The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is a war memorial site in France dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It also serves as the place of commemoration for Canadian soldiers killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave. The monument is the centrepiece of a 100-hectare preserved battlefield park that encompasses a portion of the ground over which the Canadian Corps made their assault. The Battle of Vimy Ridge was the first time all four Canadian divisions participated in a battle as a cohesive formation.
About Canadian National Vimy Memorial in brief
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is a war memorial site in France dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It also serves as the place of commemoration for Canadian soldiers killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave. The monument is the centrepiece of a 100-hectare preserved battlefield park that encompasses a portion of the ground over which the Canadian Corps made their assault. The Battle of Vimy Ridge was the first time all four Canadian divisions participated in a battle as a cohesive formation. The project took designer Walter Seymour Allward eleven years to build. King Edward VIII unveiled it on 26 July 1936 in the presence of French President Albert Lebrun and a crowd of over 50,000 people. Queen Elizabeth II re-dedicated the monument on 9 April 2007 at a ceremony commemorating the 90th anniversary of the battle. It is one of only two National Historic Sites of Canada located outside the country, the other being the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. It remains largely closed off for reasons of public safety. Wartime tunnels, trenches, craters, and unexploded munitions still honeycomb the grounds of the site. The site is maintained by Veterans Affairs Canada and is open to the public for tours of the battlefield park and cemeteries. The Canadian Corps relieved the British IV Corps stationed along the western slopes of VimY Ridge in October 1916. The ridge is approximately seven kilometres in length, 700 metres wide at its narrowest point, and culminates at an elevation of 145 metres above sea level, or 60 metres above the Douai Plains, eight kilometres northeast of Arras.
The French suffered approximately 150,000 casualties in their attempts to gain control of the ridge and surrounding territory. It fell under German control in October 1914, during the Race to the Sea, as the Franco-British and German forces continually attempted to outflank each other through northeastern France. On 21 May 1916, the German infantry attacked the British lines along a 1,800-metre front in an effort to force them from positions along the base of the Ridge. The Germans captured several British-controlled tunnels and mine craters before halting their advance and entrenching their positions. The British counter-attacks on 22 May did not manage to change the situation, and the French made another attempt during the Third Battle of Artois in September 1915, but were once again unsuccessful in capturing the top of the mountain. The Canadians relieved the French Tenth Army from the sector in February 1916, and then the British XVII Corps in February 1917. It became a Canadian national symbol of achievement and sacrifice. The Vimy memorial is located on the western edge of the Doua Plains, about eight kilometres northeast of the Arras, in the province of Sainte-Anne-de-Lorette. It was built in the 1930s and is the only National Historic Site of Canada to be located outside Canada.
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