolving from a colony to a nation on the top of Vimy Ridge is that it misrepresents both the nature of the Canadian Corps’ victory and exaggerates its place in developing the Canadian nation. Since World War I, Vimy Ridge has become the epicenter of Canadian nationalism, and has been the focus of many works from poems to textbooks that trace Canadian national history. As a result, it has been used often by politicians from Sir Arthur Currie to prime minister Mackenzie to promote their own political agendas.

While the majority

of the material on the subject is very nationalistic, scholars have reassessed the Canadian achievements at the capture of the ridge. Jonathan Vance emphasizes that it was an imperial force with supporting British infantry and artillery that took the ridge, not one exclusively Canadian. Jack Granestein, went even further, maintaining that the Canadian Corps achieved more in that last hundred days than they did at Vimy Ridge. It is possible to get a comprehensive understanding by examining the foreign influence on the Canadian Corps strategic background and, the effects the battle had at home during the battle and once the war was complete. These realities - Canada’s foreign support, and the myth of Canada’s emergence from the battle - illustrates how the Canadian accomplishment at Vimy Ridge has been exaggerated.
The British influenced the Canadians corps both in their commanders and in the doctrines they followed. Not only did the supplies, weaponry and ammunition come from United Kingdoms vast productions, from the nine heavy artillery groups that put Canada a top Vimy Ridge, seven came from the royal artillery.1 Moreover, the Canadian corps were not led by Canadian officers, but in actuality were commanded by British lieutenant-generals since its creation, first by E.A. Alderson and then Sir Julian Byng. Under Byng's rule the key staff planners were also British: Major Alan Brooke, John Dill; and Edmund Ironside.2 In fact, more than a dozen imperial officers who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force reached the rank of general officer, while Canadians rarely reached the rank of officer before the battle of Vimy Ridge. Hence, the role of Canadians as leaders of the battle has been grossly overstated.
The British commander, Sir Julian Byng has been overshadowed in our collective memory by Arthur Currie, who commanded the First Canadian Infantry Division at Vimy and took command of the corps shortly after. However, it was Byng who led the corps through difficult attack launches, that were new to the Canadians, such as the fire at Mount Sorrel and the Somme later on. He was responsible for a majority of Key officer appointments in the Corps, and he successfully established merit-based promotions, which ensured the right person for the job much more frequently than his predecessor Sam Hughes.
The legend of Vimy enshrines Canadian tactical innovations, and applauds the new approach to training in preparation for the capture.

Currie, a Canadian under British command, was able to go to France to study the lessons learned by the French at Verdun and to bring them home for Canadians to use. These tactics were to ensure that everyone was in a position where they could see their objective and the likely enemy strongpoints.3 Furthermore, French aircrafts took extensive pictures of the enemy territory, which were distributed to brief troops, so they could have at a minimum, recognizable knowledge of the land.4 Except, as Paul Dickson explains, "Currie did not make his observations in a vacuum,” and many of the methods he suggested had already been implemented within British as well as Canadian divisions.5 This in no way diminishes the achievement of the Canadians, since it was the Corps' thorough preparation, which ensured its success; but, French blood and bravery were fundamental ingredients to the Canadian success at Vimy Ridge, making it an allied

