What Was The Battle Of Vimy Ridge?

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.