One chill Easter 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Drawing on unpublished personal accounts and interviews, Berton brings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 innocently believed would make war obsolete. He tells of the
soldiers who endured horrific conditions to secure this great victory,
painting a vivid picture of trench warfare. In his account of this great
battle, Pierre Berton brilliantly illuminated the moment of tragedy and
greatness that marked Canada's emergence as a nation.
