Canada's Remarkable War Efforts In WW1 | The Last 100 Days | Timeline

[Music] [Music] Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight I died in hell they called it Passchendaele siegfried sassoon [Music] the British Expeditionary Force with the support of the second Corps attacked at 3:50 a.m. July 31st and made modest gains over a 15 mile front then it started to rain a gentle rainfall at first it quickly turned into a torrential downpour turning Flanders into an immense pool of evil-smelling mud unable to drain the water collected in millions of shell holes and in the shallow valleys that separated the many long low ridges and hills in the battlezone official history British Army the intermittent heavy rain continued through August a dry September saw British forces advance but in October the rains returned harder than before turning the battlefield into a swamp Higgs army bogged down in full view of the enemy occupying the high ground of Passchendaele Ridge and was now more vulnerable than when the offensive began 225,000 men had been killed or wounded and with none of their objectives realized Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig is command of all British forces in France was in jeopardy to save the situation as well as his job Haig turned to Arthur Currie and the Canadian Corps to take Passchendaele on receiving that news will bird decided to divert his platoon with a history lesson on war in that part of France Attila and his heathen Huns had poured into France burning and plundering and had lost a hundred and sixty thousand men before being driven away I told them a King Edward at crécy facing three times his strength had killed 30,000 Frenchmen twelve hundred knights and eight princes so why should we consider we were engaged in an original catastrophe I asked them how many knights and princes are going to be killed at Passchendaele Tony asked then he raved about the officers the General Staff in their fine chateau and villas waited on hand and foot like Lords stroking away with Kayla spends thousands of lives will bird the Canadians were at Vimy where their successful assault in 1917 had forced the Germans to shorten their defense with the construction of the Hindenburg line or if you were German the Siegfried line every Canadian hated to go to Passchendaele Ridge I carried my protest to the extreme limit which I believe would have resulted in my being sent home had I been other than the Canadian corps commander I pointed out that our casualties would reach 16,000 men who was told to go and make the attack Arthur Currie [Music] as curry looked out at the enemy fortifications at Passchendaele he might have reflected that the success of previous Canadian attacks at Vimy lens and Hill 70 were responsible for the battlefields most striking feature 5-foot thick concrete bubbles now protected the enemy's forward machineguns from anything but a direct hit from the artillery the British troops had thought the concrete bubbles resembled pillboxes and that was the name they gave them the pillboxes were a response to the tactic Currie and the Canadians had perfected at Vimy of attacking machine-gun posts rather than the enemy's trenches as at the some now the machine guns which could rake the battlefield from every direction were protected as never before the pillboxes were like icebergs but nine-tenths of it below ground on the other tenth the deadly tenth stickin above with slots for machine guns to fire out of impossible things because of the mud there were no trenches just shell holes men were wet day after day the quartermaster weighed one of our great coats it weighed 50 pounds the ratio load to weight we carried into battle was higher than that of a mule Gregory Clark fourth Canadian machine gun regimen the land had no features no woods no buildings just tormented soil sergeant Stewart Scott 78th battalion the line the Canadians took over from the Australians and New Zealanders was less than a mile from the spot where in April 1915 they've been subjected to the world's first gas attack to those still serving in the corner now lamentably few who have been present at the first battle long ago when the enemy had loosed its clouds of boys and gas the occasion was a momentous one our wood steel curry as was his habit addressed his men before they went into action the commander in chief general Haig has called on us to do a big job I promise you that you will not be called upon to advance as you never will be until everything has been done to clear the way for you after that it's up to you and I leave it to you with confidence Arthur curry it was a terrible speech he told us the Australians had tried to take it and British tried to take it and now they called in the Canadians and he said you have to take it before you get out of here private George Myer before the battle even began 1,500 men in the Canadian work battalions were killed or wounded by German shelling Currie and Hague divided the coming battle into four bites each to be followed by a pause of three days with troops being relieved halfway through each assault the first attack or bite on October 26th resulted in the loss of two thousand four hundred and eighty one men but most of its objectives were realized I remember walking along and the wounded man hanging on to the edge of these duct boards with their bodies about half submerged in the mud and some of the fellows not knowing they were there would step on their fingers you know and their screams oh god it just haunts you huh we had strict orders he couldn't help them he couldn't do anything I just had to keep going private LR for now [Music] the second assault October 30th gained another 1000 yards with the loss of 1321 it would pass somewhere and the water would move little and you would see man's heads bobbing up and down drowned in Slough s-- whether they were wounded or killed first we didn't know they'd been there sometime private bar Ferry 21st battalion at this point the third and fourth divisions were relieved by the first and second and on November 6th under drier conditions Canadian troops fought their way through the craters and swamps and reached the town of Passchendaele having overwhelmed the pillboxes one at a time with losses amounting to another 2238 two days before the final assault General von Hindenburg the German supreme commander issued an order Passchendaele is to be held at all costs there's to be no retreat general Powell von hinten book [Music] the troops opposite the Canadians were Prussians and one of them taken prisoner told the correspondent of the Glasgow Herald vehicle in the Canadian East escape be adorable a fancy as but slifer demeanor we do not like the Canadians we Germans think they are desperate men [Music] on November 12th the Canadian succeeded in taking their final objective Passchendaele Ridge two days later after determined German counter-attacks had failed the capture of the ridge was judged secure and the Canadians were replaced Curry's prediction of sixteen thousand casualties proved right almost to a man final casualties totalled fifteen thousand six hundred and fifty four with the bodies of one thousand lost forever under the mud of Passchendaele [Music] they asked me what had it been like at Passchendaele and I said not too bad and changed the subject that which I noticed in others had come to me no soldier who had been in that fighting could talk about it at all will bird the Canadian Corps and its commander Arthur Currie who had planned every phase of the final battle had saved Hague's command because the Canadians had taken Passchendaele the third Battle of Ypres with its 260,000 British and Dominion casualties could be presented to the War Cabinet and the public has at least a partial success Currie henceforth would be treated more like an army commander than the corps commander he