Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge (original) (raw)
Related papers
2015
Vimy sits at or near the very centre of whatever national historical psyche Canadians might reasonably be said to possess. Vimy is unique, unalloyed, and unparalleled in our commemoration of the nation’s military past. It may or may not deserve the honour, but it holds the honour just the same. Vimy’s status is as its battle was: epic, indelible, and, in part, inexplicable. Vimy nevertheless should be remembered as a whole, and not disaggregated as moral lesson or site of mourning. Vimy is place, battle, and memory – a fusion of land, people, and time. We forget this, or exaggerate it, to our peril; we misunderstand it, or ignore it, to our shame. Resume : Vimy figure en plein cœur, ou tout pres, de toute representation historique nationale que l’on peut ra isonnablement at t r ibuer aux Canadiens. Vimy est unique, pure et sans egale dans notre souvenance du passe militaire du pays. Qu’elle merite, ou non, cette consecration, elle conserve cet honneur. Le statut de Vimy est identiqu...
Canada and the British Commonwealth in the Great War: an Historiographical Review
Histoire@Politique, 2014
For Canada, the past few years have been a world of anniversaries defined by war. The War of 1812 was selected by the Canadian government for special commemoration, as a means of stimulating national pride by recalling the nation's military exploits while highlighting, in particular, Canada's military traditions. The government hoped that $30 million would help, and up to a point it did, with those who were already committed to the art of re-enactment. There was inevitably a certain anti-Americanism, muted, to be sure, by the passage of time: the antique uniforms worn by the many battlefield re-enactors helped place the anniversary in a comfortably remote and colourful past-remembering the violence without having to dwell on its victims, rendered mute and historically harmless by the passage of two hundred years. The public reaction was tepid, and probably disappointing to the government. Now 2014 is upon us, and with it the hundredth anniversary of a much bigger war, one that was, until very recently, within living memory. The war directly engaged hundreds of thousands of Canadians in military service, cost billions of dollars-in the dollars of 1914-1918-altered Canadian society and reshaped the country's politics. The War of 1812 left a few commemorative plinths, notably the monument to Sir Isaac Brock on the Niagara River, erected to honour a British general who fell while successfully defending Canada against American invaders. The monument was subsequently blown up by an American sympathizer, and a second one, more impressive, was then erected. Such monuments are necessarily restricted to eastern Canada, where the war was fought, but the country that fought the Great War extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and its soldiers fought at both ends of the Eurasian landmass, from the Somme to Vladivostok. The First World War left memorials all across Canada, as well as probably Canada's most impressive and most beautiful memorial, at Vimy Ridge, near Arras in northern France, commemorating the most striking victory by the Canadian Corps during the Great War, as it was called, in April 1917. As of this writing, none of these monuments has been blown up.
Canadian Battlefields 1915-1918: A Visitor's Guide
2011
Most of the world remembers the First World War as a time when, as historian Samuel Hynes put it, “innocent young men, their heads full of high abstractions like Honour, Glory, and England … were slaughtered in stupid battles planned by stupid Generals.” English-speaking Canadians have for the most part accepted this view and supplemented it with an imaginative version of a war in which their soldiers won great victories and forged a new national identity. Both approaches have served to promote literary, political, and cultural agendas of such power that empirical studies of actual wartime events have had little impact on the historiography. A new generation of scholars has challenged those approaches, however, insisting that the reality of the war and the society that produced it are worthy of study. This guide to the Canadian battlefields in France and Belgium offers a brief critical history of the war and of Canada’s contribution, drawing attention to the best recent books on the subject. It focuses on the Ypres Salient, Passchendaele, Vimy, and the “Hundred Day”s battles and considers lesser-known battlefields as well. Battle maps, contemporary maps, photographs, war art, and tourist information enhance the reader experience.
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial: remembrance, dissonance and resonance
The purpose of this article is to expand the discussion pertaining to Vimy beyond traditional historic and military circles and to illustrate that the site is a significant tourism attraction featuring evolving management and interpretation approaches. This is achieved by describing the commemoration of First World War sites and the evolution and transformation of visitor typologies at these sites. The conversation is framed within a discussion of the role of heritage dissonance in management. Since this article was written at the onset of the centennial of the Great War, an examination of the management of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, which includes a tourism perspective, is timely.
Every year Australia and Canada commemorate the Gallipoli Campaign and the Battle of Vimy Ridge respectively. Phrases like "nation forming" and "birth of a nation" have become predictable inclusions at commemorations and ceremonies along with words like "immortalised", "legends" and "sacred". This thesis examined how the Gallipoli Campaign and the Battle of Vimy Ridge were fundamentally different yet the current rhetoric and mythology attached to the commemorations are identical.