Vimy Ridge not about victory, but rather, honour

Across much of Europe, the practices we associate with Halloween -– costumes, partying, sending the kids out to gather sweets -– are slowly creeping into familiarity, much to the disdain of critics of the Americanization of global cultures.
“It’s starting to be more and more popular,” replied our host during a recent stay at an Italian agri-tourism farm, when asked to comment on a Halloween-themed advertisement at a service station.
A week and a half later, on Oct. 31, we saw the reality of this trend as dozens of elaborately-adorned ghosts and ghouls streamed off a “train-of-the-dead” subway from downtown Paris, destined to join others at a Halloween celebration at the Disney corporation’s European theme park.
Traditionally, however, the importance in Europe of the evening of Oct. 31 has paled in comparison to that of the following day: All Saints Day. On Nov. 1 in countries ranging from France and Italy to Sweden and Poland, businesses are shut down and schools closed to allow people to visit and decorate the graves of their dead relatives.
It was fitting, then, that the final day of our recent European vacation -– Nov. 1 –- was spent honouring the memory of over 66,000 Canadian soldiers who lost their lives during World War I.
On a dreary, rainy, All Saints Day, after following the “Google Map” directions from the Paris-to-Brussels toll highway, we watched as the impressive, twin-towered Vimy Ridge Memorial emerged from the fog before us. Surrounding the monument, sheep (humans are prohibited due to the continued presence of live ammunition) graze the pockmarked landscape -– preserved in its shell-shocked form for the past 90 years, while almost all of the rest of the landscape of Northern France has been restored to its tillable uniformity.
Canadian university students –- chosen each year in a hard-won competition –- provide free tours of the site, along with the nearby trenches and tunnels that were integral to the ability of the first-ever combined divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force to capture Vimy Ridge between April 9-12, 1917. Because of the significance of bringing together Canadians under Canadian command for the first time, the battle of Vimy is celebrated as an identity-forming moment in Canadian history. But, as our British Columbian guide was careful to note, symbols of victory are absent from Walter Seymour Allward’s Vimy monument; indeed, the sole symbols of war are a helmet and sword on the sculptured tomb at the front, while Allward’s various human sculptures are believed to signify such notions as the bond between Canada and France, Canada’s acceptance of its role in helping those in need, and – displayed most strikingly in the form of a sorrowful young woman –- a youthful nation mourning its fallen.
A visit to the Vimy Memorial provides ample opportunity to praise the valour, tenacity and ultimate victory of Canadian soldiers. On a clearer day, we would have been able to gaze down from the ridge and realize the sheer folly of attacking a German army that had established itself on such a strategic stronghold. Yet that was exactly the task handed the Canadians in early 1917.
Tactics devised after studying the French army’s experiences in the Battle of Verdun were practiced and perfected in the weeks between January and April. The preserved trenches and tunnels -– mined into the region’s chalk bedrock largely by the French and British prior to the arrival of the Canadians -– provide the perfect “chalkboard” for the guides to explain the Canadian tactical innovations that assured victory.
Yet the iconic monument survives today precisely because Allward chose not to celebrate these aspects of the Canadian connection to Vimy. Atop his towers, the architect placed figures thought to signify peace, justice, truth and knowledge. Confronting the visitor from either the front or back, meanwhile, are three closer-to-ground-level figures (the young woman standing in front; two others reclining in the back) obviously meant to portray the nation’s sorrow.
Apparently due to the absence of victory-proclaiming and Canadian bravery-proclaiming symbolism, the Vimy Monument was spared –- and, in fact, protected –- by Adolf Hitler during World War II. Hitler saw battle duty in the vicinity during Germany’s WWI campaign, and then later had his photo taken admiring Allward’s work. And though Nazi forces destroyed a number of other WWI memorials in France, the Canadian monument was spared.
Thankfully, this sentiment remains strong in today’s Vimy Memorial experience.
Obviously, the engraved names themselves stand as a testament to war’s horrors.
“To the valour of their countrymen in the Great War and in memory of their sixty thousand dead this monument is raised by the people of Canada,” states a separate engraving on the memorial, referencing the total number of Canadian casualties in WWI.
So, too, does the landscape of muddy trenches and bombshell craters -– preserved to signify the terrible conditions endured by WWI soldiers. In those trenches, 3,598 Canadians were killed during the battle for Vimy Ridge, and 7,004 wounded.
Today, modern ventilation, lighting and drainage systems turn the tunnel network – used for reconnaissance and safely advancing troops to the front –- into an intriguing below-ground world. But the guides make every effort to stress the dark, dank, muddy, rat-infested reality that persisted in April, 1917.
And photos and artifacts inside the visitor’s centre and tunnels portray the smallest comforts –- a cigarette box; a YMCA mug; a maple leaf “graffiti” in the underground chalk -– used by soldiers to ward off the threats of homesickness, madness and fear that were ever-present for those on the front lines.
In 2007, Queen Elizabeth rededicated the Vimy Ridge National Historic Site following a two-year restoration of the limestone, concrete and steel structure. Our guide conveyed the Canadian government’s confidence that the monument –- specifically dedicated to the 11,285 Canadian WWI soldiers with no known grave who were declared killed or missing in France (engravings of their names encircle the monument) –- will survive into the distant future.
Ensuring that the spirit of Allward’s monument survives will require something different than a restoration and a visit from the Queen. It will require a continued recognition among Canadians that war is something to be mourned.