was he was given a place at British headquarters and a degree of control accorded to no one else of his rank on the Western Front the Canadians retired to Vimy the British troops left to defend Passchendaele were swept aside as the Germans in their 1918 Spring Offensive obliterated all the gains heyget achieved in 1917 allowing Winston Churchill to add this final PostScript to Passchendaele [Music] a for long expenditure of valour and life without equal in futility Winston Churchill when a man reports that his nerves are gone I never allow him to leave the line until the tour is finished on account of the effect on the other men dr. G astrati major Medical Corps as early as November 1914 Lord Knutsford wrote in The Times of London of a mysterious ailment affecting the frontline soldier there are a number of our gallant soldiers for whom no proper provision is at present obtainable but is sorely needed they are men suffering from very severe mental and nervous shock due to exposure excessive strain and tension if not cured they were drift back to the world as miserable wrecks for the rest of their lives Lord newts fund for the victims of shell shock many felt the Cure had to be more terrifying than the cause dr. Lewis Eiland who returned from Canada in 1914 to work for the Queen Square mental hospital believed at subjecting his patients to high voltage electricity could serve as both cure and preventative no matter how vigorously applied the sting of a whip is nothing compared with the sudden severe shock of a ferritic current dr. Lewis Weyland what treatments such as shock therapy demonstrated all too clearly was the conflict between medical ethics and military necessity by 1916 the British Army had banned the use of the term shell-shocked feeling it validated a condition of disability but for many soldiers an escape into this inner landscape of the mind was the only exit available I saw two men shot the other day for cowardice it is very bad for a coward to come here if the Germans don't shoot him they hold the court-martial and then shoot him themselves haas history may 21st battalion I am of the opinion that it is necessary to make an example to prevent cowardice in the face of the enemy as far as possible General Sir Douglas Haig during the four years of war the British Army executed 346 of its men the Canadians took their cue from the British executing 25 men 22 of these for desertion the Australians by choice did not execute a single soldier that shuffling figure he's one of us he is fought with us slept with us eating with us he comes from Canada when most of our homes are George Bell third Battalion the feeling was that we were all volunteers and that no volunteer deserved the death sentence if he was unable to face the enemy in battle de Pearson [Music] Donald MacLean said you were suffering from shellshock but that it was not a bad case so many people have told me that it takes a long time to recover and I am so afraid if he went back to the noise and turmoil it would come back Margaret black the families of victims of shell shock had to try as best they could to help their loved ones undergoing and experienced thousands of miles away which for shame had no official or clinical name major Norman black who had seen action at Vimy informed his wife Margaret on July 29th 1917 that he was now in hospital dear Margaret the days are very monotonous but I'm now feeling much like myself again last night I had a good sleep without dope and didn't dream of shells and general catastrophes so I'm getting alright and we'll be fit as a fiddle in a few days I expect we will be moved from here shortly probably down to the sea or as some hope over the Blighty major Norman black still here not exactly cured and except for very sparingly still in my right mind I'm up today for an hour a piece of foolishness to my mind keeping a man in bed for so long it's great to be up again but it will take a day or two for it to feel perfectly natural except that I am a little shaky I'm feeling as well as I ever did major Norman black I was not surprised when I got your letter saying you had been sent to the hospital I sort of felt from reading between the lines in your last few letters that you were under a terrible strain and that your physical strength would give out the feeling I have today is one of intense relief and thankfulness that you were at least removed from the sounds of war and surely now you have done your bed at the front line and you can be content removed from the main show margaret black this place is officered by nerve specialist doctors and many and incongruous are the methods they have of testing that part of one's anatomy some are sent back to their units for it is a thing in which there can be considerable bluffing by a certain type of man major Norman black you needn't have the slightest fear of anyone here thinking you are a quitter no one could have done more than you and Norman dear I think you were too sensitive about that you are my hero more than ever and I am prouder of you than words can express and nothing would give me greater delight than to know that you would never go back to the front Margaret black why you should feel disgusted at being out of the show because of illness I can't see would you rather have been wounded and lost a few arms and legs I don't see why they won't let you come home to get well away from these air raids and things I simply can't write all I feel tonight I just want to put my arms around your neck and have your head on my shoulder lovingly Margaret those nearly dead were put to bed and given more fear if necessary and left to die a few of these recovered many of the men had been lying in no-man's land for 12 hours or more most of them had little or nothing to eat for 48 hours major dr. GS stripy for every four soldiers in the trenches one would be killed one would emerge unscathed and two would be wounded a Blighty was a soldier's dream a wound serious enough to require a period of convalescence in England not a few were self-inflicted any wound even the desired Blighty ran the risk of a bacterial infection commonly known as gas gangrene a result of the particularly septic conditions of the soil it was the cause of most amputations dear grace I'm in the line again this is my third trip in and Fritz hasn't got me yet but you can never tell he has hit me though it was last night and I was standing talking to one of our corporals when suddenly I felt something hit me on the leg like a small stone I crawled around to see if I could find what hit me and suddenly felt something hot found it was a German bullet has spent bullet if it had hit me before it struck the ground I probably would have a Blighty but no such luck cousin will and Williams shortly after wellin williams was killed making him one of the two hundred and fourteen thousand canadian casualties of the first world war [Music] of the nearly 60-thousand fatalities 39,000 of them were killed outright inaction another 15,000 died as a result of wounds or accidents 154,000 survived their wounds and another 6,000 died from disease to combat venereal disease which was debilitating and on occasion fatal 24-hour prophylactic centers were made available in battle areas sex safe or not was confined to the French nasal Dola hay each Sunday afternoon a long queue is formed in front of a certain house in Hesston one by one these soldiers are admitted inflamed by the Giants and Jets shouted out by the man behind them in the line each one is given 10 minutes for the whole business private Thomas Dean isn't with the war the sex trade in Paris flourished as never before and with a shrewdness born of long familiarity with the fantasies of lonely men a quantity of Canadian nurses sisters uniforms disappeared from stock only to reappear on prostitutes trolling for Canadians on Paris boulevards at