victory.
Overconfidence of the Germans in Vimy as being impregnable resulted in them not properly applying their new doctrine, which made the Canadian attack on Vimy considerably easier. This new doctrine concluded that the policy of defending a statically fixed line was not effective and could not be relied upon as a defense mechanism.6 It instead emphasized fighting an elastic war; however, the geography of Vimy Ridge made the doctrine of “defense-in-depth” difficult to execute, and eliminated the possibility of a counter-attack.7 This doctrine aided in the Canadian capture of the Ridge since the German defense relied heavily on machine guns, only allowing approximately seven thousand Germans available to respond to an attack, while the Canadians marched and attacked the Germans with thirty-five thousand soldiers. 8 Therefore, the changes to the German doctrine made the Canadian capture of Vimy Ridge relatively easier when compared to previous battles.
The Canadian capture of Vimy Ridge did not bring any strategic returns to the war. Instead, it is remembered as a great tactical victory, the Canadians were able to capture more weapons, grounds and prisoners than any previous British offensive on the western front.9 “The greatest day in the Canadians’ history” was the way medical officer J.N. Gunn summed up the first day of the Vimy attack in his diary.10 However, after its capture, no plans for exploitation were made, and there were no massed cavalry divisions. With the capture of the ridge, the Germans retreated a few miles eastward into new trench lines.11 Despite common belief, the Battle of Vimy Ridge did not win the war, or even substantially change its course.
The implementation of conscription in Canada shook the country and provides a divergence to the notion of Canada emerging as a nation after the battle. The overriding issue of the Canadian elections of December 1917 was conscription.12 Majority of men who originally volunteered were “Britons” British born Canadians who used this opportunity to visit home.13 However, Prime Minister Borden astonished by the amount of casualties at Vimy, wanted to increase the force, and was convinced that force was the only way to do so.14 Consequently, after speaking to Sir Wilfred Laurier and the opposition, Canadian political life revolved around the question of man power. Conscription was ultimately passed, and the French Canadians resented the election results particularly at the way their concerns were dismissed by the majority. In Quebec, almost all Francophones called to be exempt from the war, and the same was true in the rest of English-speaking Canada.15 Consequently, conscription had long lasting political implications. It was a disaster for the conservative party, killing it in Quebec, and greatly weakening it in rural Canada, where the implementation and subsequent lifting of blanket exemptions of military service for the farmers produced fury.16 Canada did not emerge as a nation after the battle and instead became increasingly divided politically throughout the rest of the war over the topic of conscription.
Canada, despite improving their relationship with the British at the end of the war, and during the Paris Peace conference, did not become a fully sovereign state.

During the last hundred days the Canadians liberated five hundred square miles and met and defeated forty-seven German divisions, nearly a quarter of the divisions in the German army. Therefore, by November 1918 Canadians believed that their participation had been “that of a nation defending its right to exist” and not a colony responding to the war effort of its mother country.17 During the war, prime minister, Borden had demanded a greater role for Canada, and was angered by the lack of communication between Ottawa and London. In a letter to the British he wrote, “It can hardly be expected that we shall put 400,000 or 500,00 men in the field and willingly accept the position of having no more voice and receiving no more consideration.”18 His discontent did not go unnoticed and the Imperial War Conference of 1917 reports state that any changes to the constitutional relations of the Empire “should recognize the right of the Dominions and India to an adequate voice in foreign policy and in foreign relations, and should provide effective arrangements for continuous consultation in all important matters of common imperial concern.”19 Therefore, the appearance of separate signatures for the Dominions, as members of the British empire on the Paris Peace Accord, represented international recognition of their status

change. Full sovereignty was not obtained, but this was a major step towards independence and represented an important recognition of the new realities of imperial relations.
Despite being the battle most remembered by Canadians from WWI, Vimy Ridge misrepresents both the nature of the Canadian Corps’ victory and exaggerates its place in Canadian emergence as a nation. Canada was significantly influenced by British commanders and doctrines, and interestingly British commander Byng was overshadowed in favour of Canadian Currie. The legend of Vimy also enshrines Canadian tactical innovations which were influenced by the French at Verdun. The application of the new German doctrine made the Canadian attack and the subsequent capture of the ridge an easier task. Symbolically, the Canadian capture of Vimy ridge did not bring any strategic returns to the war. After the Battle of Vimy, Canada did not emerge as a nation because it was divided politically over the issue of conscription. Through the end of the war and the Paris Peace conference though allowing Canada a voice in foreign affairs and policy it did not grant Canada sovereignty and it remained a colony of the British empire.