The Battle of Vimy Ridge (9–12 April 1917) was part of the Battle of Arras, in the Pas-de-Calais department of France, during the First World War. The main combatants were the four divisions of the Canadian Corps in the First Army, against three divisions of the German 6th Army. The battle began the Battle of Arras and was the first attack of the Nivelle Offensive. The objective was to draw German reserves away from the French forces, preparing for the French offensive along the Aisne and the Chemin des Dames ridge several days later.
The Canadian Corps was to capture Vimy Ridge, an escarpment on the northern flank of the Arras front. This would protect the First Army and the Third Army farther south from German enfilade fire. Supported by a creeping barrage, the Canadian Corps captured most of the ridge during the first day. The village of Thélus fell on the second day, as did the crest of the ridge, once the Canadian Corps overran a salient against considerable German resistance. The final objective, a fortified knoll outside the village of Givenchy-en-Gohelle, fell to the Canadians on 12 April. The 6th Army retreated to the Oppy–Méricourt line.
Historians attribute the success of the Canadian Corps to technical and tactical innovation, meticulous planning, powerful artillery support and extensive training and the inability of the 6th Army properly to apply the new German defensive doctrine. The battle was the first occasion when the four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force fought together and it was made a symbol of Canadian national achievement and sacrifice. A 100 ha (250-acre) portion of the battleground serves as a memorial park and site of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial.
Background
Vimy Ridge 1914–1916
Vimy Ridge is an escarpment 8 km (5.0 mi) northeast of Arras on the western edge of the Douai Plain. The ridge rises gradually on its western side and drops more quickly on the eastern side. At approximately 7 km (4.3 mi) in length and culminating at an elevation of 145 m (476 ft) or 60 m (200 ft) above the Douai Plains, the ridge provides a natural unobstructed view for tens of kilometres in all directions. The ridge fell under German control in October 1914 during the Race to the Sea as the Franco-British and German forces attempted to outflank each other through north-eastern France.
The French Tenth Army tried to eject the Germans during the Second Battle of Artois in May 1915 by attacking at Vimy Ridge and Notre Dame de Lorette. The French 1st Moroccan Division managed to briefly capture the height of the ridge but was unable to hold it owing to a lack of reinforcements. The French tried again at the Third Battle of Artois in September 1915 but only captured the village of Souchez at the western base of the ridge. The Vimy sector calmed following the offensive with both sides taking a largely live and let live approach. The French suffered approximately 150,000 casualties in their attempts to gain control of the Vimy Ridge area.
1916–1917
The French Tenth Army was relieved in February 1916 by XVII Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng) and transferred to join in the Battle of Verdun. The British soon discovered that German tunnelling companies had taken advantage of the relative calm on the surface to build an extensive network of tunnels and deep mines from which they would attack French positions by setting off explosive charges underneath their trenches. The Royal Engineers sent specialist tunnelling companies to the ridge to combat the German mining operations and German artillery and trench mortar fire intensified in early May 1916. On 21 May 1916, after shelling the British forward trenches and divisional artillery positions from eighty hidden batteries on the reverse slope of the ridge, the German infantry began Unternehmen Schleswig Holstein, an attack on the British lines along a 2,000 yd (1,800 m) front, to eject them from positions along the ridge. The Germans captured several British-controlled tunnels and mine craters before halting their advance and digging in. Small counter-attacks by battalions of the 140th and 141st Brigades took place on 22 May but were foiled. The Canadian Corps relieved IV Corps along the western slopes of Vimy Ridge in October 1916.
Prelude
Strategy
On 28 May 1916, Byng took command of the Canadian Corps from Lieutenant-General Sir Edwin Alderson. Discussions for a spring offensive near Arras began, following a formal conference of corps commanders held at the First Army Headquarters (HQ) on 21 November 1916. In March 1917, the army HQ formally presented Byng with orders giving Vimy Ridge as the Canadian Corps objective for the Arras Offensive.
A plan, adopted in early March 1917, drew on the briefings of staff officers sent to learn from the experiences of the French Army during the Battle of Verdun. For the first time the four Canadian divisions would fight together. The nature and size of the attack needed more resources than the Canadian Corps possessed and the British 5th Division, artillery, engineer and labour units were attached to the corps, bringing the nominal strength of the Canadian Corps to about 170,000 men, of whom 97,184 were Canadian.
Tactics
In January 1917, three Canadian Corps officers accompanied other British and Dominion officers attending lectures by the French Army on their experiences during the Battle of Verdun. The French counter-offensive devised by General Robert Nivelle had been one of a number of Allied successes of 1916. Following extensive rehearsal, eight French divisions had assaulted German positions in two waves along a 6 mi (10 km) front. Supported by extremely powerful artillery, the French had recovered lost ground and inflicted severe casualties on five German divisions.
On their return from the lectures, the Canadian Corps staff officers produced a tactical analysis of the Verdun battles and delivered corps and divisional-level lectures to promote the primacy of artillery and stress the importance of harassing fire and company and platoon flexibility. The report of the 1st Canadian Division commander, Arthur Currie, highlighted the lessons he believed the Canadian Corps could learn from the experiences of the French. The final plan for the assault on Vimy Ridge drew on the experience and tactical analysis of the officers who attended the Verdun lectures. The First Army commander, General Henry Horne approved the plan on 5 March 1917.
