From the backside of the
Canadian National Vimy Ridge Memorial it's not hard to see why both sides wanted
Vimy Ridge. The Memorial is located at the very top of a tall ridge. Behind it the land falls away sharply and to see twenty kilometers is hardly difficult. Today preserved
trenches of both sides run a few yards apart. But there are the craters, and one cannot visit any
battlefield of the First World War without seeing the evidence that
World War I was very much an
artillery war. In front of the
memorial you drive up through a see of craters, decorated with ubiquitous red signs warning visitors like me of all the unexploded ordinance.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge was a part of the Nivelle Offensive in 1917. The British Army's contribution was to attack around Arras in part to attract German north and away from the Chemin-de-Dans where Nivelle intended to make his main effort and recover a fair portion of France seized in 1914. This put Vimy Ridge at the far left end of he offensive. The Battle of Verdun had concluded months earlier, and Robert Nivelle had replaced Joffre as the General-in-Chief of the French Army. Nivelle had been an artillery specialist whose tactics had worked very well during the defensive battle for Verdun, but it had cost the French Army 400,000 men and left French soldiers wondering if their officers took them seriously. He planned an offensive intended to liberate France, but the Germans abruptly left their positions and retreated to new positions prepared for them along the Hindenberg Line. This retreat included the destruction of Chateau Coucy, arguably the greatest medieval castle.
The French army occupied the territory the Germans had left behind while Nivelle revised his plans, but not his strategy. The retreat to the Hindenberg Line had shortened the German Lines and allowed the German Army to create a substantial reserve. Although the Allies had far more aircraft, fort the first part of 1917 German aircraft were usually superior to their Allied counterparts and so short-range reconnaissance was readily possible, abetted by they fact the Germans were dug in on the high ground. So very little in Nivelle's attack came as a surprise.
While the much larger French Army had begun as an army of draftees. The British Army was quite the opposite, and the Canadian Corp had been trained and modeled in the British tradition. In the 1914 the British army was quite small compared to any continental army, but it was a professional army of volunteers, and very highly skilled. Casualties and rapid expansion had done a great deal to dilute the skills and professionalism of that army, but the training habits of of its officers and NCOs retained many pre-war habits. And by 1917 the British Army was an experienced army that knew his Enemy. The Battle of the Somme had taught the Brits a great deal, and they had dropped their ambition of massive breakthrough in favor of 'bite and hold' tactics, where the object was less to end the war than to end the battle ahead of where they started and with fewer casualties suffered than inflicted. By 1917 the tank had arrived upon the battlefield, and some of the problems in their operation made known and made good. British Generals understood the need for thorough preparation of the battlefield. Still, one must rememember that the whole of the First World War was fought inside France and Belgium, so it was quite natural for any French general to want to see his homeland liberated.
Vimy Ridge was the first place where all four Canadian divisions fought as one corp, under the command of General Henry Horne. Horne prepared his troops thoroughly. He had large sand tables built and prepared so that even ordinary infantrymen knew the terrain and their part in the attack. The effort was always going to be difficult. The Germans controlled the dominant terrain, and all cover had long ago been shot away. The land in front of Vimy Ridge was honeycombed with tunnels so that supplies and troops could be brought forward for the great attack. During my visit, a young Canadian docent told me those tunnels were a far bigger danger to me than unexploded ordinance. They were a century old and had never been maintained, "and if one gives way beneath you, we'll never find you." One of the tunnels has been preserved and it opened up on British trench line only yards from the German trenches.
By taking Vimy Ridge, the Canadians would protect British First and Third Armies as they assaulted Arras. On April 9, 1917, covered by a creeping barrage the Canadians went 'over the top'. By the end of the day the Ridge was theirs. By April 12 the final objectives had been siezed and the German Sixth Army retreated to a new line formed between Oppy and Mericourt.
Because of the extensive and careful preparation The Battle of Vimy Ridge, became a rare offensive victory. Arras was soon liberated but the Nivelle Offensive itself fizzled out, as the French Army suffered enormous casualties, which led some units to rebel and refuse to attack their German foes. Nivelle was dismissed and replaced by Marshall Petain and Ferdinand Foch. The instability of the French Army at this moment led Douglas Haig to expand the attack at Passchendaele in order to keep pressure on the Germans while the French Army recovered its balance. But the good work done by the Canadian Corp at Vimy Ridge proved very important in Canada. It can be argued the Battle of Vimy Ridge was a seminal moment in the formation of a Canadian national identity separate from the British Empire.