Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 1 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 2 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 3 BRERETON GREENHOUS STEPHEN J. HARRIS Canada and the BATTLE OF VIMY RIDGE 9-12 April 1917 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 4 Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Greenhous, Brereton, 1929- Stephen J. Harris, 1948- Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge, 9-12 April 1917 Issued also in French under title: Le Canada et la Bataille de Vimy 9-12 avril 1917. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-660-16883-9 DSS cat. no. D2-90/1992E-1 2nd ed. 2007 1.Vimy Ridge, Battle of, 1917. 2.World War, 1914-1918 — Campaigns — France. 3. Canada. Canadian Army — History — World War, 1914-1918. 4.World War, 1914-1918 — Canada. I. Harris, Stephen John. II. Canada. Dept. of National Defence. Directorate of History. III. Title. IV.Title: Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge, 9-12 April 1917. D545.V5G73 1997 940.4’31 C97-980068-4 Cet ouvrage a été publié simultanément en français sous le titre de : Le Canada et la Bataille de Vimy, 9-12 avril 1917 ISBN 0-660-93654-2 Project Coordinator: Serge Bernier Reproduced by Directorate of History and Heritage, National Defence Headquarters Jacket: Drawing by Stéphane Geoffrion from a painting by Kenneth Forbes, 1892-1980 Canadian Artillery in Action Original Design and Production Art Global 384 Laurier Ave.West Montréal, Québec Canada H2V 2K7 Printed and bound in Canada All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services. © Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada (1995) Catalogue No. D2-90/1992E-1 2nd ed. 2007 ISBN 0-660-16883-9 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors have a number of people to thank. At the National Archives of Canada, Barbara Wilson helped with official records and Tim Dubé made certain that we were aware of all relevant manuscript collections, while Joan Schwartz, Andrew Rodger, Peter Robertson, and particularly Les Mobbs, assisted with the selection and reproduction of photographs. We would also like to thank our colleagues at the Directorate of History who read, and commented upon, our initial drafts, and the Directorate cartographer, William Constable, for his painstaking work in revising and preparing the ancient negatives of maps from G.W.L.Nicholson’s official history of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the First World War. Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 6 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 7 ‘A nation is a body of people who have done great things together in the past and who expect to do great things together in the future.’ F.H. Underhill The Image of Confederation (1964) Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 8 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 9 Ninety years ago, Canadians defined who they were based on their region, province, culture and ethnic communities. Our national identity was little more than a vague notion.At that time, when Canada was still carving out its place on the world stage, our country was called to fight alongside the Allies during the First World War.History would remember the victories and courage of our soldiers, but if there was one battle that would forge our national identity, it was the Battle of Vimy Ridge. On Easter Monday 1917, the four divisions of the Canadian Corps lined up together and seized a commanding German position that had proven to be too much for the French and British. But victory had not come lightly: 3 500 Canadian soldiers fell during that mission.The account later told by the survivors was moving.They spoke of the horror, of course, but also of the feeling that they had achieved something of great importance. Standing atop Vimy Ridge, looking down in victory over the Douai Plain, they knew that they were forever bound to one another.When that terrible war ended, each would return to their homes with a new awareness and a desire to call themselves, more proudly than ever, Canadians. On the 90 th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, we honour those men who fought so courageously for their country in the name of freedom and justice. Michaëlle Jean November 2006 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 10 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 11 Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge The Dominion of Canada was just 50 years old in April 1917 when 100,000 of her 8 million citizens fought and won the Battle of Vimy Ridge. It was the biggest Allied victory of the Great War to that point, but it was much more than that. Brigadier-General Alexander Ross, commander of one of the four Canadian divisions that stormed the Ridge, put it best: “It was Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific on parade,” he said. “I thought then that in those few minutes I witnessed the birth of a nation.” Indeed he did. Canada emerged as a nation that twice rose to the defence of the homelands of her two founding peoples and became a powerful force for peace in the world. To this day, Canada is a nation that never flinches from its duty to stand up for freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Our ancestors built a magnificent monument atop Vimy Ridge to immortalize this seminal moment in our nation’s history. This year marks the 90 th anniversary of the battle, the dedication of the completely refurbished monument, and the republication of this superb book, Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge. I invite all Canadians to honour the 3,598 brave souls who fell in that battle by reading this book and someday, if possible, making a pilgrimage to the hallowed ground in Northern France where modern Canada was born. The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P. Prime Minister of Canada Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 12 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:38 AM Page 13 CHAPTER I Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:38 AM Page 14 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:38 AM Page 15 CHAPTER I PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS In all his thirty-six years, Jack Harris had imminent prospect of killing or being killed never been a man to spend much time that led him to start a diary. He kept it with pen or pencil. His schooling had ended intermittently, in pencil (in a surprisingly at the age of fourteen and he had become neat and trim hand) in a scrubby little a bricklayer — a trade that, at the turn of the soldier’s notebook, eight centimetres by nineteenth century,required few writing skills thirteen, that he carried in the pocket beyond those necessary to sign for his pay. of his tunic; and a month after he began it he would record how a very ordinary Nor, in March 1917, as a mere private in the man, who had been born and raised in the (now permanently) dismounted 4th Canadian English countryside and essentially still Mounted Rifles was he privy to the counsels thought of himself as an Englishman despite of Sir Douglas Haig, the commander-in-chief seven years in Canada, helped to make of the British Expeditionary Force in France. both military and Canadian history — and Even the smaller-scale intentions of General all unwittingly make himself into a Canadian! Sir Henry Horne, the commander of the British First Army, with which the Canadian The 9th of April, 1917, found him Corps was serving, and Lieutenant-General jammed together with several hundred of Sir Julian Byng, the English aristocrat his fellow-soldiers in a tunnel cut through who commanded the Corps for the time the chalk that underlay the south-western being, were quite beyond his ken. He slopes of Vimy Ridge.There were many had not yet heard shots fired in anger, and more men — thousands of them — waiting he could hardly have known that he was in other tunnels and caves, all safe for the about to participate in an apocalyptic battle. moment against German shot and shell. They One, it has since been argued (by better- were faced by other hazards, however. educated and more influential men than Most of the thirteen tunnels, ill-lit by electric Jack, who were also there) that played lights strung along the rough walls, were a notable part in creating a Canadian identity. half a kilometre or more in length and only a metre wide. Many of the occupants were All Private Harris knew was that he there all day and half the night, smoking, would soon be going into the trenches for sweating, eating cold food and drinking the first time. Perhaps it was simply the lukewarm tea brought up in dixies, farting OF VIMY E R L I T D T G A E B 15 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:38 AM Page 16 and using barrels as toilets.