Canadian National Vimy Memorial
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is a war memorial site in France dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It also serves as the place of commemoration for Canadian soldiers of the First World War killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave. The monument is the centrepiece of a preserved battlefield park that encompasses a portion of the ground over which the Canadian Corps made their assault during the initial Battle of Vimy Ridge offensive of the Battle of Arras.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge was the first time all four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force participated in a battle as a cohesive formation, and it became a Canadian national symbol of achievement and sacrifice. France ceded to Canada the perpetual use of a portion of land on Vimy Ridge on the understanding that Canada use the land to establish a battlefield park and memorial. Wartime tunnels, trenches, craters, and unexploded munitions still honeycomb the grounds of the site, which remains largely closed off for reasons of public safety. Along with preserved trench lines, several other memorials and cemeteries are contained within the park.
The project took designer Walter Seymour Allward eleven years to build. King Edward VIII unveiled it on 26 July 1936 in the presence of French President Albert Lebrun and a crowd of over 50,000 people, including 6,200 attendees from Canada. Following an extensive multi-year restoration, Queen Elizabeth II re-dedicated the monument on 9 April 2007 at a ceremony commemorating the 90th anniversary of the battle. The site is maintained by Veterans Affairs Canada. The Vimy Memorial is one of only two National Historic Sites of Canada located outside the country, the other being the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial.
Background
Topography
Vimy Ridge is a gradually rising escarpment on the western edge of the Douai Plains, northeast of Arras. The ridge gradually rises on its western side, dropping more quickly on the eastern side. The ridge is approximately in length, wide at its narrowest point, and culminates at an elevation of above sea level, or above the Douai Plains, providing a natural unobstructed view for tens of kilometres in all directions.Vimy Ridge 1914–1916
The ridge fell under German control in October 1914, during the Race to the Sea, as the Franco-British and German forces continually attempted to outflank each other through northeastern France. The French Tenth Army attempted to dislodge the Germans from the region during the Second Battle of Artois in May 1915 by attacking their positions at Vimy Ridge and Notre Dame de Lorette. During the attack, the French 1st Moroccan Division briefly captured the height of the ridge, where the Vimy memorial is currently located, but was unable to hold it owing to a lack of reinforcements. The French made another attempt during the Third Battle of Artois in September 1915, but were once again unsuccessful in capturing the top of the ridge. The French suffered approximately 150,000 casualties in their attempts to gain control of Vimy Ridge and surrounding territory.The British XVII Corps relieved the French Tenth Army from the sector in February 1916. On 21 May 1916, the German infantry conducted the German attack on Vimy Ridge along a front to force them from positions along the base of the ridge. The Germans captured several British-controlled tunnels and mine craters before halting their advance and entrenching their positions. Temporary Lieutenant Richard Jones was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his ultimately unsuccessful defence of the Broadmarsh Crater during the attack. British counter-attacks on 22 May did not manage to change the situation. The Canadian Corps relieved IV Corps stationed along the western slopes of Vimy Ridge in October 1916.
Battle of Vimy Ridge
The Battle of Vimy Ridge was the first instance in which all four Canadian divisions participated in a battle together, as a cohesive formation. The nature and size of the planned Canadian Corps assault necessitated support and resources beyond its normal operational capabilities. Consequently, the British 5th Infantry Division and supplementary artillery, engineer and labour units reinforced the four Canadian divisions already in place. The 24th British Division of I Corps supported the Canadian Corps along its northern flank while the XVII Corps did so to the south. The ad hoc Gruppe Vimy formation, based under I Bavarian Reserve Corps commander General der Infanterie Karl Ritter von Fasbender, was the principal defending formation with three divisions responsible for manning the frontline defences opposite the Canadian Corps.Image:Plan of Attack Vimy Ridge.jpg|thumb|left|upright|250px|The Canadian Corps plan of attack outlining the four objective lines – Black, Red, Blue, and Brown|alt=Diagram of the battle illustrating the positions for each of the Canadian Corps division and brigades. The map shows the westerly direction of the attack, up an over the topography of the ridge.
The attack began at 5:30 am on Easter Monday, 9 April 1917. Light field guns laid down a barrage that advanced in predetermined increments, often every three minutes, while medium and heavy howitzers established a series of standing barrages against known defensive systems further ahead. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Canadian Divisions quickly captured their first objectives. The 4th Canadian Division encountered a great deal of trouble during its advance and was unable to complete its first objective until some hours later. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Canadian Divisions captured their second objective by approximately 7:30 am. The failure of the 4th Canadian Division to capture the top of the ridge delayed further advances and forced the 3rd Canadian Division to expend resources establishing a defensive line to its north. Reserve units from the 4th Canadian Division renewed the attack on the German positions on the top of the ridge and eventually forced the German troops holding the southwestern portion of Hill 145 to withdraw.