the Battlefront the soldiers accepted death as a fact of war as part of the game but at home we closed our minds to such a possibility in spite of the long casualty lists that appeared day after day we believed our loved ones led charmed lives grace Morris [Music] March 15 dear grace i hope mother has not got nervous over me at all and you might convince her that there's no more need to worry than when i was in the tunnel and the only difference being and instead of running the risk of going up i run the risk of going down love basil it was noon on March 17th that the plane with basil and his pilot was shot down over Belgium the dreaded telegram beginning regret to inform reached our home in the 19th of March the tragic news reached Ramsey in the trenches where he was serving with his battalion of 38 race more it's much easier for anyone here father as you would understand if you were here to take what comes to them you look forward to certain things as inevitable please give my love and sympathy to mother do what you can for her also give my love and sympathy to grace I have avoided being by myself as much as possible as I couldn't stand it your loving son Ramsey the same night another patient died and another still was very low while there were at least four other delirious head cases who seemed to take turns pulling off their dressings or getting out of bed Elizabeth painter nursing sister as members of the Canadian Army Medical Corps discovered saving lives did not guarantee immunity On June 27 1918 the Canadian hospital ship the land a very castle was torpedoed and sunk taking with it two hundred and thirty four crew members medical staff and nursing sisters the ship sank in ten minutes but the German submarine spent a further two hours shelling and ramming lifeboats in an attempt to destroy evidence of its breach of the Geneva Convention fourteen Canadian nursing sisters were killed when their life boat capsized in the suction from the sinking ship one is proud to remember that the sisters on hospital ships remained at their posts till all patients had been transferred and only then did the traditional order women first apply Mabel Clint nursing sister [Music] 46 Canadian nursing sisters would die serving that country [Music] [Music] we stand at the decisive moment of the ball and at one of the greatest moments in German history may assist feeling be deeply engraved on all our hearts Kaiser bill had having made peace with a Bolshevik Russia Germany now concentrated its forces in the West and launched the offensive that they hoped would end the war before American manpower could become decisive the chain which was to strangle us has been burst we can turn our entire strength towards the west general Powell for hinton book by mid-february the Germans had 178 divisions on a Western Front outnumbering those of the Allies we can now think of attack we are entirely confident that the battle which is burst in force will be successful for us general Erich Ludendorff Ludendorff's tactics called for storm troops to push their way through the Allied lines with backup troops then widening the breach and pushing deep into open country leaving pockets of resistance to regimental and battalion reserves the choppa hold as arrest follows general - Ludendorff at 6:40 a.m. on March twenty first two thousand five hundred guns firing combinations of gas and explosive shells opened up on a 50-mile front opposite the British fifth Army the British were overpowered by the force of the German assault 19 of the 21 British divisions engaged had been at Passchendaele and were filled with raw recruits the German 18th Army pushed the British back beyond the Somme and occupied pay Ron so notice of the brave English who strongly defended themselves they're very heavy in killed wounded and prisoners by the German losses are surprisingly small the spirit of the troops is sustained by joyful confidence of victory valina tiger blood [Music] the Germans had attacked the French south of Arras with even greater success and once more threatened Paris our object is not to win ground or towns our battle aim is solely the destruction of enemy forces and his means for the continuance of the war foster shirts item but the initial progress of the German army was slowed by long supply lines to the front and stiffening allied resistance one cannot go on victoriously forever without ammunition or any sort of reinforcements rudolf indi the germans had struck the british on the canadians left and the french on their right anticipating that they would be next Currie issued a proclamation to his troops which reflected at once his pride his fears and his confidence with such uncharacteristic eloquence that english courses in France in the 1920s required their students to memorize it [Music] today the fate of the British Empire hangs in the balance I place my trust in the Canadian Corps knowing that we're Canadians are engaged there can be no giving way you will advance or fall where you stand facing the enemy to those who will fall I say you will not die but step into immortality your mothers will not lament your fate but will be proud to have borne such sons your names will be revered for ever and ever by you're grateful country and God will take you unto himself I trust you to fight as you have ever fought with all your strength with all your determination with all your tranquil courage on many a hard-fought feel the battle you have overcome the enemy with God's help you shall achieve victory once more Arthur Currie but the attack never came Haig desperate began to call in the Canadian Corps or part of it to help save the deteriorating situation Currie resisted appealing to general horn in a letter I know that necessity knows no law and that the chief will do what he thinks best yet for the sake of the victory we must win get the Canadians back together as soon as possible Arthur Currie he wishes to fight only as a Canadian core and got his Canadian representative in London to write and urge me to arrange it as a result the Canadians are together holding a wide front near Arras but they have not yet been in the battle General Sir Douglas Haig what Haig in his criticism failed to take into account was that it was not the Canadians who avoided the Germans but the Germans who chose to bypass the Canadians [Music] I'm sure the reason for the enemy not directing it below at us was that they had never yet met the Canadians in battle without suffering defeat and so passed by on either side Arthur Currie [Music] tactically the German offensive had been a success having penetrated 40 miles captured 80,000 prisoners and 975 guns but in failing to reach Paris or to drive a wedge between the British and French forces it had failed to achieve its strategic purpose later in private Haig confessed to Currie in all the dark days of spring one great comforting thought came to me that I still had the Canadian core unused and fresh and I felt I could not be defeated until the Corps had been in action General Sir Douglas Haig now the technique of the storm-troop came into play [Music] the new German tactics designed for their storm troops resembled so closely those first developed by the Canadians at Vimy that there was no doubt as to the paternity of the technique German storm troops had been responsible for the swiftness of the German breakthrough as a consequence when a massive attack subsided and they found themselves defending their gains well in front of their long maintained defensive lines they kept a wary eye out for the Canadians regarding the Canadians as storm troops the enemy greeted their appearance as an omen of a coming attack Sabah's 'old adel heart military historian in order to mislead the germans as to the whereabouts of the canadian corps two battalions of two casualty dressing stations and a wireless section was dispatched