The Men of Vimy

In the very early hours of Easter Monday, 1917, the moon—a little past full—shone with disconcerting brightness on the scarred and pitted Western battlefields that looked themselves like a lunar landscape under the colorless two-dimensional light. At 3 A.M. the sky had clouded over and the temperature was beginning to drop. By 4 A.M. the four divisions of the Canadian Corps were in the front trenches ready for the dawn attack. The temperature kept dropping. A driving northwest wind brought sleet and snow. Ahead of the Canadians in the blank gulf of darkness lay Vimy Ridge.

The Germans had taken Vimy in October 1914 in the last advance before the Western Front settled into the bog of trench warfare. Since then they had had over two years to construct triple rows of fortifications to add to the ridge’s natural strength. The approach was a quagmire. In the suave words of the military historian, “the western slope facing the Allied lines rose gradually over open ground which offered excellent fields of fire for small arms and artillery.”

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Francis Russell

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In the very early hours of Easter Monday, 1917, the moon—a little past full—shone with disconcerting brightness on the scarred and pitted Western battlefields that looked themselves like a lunar landscape under the colorless two-dimensional light. At 3 A.M. the sky had clouded over and the temperature was beginning to drop. By 4 A.M. the four divisions of the Canadian Corps were in the front trenches ready for the dawn attack. The temperature kept dropping. A driving northwest wind brought sleet and snow. Ahead of the Canadians in the blank gulf of darkness lay Vimy Ridge.

The Germans had taken Vimy in October 1914 in the last advance before the Western Front settled into the bog of trench warfare. Since then they had had over two years to construct triple rows of fortifications to add to the ridge’s natural strength. The approach was a quagmire. In the suave words of the military historian, “the western slope facing the Allied lines rose gradually over open ground which offered excellent fields of fire for small arms and artillery.”