For the 3rd Division the initiation to battle was even more devastating. This time the Germans mounted an attack to dislodge the Allies from their positions at Mount Sorrel just north of the Ypres-
Menin road. In the fiercest bombardment yet experienced by Canadian troops, whole sections of trench were obliterated and the defending garrisons
annihilated. Human bodies and even the trees of Sanctuary Wood were hurled into the air by the explosions.
As men were literally blown from their
positions, the Division fought desperately until overwhelmed by infantry. By evening the enemy advance was checked, but the important vantage points of Mount Sorrel and Hills 61 and 62 were lost. A counter-attack by the Canadians the next morning
failed; and on June 6, after exploding four mines on the Canadian front, the Germans assaulted again and
captured Hooge on the Menin Road.
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The newly-appointed Commander of the
Canadian Corps Lieut.-General Sir Julian Byng determined to win back Mount Sorrel and Hill 62.
He gave orders for a carefully planned attack, well supported by artillery, to be carried out by the 1st Canadian Division under the Command of Major-General Currie.
Preceded by a vicious bombardment the Canadian infantry attacked on June 13 at 1:30a.m. in the darkness, wind and rain. Careful planning paid off, and the heights lost on June 2 were retaken. |
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Canadians "going over the
top" |
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The cost was high. At Mount Sorrel Canada suffered 8,430 casualties including General Mercer who was killed by shrapnel while visiting the front
line.
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A shell hole in the road to
Bapaume |
Still, both sides could see only one way to snap the taut chain of trenches - brutal frontal assaults to break the enemy defences. The Allied plan for 1916 was to launch simultaneous offensives on the Western, Eastern and Italian Fronts. In the West the region of the Somme was chosen for a joint French and British assault about mid-year.
But in February the Allied scheme was upset when the German Supreme Commander, General Erich von Falkenhayn, seized the initiative. For his battlefield he chose the fortress-ringed city of Verdun, a position, he correctly believed, so essential to the French that France would fight to the last man to hold it. He hoped to lure French forces into the narrow, dangerous salient, slaughter them with artillery fire, and thus "bleed France to death".
On February 21, the German barrage began and for the next several months both sides threw soldiers and shells at each other in a nightmare of death. But the German army bled as well. As Verdun was a symbol of life for France, its fall became a moral necessity for the prestige of the German army. By Christmas when the battle finally ended 800,000 men had given their lives.
During this holocaust of fighting, the French sent frantic appeals to Sir Douglas Haig, the new British commander, to hasten the Somme offensive and take the pressure off Verdun. With French forces being so thoroughly decimated at Verdun, the British now had to assume full responsibility.
The campaign was planned well in advance with a massive build-up of men and munitions. The tactics were the same; nothing new was added - just more men and more guns. By the end of June all was ready for the "Big Push", and Haig was confident that his planned assault would destroy the enemy lines and open the way for the cavalry to ride through to the open country beyond. Meanwhile, the German army, long forewarned of the attack, waited, firmly entrenched along the ridge of heavily-armed chalk hills.
On July 1 in broad daylight one hundred thousand men climbed out of their trenches and advanced shoulder to shoulder in line, one behind the other, across the crater-torn waste of No Man's Land. Weighed down with sixty-six pounds of equipment each, they advanced slowly towards the waiting German guns. The result was slaughter - 57,500 British soldiers killed, wounded or missing in one day -
the heaviest day's loss ever suffered by a British army.
At Beaumont Hamel, the Newfoundland Regiment, part of the 29th British Division was virtually annihilated. In less than half an hour, as they advanced into point-blank fire from German machine guns, the islanders were cut down. Of the 801 men who went into the battle only sixty-eight unwounded men answered roll call the next day. Afterwards it was said of the Newfoundland effort: "it was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault failed of success because dead men can advance no further." July 1 in Newfoundland is still a day of commemoration and of mourning.
In late August Of 1916, the "Byng Boys" moved from the muddy fields of Flanders 10 the Somme where they took over a section of the front line directly in front of the village of Courcelette. They ran into heavy fighting in this supposedly quiet or "normal" sector and suffered some 2,600 casualties before the full-scale offensive even got underway.
