What is the significance of vimy ridge

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In August , Borden and other premiers from the British Empire agreed that the war was destined to last two or three more terrible years. It ended on November At Valenciennes on November 1, with Vimy-style tactics the Canadians collapsed the last German defensive line. Ten days later an Armistice was signed. Canadians had done a great thing and, with French and English, First Nations and recent immigrants, they had done it together. The man goes the next day with much less feeling of fear.

I think it was some knowledge of that peculiarity of the human mind which generally made the army postpone our attacks.

We look back upon that attack and are amazed at the performance. I remember I went up in the early hours of the day to Bray Hill and waited until five-thirty, the hour when the attack was to open. I looked down upon the great plain stretching out before me in, the dim light of early dawn. Occasionally, a 'very-fight' would go up and hover for a moment in the air or a shell would fall behind the lines. I thought what a tremendous thing it was for the Canadians to have that great task laid upon them.

We had a nine mile front and on it, I think 3, gums. In addition to our own artillery we had a great many guns that belonged to British units. It was a wonderful thing at that early hour to look across the plain and think of all that was involved. The attack was to be, we were told, the opening of a year which was to end the war and one was filled with enthusiasm mixed with anxiety. Well, I reed not dwell upon that but the attack came off and our old 1st Division made, as General Byng told us afterward, every objective on the scheduled dot of the clock.

It was really a great triumph. The 4th Division, had a harder proposition before them as they had to take a hill in their advance, but at any rate it was a wonderful attack by all the four divisions and the spirit of the men was marvellous. Now, our men were not trained warriors. They had been trained but they had no lust for blood. Many of them had no antipathy to the enemy whatsoever, lout through the entanglements of the war, brought about--we don't know even yet by what meansthose men simply felt that a duty had been laid upon them and they had to carry it out.

When the evening came the snow was falling and I walked along the front line where the men were trying to dig themselves in before darkness fell. One felt that the victory was sublime, not because of its importance but because it was a triumph of the sense of duty in the hearts of our men and of courage and self-sacrifice.

It was an exhibition of discipline and that comradeship which linked the men together through the love of a great country which lay far away from the sound of guns, the homeland of Canada. And so the victory was won. A British officer met me one day as I was riding along the road; asking me if I was a Canadian, he said, "You know, never since the world began has an attack been made with such spirit.

Some of the men were smoking their cigarettes; some of the men who were reported sick got well immediately and joined in the attack. He said, "That doesn't matter, it was the sprit that was there. Unfortunately, that was not the beginning of the end of the war. Long, weary months still lay before us but that victory stood out as the great initiative action of the Canadian Corps which had now been consolidated by General Byng into a wonderful fighting force. Well, the war was over and years passed away and then it was decided that a monument, a great monument should be erected on Vimy Ridge.

I speak now with the greatest hesitancy because there are a lot of Colonels around me and people who know more about the war than I do. As a non-combatant, I really wasn't in the war, I was merely a spectator. I think the attack on Vimy Ridge was by no means the most difficult problem the Canadian Corps had to face. Probably the weary and disappointing fighting at the Somme; the terrible fighting through mud at Passchendaele; and the attack on Hill 70 all involved far greater suffering and anxiety than the taking of Vimy Ridge, but it stood out as a clear cut action of the Canadian Corps, consolidated now, as I have said, by Lord Byng and General Currie and the other Generals into a national unit capable of individual action.

For this reason it was decided after the war was over that a big Canadian monument should be erected to commemorate the capure of Vimy Ridge, a monument which would be a tribute not to blood-lust, but to the triumph of discipline land duty in the hearts of men who were trying to play their part and do their bit, regardless of their own feelings, regardless of their own sufferings, in order that Canada might live. In order to carry out the idea worthily, a design was sought for the monument.

The Government got one from a man whom Canada should honour to the very end. I don't know whether Mr. Allward is here today. We in Canada are proud of that monument and we should be proud of the mind of the man who designed it. It stands there as glorious and uplifting, probably the greatest war monument in the world today. Well, the memorial was put up. A great deal of expense was put into it. It cost, I think, almost two million dollars and many people wondered if the thing were worth while.

There were many objects, they said, which might be helped that would be more useful than that monument but with government support the monument went on. Then, one night when I was going to give a talk to the Canadian Legion in Ottawa, as I was being introduced by my friend, Captain Ben Allan, he said that the Legion was going to organize a pilgrimage to Vimy in for the unveiling of the monument.

He went on to say that everyone would have to secure his position in the pilgrimage by subscribing ten dollars. I didn't happen to have ten dollars in my pocket but I did have a blank cheque. It doesn't always mean the same. I filled in the cheque trusting that I had ten dollars in the bank and passed it up to him. He at once said, "The pilgrimage has begun. Canon Scott is Pilgrim Number 1, and here is his cheque. The old soldiers would go and bring their kindred with them.

I felt that was just what we needed to reveal the good things the war had left us. We had heard of the sufferings, we had heard of the broken homes and had heard of the anxiety at home and so on. We knew all that. But we wanted to have something to show to outsiders, the good qualities, the glorious qualities of those men who had brought about the victory. So, the organization of the Pilgrimage went on, and last July I was one of the members of the great host of five thousand.

It is the last pilgrimage I am ever going to attend. It was so strenuous. You had to take the brown trains and the green trains and so on, and I, who never was very good at submitting to discipline found it rather embarrassing at times.

Luckily, I had a grandson with me. His father had been in the war and was wounded. My grandson soon took over the command and he used to lead me in the right way. We had a wonderful departure from Quebec. By that time the spirit of the Pilgrimage had taken hold of the heart of Canada. Many and many letters I received from old soldiers, imploring me to get them taken, imploring me to try and raise the money for them to go.

One felt if really we could have done so, it would have been a great thing for every man who had fought there to go on the Pilgrimage but, of course, 'it was impossible and some of the very best men, the men who did most and who suffered most, had to be left behind. I shall never forget our departure from Quebec, the glorious evening, and the ships coming down one after another. We saw the lights of the city on the hill and a great sunset behind the citadel as we moved out on our way to the old country of France which had meant so much to us and which lives so long in our memories with tender, amusing, tragic and inspiring thoughts.

Luckily for us, Heaven was on, the side of Canada. We had a delightful voyage. The weather was fine and people were all friendly. Private John Pattison of the 50th Battalion April Captain Thain MacDowell of the 38th Battalion. The Canadian success at Vimy demonstrated that no position was invulnerable to a meticulously planned and conducted assault. This success had a profound effect on Allied planning.

Though the victory at Vimy came swiftly, it did not come without cost. There were 3, dead out of 10, Canadian casualties.