Canada in World War I - Part 8: Amiens and the Push to the End

The Americans would just be entering the war and
thus not yet prepared to fight, meaning lovely
propaganda posters like this would just be
beginning to surface. As a side-note, women depicted
in art pre-1930s have a terrible time keeping dresses
above stomach level.

In early 1918 things were looking bleak. The French were on the road back from army-wide mutiny, Russia was all but gone, the Italians were resorting to mass executions to keep their men in line, America had declared war but had not yet come over in force, and the Germans were planning a massive offensive to end the war against the British who at this point have exhausted themselves. (Canada, meanwhile, was holding on.) Coming at them in March with 4,000,000 men in 200 divisions, the paradoxically named German Peace Offensive stormed through the western front in a style that would remind those looking back on it of the World War II blitzkrieg. Attacking far into enemy lines with pure force and speed, half of the losses of the allied armies were surrenders due to the overwhelming pressure of the German assault.

There's a problem with taking so much territory, however. Once you take it, you have to defend it, and defending that much territory severely stretches your already thin and tired forces to the breaking point. By April the German push halted, giving the war a distinctly different aesthetic. They were no longer fighting over completely torn to pieces, already destroyed plots of trenches as far as the eye could see. The distance they travelled was far enough into friendly lines that open area was the new arena of warfare, which brought with it a number of challenges and opportunities. Tanks, vehicles and horses of all things (notably anachronistic being beside massive, modern killing machines such as tanks) became more common as the field opened up to them. At one point the Canadian cavalry division led a full charge into the enemy ranks, brandishing swords in an attempt to scare away the Germans. It worked, surprisingly, for a short time before they discovered that there are two strong counters to men on horseback; medieval pikemen and machine gun encampments. The Germans smartly used the latter. 

In one of the greatest "a picture says a thousand words"
photographs, French sword-wielding horsemen watch
a plane overhead. Specifically, three of those
words were likely "je suis obsolète!"

With the German army stretched, the Canadians, along with the allied powers, were called upon to counter attack. They set their targets on Amiens, an important railway junction somewhat near Paris. 300,000 allied troops, filled with the colonial powers of Australia and Canada, attacked on August 8th. It was a particularly foggy day, which meant the increased possibility of friendly fire but also the opportunity to sneak up on machine gun nests from behind. As if war wasn't terrifying enough, some atmospheric fog made it all the worse.

168 tanks were also issued to help the cause, reminding everyone that no matter where you are on the battlefield, you're far from safe. Poorly ventilated and excessively hot, the tanks would clatter through the battlefield as massive artillery targets. Only somewhat bullet proof, men inside would wear what would look comically like medieval chainmail (goes well with the horses, I suppose) to deflect the small, shattered bullet fragments and pieces of metal that would occasionally pierce the outside. Many of the operations would have literally a 100% casualty rate for the tank operators, meaning that even inside a giant metal death machine, your chances of survival are decidedly slim. Even then, I'd still take the tanks over being on horseback, ordered to "hit the gap" when the German ranks would begin to break. It's interesting to note that in this battle we would have infantry, artillery, tanks, horses, reconnaissance planes and even a few vehicles driving around. It was a true army, composed of a number of individual pieces.

A depiction of Amiens. Here, rather than at Passchendaele,
you got to be killed with a rather pretty view.

The combined might of these pieces proved successful against the weakened Germans, pushing them back, allowing the allied forces to step deep into the German lines after the taking of Amiens (the Canadians, seemingly as always, pushed the furthest). However, justifiably fearful of overextending themselves much the way the Germans had, they held up their assault and slowed it down. The next several months, with Amiens marking the beginning, was called the Hundred Days Offensive. Pushing from trench line to trench line, they slowly progressed through the territory, finally breaking the enemy but losing lives with every step. The German army fought ferociously, but morale was destroyed and the core of the army was all but gone. Both sides knew that peace was on the horizon, with every soldier hoping they wouldn't be the last to be killed. More often caution was employed by the attacking forces.

By early November the soldiers, Canadian and otherwise, were marching through farms and towns with roads lined with cheering civilians. While certainly a stark contrast to their previous battlefields, towns and picturesque landscapes could cause complacency, and ambushes were incredibly dangerous. Those German forces that would hold out and not surrender, especially so close to the end of the war, were afforded little mercy when finally defeated.

Canadians with a tank escort. Hmm. When I thought of "World War I tanks", I
wasn't thinking of something quite so... dumpy. Perhaps it's one of the
"Mark V Historical Disappointment Class" tanks.

The final fight for the Canadians would take place in Mons, a controversial assault point because the Canadians would lose many in the final few days of the war (November 7-10, to be exact). It was seen as a pointless endeavour, and with the war ceasing on the 11th, those that came so close to surviving the war only to be killed in a last, ultimately useless push were terrible losses indeed. All told, the Hundred Days Campaign would take a brutal toll on the Canadians. With 45,835 casualties, a full 1/8th of the BEF while holding only 1/15th of the population of it, the Canadians served above and beyond what was expected of them. In a sense, they paid the price for being one of the few that didn't have widespread mutiny issues or collapsed morale. The thanks they would get was having to fight as a result. For the Canadians the end of the war was more than welcome, and certainly well earned.

Ten million were killed with 15-20 million injured in World War I. Our small country of Canada, with only 7.5 million people at the beginning of the war, sent a full 420,000 oversees. Around 60,000 would be killed or die due to complications of wartime injuries. Another 173,000 were wounded.

So what is the legacy for World War I in Canada? Well, sadly, it's in many ways a bit of an oversight. The first war doesn't feel as "good vs. evil" as does its successor, with nazi uniforms and ideologies that are so outright villainous that it paints a perfect narrative. The second war was larger, as well, with greater loss of life, and being the second brings it closer to modern history. But for Canada, the war meant something extremely important; it essentially made us a nation, through blood and iron while charging up the hill of Vimy or plowing through the mud at Passchendaele and the Somme. We gained the admiration and recognition of not only our mother country of Britain but both our allies and enemies in the war through our valour and fighting prowess. Through tremendous loss we came out of the ashes not a piece of Britain but a full-fledged sovereign nation, distinctly our own.

So what is the legacy for World War I in Canada? It made Canada. Even if we don't appreciate it the way we should, the war was an integral piece of the forging of our nation.

Man, I think I'm going to go buy a flag.

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The information for this (admittedly exceedingly long) blog series came from a two-part set of books by Tim Cook. In spite of their length, they're exceptionally written, thoroughly detailed accounts that in spite of the sheer volume of information are surprisingly readable. The first is At the Sharp End, and the second is Shock Troops. I would recommend them to any Canadian, especially those with an interest in our history.

Just be ready for a long read.