Canadian lnfantry advancing during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, April 1917. (George Metcalf Archival Collection/Canadian War Museum) George Metcalf Archival Collecti

Vimy Ridge Myth #2: Vimy won the war

The battle was a defining victory for the Canadian Corps, but not a significant setback to the German defence strategy

By J.L. Granatstein

April 5, 2017

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READ MORE: How precision planning made Canada’s Vimy Ridge victory possible

But Field Marshal Douglas Haig’s General Headquarters had not counted on success at Vimy as a possibility. There were only sketchy plans to take advantage of a victory, to turn a German setback into a rout by moving cavalry, tanks and infantry forward in a major push eastward. And once the Canadians had control of the ridge, such plans as existed seem to have been forgotten. Very simply, in April 1917, the Germans were winning the war. They occupied Belgium and much of eastern France, they had driven Russia to revolution in March and, although the United States had just come into the war on April 4, it would be more than a year before American troops would be in France in substantial numbers. The Germans stood solidly on the defensive, beating off Allied attacks with heavy losses. The success at Vimy was undoubtedly a bright spot, a victory in a long succession of Allied defeats. But it was no walkover, no sweeping victory. The attack cost Canada 10,602 casualties, including 3,598 killed, the largest toll in a battle of a few days in Canadian history. As far as the Germans were concerned, meanwhile, Vimy was a tactical defeat, but not a very important one. The fate of Germany, as a Frankfurt newspaper observed, “is not bound up with the possession of a hill.” In truth, to the enemy Vimy was at worst a draw, primarily because it did not lead to a breakthrough. In other words, Vimy mattered most to the Canadian Corps and to Canada. It made the Corps an elite formation, and it made the soldiers believe that they had done something great. That was all true, but Vimy did not win the war. J.L. Granatstein is a historian and former Director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum.