Vimy Ridge France 1917

In the summer of 1999 I visited the Canadian war memorial on Vimy Ridge
in northern France. Reputed to be the most beautiful in all of France,
its twin white limestone towers rise from the crest Hill 145, the
highest point of the ridge. From here, you can see the town of Vimy in
the distance. Twin mountains of slag, a church steeple, and indistinct
buildings, nestle on the green clouds of surrounding trees and grassy
fields. All is peaceful. There is no trace of the mud and carnage of
trench warfare. Eighty five years ago, the First World War began. It
was a war in which life was so little valued, that the deaths of one of
every six soldiers, and a further half of the rest being wounded, was
considered an acceptable price. This was the first war of the
industrial age. Mass production applied to killing. This land, now so
peaceful, was so soaked in Canadian, French, British and German blood
that any flower growing here must surely blossom red.

Eighty two years ago on this ridge, on Easter Monday, April 9, 1917
there was no peace, no leaves, no grass, no memorial, only ceaseless
noise, unending mud (tilled by countless artillery shells) swallowing
the bodies of thousands of nameless men. Four divisions -one hundred
thousand Canadians- men and boys, many as young as sixteen, fought
together for the first time as a distinct army corps. Here the first
wave, 20,000 soldiers, marching behind a “creeping artillery barrage”
from 1079 guns, rose out of their tunnels and trenches and charged into
the north-west wind that swept the devastated countryside with sleet,
snow and machine gun fire. Three days later they emerged, having
accomplished what the French, with 150,000 casualties over three years
had failed, to achieve. They had taken Vimy Ridge. Of the 10,602
casualties, 3,598 were young Canadians who would never in the words of
John McCrae, “feel dawn or see sunset glow” again.

Many claim that this battle marked the end of our country’s adolescence.
This was the place where we earned the right to play at war with the
bigger, older boys. In recognition, the French government gave the land
to Canada and has recognized it as Canadian soil. I wrote:

Vimy’s Price

We own
A piece of French real estate
With a fine panoramic view
of town
and industrial mounds

It’s a place
to rest in peace

The price?
Only sixty six thousand.

Canadian sons

A bargain at the time I put my hand on some of the names engraved on
the monument, the ones whose bodies disappeared in the mud without a
trace, and felt chagrin replace my earlier feelings of pride. Pride
would have meant I had a right to glory in the suffering, pain, the fear
and death of these Canadians who willingly or not, lost their lives
defending their King and his British empire.

Behind the memorial the battlefield has been preserved. The mud is
gone. The trenches are lined with cement “sand bags.” The tunnels and
the great craters, some more than thirty metres across, named after
Canadian cities (Montreal, Winnipeg) are now covered in grass. Beyond
these are dark, tangled woods surrounded by yellow ropes strung between
red signs that say “Danger Entre Interdit Munitions Non Eclatée”
(undetonated explosives).

The sun was low and cast long shadows. I found myself left alone by the
living. Yet behind the wind in the trees, faintly, I thought I could
hear desperate cries and curses of men who had died for a hollow promise
of peace. The price they paid in this “War to end all wars” had brought
only a lull and in twenty one years millions more were to bleed and die
again, in the second World War.

In the cemetery their stones stand
Forever at attention
ridged in the setting sun.
I wonder
How is it that I can leave
and they cannot?

The words of the poet Wilfred Owen’s wrenching description of a soldier
drowning in a sea of poison gas came to mind. In his poem he
sarcastically quotes the Greek poet Horace, extolling the glories of
war, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (It is sweet and proper to
die for one’s country.) War, in the defence of freedom may be necessary
at times but there is nothing sweet or glorious about it. And worse,
peace made without reconciliation with our enemies dooms us to reproduce
the very evil we fought.

© David Cale davidcale@ehmail.com

Let us remember this now that we are again tempted to find glory in the
rockets red glare.

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