By Scott Taylor
This week marks the 107th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. While April 9th is the day of commemoration, the battle itself lasted three days.
What is amazing is the myth that has grown around that April 1917, First World War clash in Northern France. To many Canadians, Vimy Ridge has become the symbolic birthplace of where and when Canada became a truly independent nation, and shed its colonial past.
The short version of this myth’s genesis is that at Vimy Ridge all four Canadian divisions fought together as a single corps and that they succeeded in capturing the ridge after both British and French attempts had failed. This is a pretty specific criteria, which in my opinion does not stand up to closer scrutiny.
For one thing, the Canadian divisions may have fought as one corps, but they were collectively commanded by British General Julian Byng. If that does not define colonial troops, I do not know what does.
It is also important to note that the fighting for Vimy Ridge was not an isolated battle. It was actually part of a larger British diversionary attack coordinated with an even larger French offensive all along the Aisne river.
While the Canadians captured Vimy Ridge, the larger objective failed as the major French offensive was soundly defeated. The French losses in that battle were so horrific that the French Army subsequently mutinied. For months to follow the French soldiers refused to participate in any further attacks.
Thus it is hard to argue that Canada’s success at Vimy Ridge was a major turning point in the outcome of the war.
As for casualties, by today’s standards the Canadian losses at Vimy were sickening. In under 72 hours of combat we suffered 3,598 killed and a further 7,004 troops wounded. All that to capture one stretch of high ground without achieving a major breakthrough. In fact, the German 6th Army simply pulled back a few kilometers and dug in again.
Now some of those who espouse the Vimy myth as Canada’s birthplace will argue that it is a symbolic battle which exemplifies the entire war effort of Canada as a Dominion in the First World War.
If that is the case I would suggest that the Battle for Hill 70, fought in August 1917 would have been a better choice. At Hill 70 the Canadian corps was by then under the Canadian command of General Arthur Currie, and the casualties suffered were far lighter.
However, I have long challenged the premise that Canada fighting an imperial war to aid Britain somehow reflects our independence as a nation.
For me, it was the little known Chanak crisis of 1922 when Canada first cut the umbilical cord with mother country Britain.
As that juncture a resurgent Turkish national army, born from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, under the Generalship of Kemal Attaturk were defeating the Greek Army in Anatolia.
The British wanted to assist the Greeks but knew that their war weary population was not ready for another foreign war. Thus the call went out to the Common Wealth nations to contribute soldiers to the cause.
Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon McKenzie notified then British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill that unlike the declaration of war in 1914, Canada’s response would no longer be “automatic” but rather it would require the consent of Parliament.
When Parliament rejected the request, Canada officially said “no.”
Following Canada’s lead, both Australia and South Africa gave the war a thumbs down. Britain had no choice but to force the Greeks to accept a separate peace with the Turks and the rest is history.
This chapter of our history needs to be taught in our schools as the true coming of age of our nation. Fighting a good battle under British command in an imperial war does not make you independent. Saying ‘no’ to Britain did.
