On Easter Monday (April 9th), 1917, in a mixture of recurrent rain and driving sleet, the Canadian troops took Vimy Ridge from the Germans.
When it is said that the Canadians "took" this ridge the literally correct phrase is used. No other word expresses the historic incident so well. The Canadian battalions took Vimy Ridge; and Lance-Sergeant Ellis Welwood Sifton, of the 18th Battalion, from Ontario, was one of a few men whose deeds on that tremendous day won for them the highest mark of admiration their fellows could offer for valour. He gave his life for the award.
The taking of Vimy Ridge was an operation which involved practically every Canadian unit. It was a scheme the authors of which hardly dared to hope would be so completely carried out, for the ridge was the pivot of the German millions on the whole western front. It was an eight-thousand-yards-long fortress, deemed by its occupants to be impregnable, a bastion of inestimable strength and importance, an inland Gibraltar.
British and French armies had tried several times to wrest it from the German grasp. The Germans had met their smashing blows, had quivered under them—but had continued to hold the ridge. On the morning of that Easter Monday they held it, arrogant as ever. In the evening they were gone!
The slopes of Vimy were a maze of trenches of superb construction, fashioned to withstand the pounding of any artillery. The dug-outs were vast, fortified underground chambers—some capable of sheltering entire battalions—where enemy shells could not find the occupants. Its machine-gun fortresses were formidable as miniature battleships.
To familiarize themselves with the difficulties which an attack on this ridge would involve, the Canadian Divisions went into strict training for weeks behind the lines. Battalion commanders were called in conference to the headquarters of their brigades, brigadiers to their divisions, divisional commanders to corps; the results of these deliberations were made known to regimental officers; officers lectured the non-commissioned officers, the non-commissioned officers passed it on, as non-commissioned officers do, to the rank and file. All ranks trained.
At 5.30 on the fateful morning the 18th Battalion was in position on the right wing of the 4th Brigade front. The dawn was dull, uncertain, depressing. Heavy clouds lay over the battlefield and a biting north-west wind scudded across the waste lands.
With the first crash of the barrage which fell on the German front the waves of assaulting troops rose out of their trenches like gnomes of the night and started for the enemy lines. The 18th Battalion assaulted on a three-platoon frontage in four waves. Before them the fire-edged barrage swept on, destroying with the completeness of a flaming guillotine.
The first German line was gained and captured with very small loss to the attackers. The Germans were stunned and demoralized by the hurricane of explosives which was being hurled at them. They called "Kamerad!" and were dispatched, still meek and submissive, to a safer place.
But at the second line, after the barrage had swept over it, the first opposition of importance was met. Here small parties of machine-gunners, tucked away in their concrete fortresses, had escaped the terrible shelling and as the Canadians advanced they enfiladed the waves of men as they passed.