north to Flanders the 20th battalion put on one of the finest acts they can be put on they took a piece of the German trench but when they retreated the old officer forgot his genic on somebody else's harbor sock with official operational orders after August 8th they found copies these false orders radar the German headquarters Joe O'Neill 19th battalion the Germans put two and two together and thought the Canadians are coming back to the Belgian front DeeDee Spencer Royal Canadian regiment the main body of the Corps however had moved south to amia where misinformation was spread regarding their presence the French didn't know we were coming in we removed all our badges and we looked more like newspaper correspondents the French had no idea who we were not even the officers Dan Ormond 10th battalion [Music] [Music] everything I had feared of which I had often given warning had here in one place become a reality in a while le fondled off curry and his staff to give the Canadian troops added incentive had them signal their arrival at their jump off positions with the codeword Lando very castle the name of the torpedoed hospital ship on which Canadian nursing sisters had died there would be no preliminary bombardment only a creeping barrage keeping pace with the infantry led by 324 mark five heavy tanks 96 medium mark a whippets at 4:20 a.m. August 8th the barrage signaled the beginning of the battle you could have read a newspaper and the reflection from the gunfire private William Curtis 10th battalion as we passed the blows of gun smoking from their incessant firing the Gunners stopped long enough to look up and give us a good word phrases such as go to it we're with you give him he'll I made a curious lump in my throat private William wall 100 and 2nd Infantry Battalion there was a heavy ground mist and a considerable amount of low-lying smoke which made it difficult to keep direction and touch lieutenant colonel macdonald 10th battalion across no-man's land just a plowed field with pieces of wire and equipment sticking out of it didn't even know who crossing trenches private car 10th battalion the 10th battalion reached the blue line at 1:15 p.m. the first Canadian unit to reach the objective with little help from the tanks which had virtually disappeared you can see the Germans disorganized mob going over the hills running away private car 10th battalion we went ahead that day and took the whole of our front we were there ahead of time so we could have gone on but it was a matter of having to leapfrog the artillery it wasn't the opposition of the barge that stopped us at all it was the pressure of our own artillery Dan Armand 10th battalion in a single day the German line was thrown back eight miles by the Canadian Corps and seven miles by the Aussies the 4th Army's casualties totaled nine thousand four thousand of them Canadians compared to the German losses of 27 thousand men and four hundred guns the Canadians alone captured 5,000 prisoners a German officer told me it was impossible we could be Canadians we have most certain information for our intelligence department that the Canadians are in Belgium he said wherever Dan Robert John Renison you know when you'd been to eep and you'd been around the Sun when you got 200 yards or 100 yards you thought you'd made a wonderful advance but here we've done miles was unbelievable private Samuel Hemphill 10th battalion senior staff officers hurried up from GHQ to see me and asked what I thought should be done they indicated quite plainly that the success had gone far beyond expectations I replied in the Canadian vernacular the going seems good let's go Arthur Currie the Canadians buried their dead in the areas in which they fell in two days they had pushed the Germans back 15 miles 16 German divisions have been identified of which four have been completely routed nearly 150 guns have been captured well over 1,000 machine guns have fallen into our hands 10,000 prisoners have passed through our cages in casualty clearing stations 25 towns and villages have been rescued from the clutch of the invaders the Paris amia railway has been freed from interference and the danger of dividing the French and British armies has been dissipated Arthur Currie in a wake of the battle which general ludendorf would describe as the black day of the German army he interviewed his Divisional Commanders on a psychological state of the German soldier I was toured of deeds of glorious valor but also of behavior which I openly confess I should not have thought possible in the German army whole bodies of our men had surrendered to single Turkish or isolated squadrons our war machine was no longer efficient in a rally area from Ludendorff [Music] the Kaiser after meeting with Ludendorff on August 14th instructed his foreign minister to initiate peace negotiations [Music] I never saw so many Germans dead as there was around that place thousands of them lieutenant Joseph zabrosky having moved south to spearhead the army an offensive for the British 4th army the Canadians in less than a week would be moved back north to lead the even more vital offensive by Sir Henry horns 1st army through the Dro court Quint line the victory it on the end unprecedented as it had been was against Germans occupying recently captured ground that offensive now that it had reached the established German defenses of the Hindenburg Line had ground to a halt the drill court quince which which was the most concentrated defensive position on the whole front connected the 1914 defense line to the Hindenburg Line if the Canadians attack succeeded the Hindenburg line would be outflanked Marshall Fache expressed his faith in the Canadians that's going to be a long task a hard one but the Canadians know that ground so perfectly and they are so determined that I think I can trust them to succeed now shall push Marshal Forces prediction that the Canadian task would be a long one was based on his own plans he proposed to recover the ground lost to the Germans that spring weakened the German defenses during the winter months and then launched a decisive assault designed to win the war in 1919 general Horne had given courage as two days to prepare his attack Currie demanded and got three it was represented that this barely gave 48 hours to concentrate the necessary artillery and that furthermore the Canadian Corps had sentimental objections to attacking on the Sabbath day Arthur Currie I paid a visit to our battle headquarters and the general asked me to have a celebration of the Holy Communion there the next morning at 8 I knew that the attack was almost due so I prepared for it and took my iron rations with me we had the communion service in a tent at the generals headquarters there were only three present but the general was one of them Canon Frederick Scott the Germans considered their position impregnable the Canadians would have to fight their way through old British and German trenches past emotion Laura where the Newfoundland battalion had been destroyed a second time in 1917 and a further two miles to the roof Rhine three miles from their final objective in all they would pass through five German defense lines before they reached the Dro Court queen up line a line of fortifications a kilometer and a half in depth protected by three lines of barbed wire each 60 metres wide Currie began his attack at 3 a.m. catching the Germans asleep by 7:40 a.m. the 8th Infantry Brigade had successfully outflanked orange Hill and captured Moshe the second division had taken Chapel Hill but ran into stiff opposition at the villages of wan-koo and Wei map by the second day of fighting Curry's hopes of reaching roof roy had gone unrealized [Music] the 22nd battalion the van doos had taken heavy casualties on a third day they were led into battle by a major gorge Vanier a future Governor General of