By Kunixos July 26, To-day the King will unveil the Canadian war memorial on Vimy Ridge, at the taking of which in April, 1017, the Canadian Corps won imperishable fame. The capture of the ridge was part of the British offensive against the Germans which is now known as the battle of Arras, and which, but} for the muddling of the high command, easy to see so long after the event, might have proved one of the most decisive engagements of the Great War, The offensive was timed to precede a greater French offensive in the region of the Aisne, in the, hope of drawing away German reserves from the place where the major attack was to have been made according to the plans of General Nivelle, the commander-in-chief of the French army; and it would have succeeded in its purpose but for many unnecessary delays which gave the Germans ample time to prepare, and but for the fact that the French plans were Known to the Germans long beforehand This leakage had occurred two ways, The first happened when the Germans, in the process: of straightening out a part of their Jine, captured a French trench and. found a memorandum outlining the scheme of the attack, That gave them warning, The second was when, on a somewhat similar errand, they captured a French warrant officer who was carrying! on his person a more detailed summary of the plans, even down to the numbers of the divisions to be employed in the attack, the objectives, the time. The French general staff Knew that the Germans knew of their plans, but they omitted te form the British command of this fact, and even concealed it from their own Government. Among General Nivelle's colleagues there were many who favoured abandoning the offensive altogether, since the element of surprise had been Jost. But General Nivelle would listen to no suggestions for a change, and the original plans were carried out, with the enemy knowing just what to expect and being fully prepared to meet it. necessitated a long artillery pre-aration to cut the wires, and for three weeks the Royal Artillery, assisted by French batteries, rained' shells on the German _lines, culminating with five days of especially heavy bombardment which completely destroyed the wiring. During this period fewer than 2,700,000 shells were fired into the German defences.
The attack was actually launched at 5.30 a.m. on April 9, and within forty minutes the whole of the German first line, with the exception of a small part on Vimy ridge, was in British hands. The offensive had been carried out on a frontage of fifteen miles, Vimy riige was at the extreme north of the dattleficld.
The ridge is 475 fect above sea level and dominated _battlefteld.
From its summit the ground falls! away to the river Scarpe, between which and the river Cojeul it is in nature undulating. Its capture was tone of the absolute necessities of the drive, and in the face of a triple Tine of German trenches, the Can-adions carried it magnificently, under the command of Lord Byng.
The night before the attack, the three-weeks long bombardment' suddenly ceased for three hours, and the Canadians preparing for their advance at dawn the next day marvelled at the silence, having, almost forgotten what silence felt like through the period when the guns never ceased firing for moment. What the noise must! have been like can be imagined' when it is realised that 2,879 guns were engaged, 989 of them being heavy guns. At midnight before the attack, however, the bombardment was resumed with redoubled frenzy, and the last vestiges of the German wiring were destroyed and their! trenches hammered shapeless. The' foresight of the Germans in digging exceptionally deep dug-outs saved them from many casualties, hod incidentally caused a Jot of trouble for the Canadians the next morning. The zero hour for the Canadian Corps was 5.14 a.m., just as the dawn was breaking clear day. For the first time, the four divisions that comprised the corps went over the top at the same time. The most dificult}
From a distance, General Nivell refusal to change his plans seems almost inexplicable. In his war memoirs, Mr. David Lloyd George, then British Prime Minister, sui gests that the French commander Inechlet was suffering from an obsession engendered by' the opposition he had had to overcome from his subordinates and from the civilian officials of the Government.
What possessed him (General Nivelle) to persist after the secret had been given away, and the element of surprise upon which he relied had completely hho asks, And continues: but one answer, These great offensives, once they had fred the imagination of a commander, ceased fo be plans for winning a victory. They became a passion which could not be resisted, Like all passions. Which possess men, this one banished caution, prudence, and fear. The more Joffre, Nivelle, and Hal were criticized and opposed, the more fierce became their appetite for their cherished plans, They ignored difieultios, they concealed and suppressed disagreeable facts, even from themselves.
Nivelie in December wa: competent planner. By April he had become a crazy plunger.
This may be the correct explana-ion or it may be one of those for which Mr, Lloyd George's personal bias has been said to be responsible. On the face of it, however, it seems to be as likely as any that can be advanced in view of the facts, The offensive had been decided upon late in 1916, and from October! of that year elaborate preparations—the building of roads, the creation of ammunition dumps, and the other things that are' needed to' make ready for modern war—would have advertised to the Germans that something big was afoot, even if the plans had not been Known, Throughout this time the Germans had been constructing the famous Hindenburg line and preparing elaborate defences, the trench systems being heavily wired. This! sector was attacked by the Fourth Canadian Division on the extreme' left of the line. The immediate objective of this division was the on the top of the ridge, ran into the stiffest sort nce in making their way towards it. Next to them was the 'Third Canadian Division, which had a slightly easier time, and, in order, came the Second Canadian Division, and the First Canadian Divison, which found the depth of the enemy' defences in front of them proportion ately shallower and shallower. Nevertheless, all the divisions reached their objectives. The First Division had occupied theirs by shortly after 7 am. The Second Division had theirs about the same time. The Third Divison encountered several barriers, and did not! get theirs until after's a.m. And the Fourth Division, with the hardest task of all, did not reach the "pimple" until about noon.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.