(Text on next slide) 1 1. Introduction
Question : what is the meaning of the monument?
Meaning always changes because it is we, the living, who attach meaning, or value, to things (e.g., the national war memorial in Ottawa is rededicated to later wars).
A good work of art will always touch a deep core in human nature. Will always speak to our humanity.
Vimy does exactly that and so is able to have meaning for different generations of Canadians.
However, meaning is fluid; one should keep in mind that public monuments have more than simply commemorative value. Political meaning also attaches to monuments. Vimy is no exception.
1a (Text on next slide) 2 2. History
Britain’s declaration of war on August 4, 1914 meant that Canada too, as a member of the British empire, was automatically at war with Germany.
Canada had a small standing army of slightly more than 3,000 regulars, supplemented by 74,000 part-time militia.
By the end of the war, the country had over 600,000 men and women in uniform. Its most notable contribution to the war effort came through the Canada Corps, a force of some 100,000 soldiers sent to fight along the western front, where its courage and innovative methods earned it a high reputation.
At the political level, it resulted in the introduction of the Military Voters Act in 1917, followed by the federal Women’s Franchise Act in 1918. This expansion of the franchise effectively gave a majority of ordinary Canadians the right to vote for the first time and this would alter traditional representation in parliament.
Battle sites
In 1919 Canada sought and was awarded eight battle sites: - 5 in France: Courcellette, Vimy Ridge, le Quesnel, Dury and Bourlon Wood - 3 in Belgium: Saint Julien, Hill 62 and Passchendaele
The capture of Vimy Ridge in April 1917 was one of several significant Canadian military engagements.
National monuments
Canada decided to mark the sites with national monuments paid for out of the public purse. This is the first time – the decision reflects not only Canada’s impressive fighting record, but the conflict also affected the country’s sense of its national identity, which began to define itself as ‘different’ from, although not in opposition to, Britain. In concert with the expanded franchise, nationalism also placed greater emphasis on greater inclusivity of the citizenry.
FN. Jonathan Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War, 1997, pp. 66-67. 2a Competition held in 1921 open to all Canadians
Walter Allward, a Canadian sculptor from Toronto. His design was proclaimed the winner in early 1922.
3 Map showing the line of the western front. Vimy lies between Arras and Lens.
4 29th infantry battalion advancing over Vimy Ridge, April 1917. 5 (Text on next slide) 6 6. Walter Allward on the Ridge in 1922.
Vimy Ridge is in the Pas de Calais region of northern France. It looks out over the coal fields around Lens, once the heartland of France’s industrial base. This area was heavily defended by the German army during the war. Allward is standing on the highest point.
They have erected telegraph poles to get a sense of how the monument would look in the wide landscape.
The Vimy monument is the largest and most imposing monument ever erected by a Canadian sculptor.
It took 3 years to prepare the site. Construction began in 1925, and was completed in 1936.
Measurements: Base: 52 x 28 meters Pylons: 30 meters 20 larger than life figures adorn the monument.
6a (Text on next slide)
7 7. Allward’s monument to the South African war on University Avenue, Toronto. Completed c.1910
This is a victory monument. A young figure of Canada sends her soldiers off to war
Traditional monuments were victory monuments: usually commemorated a military leader or successful military engagement (Brock monument, Niagara-on-the-Lake).
Response to the first world war was utterly different.
Britain and the dominions lost one million servicemen.
Canada lost 65,000 young men.
With such an unimaginable loss of human life, honouring the dead became not just an obligation, but also a cathartic exercise that, in its thoroughness and dedication, reflected the huge impact of this conflict on society.
7a (Text on next slide)
8 8. Vimy monument expresses very different sentiments from those expressed in Allward’s South African monument:
- in place of the figure of Canada enthusiastically sending her young men off to war, Allward created Canada Bereft. She stands over their tomb.
- the style has changed: no longer contemporary and realistic.
Instead Allward chose a classical style, a style that is timeless. Its classicism is reinforced by its use of a white Mediterranean stone, which came from an ancient Roman quarry in present-day Croatia.
8a (Text on next slide) 9 9. The Ghosts of Vimy Ridge (artist: William Longstaff c. 1929, Canadian war museum)
There have always been questions about the meaning of the Vimy monument. Its iconography is complex and layered.
Indeed that was one of the first questions asked of Allward when illustrations of its design were published in 1922. He answered with a description of a dream:
“When things were at their bleakest in France, I dreamed that I was in a great battlefield. I saw our men going by in thousands and being mowed down by the sickles of death … suffering beyond endurance at the sight, I turned my eyes and found myself looking down on an avenue of poplars. Suddenly through the avenue I saw thousands marching to the aid of our armies. They were the dead. They rose in masses, filed silently by and entered the fight to aid the living. So vivid was the impression, that when I awoke it stayed with me for months. Without the dead we were helpless. So I have tried to show this in this monument to Canada’s fallen. What we owed them and will forever owe them.”
