04/09/2026
Some history by Perry Robinson, and the reason the flags are lowered today!
109 years ago today the Canadians stormed Vimy Ridge.
There are those who say that this was the first time that Canadians were in command of their own forces, which is tactically true….but English General Sir Julian Byng was actually in overall command. The reality is…that he was intelligent enough (a comparative rarity in British upper echelons) to leave the operation entirely up to the Canadians…who….under General Sir Arthur Currie and his artillery guru Lt. Col. Andy McNaughton….changed the tactical direction of the war on the Western Front. As well…it was the only success of the entire, larger “Arras Offensive.”
After the spectacular victory at Vimy, prior to which the French and British had lost a quarter million men trying to take over the previous few years….without success… the Canadians formed the Canadian Corps…and thereafter were under the direct and overall command of Canadians. And they never lost a battle after that.
They became the “shock troops” of the Western Allies…and…under their example with McNaughton’s “counter battery” and “creeping barrage” artillery…allowed for a much more mobile advance…and…slowly…broke the insidious…and deadly…stalemate of trench warfare which devoured the very flower of an entire generation. This was the forerunner and blueprint of Canada’s great “Hundred Days” beginning at Amiens in the summer of 1918…and barrelling non stop and relentlessly, like an irresistible juggernaut, over Field Marshall von Hindenburg’s increasingly beleaguered troops….ending at Mons, Belgium, on November 11th, 1918.
We are proud to be Canadian!
We Will Remember Them!
