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The Mourning Father on the back steps of the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge, detail. © 2013, John Shea
Detail from the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge: the figure of Canada Bereft, or Mother Canada, looking down at a casket below her, mourns her dead. In the distance are the slag heaps of Lens and the Douai Plain. © 2013, John Shea
Headstones of Lance Corporal A. F. MacDougall and Private W. H. Hodge of the Canadian Corps, 54th and 50th Battalions, died March 1 and April 10, 1917, Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery. © 2013 by John M. Shea
View of the South African Memorial in Delville Wood, Longueval, France. © 2013 John M. Shea
Cavalry commander Manfred von Richthofen visits his wounded son, the more famous Manfred von Richthofen, wounded by gunner second Lieutenant A.E. Woodbridge on July 6, 1917 in a fight with an FE2b of 20 Squadron.
"To-day, at dawn, our armies began a great battle, which, if Fate has any kindness for the world, may be the beginning of the last great battles of the war. Our troops attacked on a wide front between Lens and St. Quentin, including the Vimy Ridge, that great, grim hill which dominates the plain of Douai and the coalfields of Lens and the German positions around Arras. In spite of bad fortune in weather at the beginning of the day, so bad that there was no visibility for our airmen, and our men had to struggle forward in a heavy rainstorm, the first attacks have been successful, and the enemy has lost much ground, falling back in retreat to strong rearguard lines, where he is now fighting desperately." ((1), more)
"'No one cares less than I,Nobody knows but GodWhether I am destined to lieUnder a foreign clod'Were the words I made to the bugle call in the morning.But laughing, storming, scorning,Only the bugles knowWhat the bugles say in the morning,And they do not care, when they blowThe call that I heard and made words to early this morning." ((2), more)
"By nightfall [April 10, 1917], the 'Southern Operation' had been completed; of Vimy Ridge, only the Pimple remained. It had cost the Canadian Corps 7,707 casualties (including nearly 3,000 killed), plus some 400 casualties in the brigades of the 5th Imperial Division. 8,000 killed and wounded, approximately, in two days' fighting. Light losses by the standards of the time. But as George Alliston put it, 'By the 11th, we had been reinforced twice to bring us up to strength, and I'm telling you we lost a few of the best boys a mother could have—all of them A-1 kids—all in a few days. The flower of the land, you might say Just a big loss to us.' Some 4,000 German prisoners had been taken (3,400 had been counted by midnight on the 9th). But prisoners live to return home, in the end." ((3), more)
"As we turned the bend of the road to go up the hill I stopped. The sight that greeted me was so horrible that I almost lost my head. Heaped on top of one another and blocking up the roadway as far as one could see, lay the mutilated bodies of our men and their horses. These bodies, torn and gaping, had stiffened into fantastic attitudes. All the hollows of the road were filled with blood. This was the cavalry." ((4), more)
"From where I was sitting in a half-dug German Reserve trench, the noise of the German machine guns was completely inaudible and, as I watched, the ranks of the Highlanders were thinned out and torn apart by an inaudible death that seem[ed] to strike them from nowhere. It was peculiarly horrible to watch: the bright day, the little scudding clouds and these frightened men dying in clumps in a noiseless battle." ((5), more)
(1) Beginning of report by Philip Gibbs on the first day of the Battle of Arras. The British were successful that first day, after a preliminary bombardment that killed many defenders and destroyed many of their trenches and dugouts. They advanced as much as three and a half miles. In their greatest single triumph of the war, the Canadians took most of Vimy Ridge, high ground seized by German troops in 1914 that had cost many French lives since. A journalist, Gibbs was one of the five official British reporters who covered the war.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. V, 1917, p. 153, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(2) Untitled poem [Bugle Call] by Edward Thomas, killed April 9, 1917, in the Battle of Arras.
The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas by Edward Thomas, pp. 107–108, copyright © R. George Thomas 1978, 1981, publisher: Oxford University Press, publication date: 1981
(3) Britain's Arras Offensive, part of the Franco-British Nivelle Offensive, commenced Easter Monday, April 9, 1917. The Canadian Corps was assigned the task of capturing Vimy Ridge. On the first day, the Corps had largely completed its task, taking high ground that had cost thousands of French and Allied lives since 1914. 'The Pimple', Point 120, was captured on April 12.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge by Alexander McKee, page 194, copyright © 1966 Alexander McKee, publisher: Stein and Day, publication date: 1967
(4) Second Lieutenant Alan Thomas's description of his entry into what remained of the village of Monchy-le-Preux late on April 11, 1917 during the Battle of Arras. The British were unprepared for their success on the battle's first day, April 9, that included the capture of Vimy Ridge and an advance of up to three and a half miles. Their limited action on April 10 gave the German defenders time to bring in reinforcements and strengthen their positions, and they inflicted many casualties on the British infantry that advanced into Monchy with two tanks. The British cavalry, that could have been put into the battle on April 9 and 10 had been positioned too far behind the front to be of use. They rode into Monchy behind the infantry, were slaughtered, and retreated led by riderless horses. After losing the village, German artillery subjected it and the British to a box barrage, laying down a rectangular pattern around the village, then shrinking the box.
Cheerful Sacrifice: The Battle of Arras, 1917 by Jonathan Nicholls, page 147, copyright © Jonathan Nicholls [1990 repeatedly renewed through] 2011, publisher: Pen and Sword, publication date: 2010
(5) Artillery subaltern Richard Talbot-Kelly writing of the April 12, 1917 advance of the 4th South African Scottish Battalion on the Chemical Works of Roeux, held by a strong German force with 30 machine guns. The Seaforth Highlanders and 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers had tried to capture it the day before. The Highlanders lost all 12 officers and 363 of 420 other ranks. On the 12th, the South Africans, rather than taking the road that had proven so deadly the day before, advanced 1,800 yards down a 'slope in full view of the enemy.' The British were unprepared for their success on April 9, the first day of the Battle of Arras, a day that included the capture of Vimy Ridge and an advance of up to three and a half miles. Some commanders seem to have tried to compensate for their inaction on April 10 with commands in the following days that were little short of criminal.
Cheerful Sacrifice: The Battle of Arras, 1917 by Jonathan Nicholls, page 163, copyright © Jonathan Nicholls [1990 repeatedly renewed through] 2011, publisher: Pen and Sword, publication date: 2010
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