Which First World War battle in April 1917 has been called the “birth of a nation”?
- The Battle of Hong Kong
- The Battle of Paardeberg
- The Battle of Vimy Ridge
- The Battle of the Somme
Answer: The Battle of Vimy Ridge
The Canadian Corps captured Vimy Ridge in April 1917, with 10,000 killed or wounded, and earned a reputation for valour. One Canadian officer described seeing Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific on parade and called it “the birth of a nation.” April 9 is celebrated as Vimy Day.
Learn more: The South African War and the First World War
- Over 7,000 Canadians volunteered for the South African War (1899–1902), popularly known as the Boer War, and over 260 died. In 1900 they fought at Paardeberg and Lillefontein.
- When Britain declared war in 1914, Ottawa formed the Canadian Expeditionary Force, later called the Canadian Corps.
- More than 600,000 Canadians served, most of them volunteers, out of a population of eight million. About 60,000 were killed and 170,000 wounded.
- The Canadian Corps captured Vimy Ridge in April 1917, with 10,000 killed or wounded. One Canadian officer said he saw “the birth of a nation.” April 9 is Vimy Day.
- From 1914 to 1920, Ottawa interned over 8,000 former Austro-Hungarian subjects, mainly Ukrainian men, as “enemy aliens” in 24 labour camps.
- General Sir Arthur Currie, a reserve officer, is called Canada’s greatest soldier. Under his command, the Canadian Corps advanced in the last hundred days of the war in 1918.
- The hundred days included the Battle of Amiens on August 8, 1918 (“the black day of the German Army”), then Arras, Canal du Nord, Cambrai and Mons.
- More than 3,000 nurses, nicknamed “Bluebirds,” served in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, 2,500 of them overseas.
- The war ended with the Armistice on November 11, 1918.
- On Remembrance Day, November 11, Canadians wear the red poppy and keep a moment of silence at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
- Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a medical officer, wrote the poem “In Flanders Fields” in 1915.