In the offensive which began at dawn on September 15 the Canadian Corps assaulted on a 2,200 yard sector in front of the village of Courcelette. Advancing behind a creeping barrage (a tactic only recently adopted by the artillery), the infantry was aided by the "new engine of war" the armoured lank which frequently threw the enemy into complete confusion. The attack went well. By 8 a.m. the main objective, a defence bastion known as the Sugar Factory, was taken, and the Canadians pushed ahead to Courcelette. Numerous German counterattacks were successfully repulsed and by the next day the position was consolidated. The enemy then brought up reinforcements, the fighting intensified, and gains became microscopic.
In the weeks that followed the three Canadian divisions again and again attacked a series of German entrenchments. The final Canadian objective was that "ditch of evil memory", Regina Trench. It repeatedly defied capture, and when the first three divisions were relieved in the middle of October, Regina Trench was closer, but still not taken.
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Some of the survivors return from
the Front |
When the newly-arrived 4th Division took its place in the line it faced an unbelievable ordeal of
knee-deep mud and violent, murderous, enemy resistance.
However, despite the almost impenetrable curtain of fire, on November 11 the Division captured Regina Trench - to find it reduced to a mere depression in
the chalk. A week later in the final attack at the Somme the Canadians advanced to Desire Trench
a remarkable feat of courage and endurance. The 4th Division then rejoined the Corps opposite Vimy
Ridge.
There were no further advances that year. The autumn rains turned the battlefield into a bog and the offensive staggered to a halt. The line had been
moved forward only six miles; the Allies had suffered 600 , 000 casualties, and 236,000 Germans were
killed. Well might the Germans refer to the Battle of the Somme as das Blutbad - the blood bath.
The Somme had cost Canada 24,029 casualties, but it was here that the Canadians confirmed their reputation as hard-hitting shock troops. "The Canadians" wrote Lloyd George, "played a part of such distinction that thenceforward they were marked out
as storm troops; for the remainder of the war they were brought along to head the assault in one great
battle after another. Whenever the Germans found the Canadian Corps coming into the line they prepared for the worst.''
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Vimy Ridge |
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Canadian Artillery "Bringing
up the guns" at Vimy Ridge |
In 1916 at Verdun and the Somme the casualty figures reached a toll of almost two million men. Yet this war of attrition and stalemate had two full years to run.
Early in 1917 the Allies launched another massive offensive, ever determined to achieve the elusive breakthrough. This time the plans called for a French offensive in the south between
Reims and
Soissons, combined with British diversionary attacks about Arras.
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Canadian Light Horse at Vimy
Ridge |
The Germans, meanwhile, quietly withdrew to strong new defences, the Hindenburg Line. In so doing they exchanged a long, bulging line for a well-situated shorter one which they fortified with powerful modern devices.
The Canadian share of the British assault was the seizure of Vimy Ridge. The task was formidable. For the Germans it was a vital key in their defence system and they had fortified it well. The slopes which were in their favour were interlaced with an elaborate system of trenches, dugouts and tunnels heavily protected by barbed wire and machine guns, and defended from a distance by German artillery. They had even installed electric lights, a telephone exchange, and a light railway to maintain supplies of ammunition. All previous attempts to take the Ridge had failed.
Canadian commanders, however, had learned well the bitter lessons of assault by vulnerable infantry. This time the preparation was elaborate and the planning thorough. Engineers dug great tunnels into the Ridge; roads and light railways were built; signals and supplies were ready. The operation was to be supported by a large concentration of heavy guns and howitzers and full artillery. The men too were
fully prepared. The area was simulated behind the lines and troops practised their roles until every man was familiar with the ground and the tactics expected of him.
Preliminary bombardment, designed to conceal the exact time and extent of the attack, began on March 20. It was intensified from April 2 with such crushing blows that the enemy called the period "the week of suffering". On the night of April 8 all was ready and the infantry moved to the prepared forward positions.
The attack began at dawn on Easter Monday, April 9. All four divisions of the Canadian Corps - moving forward together for the first time - swept up the 12 Ridge in the midst of driving wind, snow and sleet.