Canada I called a meeting in a large shell hole for the few officers who were left I told them about the new attack and in the circumstances there was only one thing to do when the barrage fell the officers were to rise and call on the men to follow and that is what happened major Jean Vanier 22nd battalion they did not get far the van doos lost every officer including Vanier hit by a bullet in his side I should have been very fortunate to come off with it only but this was to be one of my bad days as I was being dressed by the stretcher bearer a shell exploded at my side causing rather unpleasant shrapnel wounds to my legs major Jean Vanier 22nd battalion his unpleasant wounds were so severe that Vanier's leg had to be amputated in three days of fighting the Corps had suffered 5801 casualties with the 22nd battalion being the hardest hit with 501 casualties including every officer the exhausted 2nd and 3rd divisions were now relieved by the 1st and 4th for the assault on the drill port quint line Perry had developed a tactic of pushing forward as far as he could getting the Germans to commit their reserves then switching the attack to another location the new attack began on September 2nd on the right the 3rd brigade of the 1st division hit hard it included the 16th Canadian Scottish battalion under leftenant Colonel Sypek who would win a VC this day leading the way for his men prisoner surrendered in shoals the outnumbered as fastly but they were in a demoralized condition leftenant Colonel Sypek 16th Canadian Scottish battalion the division attained its objective two miles beyond the drill court Quint line by 11 p.m. at the end of the day the Canadians had overrun a frontage of 7,000 yards and destroyed the hinge of the whole German defensive position on the Western Front during the night the Germans withdrew behind the canal dunno [Music] it is truly impossible for me to find words to adequately express the truly wonderful fighting qualities our men have displayed I cannot say anymore lump comes in one's throat whenever you think about it Arthur Currie France September 5th 1918 - mother safe and sound again passed through some warm times but I'm in fine shape and not a scratch it just goes to show how little cause for worry you had best love William private William wall 100 and 2nd Infantry Battalion [Music] the Canadian victory prompted the German High Command to make large-scale withdrawals all along the Western Front Hindenburg referring to the Canadian assault wrote on September the second a fresh hostile attack over ran our lines once and fall on the great orosco Bray Road and compared us to bring the whole front back to our main defense line get an all-powerful Hayden book The effect of the victory was decisive for the Allies as well it persuaded Fache and his High Command to press for victory in 1918 Ludendorff concluding that his best troops had just lost an impregnable position felt the morale of his army had shattered he told the Kaiser to make peace that the war was lost the new sent a distraught Kaiser Wilhelm to bed for 24 hours yet stampeding feet forlorn Armas fatherland now we have lost the war poor fatherland Kaiser Wilhelm [Music] it is a question whether our victory of yesterday or August 8th is the greatest but I am inclined to think yesterday's was a time yeah we went up against an enemy who was prepared for the offensive here he was prepared for the defensive here we went up against his old system that which there never was anything stronger anywhere Arthur Currie you I hope for better results tomorrow there's no particular reason for hope except that if we keep on pounding the Germans will be obliged to give way general JJ Pershing General John Black Jack Pershing commander of the American Expeditionary Force closely resembled Sam Hughes both in the largeness of his vision and in his refusal to kowtow to reality we come as Americans we shall remain Americans we shall go into battle with Old Glory over our heads I will not parcel out American boys general JJ Pershing that attitude applied by Sam Hughes in 1915 meant that the Canadians would learn at the same pace as everybody else in this situation however the Americans were throwing away the advantage of learning from armies already instructed in the grim realities of the most terrible war the world had ever known as a result of Pershing's intransigence the Americans would suffer high casualties and remain relatively ineffective despite their huge numbers on August 24th 1918 Douglas Haig wrote a letter to his wife I saw Faust yesterday he is arranging to have the Americans take some active share in the fighting it seems quite wrong that they should merely be looking on General Sir Douglas Haig by September 1918 the Americans who had been in France for a year and three months had been involved in just one offensive action and that of only a few days duration following the Canadian breakthrough it amia and drill court Clemmie so the French Prime Minister wrote Fache I have postponed from day to day writing you about the crisis existing in the American army you have watched that close range the result of American commander general Pershing's action unfortunately thanks to his invincible obstinacy he has won out against you as well as against your immediate subordinates our worthy American allies who thirst to get into action have been marking time since their forward jump on the first day they are unusable simply because they are unused our screamin so Prime Minister earth Falls in July Fache presented Pershing with his plans for the Allied offensive Pershing tossed washes plans aside and began detailed a preparation for a major offense of his own in the rest area of san michele both clemenceau and Lloyd George the British prime minister were furious when they heard what Pershing was up to Denis winter historian the American Army in France now totaled a million and a half men but it had no artillery of its own its Air Force flew mainly British and French aircraft and any tanks were British designed borrowed from the French our entry into the war found us with few of the auxiliaries necessary for its conduct among the most important deficiencies were artillery aviation and tanks in order to meet our requirements we accepted an offer from the French government to provide us with the necessary artillery equipment of 75s 155 millimeter howitzers and 155 gpf guns from their own factories for 30 divisions the wisdom of this course is fully demonstrated by the fact that although we soon began the manufacture of these guns at home there were no guns of the caliber mentioned manufactured in America on our front at the date the armistice was signed in aviation we were in the same situation we obtained from the French the necessary planes for training our personnel and they also supplied us with 2676 pursuit observation and bombing planes the first American squadron completely equipped by American production including airplanes crossed the German lines on August 7th 1918 as to tanks we were also compelled to rely on the French here however we were less fortunate for reasons that the French production could barely meet the requirements of their own armies general JJ Pershing this dependence did not prevent Pershing who had belatedly agreed to push his plan from ignoring advice from French second army headquarters which was questioning his planned attack on Sammy shell we had undertaken to lunch within the next 24 days to great attacks on battlefields 60 miles apart with virtually the same army general JJ Pershing the twin battle which followed can be briefly described after the first day at san michele the american supply lines jammed the American advance came to an abrupt halt the Germans had been given ample warning and the Americans counted only 200 enemy dead they had simply launched empty air at great cost things