Canadian History Readings Understanding Direct and Indirect Causes

Reading Two: THE BATTLE AT VIMY RIDGE

Vimy Ridge was a formidable stronghold to breach. It was here that the Germans’ heavily fortified Hindenburg Line met with their main trench lines leading north from Hill 70 near Arras, France. The German fortifications consisted of three layers of trenches, barbed wire and deep tunnels. The natural slope of the hill provided little cover for attacking Allied troops. French attempts to wrest control of the ridge throughout 1915 were rebuffed, resulting in some 150,000 French casualties. When the British army relieved French operations in March 1916, they were driven back before they could plan a major attack. The crucial goal of the battle at Vimy Ridge was to break through the impenetrable German lines.

For the first time in World War I, all four Canadian divisions fought on the same battlefield. They were led by Sir Arthur William Currie, who was the first Canadian-appointed commander of the Canadian Corps. Currie determinedly kept the Canadian divisions together rather than having them mixed in with various British units. It was the first time the Canadians fought together, and they achieved a magnificent victory, sweeping the Germans off the ridge.

Early in the morning of 9 April 1917, 20,000 soldiers attacked in the first wave of fighting. By that afternoon, the two front lines had been taken by the Canadian Corps. By 12 April, the entire ridge was under Allied control. When Hill 145, the highest feature on the ridge, fell, the operation was considered to be a resounding success. The ridge remained in Allied hands for the duration of the war.

The victory of the battle of Vimy Ridge did not come without cost: Canadian casualties reached 10,602, of which 3,598 were killed. The opposing German force sustained a further 20,000 casualties. During this single campaign, four Canadians were awarded the Victoria Cross and the entire Canadian contingent was commended for their bravery.
Source: www.histori.ca/minutes/minute

Reading Three: THE BATTLE AT VIMY RIDGE

But the Canadians had a plan, the first battle strategy for this new nation's commanders to conceive and execute on their own. Even military "experts" of the time admitted dubiously that the Canadians' plan couldn't be any worse than the British tactics at the Somme, which cost 24,000 Canadian casualties. So the Canadian army – all four divisions, totalling 100,000 men – got the go-ahead.

The Canadian battle plan was simple: the withering barrage provided a screen for the Canadian troops to hide behind. Hundreds of shells would land at once, spraying plumes of muddy earth upward like a polluted version of some giant decorative water fountain. Every three minutes the 850 Canadian cannons would aim a little higher, advancing the row of shellfire forward by 90 metres.

The attacking Canadian foot soldiers were expected to keep up, advancing, taking and occupying German positions, moving forward, never stopping, never racing ahead. Falling behind would make them clearer targets for German guns mounted higher up the ridge. Getting ahead of the artillery would put them in danger of being blasted by their own guns.

The giant naval cannons focused on the reinforced concrete bunkers protecting German heavy gun emplacements. The immense but inaccurate shells sent plumes of dirt, concrete and shrapnel skyward with every impact. The craters left behind were as large as houses.

The battle was hailed as the first allied success of the long war, achieved mostly due to the innovation of using a creeping, continuous massive artillery barrage to protect squads of advancing troops. Both sides used the tactic in future battles.

But even today we're paying the cost. At Vimy and other former First World War battlefields, the ground is so full of unexploded ordnance that visitors are warned not to stray from marked pathways. The risk from shells that fell and never exploded is still so high that it's too dangerous, nearly a century later, to walk onto the actual battlefield to search for remains of soldiers listed as "missing."
Today, there's a large park at Vimy Ridge, dedicated to Canada. The striking memorial features a 30-tonne limestone figure carved from a single block, a hooded figure representing Canada herself, gazing down on a single tomb overlooking the Douai plain.

The twin stone pillars list the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers who died in France and whose remains were never found.

Source: www.cbc.ca/news/background/vimy

Passchendaele – Fall 1917

Following the victory at Vimy, the Canadians continued operations in the Arras area to divert attention from the French front and to conceal from the Germans the planned offensive in Flanders. In the Battle of Hill 70, August 15-25, Canadian forces captured this strategic position on the northern approach to the city of Lens and secured the western part of the city. The fighting here cost the Canadian Corps 9,198 casualties. However, considerable ground was gained and the battle hampered enemy plans to send fresh troops to Flanders.

To the south the French offensive in Lorraine under General Nivelle was an unmitigated disaster. With losses in the neighbourhood of 200,000 men, it precipitated a wave of mutinies that paralyzed the French army for months.

