Book received from NetGalley.

I have to admit that I had only heard of this battle from L.M. Mongomery's book "Rilla of Ingleside but have always wanted to read more about it. I saw this book on NetGalley and took a chance of getting it. I'm glad I was approved, it was a great read though very sad, and I learned quite a bit from it. I think it was a bit enhanced for me, since I was taking a short WWI history class while I was reading this. I really recommend this for anyone interested in the history of this era.

"To stand on Vimy Ridge in the shadow of the memorial is to recognize that few other places in the world can make Canadians feel so proud. One also feels the weight of history and the presence of the dead. There is a palpable confluence of what we would like to forget and what we must remember. The ghosts walk this soil, as they did in Allward’s dream, through the claustrophobic tunnels, treading carefully across the cratered battlegrounds, and with the faint touch of fingers on engraved names of the fallen. Vimy is also a place of enormous beauty. The pylons soar to the blue beyond, and the sculptures are intricate in their lines and evocative in their meanings. The creamy white and warm stone provokes strong emotion. The historical inscriptions are minimal, but the names of the missing 11,285 are monumental. Those searing marks in honour of the fallen are thousands of small scars on the stone, a reminder of the terrible loss and grief of the Great War. Tears come easily while standing on the memorial. These are not tears of uncontrollable grief but tears of something else, something more profound. They are the tears invoked by the memory of a grandfather, by a few lines from McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields,” and even by a surprising flash of patriotism. There is a power in the Vimy legend—the ridge, the memorial, the meaning—that is not easily put into words. The memorial is for the dead, but it is remade generation after generation by the living. Canada was indeed forever changed by the Great War, but Vimy did not make the nation. It was the nation that made Vimy."


Wow. I mean, seriously.... Just that one quote I shared with you, just now. In my opinion, that one quote alone is worth the four stars Cook's book earned in my eyes. Vimy: the Battle and the Legend goes above and beyond what anyone other history book I have read on this infamous battle does. Not only does it explore the battle itself, it also explores the aftermath of Vimy, and what Vimy really means to Canadians.

This is such a great read for history nerds like myself, because it doesn't limit itself to just the battle. Vimy: the Battle and the Legend goes further than 1917; it pushes past the typical World War One facts and examines the far-reaching impact Vimy has had on Canada as a national country, and also as an international power. Four stars for sure!

Vimy: The Battle and the Legend by Tim Cook is the history of the significant battle and what it meant for Canada on the world stage. Cook is a Canadian military historian and author. A First World War historian at the Canadian War Museum and a part-time history professor at Carleton University, he has also published several books about the military history of Canada during World War I.

Every nation or organization, for that matter, has its turning point of when it became its own entity. For America, it’s 1776. For the US Marines, it was Belleau Wood in World War I. The thing is that certain events become associated with countries and groups even if there were other more important things going on. 1776 means little in comparison to the Treaty of Paris 1783 which recognized the United States as an independent country. The Marines at Belleau Wood had help which is usually not mentioned. For Canada, which gained independence, or self-rule, 150 years ago without much international fanfare, Vimy was the place where Canada was seen as separate from Britain. Vimy wasn’t the first victory for the Canadian Corps nor its most important, nor did it end the war. Nonetheless, it is the battle that is remembered. In US perspective, it is Canada’s raising the flag on Iwo Jima.

Germany was a strong adversary and once the war settled into trenches the Germans were difficult to beat. The German military was the best trained and most skillful land force in the war. It caused two casualties for everyone it took. The drain on France was very noticeable. To beat the Germans the allies either needed more people to lose through attrition or a better-trained fighting force. Canada provided both. The Canadian Corps had the reputation of being wilderness men — the roughest of toughest. Canada also had the advantage of being able to train and look at the previous battles with a fresh set of eyes. The Allies were putting bodies in the field to fill holes in the line without much training. They suffered nearly 87,000 casualties at the Battle of the Marne and 620,000 casualties at the Battle of the Somme. Military training became more of an on the job training.

Canada entered the war on the condition that it would be the Canadian Corps and not fillers for the British units. In addition to adding extra trained bodies to the war. Canada, at Vimy, did something rarely, if at all, seen in the war. It out-soldiered the Germans. It used information gained from all level of troops and planned and executed a military assault that beat the German defenses and planning. It was something that worried the Germans. It was not just a war of attrition as previously fought but an active and maneuvering war that had not been seen since the opening days. The Germans were being outmatched on skill, not just numbers. The Canadian Corps would be used in later battles as shock troops by the British. Vimy became the proving grounds for the newly created Dominion of Canada.

Cook provides a history of the Battle of Vimy with first-hand accounts and even a few “last letters home.” The work is well researched and documented. It is an important work not only for Canada but also those of us to the south. Canada’s contributions to the war, highlighted by Vimy, brought Canada to the world stage as its own nation. After the war, Canada demanded and received its own chair at the Treaty of Versailles. It had fought proudly side by side with the Allies and compared to the US and Britain sacrificed proportionally more in human lives. Vimy is the symbolic beginning of an independent Canada.