went little better than the Argonne on the first day the Americans advanced six miles but over the next 21 days they managed just three miles and once again transport broke down Denis winter historian transport had broken down to such an extent that Charles Grant an observer from British army headquarters reported four hundred American troops dying of starvation and wounded men dying because they could not get back to the casualty clearing stations Ludendorff in his own way managed to confirm American ineffectiveness without diminishing their importance the fact that new American reinforcements could release British and French divisions on quiet sectors vade heavily in the balance against us in our average for Ludendorff the American armies results compared to those of the Canadians during the last hundred days are instructive the six hundred and fifty thousand Americans engaged conducted operations and for 47 days the 105 thousand Canadians for 100 days the Americans advanced 34 miles the Canadians eight and six the Americans met 46 German divisions the Canadians forty-seven casualties per division faced were 2174 the Americans 975 for the Canadians the Americans captured 16,000 prisoners the Canadians 31,000 537 the Americans captured 468 guns the Canadians 623 American casualties were 100,000 the Canadians 45,000 830 the Canadian retort to the claim that American entry into the war had brought victory to the Allies was that their famous rainbow division was well named having arrived after the storm [Music] [Music] war is a simple heart but is based on knowledge democracy must choose either the soldier of its own flesh and blood whom it can inspire and control or the unrestrained military spirit which may grow within or come from without as an invader dr. Andrew MacPhail medical officer 2nd division the Canadian Corps was the only force in France that went through the last hundred days of the war with unimpaired striking power replacing commanders and officers absorbing reinforcements which kept it nearly at full strength which enabled its four divisions to meet and route 47 German divisions between August and November left anat Colonel Wilfred Oh Bovie in 1918 after Vimy Passchendaele Hill 70 and Lenz everyone in the Allied High Command accepted Currie as a master innovator of battle tactics against an entrenched enemy but in the summer of 1918 the nature of the war had changed to a war of movement the plan which required the Canadians to filter south some 25 miles to spearhead the attack at omneya as part of the British Fourth Army and then move north again to do the same thing for the British 1st army all in a matter of days was conceived by Fache and Haig but its execution was left to curry we were really an army for big strong division so Currie could push hard and push the enemy back and when the German line stiffened then he would shift a division to another front and hit again and then move it again and hit again the Germans could never quite get their feet on the ground they never knew where we were gonna hit them next and in consequence could never concentrate at the right place at the right time major-general ffs weren't this war of maneuver was executed with complete mastery by a general who had neither trained for it nor experienced it [Music] curry had never attempted to inspire love or devotion in his men nevertheless he had managed to instill in the Canadian core what no other Army in Europe in 1918 could justifiably claim a winning attitude when the soldier thinks his army is better than anybody else's and his division is better than the other divisions and his platoons the best of the battalion while obviously he is one of the best soldiers in the world and that's it everybody believed that the Canadian Corps single-handed and flogged the hide off the German army and was winning the war you could see it that's the way we found WHS Macklin 19th battalion probably never in the war had we experienced a moment of deeper anxiety Canon Frederick Scott Haigh had promised curry that the Canadian Corps would be given a much-needed rest between August 8th in the first week of October the Corps had suffered 30,000 casualties the chief of the General Staff came to me and intimated that the commander in chief was particularly well pleased with the conduct of the Canadians that he hoped it would not be necessary to employ us in any further big operations during the year Arthur Currie but now the plan was to try to end the war in 1918 and Hague realized that he would need the Canadians Currie was given new orders to cross the canal June or and take Berlin would as part of a British move against Cambre which would mean the destruction of the Hindenburg Line the average width of the canal was about 100 feet and it was flooded as far south as the Loch 800 yards southwest of Sandy McWane just north of the core southern boundary south of this and to the right of the core front the canal was dry and its bottom was at the natural ground level the sides of the canal consisting of high earth and brick banks Arthur Currie [Music] curries plan called for the Canadians to shift the front south to this dry part of the canal establish a narrow bridgehead and then once across the canal to hook right and left behind the German defenses the Assembly of our attacking troops in an extremely congested area known by the enemy to be the only one available was very dangerous a concentrated bombardment of this area particularly if gas was employed was a dreaded possibility Arthur Currie despite its obvious dangers curries Divisional Commanders embraced the strategy the very boldness of the plan intrigued me and I was all for it general MacDonald 1st division the first Army's commander General Horne however was appalled at the risk involved it is an axiom that a military operation should be as simple as possible and the larger the operation the greater the need for simplicity no one can claim that the operation under consideration was simple General Sir Henry Horne when he failed to convince Currie to alter his strategy Horne took his case to both Hague and Julian Byng who stood by curry bing did however visit Currie and confide to him that if his plan failed he would undoubtedly be relieved of command and sent home the men would have to climb down one side of the canal rush across it and climb up the other here in mud and rain weary and drenched to the skin young Canadians were waiting to go through the valley of the shadow of death Canon Frederick Scott the banks of the unfinished part of the canal was something like 20 feet high we were supposed to have scaling ladders brought up to us the night before you can imagine my feelings when they didn't arrive CB price 14th battalion the barrage began at 5:20 a.m. September 27th as soon as the barrage lifted we hopped into the canal fred bales the work of our engineers in bridging the canal immediately after the infantry had crossed was of such a character as to win the special praise of the commander-in-chief those bridges were begun not only under shellfire but under machine-gun fire and yet nothing can deter the work of our man Arthur Currie [Music] during that first night the Germans began moving in fresh divisions six new divisions by October first what followed were days of bitter fighting in which the Canadians suffered heavy casualties on October 9th the attack on Cambre began in the middle of the night the Canadians met little if any resistance and by the 11th had secured the entire district to the north as far as the sauce a canal in 47 days the Corps had advanced 23 miles against parts of 31 German divisions had captured 18,000 585 prisoners 371 artillery guns mm machine guns and liberated 54 towns and villages including the important center of Cambre when the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles were given the honor