"100 Years Since Vimy Ridge: Canada’s ‘founding myth’ ..." Topic

….Obscures Reality of Imperialist War.

"April 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Fought as part of the larger British-led Battle of Arras during the First World War, the battle was the first instance in which all four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) fought together. The success of the unified Canadian Corps in capturing the ridge from German troops, after failed efforts to do so by British and French forces, has steadily grown in significance in recent decades to attain the status of a founding myth, in which Vimy represented Canada's birth as a nation. This mythologized narrative obscures the true nature of an imperialist war that led to the death of millions, while furthering the revival of a militaristic Canadian nationalism that lays the foundation for future wars.

Nearly 100,000 soldiers in the CEF, then a part of the British Expeditionary Force, participated in the Battle of Vimy Ridge from April 9-12, 1917. Supported by a massive creeping artillery barrage against three defending German divisions, Canadian soldiers engaged in fierce fighting as they climbed the ridge, which at a height of 475 metres offered an unobstructed view for several kilometres. The Canadian Corps captured most of the ridge by the end of the first day and managed to hold it while attaining the rest of their objectives over subsequent days. The Canadians suffered 3,598 dead and 7,004 wounded before German troops retreated east.

In their book The Vimy Trap: Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War, authors Ian McKay and Jamie Swift use the term "Vimyism" to describe the nationalist mythology centred around Vimy Ridge that has come to dominate portrayals of the First World War in Canada. For McKay and Swift, Vimyism denotes "a network of ideas and symbols that centre on how Canada's Great War experience somehow represents the country's supreme triumph … that the war itself and anyone who fought and died in it should be unconditionally revered and commemorated—and not least because it marked the country's birth…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Well, that's about what you'd expect from a Marxist website; the article cites Lenin at one point. There's a lot wrong with it, but two main points are it magnifies the supposed situation far beyond what it really is – Canadians don't go around referencing everything to Vimy ("that was the best hockey game since Vimy Ridge") – and it makes the usual crazy extreme left wing claim that X isn't Y and therefore X is bad. In this case, that because of Vimy, no one talks about the death and destruction of WWI, imperialism, or war profiteering. In the real world, WWI is known to Canadians for being a pretty stupid war full of death and destruction (and war profiteering if they remember their grade 10 history), but hey, we kicked ass at Vimy Ridge.

I never understood why WWI was an "evil" war and WWII was a "good" war.

The yardstick seems to be that if granddad and his mates died advancing a mile it was a horrible waste orchestrated by incompetent madmen, whereas if dad got his head blown off by an 88mm after doing fifty miles under a "genius general" who happened to have a bunch of tanks to do the heavy lifting for him, it was well worth the effort.

I'd say it would be unfortunate, but preferable to keep the fighting confined to one area rather than see city after city being destroyed during an advance and see a much higher casualty rate, especially among civilians.

Another more realistic factor is that there was no real reason to go to war other than that the major European nations were rubbing against each other like tectonic plates because many things had changed since the Congress of Vienna and their deal to keep Europe at peace. Once they set off on the warpath they stalemated each other for four years and when they did sign the armistice, several major royal and imperial families had fallen, but without any clear winner or loser. At best the Allies could claim they had restored the status quo and had at least some spoils of war to brag about.

If there is cause to call a war evil over others is that the Great War stretched on far beyond what was common before the industrial revolution. In 1814, a million men were converging upon Leipzig, only a fraction of those soldiers did fight in the battle and as soon as a result was declared the troops made an about face and returned home, because even a rich area like Northern Germany couldn't support the sudden influx of so many mouths to feed. A hundred years later things like the humble tin can and railroads allowed nations to mobilize several million men at once and keep them in the field almost indefinitely. It meant that battles no longer lasted a day or three at most, but went on for months and campaigns that rarely lasted a season now continued into winter and the appalling conditions that ensued. It was a huge burden on the men as they faced conditions that would have been almost unheard of even a generation or two before.

And then there is the highly malicious way in which they are able to both raise the soldiers of the Great War to the status of victims and condemn them whenever they are even so much as remembered as a callous jingoistic celebration of militarism. The only real reason being that it's not the critic's "desired type of of struggle" the only one that is worth celebrating because unlike the false patriotism and evil motives of others vs their pure and noble ones. To draw a parallel as somebody said : "Certain groups are always the first to claim they are the victims of a vicious persecution, but they are also always first in line when it comes to persecuting others. They like to kick defenseless people in the head, but so much as point a finger at them and they are on the ground crying their hypocritical hearts out for the entire world to hear that they are the most pitiable victims of the worst persecution possible. But don't ever make the mistake of turning your back on them for they will stab you in the back, it's their nature."

I'll leave the "works" of those claiming to come from the House of Marx in the middle …

I thought Groucho was ok. Otherwise, pretty much agree with everything you say – good post.

"Militaristic Canadian Nationalism"? Ha! That's a good one!

Good post really….

Amicalement
Armand