Vimy Ridge Failure

The Battle Vimy Ridge was the most famous battle in Canadian history. Vimy Ridge was won by Canada in just a matter of days after other countries tried for years but failed. Vimy Ridge would never have been taken over without the leaders Sir Julian Byng and Sir Arthur Currie who played a huge part in the winning of the ridge. The winning of the Battle of Vimy Ridge proved to the other countries that Canada was and still is a proud and capable nation.

Sir Julian Byng was the 12th Governor General of Canada and was the Commander of all the Canadian Corps during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, which meant that he was in charge of all Canadian Corps that fought in the battle. Sir Arthur Currie was the commanding officer of the first Canadian division during the war and was mostly responsible for the winning of the ridge. Currie was the first Canadian General, he got promoted after Julian Byng was promoted and was moved up to a different part of the force. Currie was in the right place at the right time because with Byng moving up, Currie had the chance to command all of the first Canadian corps. Currie was born and raised to fight and command so it wasn’t a difficulty when he was asked to Command the First Canadian Corps. The war helped with showing the other countries that Canada didn’t need to be supported by bigger countries and that they could support and “fend” for themselves. Canada was laughed at before in it’s effort to win a
war but after Canada was able to take over Vimy Ridge, nobody tried or wanted to go head to head against Canada. By 1917, the Canadians had been battling for a long time but since the battle of Ypres but that would have meant that the Germans, who had taken over Vimy Ridge, were practicing and preparing for anyone who had the courage to attack them at Vimy Ridge. The Canadians sent 4 divisions of all Canadian troops equaling up to 170,000 men but unfortunately, 3,598 troops lost their lives in the battle. With the 170,000 Canadian troops, it wasn’t hard to win the battle. When the Canadians started to fight on that April 9th, 1917, they didn’t stop until the ridge was theirs.

In January 1917, three Canadian Squadron/Corps officers went with other British and Dominion officers for a series of lectures that were hosted and held with and in France to discuses their experiences in the Battle of Verdun. Following days of rehearsal, eight French Squadrons/divisions had fought German positions in two waves along a 10 kilometer front. The French were successful and they had recovered lots of land and made lots of casualties on five German divisions. After the lectures, the Canadian Corps officers produced a tactical analysis on what happened in the battles of Verdun and produced a group of corps and lectures to promote the importance on platoon and company strengths and weaknesses. The report of Arthur Currie showed that he believed that the Canadian Corps could learn from the French and what they did in the Battles of Verdun. The last plan on the attacks on Vimy Ridge was based on what the officers did during the Battles of Verdun. The plan was split into different colored lines including black, red, blue and brown. The first line was called The Black Line and it was to kill off the German defensive line. The second line, which was Red, was to take the highest point in the ridge known as “The Pimple”. The third line was Blue and it was to cover the land between the town of Thelus and the woods close to Vimy and the final line which was Brown was to capture the Zwölfer-Graben trench and the German second line. The method that the Canadians used a known as Leap-Frogging which meant that the lines behind the first lines would “leap” or go over the lines in front of them to reach the target.

In conclusion, The Battle of Vimy Ridge was the turning point in Canadian history, it helped show that it could do stuff like win battles and wars without the help of bigger more experienced countries.
It is the one hundredth anniversary of the Canadian victory over the Germans during Vimy Ridge. The Battle of Vimy Ridge also helped show that Canada can make a difference and do something for itself. Canada did something that everyone thought was impossible at the time but now Canada helps fight in multiple wars and helps win those
wars.