Vimy Ridge Day

Today is Vimy Ridge Day.

This commemoration means nothing to most Americans, and it may mean little more to those from Britain, or France, or other Allied nations. But I believe it still has significance to many Canadians.

Because the battle of Vimy Ridge, which began on April 9th, 1917, and lasted for four days, served not only as one of the successful portions of the Allied Arras Offensive of that year, but as a historic milestone for the nation and people of Canada. The four divisions of the Canadian Corps, fighting together in one battle for the first time, methodically planned, prepared, and executed an operation that seized its objectives swiftly and efficiently. In doing so, they forced the German Army to give up ground it had held since the first year of the war and demonstrated that the Allies could push back the formerly immovable German defensive line through a slow and careful series of attacks.

Over time, the hard-fought Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge came to symbolize the pride and sacrifice of the Canadian armed forces and the resolution of Canadians as a people. The great monument on Vimy Ridge, commissioned in 1921 and completed in 1936, is one of only two National Historic Sites of Canada that are located abroad. The monument's figures represent universal emotions of nations caught in war: a desire for a return to peace, sympathy for those imperiled by war, steadfast faith with allies, the willingness to sacrifice for comrades, and the grieving of those left behind for those who have fallen. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottawa, recently the site of sad events, is based in part on elements of the Vimy memorial.


Wikipedia has well written articles on the battle of Vimy Ridge and the Canadian National Memorial.


Blogger Stanley Martens has found three rather good maps of the Vimy Ridge operations.


For more on Canada in the Great War, I recommend the Canadian War Museum's website, the Canadian Great War Project, the official history of the Canadian Army in the First World War, and the Great War site sponsored by the National Post.


There are two wargames that I've been able to identify that portray the battle for Vimy Ridge.


Vimy Ridge (first published in 2000 and still available from Pacific Rim Publishing; republished in 2001 by, but apparently no longer available from, Microgame Design Group) appears to be a moderate-complexity game with fairly good ratings on boardgamegeek.com.


Vimy Ridge: Arras Diversion (published 2013 by Decision Games) appears to be a low-to-moderate complexity game, also with mildly favourable ratings (but fewer).


Also worth visiting are


Veterans Affairs Canada's page on First World War remembrance


Library and Archives Canada's page on military history


the Canadian Military Histories Digitization Project


Canadian Military History, a journal published by the Military, Strategic, and Disarmament Studies studies center of Wilfrid Laurier University


the Canadian government's military history gateway