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Preceded by a perfectly timed artillery barrage the Canadians advanced.
By mid-afternoon the Canadian Divisions were in command of the whole crest of the Ridge with the exception of two features known as Hill 145 and the Pimple. Three days later these too were taken.
The victory at Vimy Ridge is celebrated as a national coming of age. For the first time Canadians attacked together and triumphed together.
Four Canadians won the Victoria Cross and
Major General Arthur Currie, commander of the 1st Division, was knighted on the battlefield by King George V.
<<< General Currie,
CB, KCMG, Legion of Honour, Croix de Guerre, Distinguished
Service Medal (US).
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Later in the summer the Canadian Corps received its first Canadian commander when Sir Arthur Currie was promoted to Lieutenant-General and succeeded Sir Julian Byng. A businessman from British
Columbia, Currie, with only Canadian Militia background, won the high esteem of professionals and rose from the rank of private to commander of the whole Canadian army corps. It was a remarkable achievement.
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| When their regular turn in the firing line ended the numbed men moved into the rear for a few precious days of rest.
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| Here they got up games of poker, blackjack, "seven-toed Pete", sang of the charms of mademoiselle from Armentieres, and took simple pleasure from place names at the front - Wipers (Ypres and Plug Street
(Ploegsteert).
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| They also took time
out for a clean-up. Of course the facilities were a bit primitive
but the boys made do. |
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<<<
The Dumbells Concert Party brought impudent, funny and very pertinent entertainment to these war weary troops. This extraordinary troop show was organized by Merton Plunkett of the Y.M.C.A. from soldiers of the Third Division.
They delighted the troops with the "Dumbell Rag", ''Oh It's a Lovely War", and their featured female impersonators. Starting out with costumes made out of bandages and lamps made out of tin cans they achieved a level of success that was to survive demobilization and take them to the heights of London and Broadway.
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Following the victory at Vimy the Canadians continued operations in the Arras area to divert attention from the French front, and to conceal from the Germans the planned offensive in Flanders. In the Battle of Hill 70, August 15-25, Canadian forces captured this strategic position on the northern approach to the city of Lens and secured the western part of the city. The fighting here cost the Canadian Corps 9,198 casualties. However, considerable ground was gained and the battle hampered enemy plans to send fresh troops to Flanders.
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| A shell hole at
Passchendaele. The tank in the middle ground of the photo will
give an idea of size of the crater. |
To the south the French offensive in Lorraine under General Nivelle was an unmitigated disaster. With losses in the neighbourhood of 200,000 men it precipitated a wave of mutinies which paralyzed the French army for months.
In July the British commander Sir Douglas Haig launched his disastrous drive in Flanders designed to break through the front and capture the German submarine bases on the Belgian coast. The offensive had had a successful prelude at Messines inn June, but this local success was followed by weeks of
delay.
The second and main stage of the attack got under way with a tremendous artillery barrage which
not only forewarned the Germans, but also ground the battlefield into potholes and dust. Summer rains
poured down on the very night that the offensive began, and in no time the area became an impassable swamp. As the British soldiers struggled in the morass, the Germans inflicted frightful casualties from lines fortified with machine guns placed in concrete pill boxes.
In the next four months at Ypres only negligible advances were made. Early in October, although the main objectives were still in German hands and the British forces were reaching the point of exhaustion,
Haig determined on one more drive. The Canadian Corps was ordered to relieve the decimated
Anzac forces in the Ypres sector, and prepare for the capture of Passchendaele.
General Currie inspected the muddy battlefield and protested that the operation was impossible without heavy cost. He was overruled, and so began careful and painstaking preparations for the assault. In a series of attacks beginning on October 26, 20,000 men under heavy fire inched their way from shell-crater to shell-crater. Then on October 30, with two British divisions, the Canadians began the
assault on Passchendaele itself. They gained the ruined outskirts of the village during a violent rainstorm and for five days they held on grimly, often waist-deep in mud and exposed to a hail of jagged iron from German shelling. On November 6, when reinforcements arrived, four-fifths of the attackers were dead. Currie's estimate of 16, 000 casualties proved frighteningly accurate. Passchendaele had become a Canadian Calvary. |
