Vimy Ridge Myth #1: Only Canadians fought in the defining battle

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

Moreover, and contrary to the present-day myth, most of the men in the Canadian Corps at Vimy had been recent British immigrants to Canada. A Sessional Paper presented to the House of Commons showed that to the end of April 1917, 139,345 Canadian-born, English- and French-speaking men were in Britain and France alongside 155,095 British subjects born outside of Canada, as well as a substantial number of Americans and other foreign-born men. The Canadian-born would not constitute a majority of the Canadian Corps until very near the end of the war, after conscription had put 100,000 men into uniform. To be fair, the tactics used in the set-piece attack on Vimy Ridge were new in some ways. The British Expeditionary Force and the Canadian Corps had learned hard lessons on the Somme in 1916, and the Corps’ senior officers, including Maj.-Gen. Arthur Currie, the commander of the 1st Division, had studied French tactics at Verdun. This led to new developments in the organization of infantry platoons, to the handing of maps and aerial photographs to every level of the infantry battalions, and to a first-rate creeping barrage (to which British heavy artillery contributed) that advanced 60 metres every three minutes. The Canadian Corps used these tactics extremely well at Vimy, and they were certainly among the very best corps in the British Expeditionary Force in employing them. But they were not alone. The Canadians also developed very effective counter-battery gunnery, taking out the enemy’s guns so they could not halt the attack. The British had been working on this, using observer balloons, aircraft, flash spotting and sound ranging. The Canadians brought these measures to a high level and knocked out 83 per cent of the enemy guns. Vimy was a great victory for the Canadian Corps, but it was one that could not have been won without the British Army’s enormous contribution. J.L. Granatstein is a historian and former Director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum.

Read the rest of our debunked Vimy myths:

Myth #2:Vimy won the warMyth #3:Canadians scaled a cliff at VimyMyth #4:Canada became a nation at Vimy

Check out archival images from the battle:

MORE ON VIMY RIDGE:

• How precision planning made Canada’s Vimy Ridge victory possible
• Return to Vimy Ridge
• Vimy Ridge, April 9, 1917: ‘Like a scene out Dante’
• Why Google mapped Vimy Ridge
• From the archives: Vimy and Passchendaele: Canada’s bravest and blackest hours
• From the archives: From 1924: With a vagabond around Vimy
• From the archives: What was the price of Vimy Ridge?
• From the archives: Ypres: The price of Canada’s first glory in battle