Tod Maffin recounts the 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge, where Canadian miners, lumberjacks, and farmhands under General Arthur Currie captured a heavily fortified German position. Currie's meticulous planning included a scaled replica of the ridge and color-coded maps timed to the minute. The 10,602 Canadian casualties and the victory became a defining moment for Canadian national identity.
Chapters
Imagine you're a war general, and the battle's gonna happen today, right here on this ridge. Up here it's fortified with supplies and ammo, and you can see right down to where the other side is. You can see them. They're cold, up to their ankles in mud and water. Which side would you want to be on? 108 years ago today, Canadians, We're down there, at the base of a hill just like this one, but in France and called Vimy Ridge. That ridge was high, fortified, bristling with barbed wire and steel and guns. The Germans holding it had already turned back the British, shattered the French. It had claimed the lives of 150,000 soldiers. It was supposed to be impossible. But that day was different. 4 massive Canadian divisions had amassed at the base. These weren't veterans or career soldiers. They were miners, lumberjacks, farmhands, fresh off the rails and fields from Nova Scotia to Nanaimo, some as young as 17. Their battle leader, General Arthur Currie, was a failed real estate agent from Victoria. He only joined the militia because back then joining it was like joining a yacht club. You'd get some business contacts or maybe a couple of dinner invitations, but they'd never send you to war. Until they did. He and his troops arrived at Vimy Ridge. He created a scaled-down version of the ridge a few kilometers away and spent months running the troops up and down it in timed drills. They built a massive series of tunnels and trenches, an undertaking so large they had to buy a nearby lumber mill just to get enough wood supply for the floorboard planks. 17,000 pickaxes, 35,000 shovels, 1.5 million sandbags. Every soldier given a map indicating where they should be, marked by 4 colored lines at exactly what time down to the minute. And at 5:30 in the morning, they start. The first troops run straight up the hill. Their own artillery fires just ahead of them, just feet ahead of them, timed with immaculate precision to ensure they're not blown up by their own ordinances. 100 yards every 3 minutes. They called it the creeping barrage. The weapons so loud you can hear them in England, 200 kilometers away. And they run right into German machine gun fire. Thousands are killed. Thousands more make it to the Black Line, the German forward defences, then the Red Line, then the Blue Line, and the Brown Line just past the crest. That afternoon, the Canadian soldiers, for the first time incidentally working together under their own command, captured almost all of Vimy Ridge. The next day they took one of the last spaces, an area marked Hill 145 on their maps. Hill 145 was taken with bayonets. Some people will say that the Battle of Vimy Ridge didn't change the war, and they're right. The Western Front still crawled like a glacier. The war dragged on for another year and a half. But for Canada, something did change. We earned a seat at the table, not because someone handed it to us, but because we bled for it. Back home, the newspapers lit up with pride. Towns renamed themselves. Some people refer to that day as the Birth of the Nation. As if nations are born in the roar of gunfire. 10,602 Canadian casualties in 4 days. That's not symbolism. That's agony. So when the names are read today at the ceremonies, when silence hangs over the ridges and wind moves through the trees like a nation exhaling, Remember this: our nation wasn't born at Vimy. It was revealed there. Pulled from the mud, the smoke, the staggering cost of our troops. Vimy did not make us a nation. It showed us we already were. You know, today New tyrannies are spreading and we face another test. Like those soldiers, we can choose to stand against fascism, against the creeping normalization of hate, just like they did when the cost was their lives and they paid it anyway.
On a cold April dawn, praying, Lord, keep me strong. For the hill here to climb, for the enemy crying. For my loved ones, Lord, help me go on. The burning smoke in my eyes, the Wounded looking up to the skies. Blood where men fell. Vimy Ridge is my hell. But we're taking Hill 145. Fire those guns, boys. Walk and don't run, boys. 100 yards in 3 minutes. Just keep your heart
