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Product Description
Product Description
At the height of the First World War, on Easter Monday April 9, 1917, in early morning sleet, sixteen battalions of the Canadian Corps rose along a six-kilometre line of trenches in northern France against the occupying Germans. All four Canadian divisions advanced in a line behind a well-rehearsed creeping barrage of artillery fire. By nightfall, the Germans had suffered a major setback. The Ridge, which other Allied troops had assaulted previously and failed to take, was firmly in Canadian hands. The Canadian Corps had achieved perhaps the greatest lightning strike in Canadian military history. One Paris newspaper called it “Canada's Easter gift to France.” Of the 40,000 Canadians who fought at Vimy, nearly 10,000 became casualties. Many of their names are engraved on the famous monument that now stands on the ridge to commemorate the battle. It was the first time Canadians had fought as a distinct national army, and in many ways it was a coming of age for the nation. The achievement of the Canadians on those April days in 1917 has become one of our lasting myths. Based on first-hand accounts, including archival photographs and maps, it is the voices of the soldiers who experienced the battle that comprise the thrust of the book. Like "JUNO: Canadians at D-Day", Ted Barris paints a compelling and surprising human picture of what it was like to have stormed and taken Vimy Ridge.
About the Author
Ted Barris is an accomplished author, journalist and broadcaster. As well as hosting stints on CBC Radio and regular contributions to The Globe and Mail, the National Post, and various national magazines, he is a full-time professor of journalism at Centennial College in Toronto. Barris has authored fifteen non-fiction books, including the national bestsellers Victory at Vimy and Juno.
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Most helpful customer reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Too many errors,
By
This review is from: Victory at Vimy: Canada Comes of Age, April 9-12, 1917 (Hardcover)
Having read Pierre Berton's book on the same subject, I started reading this book with interest to see how Ted Barris made use of the material which Pierre Berton did not include. However, that interest was overtaken by the problems of the book, both minor & major.A minor problem is the author's fondness for 2 word, verb-less, sentences which he uses frequently. Too frequently. Like that. I found this to be annoying, as well as being grammatically incorrect. The major problem is the basic factual errors which the author introduces. For example, the Germans did not use artillery shells to deliver chlorine to the Allied front line at the start of the 2nd Battle of Ypres in April 1915 (p6n). They released the gas from cylinders embedded in the ground & relied on a breeze to move it in the right direction. At the south end of Vimy Ridge, opposing trenches were not 4,000 yards apart (p27). The Canadian Official History map shows the front lines to be 200-300 yards apart over the distance occupied by the Canadian Corps. In the trench warfare context, a sap is not a tunnel leading down to a chamber where an explosive charge is placed (p35). A sap is a trench dug out into no man's land, at right angles to the front line. The charges for underground mines were laid in mine shafts or tunnels. The only exception to this that I'm aware of was the Berlin sap, dug at Hill 60 to take the northernmost of the Messines Ridge mines. Whoever named this tunnel was being tongue in cheek with the "Berlin" part of the name & probably was with the "sap" part as well. Unfortunately, the errors are not confined to the text. The maps & photographs have their share as well. The Western Front map (p25) shows Beaumont Hamel to the north of Bapaume whereas it is actually south of that town, on the front line of 1 July 1916. The Vimy map (p31) shows a crater just south of the Neuville St Vaast to Thelus road, & identifies it as Litchfield crater. The indicated crater is actually Zivy crater. Litchfield crater is some distance away on the north side of the road. Additionally, the Neuville St Vaast to Givenchy road runs along the north side of Hill 145, not the south side as depicted on the same map. One photograph shows General Currie dedicating "a temporary memorial to Canadians lost in the artillery battle at Vimy. In 1936 the same spot became permanent home of the Vimy Memorial". Well, the memorial wasn't temporary, it's still firmly in place where it was built, which is at the crossroads in Les Tilleuls. It commemorates the dead of the Canadian Corps Artillery, not Canadians killed in the artillery battle. The site is not now occupied by the Vimy memorial. That magnificent structure is on Hill 145, about 3kms to the north. This book would have benefitted from being thoroughly proof read by someone much more familiar with the Western Front component of the Great War. So far, I've read the first 3 chapters & am not very motivated to continue. This book has not earned a place on my bookshelves.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Victory at Vimy,
By
This review is from: Victory at Vimy: Canada Comes of Age, April 9-12, 1917 (Hardcover)
If you enjoyed Pierre Berton's popular history 'Vimy,' then you will probably find this book much to your liking as well. The similarity between the two books is obvious and quite intentional. Ted Barris refers to Berton as a "colleague and mentor" and "friend and brother," and that they "travelled many of the same paths in literary non-fiction as kindred spirits". In looking through the volumes of transcripts and documents that Berton had compiled while researching 'Vimy', Barris realized that it contained "more of the human history of Vimy than one book could possibly portray". Hence what we have in 'Victory in Vimy' is an attempt to build on the legacy of 'Vimy' by retelling the familiar story of the events of April 9-12 using a different assortment of first-hand accounts and personal recollections. For many this will make 'Victory at Vimy' a much welcomed tome to the unfortunately rather limited selection of books dealing with Canada's role in the First World War. As commendable as 'Victory at Vimy' is for making available dozens of new stories and perspectives of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, like Berton's 'Vimy' this book still left something to be desired. Although the book is intended to illustrate how "Canada [Came] of Age" (actually only really discussed in one chapter towards the end of the book), the lack of any real discussion of the German side of the battle is somewhat disappointing. That's not to say that the effort wasn't made. Barris does draw on a recent translation of a brief post-war account of the German 79th Reserve Division's defense of the Ridge by it's brigade commander Alfred Dietrich (a German division in 1917 had one infantry brigade consisting of three regiments, each of which had three battalions). There were also a few inconsistencies and inaccuracies that were a little irksome. The naming of the Canadian units was the most common inconsistency, and several times the 48th Highlanders are designated as "of Winnipeg". At one point (p. 81) the previously mentioned Alfred Dietrich is talked about as though he was the divisional and not brigade commander. Then there is the repeated use of C.O. in reference Canadian unit commanders as opposed to the contemporary O.C. (Officer Commanding). And then their is the claim that Brown "killed" the Red Baron as though it were an undisputed fact. (Also, to the best of my knowledge there never was an 187th Battery (p.65) or 18th Canadian Mounted Rifles (p.63) and that there was no 268th Reserve Regiment (p.98) in the German 79th Reserve Division). Despite this, 'Victory at Vimy' is very readable and I managed to finish it only a few sittings, which is usually not the case, and in the end did enjoy it.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Victory at Vimy,
By
This review is from: Victory at Vimy: Canada Comes of Age (Paperback)
will be a great addition to the collection of Canadians in the war, well documented
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