Western Front Sketches: 3 – The Canadian National Memorial at Vimy Ridge

A stiff climb to the high ground

Climbing the long, steep hill from the village of Givenchy-en-Gohelle to reach the Canadian National Memorial at Vimy Ridge on a heavily laden bike reinforced what it meant to gain the high ground. In war, taking and holding hills and ridges like this one at Vimy was always a strategically important objective. In April 1917 the Germans held the ridge, and with it, had commanding views of the Allied positions around Arras.

As I crested the hill, the woods opened out to reveal fields dotted with shell craters. A flock of sheep was grazing contentedly on the open grassland. A few hundred metres to my left was the Memorial, its two pale limestone pylons standing out against the sky, and the flags of France and Canada flying strongly in the breeze.

 

Unexploded ordnance and tortured earth

To my right was an area of replanted woodland, the cratered ground pitted and rolling like the surface of an angry sea, and sealed off by a fence with warnings of ‘Undetonated explosives’.

The attack on Vimy Ridge in early April 1917 was the first major action in the Battle of Arras, itself an operation by British and Commonwealth forces to draw German reserves away from the ambitious but doomed Nivelle offensive on the Chemin des Dames in the Aisne, a battlefield that lay in store for me on my ride along the Western Front a few days hence.

The idea was to take the high ground of Vimy from the Germans who would otherwise have been able to direct artillery fire down onto the main Allied force advancing east from Arras.

A combination of tunnelling, mines, powerful creeping barrages, followed by well-coordinated action by all four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, brought rapid Allied success.

The German 6^th Army was pushed back from most of the ridge by the end of the first day, and over the next few days fell back to the line running from Oppy to Méricourt. This was definitely a case of mission accomplished.

But just as Messines was a successful prelude to the ultimately limited gains of Passchendaele, the brilliantly executed attack on Vimy Ridge was preparation for a larger battle that, after strong initial progress, was also to become bogged down.

 

A battle that helped build a nation

The Battle of Vimy Ridge has a special significance for Canadians. One often reads that the fact of it being the first occasion on which all four Canadian divisions had fought together brought a sense of unity and pride in the values of this young nation.

These sentiments are reflected in the memorial, the result of an eleven-year effort by monumental sculptor Walter Seymour Allward leading up to its inauguration in 1936. That said, the monument raises subtle questions about the role of war in delivering this national identity, and the price paid by young Canadian men, as explored below.

 

My drawing

This remarkable monument casts a spell over the former battlefield, and over the visitor who spends time to absorb its form and detail. As I approached, it was not immediately obvious that the memorial faces north-east, looking out over the Douai Plain, in the direction that the Canadian forces advanced to take the ridge.

The twin pylons, rising to a height of 30 metres and representing the unity of Canada and France, are the most striking features. The most powerful symbolism, however, lies in the 20 human figures that are to be found on the pylons, and around the base.

 

Symbols of courage and peace

As I passed around to the front of the memorial, the two figures of Spirit of Sacrifice at the base of the pylons caught my attention. On the right of the pair, a dying soldier has handed the torch to his comrade, a reference to fellow-Canadian John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Fields.

I then found the two groups of three figures known as The Defenders, which represent the values Canada sought to convey to the world. One of the most striking sculptures is to be found on the north-eastern corner.

Here, you will find a laurel and olive-draped cannon standing above the three figures, one of whom is breaking a sword over his thigh. This represents the desire for an end to war and militarism, and it is very unusual to find this kind of overt anti-military motif on war memorials.

 

A powerful memorial to loss

Turning around, my gaze settled next on the sorrowful figure of Canada Bereft, facing out over the Douai Plain. Also known as Mother Canada, and carved from a single 30-ton block of stone, she stands with her head bowed, representing the loss of young Canadian lives.

Despite all that I had read about Vimy Ridge, and the many photos I had seen, it was still difficult to take in the facts of what happened here in April 1917, and which had left the landscape looking so tortured one hundred years later.

 

 

Farewell to Vimy Ridge

So, after another circuit of the memorial, I decided that before returning to my bike I would take one last look at the figure of the dying soldier handing the torch to his comrade. I started to feel that familiar pull to stay longer, and glanced back to Mother Canada, and out across the plain to the stark outlines of coal tips silhouetted against the horizon.

If you like this article, please do take a look at my previous posts on Western Front Sketches, links below:

• The Grieving Parents by German artist Käthe Kollwitz, located at Vladslo German Cemetery near Diksmuide in Flanders
• Christmas Truce Sculpture by British sculptor Andy Edwards, located at Messines, near Ypres in Belgium

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