In July, the British commander Sir Douglas Haig launched his disastrous drive in Flanders designed to break through the front and capture the German submarine bases on the Belgian coast. The offensive had had a successful prelude at Messines in June, but this local success was followed by weeks of delay.

The second and main stage of the attack got under way with a tremendous artillery barrage that not only forewarned the Germans, but also ground the battlefield into potholes and dust. Summer rains poured down on the very night that the offensive began and in no time the area became an impassable swamp. As the British soldiers struggled in the morass, the Germans inflicted frightful casualties from lines fortified with machine guns placed in concrete pill boxes.

In the next four months at Ypres only negligible advances were made. Early in October, although the main objectives were still in German hands and the British forces were reaching the point of exhaustion, Haig determined on one more drive. The Canadian Corps was ordered to relieve the decimated Anzac forces in the Ypres sector and prepare for the capture of Passchendaele.

General Currie inspected the muddy battlefield and protested that the operation was impossible without heavy cost. He was overruled and so began careful and painstaking preparations for the assault. In a series of attacks beginning on October 26, 20,000 men under heavy fire inched their way from shell-crater to shell-crater. Then on October 30, with two British divisions, the Canadians began the assault on Passchendale itself. They gained the ruined outskirts of the village during a violent rainstorm and for five days they held on grimly, often waist-deep in mud and exposed to a hail of jagged iron from German shelling. On November 6, when reinforcements arrived, four-fifths of the attackers were dead. Currie's estimate of 16,000 casualties proved frighteningly accurate. Passchendaele had become a Canadian Calvary. The award of no fewer than nine Victoria Crosses testified to the heroic determination and skill with which Canadian soldiers played their part in the bitter struggle for Passchendaele.

Source: http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=memorials/ww1mem/passchen

The Treaty of Versailles

Winnipeg General Strike

For six weeks in the summer of 1919 the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, was crippled by a massive and dramatic general strike. Frustrated by unemployment, inflation, poor working conditions and regional disparities after World War I, workers from both the private and public sectors joined forces to shut down or drastically reduce most services. The workers were orderly and peaceful, but the reaction from the employers, city council and the federal government was aggressive.

The “Roaring Twenties”

A year after the Winnipeg General Strike (1919), working and living conditions in Canada improved. Factories stopped making wartime goods and began making products suited to peacetime. Former soldiers had found jobs, and money and work seemed plentiful. As a result, the 1920s have come to be known as the…
ROARING TWENTIES – “A decade of good times”
Canada had what the rest of the world wanted, and was willing to pay for: WHEAT – Canada sold more wheat in the 1920s then ever before; LUMBER – Many new pulp and paper mills were opened; MINERALS – Canada had large amounts of copper, zinc, nickel, and gold. Millions of dollars were invested by Americans in Canadian mines.
Electric power was needed to run the new mines and mills and to power the new factories that were being opened across the country. Hydroelectric (water-power) power stations were being built in many parts of Canada.
All of this activity meant money for Canadian workers, farmers and businessmen. They used this money to buy new products, like: Automobiles – Canadians bought 1 million cars and trucks from 1920 to 1930; Radios; Telephones; and Electrical Appliances. People had jobs which earned them the money they needed to buy things they needed, and luxury items. The money that Canadians spent helped to create the prosperity that Canadians enjoyed.
EXAMPLE: Mary Franklin worked at home. Electricity had been recently installed. Mary’s husband Fred was an electrician and was able to work steadily. The steady work meant that the Franklins were able to save some of the money that Fred earned. It also meant that they had money to spend. Mary bought a new iron, it was an electric one and made ironing so much easier. Many other people like Mary bought these improved irons. Because of this, the factory making the irons got busier and expanded. New workers were hired, and were paid fairly well. Now they too could save money, and buy new irons.
Fred got so busy installing electrical services in homes, that now he started working overtime. With the extra money, the Franklins bought an electric motor for the sewing machine, and a new washing machine. Other families also had extra money, and bought the same things. That meant that the factories that made these items and the stores that sold them had to hire new people to build and sell more sewing machine motors and washers. Now these new workers had the money to spend on the things that they wanted to buy.
Every time someone spent money, they created more jobs and that meant more money could be spent. The Steps in this cycle of wealth seemed to be continuous:

1. 
   People want (have a demand for) certain products, and have the money to buy products;
   
2. 
   Factories make more of these products;
   
3. 
   More workers must be hired to work in the factories;
   
4. 
   These workers earn wages and have more extra money;
   

Easy Street…