The plan divided the Canadian Corps advance into four coloured objective lines. The attack would be made on a front of 7,000 yd (4 mi; 6 km), with its centre opposite the village of Vimy, to the east of the ridge. The first objective, the Black Line, was the German forward defensive position. The final objective of the northern flank was the Red Line, taking the highest point on the ridge, the fortified knoll known as the Pimple, la Folie Farm, the Zwischen-Stellung (intermediate position) and the hamlet of Les Tilleuls. The southern two divisions were to achieve two more objectives, the Blue Line, encompassing the village of Thélus and the woods outside the village of Vimy and the Brown Line, which aimed at capturing Zwölfer-Graben (Twelve Trench) and the German second position. The infantry would advance close to a creeping barrage by field guns, advancing in timed 100 yd (100 m) increments. The medium and heavy howitzers would establish a series of standing barrages further ahead of the infantry against defensive positions.
The plan called for units to leapfrog as the advance progressed, to maintain momentum during the attack. The initial wave would capture and consolidate the Black Line and then push forward to the Red Line. The barrage would pause for reserve units to move up, then move forward with the units pushing beyond the Red Line to the Blue Line. Once the troops secured the Blue Line, advancing units would once again leapfrog them and capture the Brown Line. Conducted properly, the plan would leave the German forces little time to exit their deep dugouts and defend their positions against the infantry. If the corps maintained its schedule, the troops would advance as much as 4,000 yd (2.3 mi; 3.7 km) and have the majority of the ridge under control by 1:00 pm on the first day.
German defences
The experience of the Battle of the Somme led the German command to conclude that the policy of rigidly defending a trench position was no longer effective against the firepower that the Entente armies had accumulated. Ludendorff published a new defensive doctrine in December 1916, in which deeper defences were to be built, within which the garrison would have room to manoeuvre, rather than rigidly holding successive lines of trenches. Along Vimy Ridge, the German forces had spent two years constructing fortifications designed for rigid defence. An extensive network of tunnels and trenches south of Neuville St Vaast was known as "The Labyrinth". Little reconstruction based upon the new defence-in-depth doctrine had been accomplished by April 1917 because the terrain made it impractical.
The ridge was 700 m (2,300 ft) across at its narrowest point, with a steep drop on the eastern side, all but eliminating the possibility of counterattacks if the ridge was captured. The Germans were apprehensive about the inherent weakness of the Vimy Ridge defences. Their defensive scheme was to maintain a front line defence of sufficient strength to withstand an initial assault and move operational reserves forward, before the enemy could consolidate their gains or overrun the remaining German positions. The German defence at Vimy Ridge relied largely on the firepower of machine guns.
Three divisions, comprising seven infantry regiments were responsible for the immediate defence of the ridge. The paper strength of each division was approximately 15,000 men but their actual strength was significantly lower. In 1917, a full-strength German rifle company was 264 men; at Vimy Ridge, each rifle company contained approximately 150 men. Each German regiment held a zone approximately 1,000 m (1,100 yd) wide, as far back as the rear area. When the Canadian Corps attacked, each German company faced two or more battalions of approximately 1,000 men each. Reserve divisions were kept about 15 mi (24 km) back instead of assembling close behind the second line, according to the defence-in-depth theory.
Artillery
The eight field artillery brigades of the Canadian Corps divisional artillery and two heavy artillery groups were reinforced with British artillery units. Four heavy artillery groups, nine field artillery brigades, three divisional artillery groups and the artillery complement of the 5th Division was attached to the Canadian Corps. Ten heavy artillery groups of the flanking I and XVII Corps were assigned tasks in support of the Canadian Corps. The artillery batteries of I Corps were particularly important because they enfiladed German gun positions behind Vimy Ridge.
The British provided twenty-four brigade artillery groups consisting of four hundred and eighty 18 pounder field guns, one hundred and thirty-eight 4.5 inch howitzers, ninety-six 2 inch trench mortars, twenty-four 9.45 inch mortars, supported by 245 siege guns and heavy mortars. This firepower gave a density of one heavy gun for every 20 m (20 yd) and one field gun for every 10 m (10 yd) of the corps frontage, representing a considerable average increase, including three times the heavy guns over the distribution of artillery at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
On 8 February, the First Army issued a 3,000-word artillery plan devised by Horne and his principal artillery commander, Major General H. F. Mercer. Brigadier-General Edward Morrison developed and issued a 35-page multi-phased fire support plan called Canadian Corps Artillery Instruction No. 1 for the Capture of Vimy Ridge to support the efforts of the infantry. The Canadian Corps received three times the artillery normally assigned to a corps for regular operations. To manage the supply of the extra guns, the Royal Artillery staff officer, Major Alan Brooke, coordinated communication and transport plans to work with the barrage plans.
A 1.6 million shell allotment allowed the artillery along the Canadian Corps front to maintain a high rate of fire. Improvements in the quality of the shells ensured fewer duds. The new instantaneous No. 106 fuze greatly improved results, the fuse burst reliably with the slightest of contact, unlike older timed fuses, making it especially effective at wire cutting. Field units laid over 870 mi (1,400 km) of telegraph and field telephone cables, normally at a depth of 7 ft (2.1 m). The corps conducted counter-battery shoots before the battle. The First Army Field Survey Company printed barrage maps, artillery boards and counter-battery support with flash spotting groups and sound ranging sections. Using flash spotting, sound ranging and aerial reconnaissance from 16 Squadron and 1 & 2 Balloon Companies Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in the week before the battle, the counter-battery artillery (Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew McNaughton) fired 125,900 shells, harassing an estimated 83 per cent of the German gun positions.