Allward’s sense of obligation to the dead and the need to honour in perpetuity every soldier that lost his life are fundamental characteristics of first world war memorials, characteristics that separate them from earlier war memorials.
Role of the artist: to make sense of the tragedy.
Myth: we confront tragedy with myth. With myths that can bring solace to the bereaved.
The great myth of the first world war: through heroic self-sacrifice, Canada’s dead had earned spiritual rebirth. 9a (Text on next slide) 10 10. Historic photograph of the monument taken in 1936 just before the dedication ceremony.
Allward’s description of the monument: the figure of Canada Bereft stands on the great wall of defence. She is looking down on the tomb, which is laid directly on the battlefield.
Behind her is the figure group: spirit of sacrifice and passing of the torch (reference to John McCrea’s poem)
The torch is being passed to the figures (personifications of the virtues). It is held by peace at the top of the monument. Allward said that the figures at the top “were singing the hymn of peace.”
The two sculptural groups at the front of the wall are “The Defenders” - on the left, the breaking of the sword: on the right, Canadian’s sympathy for the helpless.
10a Figures of peace and justice 11 The Defenders: ‘the breaking of the sword’ (this and the opposite group represent the obligations of the living).
12 ‘Canada Bereft’ overlooking the battlefield. 13 (Text on next slide) 14 14. Allward’s choice of location for the monument meant that it would face away from the existing approach road.
As a consequence, he was obliged to design a second front to the monument.
Allward on the new side of the monument. The steps are flanked by two figures known either as “the Canadian men and women” or “the parents.” (Allward did not record their identity).
14a (Text on next slide) 15 15. Names on the wall
The Imperial War Graves Commission, established in 1917, was responsible for burying the war dead.
The Commission, of which Canada and the other dominion countries were members, established a broad commemorative policy:
Equality in death - no distinction of rank. All honoured as heroes in a collectivity of heroism.
Buried with their comrades where they fell, honoured in perpetuity.
The missing who had no graves
Of the 1 million dead, 500,000 could not be identified or accounted for. With the concept of equality in mind, the IWGC determined that the names of the 500,000 missing should be engraved on monuments along the battlefront.
There are 11,285 names of the missing in France on the Vimy monument – the names of the 7,024 missing Canadians who died in Belgium are engraved on the Menin Gate in Ypres.
15a (Text on next slide) 16 16. Vimy landscape
100 hectares and contains two cemeteries
Because so many died and were lost along the western front, the battlefields came to be seen as sacred ground, sanctified by the blood of so many dead.
On Vimy Ridge 3,598 Canadians were killed and more than 7,000 wounded. It was the most intense and costliest victory in Canadian military history.
The military historian Tim Cook observed that “April 9, 1917 was the single bloodiest day of the entire war for the Canadian corps: worse than Beaumont Hamel on July 1, 1916, worse than Dieppe on August 19, 1942, worse than D-day on June 6, 1944; in fact, worse than all three combined.”
At an April 1922 meeting called to determine on which of the sites the Vimy memorial would be placed, prime minister Mackenzie King suggested that the battlefield on Vimy Ridge be preserved as a memorial landscape:
“I made a strong plea for conserving a tract of one or two square miles of Vimy Ridge as consecrated, hallowed ground around Allward’s memorial to be erected. The real memorial being the Ridge itself, one of earth’s altars, on which Canadians sacrificed for the cause of humanity ... This is Canada’s altar on European soil”.
16a The regenerated landscape. But it is still a graveyard.
Bodies of German soldiers found during the restoration of the monument in 2004-2007, when ground was cleared for temporary parking site, the bodies of two German soldiers were found just below the surface. 17
French forest. After the war the French government planted Austrian pines across the Ridge to regenerate the land. The sheep keep the grass trimmed. 18 Myth of the trees.
The pines were planted in an orderly fashion. As they grew, sunshine filtered through their canopies and regenerated the land. No sooner were they planted than there grew up the myth that the a tree had been planted for each Canadian who had died. The myth was still strong when the monument was restored in 2004-07. 19 To preserve the trenches, in the 1920s, the sandbags were refilled with concrete.
20 (Text on next slide) 21 21. From 1960-1990 there was a loss of interest in the monument.
Misunderstandings about the monument and its relationship to the landscape.
By 1990s it was in very bad shape.
Guides at Vimy Ridge knew little about the monument.
Publicity in the 1990s showing that the names on the walls were deteriorating rekindled the sense of obligation to honour the dead in perpetuity.
A full restoration of the monument was undertaken in time for the 95th anniversary of the battle.
21a It was necessary to remove all the stone from the walls and platform. All stones in good shape were kept. The remaining were destroyed. Fortunately, the pylons and the sculptures were in very good shape. 22 Figure of peace to whom the torch has been passed.
23 A blue ribbon advisory committee to the restoration project determined that only the original stone could be used in the restoration. The team went to the area of the original quarry in Croatia. The same stone had been used by the Romans for some of their public buildings.
24 More than 40% of the lettering had to be reinscribed. 25 The restored monument at dawn. 26