Vimy (Pen & Sword Military Classic) - Softcover

Berton, Pierre

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0850529883 ISBN 13: 9780850529883

Publisher: Pen and Sword Military Classics, 2008

Synopsis

On Easter Monday 1917 with a blizzard blowing in their faces, the four divisions of the Canadian Corps in France seized and held the best defended German bastion on the Western Front - the muddy scarp of Vimy Ridge. The British had failed to take the ridge, and so had the French who had lost 150,000 men in the attempt. Yet these magnificent colonial troops did so in a morning at the cost of 10,000 casualties

The author recounts this remarkable feat of arm with bold pace and style. He has gathered many personal accounts from Soldiers who fought at Vimy. He describes the commanders and the men, the organization and the training, and above all notes the thorough preparation for the attack from which the British General Staff could have learned much. The action is placed within the context both of the Battle of Arras, of which this attack was part, and as a milestone in the development of Canada as a nation

About this title

From the Inside Flap

ster dawn in 1917, a blizzard blowing in their faces, the four divisions of the Canadian Corps in France went over the top of a muddy scarp knows as Vimy Ridge. Within hours, they held in their grasp what had eluded both British and French armies in over two years of fighting: they had seized the best-defended German bastion on the Western Front.

How could an army of civilians from a nation with no military tradition secure the first enduring victory in thirty-two months of warfare with only 10,000 casualties, when the French had lost 150,000 men in their unsuccessful attempt? Pierre Berton's haunting and lucid narrative shows how, unfettered by military rules, civilians used daring and common sense to overcome obstacles that had eluded the professionals.

Drawing on unpublished personal accounts and interviews, Berton brings home what it was like for the young men, some no more than sixteen years old, who clawed their way up the sodden, shell-torn slopes in a struggle they in

From the Back Cover

“Among the most important and vital accounts of war that we have...it is inexcusable not to read it.” —Timothy Findley

"...Vimy is Berton at his best and that's the best there is." —Peter C. Newman

"A book to make us proud, to make us week." —June Callwood

About this edition

• Publisher: Pen and Sword Military Classics
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0850529883
• ISBN 13: 9780850529883
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336