The Battle of Vimy Ridge and How It Forged Canada
A cold Easter Monday morning April 9, 1917, that Canada went into battle a colony and emerged a few hours later a nation. Because of the battle of Vimy Ridge, the whole world now recognizes Canada as a country. Since Vimy was a tall hill on a small field, the colony at the top of that hill had an advantage. Until this battle, Germany was that unbeatable colony. Nobody believed Canada would be able to do what France and England couldn't, but the Canadian Corps did. The Canadians were able to win this battle because of all the months of harsh training they spent preparing for it, even though it was almost impossible to achieve their goals.Vimy Ridge was an impregnable fortress. The toughest on that deadly line that stretched through France from the Swiss border to the North Sea - the Western Front. Hundreds of thousands of men had already died in vain assaults on the line. Vimy Ridge was the key to the German defense network. Looming 60 meters (200 feet) above the surrounding Douai Plain, the ridge bristled with fortifications: barbed wire entanglements as big as a house, machine-gun nests, pillboxes, miles of tunnels, dugouts, and caves. Three times after the Germans captured the ridge in 1914 the French attacked. Thr
Finally, the battle began. On March 20th the Canadian artillery began bombarding the German positions. The primary targets were German gun positions, and using new techniques developed in McGill University, some 82 percent of the German guns were destroyed. On April 2nd, the artillery bombardment was doubled, and in the next seven days - what the Germans called the Week of Suffering4 -- more than one million shells were fired. The attack was set for April 9th. At "zero hour" the bombardment was stepped up again sweeping towards the German lines. Behind that barrage came the first wave of 20,000 Canadian raiders. Another 15,000 followed in subsequent waves. By noon three of the four Canadian divisions had taken their objectives. By the next afternoon, the fourth division secured the highest point of the ridge. Two days later, the enemy line had been pushed back three kilometers. The Canadians won the battle. ee times they failed, leaving 150,000 casualties in the mud of the battle field. The French and the British just about gave up and were looking for other nations to try and steal the land away from the Germans. It took the Canadians just three days to sweep the Germans off Vimy Ridge, a battle that marked the first significant Allied victory of the 21/2-year-old war. The cost to Canada: 10,602 casualties, including 3,598 dead. But it was still considered light. "Vimy was the first battle in which Canadians fought as an independe
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Approximate Word count = 984
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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