of entering Cambre a newspaper correspondent congratulated an officer on the work of his battalion don't say that it isn't the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles it isn't even the 8th brigade of the 3rd Canadian division it's a good old Corps that's captured Cambre [Music] mons was captured by the Canadian Corps on the 11th of November 1918 after 50 months of German occupation freedom was restored to the city here was fired the last shot of the great war memorial plaque at Mons the Belgian city of Mons was the site of Britain's first defeat by the Germans in 1914 which had prompted the Kaiser to refer to the British Army as contemptible the British replied by referring to themselves throughout the war as the old contemptible z' thus for Currie and the Canadians proud to be considered British the city had symbolic value despite a series of defeats and offers of peace neither the Allied High Command nor the soldiers they led thought the German army had been defeated from a military standpoint the enemy has not been sufficiently broken as to cause him to accept an ignominious peace General Sir Douglas Haig as for curry he typically refused to speculate but he knew what he wanted the piece when it comes must last for many many years we do not want to have to do this thing all over again in another 15 or 20 years if that is to be the case German military power must be irretrievably crushed this is the end we must obtain if we have the will and the guts to see it through Arthur Currie [Music] [Music] general Hague wanting to finish the war in 1918 ordered an attack by the Canadian Army to capture the French city of VAS en if their armies are allowed to withdraw to shorter lines the struggle may be postponed over the winter however we are now in a position to prevent this by a direct attack which should anticipate the enemy's withdrawal and force an immediate conclusion General Sir Douglas Haig the Canadians captured Val Sein and on November 5th the citizens of the city planned a special ceremony to thank the Canadians general Horne commander of the British 1st army intervened insisting that he should be the person to receive the address in the flag Currie objected pointing out that the Canadians had taken the city and that the British attack on nearby mall we had failed horns response was to change the order of the parade placing the Canadians last the ceremony on November 7th Currie reported was a very frosty affair no Canadian senior officers other than Currie participated it was not my intention to have been there had I not received a direct order Arthur Currie the 75th Mississauga in the 87th Canadian Grenadier Guards then crossed the river orell marking the French Belgian border the next day the three hundred and second central Ontario battalion passed through and captured the village of Marty pour the road to Mons lay open for miles the road was simply black with people whistles were blowing in dogs yelping a forest of youngsters ran around the road it was like a fair Frank Lutz row Canadian artillery Currie himself since the end was near private John Doakes of the 52nd Ontario battalion met him on the road to Mons he asked me how long I'd been in France I asked him about the Armistice rumors he told me in his opinion 24 hours would see the end of the fighting I think I can safely tell you that you have followed your last barrage he told me after he left some bands men across the road rushed over and asked me what he had said I told them after that they referred to the general as a dopes pal private James Doakes we entered the outskirts of Mons on the 9th of November and that's where we met our first severe resistance in four or five days the Germans were in every house making it very hot for us Victor Jean celli princess Patricia's we flopped in among the cabbages first one of the men near me was hit rather badly in the shoulder and then our officer muttered something in lay still we were there for the remainder of the day leftenant john gates during the early morning hours of November 11th the Canadians advanced to the city center curry had by then been officially informed that the armistice would be signed to take effect by 11:00 that day as we went through the streets of the city my men ran their bayonet rifles along the gates of the cellar windows as a result the citizens of maan streamed out shouting lays American we explained we were Canadians Paul Hutchinson Royal Canadian regiment at 10:58 a.m. private George Lawrence price of the 28th battalion led a patrol across the canal decent and was killed instantly from a sniper's bullet that struck him in the chest George price was the last Canadian killed in the Great War and perhaps the last casualty on the Western Front he lies buried in saint's in France cemetery nearby is the body of private Jay Parr who died on the 21st of August 1914 the first British soldier to die in the Great War when we heard it was over nobody said a word for quite a while then a few cheered a bit feebly I think most of us were kind of in shock or something Joseph Fefferman 50th battalion Calgary I just couldn't believe it and we went about our daily chores as if nothing momentous had happened it was quite some time before the news filtered through our benumbed minds that the war was over and that we'd survived private William Ogilvy 21st Canadian field artillery our boys went looking for an armistice in fact it's a poor time to stop the war when we were having it all our own way but he falls [Music] what bloody fools we had them on the run now we shall have to do it all over again in 25 years general AGL McNaughton [Music] other soldiers were crowding into the city riotous loquacious swine metaled fellows nothing ahead but home now Jacques once shouted at me and I wanted to hit him an inexplicable bitterness had seized me Wilbert general Loomis commander of the 3rd division decided to make up for the slight against the Canadians four days earlier at valle sein he decided to stage a parade specifically to honor curry who had first resisted the plan display an honor guard of 1500 strong assembled at the grand palace curry rode into Mons with an escort of the british 5th Lancers who had fought at the first battle at Mons four years before a canadian infantryman witnessing the approach of the glittering cavalry and staff officers remarked jeez as we got into the wrong part of the army Fred lone curry became reconciled to the pomp and circumstance confiding to his diary after doing three cheers for the Belgian king and queen and the people our troops marched to the tune of the Belgian national anthem the thousands of the squares sang it and it was most inspiring Arthur Currie [Music] [Applause] the next day led through the streets by Canadian pipers the bodies of 11 Canadian soldiers were buried in rich oak coffins to have gone through what anyone who has been here for three years has had to go through would almost justify one in hoping that your own countrymen would not refer to you as a murderer Arthur Currie ten years later general Currie would win a libel suit he had to initiate in response to an accusation that he squandered Canadian lives in capturing Mons in a war already won the jury would award him only $500 in damages as had many a commander before him Currie discovered that the virtues of war our little honored or even remembered in peacetime arriving in London on the 17th Prime Minister Robert Borden met with Lloyd George during the day and Arthur Currie that same night Arthur Currie gave us a most interesting account of the achievements of the Canadian Forces during the preceding few months during that period they had a magnificent record unsurpassed in any previous period of the war Robert Borden but despite his outstanding record of achievement in the field Currie would always be faced with the ghosts of Mons in the