On the morning of 10 April, Canadian Corps commander Lieutenant-General Julian Byng moved up three fresh brigades to support the continued advance. The fresh units leapfrogged units already in place and captured the third objective line, including Hill 135 and the town of Thélus, by 11:00 am. By 2:00 pm both the 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions reported capturing their final objectives. By this point the "Pimple", a heavily defended knoll west of the town of Givenchy-en-Gohelle, was the only German position remaining on Vimy Ridge. On 12 April, the 10th Canadian Brigade attacked and quickly overcame the hastily entrenched German troops, with the support of artillery and the 24th British Division. By nightfall on 12 April, the Canadian Corps was in firm control of the ridge. The Canadian Corps suffered 10,602 casualties: 3,598 killed and 7,004 wounded. The German Sixth Army suffered an unknown number of casualties, and around 4,000 men became prisoners of war.
Although the battle is not generally considered Canada's greatest military feat of arms, the image of national unity and achievement imbued the battle with considerable national significance for Canada. According to Pierce, "the historical reality of the battle has been reworked and reinterpreted in a conscious attempt to give purpose and meaning to an event that came to symbolize Canada's coming of age as a nation." The idea that Canada's identity and nationhood were born out of the battle is an opinion that is widely held in military and general histories of Canada.
History
Selection
In 1920, the Government of Canada announced that the Imperial War Graves Commission had awarded Canada eight sites—five in France and three in Belgium—on which to erect memorials. Each site represented a significant Canadian engagement, and the Canadian government initially decided that each battlefield be treated equally and commemorated with identical monuments. In September 1920, the Canadian government formed the Canadian Battlefields Memorials Commission to discuss the process and conditions for holding a memorial competition for the sites in Europe. The commission held its first meeting on 26 November 1920 and during this meeting decided that the architectural design competition would be open to all Canadian architects, designers, sculptors, and artists. The jury consisted of Charles Herbert Reilly representing the Royal Institute of British Architects, Paul Philippe Cret representing the Société centrale des architectes français and Frank Darling representing the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. Each jury member was a leader in the architectural field; Reilly was training students in design and development of war memorials, and Cret had been selected by the United States to design national monuments in Europe. Interested parties submitted 160 design drawings, and the jury selected 17 submissions for consideration, commissioning each finalist to produce a plaster maquette of their respective design. The jury recommended in a 10 September 1921 report to the commission that two of the designs be executed. In October 1921, the commission formally selected the submission of Toronto sculptor and designer Walter Seymour Allward as the winner of the competition; the design submitted by Frederick Chapman Clemesha was selected as runner-up. Allward's other commissions included the national memorial commemorating Canada's participation in the South African War. The complexity of Allward's design precluded the possibility of duplicating the design at each site. The approach of selecting one primary memorial ran counter to the recommendation of Canadian Battlefields Memorials Commission architectural advisor Percy Erskine Nobbs, who had consistently expressed his preference for a series of smaller monuments. The consensus went in Allward's favour, his design receiving both public and critical approval. The commission revised its initial plans and decided to build two distinctive memorials—those of Allward and Clemesha—and six smaller identical memorials.At the outset, members of the commission debated where to build Allward's winning design. The jury's assessment was that Allward's submission was best suited to a "low hill rather than to a continuous and lofty bluff or cliff like Vimy Ridge". The commission committee initially recommended placing the monument in Belgium on Hill 62, near the location of the Battle of Mont Sorrel, as the site provided an imposing view. This ran counter to the desires of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King who, while speaking in the House of Commons of Canada in May 1922, argued in favour of placing the memorial at Vimy Ridge. King's position received the unanimous support of the House and, in the end, the commission selected Vimy Ridge as the preferred site. The government announced its desire to acquire a more considerable tract of land along the ridge after the commission selected Vimy Ridge as the preferred location for Allward's design. In the interval between the 1st and 2nd session of the 14th Canadian Parliament, Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada Rodolphe Lemieux went to France to negotiate the acquisition of more land. On 5 December 1922, Lemieux concluded an agreement with France in which France granted Canada "freely and for all time" the use of of land on Vimy Ridge, inclusive of Hill 145, in recognition of Canada's war effort. The only condition placed on the donation was that Canada use the land to erect a monument commemorating Canadian soldiers killed during the First World War and assume the responsibility for the maintenance of the memorial and the surrounding battlefield park.