Canadian National Vimy Memorial
Mémorial national du Canada à Vimy
Interesting facts
- Sheep graze the open meadows of the park, because buried unexploded munitions make mowing the grass too dangerous for people.
- In 1922 France granted Canada the use of the 100-hectare site on Vimy Ridge freely and for all time, on condition that Canada build and maintain a memorial there.
- Allward searched for nearly two years for the right stone and settled on it after seeing how well it had weathered in Diocletian's Palace at Split.
- Canada Bereft was carved from a single block of about 30 tonnes, the largest piece in the monument; the dancer Edna Moynihan was its model.
- The names of the missing run in continuous bands across the stone joints, so men whose remains were later identified could not be removed from the list.
- Allward had wanted to put the names of the missing on paving stones around the monument, and gave way only after the commission protested; he designed their typeface himself.
- The front wall, facing the Douai Plain, is often mistaken for the back of the monument.
- The Breaking of the Sword is a rare pacifist image for a war memorial, and an early plan to show a figure crushing a German helmet was dropped.
- About 6,200 Canadians crossed the Atlantic on five liners for the 1936 unveiling, then the largest peacetime movement of people from Canada to Europe.
- In June 1940 Adolf Hitler was photographed touring the memorial, to rebut reports in Canada and Britain that the Germans had destroyed it.
Why it is worth it
On Hill 145, the highest point of Vimy Ridge in northern France, two tall white pylons rise from a broad stone platform and can be seen for miles across the flat mining country of Artois. This is Canada's principal memorial of the First World War, built on the ground Canadian troops took in April 1917, and it is one of the most striking war monuments in Europe: austere from a distance, full of figures and inscriptions up close.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge began on Easter Monday, 9 April 1917, the first time all four divisions of the Canadian Corps attacked together. The memorial was designed by the Toronto sculptor Walter Seymour Allward, took eleven years to build from 1925, and was unveiled by King Edward VIII on 26 July 1936 before a crowd of more than 50,000. It is made of close to 6,000 tonnes of pale limestone brought from a quarry near Seget in Croatia, used since Roman times. The twin pylons stand about 30 metres above the platform, one carrying the maple leaf and the other the fleur-de-lis.
About twenty sculpted figures, most of them roughly twice life size, give the monument its voice. The most moving is Canada Bereft, a cloaked woman standing alone on the front wall and looking down over the Douai plain towards the east, her head bowed. At the base of the pylons lies the Spirit of Sacrifice, a dying young soldier passing on a torch; lower down, groups known as the Defenders show the breaking of a sword and sympathy for the helpless. Carved into the walls are 11,285 names: Canadians who died in France and have no known grave.
The memorial stands inside a preserved battlefield park of about 100 hectares, where the ground is still heaved into shell craters under the grass. Stretches of trenches have been kept, and part of the Grange Subway, a tunnel system some 800 metres long dug to bring troops forward under cover, can be visited with guides. The monument was restored and rededicated by Queen Elizabeth II on 9 April 2007, the ninetieth anniversary of the battle. Two Commonwealth war cemeteries lie within the site.
Getting there
The memorial is on Route D55 (Chemin des Canadiens) near Givenchy-en-Gohelle in the Pas-de-Calais, about 4.5 km from Liévin and close to Lens and Arras. The nearest airport is Lille Airport (LIL), roughly 31 km away. A visitor centre staffed by Canadian student guides offers guided tours of the tunnels and trenches.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is a war memorial site in France dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It also serves as the place of commemoration for Canadian soldiers of the First World War killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave. The monument is the centrepiece of a 100-hectare (250-acre) preserved battlefield park that encompasses a portion of the ground over which the Canadian Corps made their assault during the initial Battle of Vimy Ridge offensive of the Battle of Arras.
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