“To me there is still a mystique about Vimy Ridge… I think it is because Vimy was and is a symbol.”
– Lieutenant Gregory Clark
At 5:30 a.m. on April 9, 1917, Lieutenant Gregory Clark ordered his men to follow him up the slope of Vimy Ridge, in northern France, to attack the jagged trenches of the German defenders. “In a sleet and snow blizzard our artillery erupted … Behind the wall of fire we floundered up the ruined, filthy slope … My battalion reached the crest at 7:05 a.m. … I was the only surviving officer,” he recalled nearly half a century later in a magazine article. The Canadians had accomplished what the British, French and Morrocan armies had been unable to achieve despite two and a half years of battle and 40,000 casualties. The Canadians had captured nine miles of coveted high ground in the famed Hindenburg Line.
The Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge has been described as a national coming of age. It marked the first time four Canadian divisions had fought together, and was the first major Allied victory of the war. The Vimy Memorial was dedicated on July 26, 1936. Recently, it was extensively restored to celebrate the 90th anniversary.
Vimy became a symbol of faith for many religious-minded Canadians during the Great War. As Gregory Clark noted, “and I thought it was symbolic that we had done it at Easter.” Many soldiers believed that their Christian faith sustained their morale, providing solace and focus. As Private Benjamin F. MacDonald wrote in a letter to his wife, “The fighting is going on very hard, but God is good to me, and I tell you it is out here that we know there is a God.” Lieutenant Robert Horne agreed and credited his faith as essential to his well-being. To his grandmother, he wrote, “I am truly thankful I got out of it with my life saved … the lessons that were taught by mother and yourself have never left me and have led me to stand for my Master … I say these things that other young men [might] grasp the full joy and benefit of a life whose soul is Christ.”
Faith also connected Canadians in France with their loved ones back home. Prior to the battle of Vimy Ridge, Lt. Earl Gordon Richards wrote to his wife, Alicia, “I bend two knees to God, one to my king, but I leave my heart all with you. I can understand now how love takes first place. It is because God is love.” In response Alicia wrote, “When this war is over and all is back to normal again we mustn’t forget Him … What do riches amount to or success if we do not enjoy the love and comfort and help of our Father in Heaven … I am ready to face together what may come, and loving one another deeply, very deeply.”
Richards never read those words from his wife. On the night of March 30, 1917, while leading a reconnaissance patrol he was wounded and died the next day of “night chill” (infection). He was one of the 66,655 Canadians who were killed in the First World War, and one of the 3,598 soldiers who died during the battle of Vimy Ridge. His body rests in the shadow of Vimy Ridge at the Ecoivres military cemetery. In the midst of the carnage and horrors of war, faith provided Canadians with a means to sustain their morale, foster their hope and bridge the chasm between the muddy trenches of France and their families in Canada.