House of Commons Sam Hughes declared were I in authority the officer who for hours before the armistice was signed although he had been notified beforehand that the armistice was to begin at 11 o'clock ordered the attack on Mons thus needlessly sacrificing the lives of the Canadian soldiers would be tried summarily by court-martial Sam Hughes the man is a liar is it times insane and apparently is occur of the worst type had that man had his way the Corps would still be armed with the Ross rifle which caused more unnecessary casualties by far than any other factor I know of if my record in this war can be tarnished by such as he and then I don't much care Arthur Currie but Currie did care knowing that scandalous allegations made public regardless of the veracity of the claims would forever taint his reputation however much one would dislike his slinging of mud I cannot see how I can stop him Arthur Currie [Music] curry was knighted an acclaimed as a hero in England France and Belgium he attended the Peace Conference in February 1919 with lady curry at his side he was fettered by royalty and presidents on the day of his departure from England he lunched privately with the king and queen upon his arrival in Halifax on the 17th of August 1919 he was met not by cheering crowds and military bands not by grateful representatives of government but by a lone district commanding officer who led the curries to the city hall for an almost silent civic reception in Ottawa he was given a subdued welcome by a government unwilling to be seen honoring a man who had brought them victory but at too great a cost for their political sensibilities Sam Hughes had done his work well some people want to forget that there ever was such a thing as the Canadian Corps Arthur Currie it is a terrible restlessness which possesses us like an evil spirit the indefinite expression of a vague discontent the restlessness of dying men little children and old soldiers george pearson early that morning in Pembroke a cold bleak morning a whistle blew it was a train whistle at the CPR station it blew loud and long and people stirred in their sleep loud whistles at the two lumber mills joined in and then the brazen clang at the fire Bell on top of the Town Hall as the bells of all the churches and the sirens at the factories were added to the dim lights appeared everywhere and people poured into the streets the riders from mr. Williams stable myself among them rode in an endless procession up and down Main Street the partying and parading ended only when evening came and fatigue took over grace Morris for grace Morris who had already lost a beloved brother a cousin and a boyfriend overseas the war had yet to deliver its cruelest blow shortly after his return to Canada her fiance major Stuart thorn of the 5th battalion engineers collapsed suddenly and died of endocarditis an infection in the lining of his heart the result of trench fever he developed at the front in 1916 the doctor said he has been killed in action just as if a German bullet had pierced his heart grace Morris they are Norman I know that you have been very much worse than you have ever let me know and mrs. oak Way says in her letters that you are slowly recovering I know you'll never get well over there I think you've done your bit now my darling here is a good hug and kiss may God keep you safe and send you home to us soon your loving Margaret margarit black for years the Canadian Corps had been living in a land of desolation and for the last two months had been fighting its way through the scarred belt of France at one spot a Canadian signpost reads this was Rancourt one could almost imagine the possibility of the end of all civilization and picture a race of new barbarians living in the dugouts of dead armies beginning again the weary story of the ascent of man but now the Allied armies had arrived at the boundary of the abomination and desolation beyond lay cornfields plowed for next year's crops which Germans will not reap indeed in the distance the red tile roofs seemed to speak of a new experience Canberra was the gate not only of a new country but of a new era the greatest discovery of my life has been the deep springing well of idealism in our young men they do all they can to hide it but in times of drought it never runs dry it is passing strangers that it is youth which has all to live for that gives it Rolly away Reverend Robert John Renison at approximately the same time as Curry's libel trial Tom Denison who'd won the Victoria Cross during the last hundred days would ruminate on war and its meaning for men when I was sent to the front I did not expect to come back I shook off the fear of death by looking death straight in the face having done that you set free immediately you have gained the perfect freedom I do not think a man can meet with a more wonderful experience at last you have broken the chain the almost unbreakable instinct of self-preservation which Nature has used for subjugating you from making you a willing slave we were free to rise laughing above all trifling worries about life and the future we had gained the great liberation everything around us felt so obvious and simple it was not until it was over and the gates shut behind us that we understood it all we had been in the enchanted wood now we return to civilization once more the weary load of the future will fall upon our shoulders behind us lies our enchanted wood the real world the real life private Thomas Dennison William wall win of the hundred and second battalion who refused the opportunity to return to Canada to study medicine only a month before he saw his first action a Tom Iain was a changed man in the eyes of his sister William is no longer the gay insouciant youth a bit of a stranger the man is handsome but tired very tired after the evil tensions of war when we saw him stretched out in the swing coach drawn and white we pled for an idol summer Marion war one as he shipped crossed the Atlantic will Byrd one of the few surviving members of his original battalion struggled to make sense of his conflicting emotions I moved about shook myself sniffed the salt air tried to rid myself of my dreams as I stood there came a sudden chill we had left the warm current and were into the icy waters near home we had left behind the comradeship of long hours on trench posts and patrols the brotherhood of the line we were entering a cold sea facing the dark the unknown we could not escape dark figures came and stood beside me it was 3 o'clock in the morning these men could not sleep they had come to see the first lights of Halifax I moved quietly among them scanning each blurred face it was as I thought they were all old-timers the men of the trenches perhaps when my bitterness had passed when I had got back to normal self to loved ones tried by hard years of waiting I would find that despite that horror which I could never forget I had an equalising treasure in memories I could use like jacob's ladder to get high enough to see that even war itself could never be the hold of the Watchers stirred my throat tightened every man had tensed craned forward yet no one spoke it was the moment for which we had lived which we had dreamed visioned pictured a thousand times far ahead faint but growing brighter we had glimpsed the first lights of home Wilbert [Music] [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Keywords: Canadian military history, Full length Documentaries, Documentary Movies - Topic, real, Documentaries, BBC documentary, 2017 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, History, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary, Battle of Vimy Ridge Documentary, Full Documentary, Channel 4 documentary, stories, Canada, Battle of Vimy Ridge

Id: _uIRJxc5A-w

Length: 90min 12sec (5412 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 03 2018