From: hyde@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: VIMY, 1917
Date: 13 Apr 92 20:30:19 GMT
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

In article <CB.92Apr10120854@tamarack12.timbuk>, cb@tamarack12.timbuk (Chris Brewster) writes:
> Shawn Kenny writes:
> 
>    VIMY RIDGE, FRANCE
>    Easter Monday, April 9th, 1917.
> 
>    ... What other Allied forces failed to do throughout the course of the
>    war, the Canadian forces overwhelmed the German defenders, 3 lines of
>    trenches, wire and pillboxes, in just a few hours.
> 
> Without diminishing the Canadians' accomplishment, I would point out that
> such breakthroughs occurred any number of times on the Western Front.  But
> they never led to any net advantage because...

	Vimy was not an ordinary "breakthrough".  It was a limited, but
	very defensible piece of terrain, posession of which was
	a considerable advantage.  Assaults by the british and
	french had failed, with considerable loss.

> 
>    ... The only flaw in the plan was the lack of reserves to exploit the
>    success and thus the attack eventually stabilized in the horrors of
>    trench warfare.
> 


	This is not quite the case.  The attack on Vimy was part of
	a larger battle which was intended as a limited offensive.
	Many previous battles had obtained a limited, relatively
	cost free, gain in the first day(s), followed by tremendous
	loss of life for negligable gains later.  The idea of the
	Vimy battle and the larger attack of which it was part was
	simply to take good strategic positions at reasonable cost,
	and then *not* to try to follow up once the germans were
	on guard. (unless the germans collapsed, which
	they did not.) At Vimy this happened, but elsewhere in the battle
	zone the fight was carried on too long.  Nonetheless, the
	battle of Arras was far cheaper, for the gains made, than
	the Somme, Chemin des Dames, etc.

	The gains made at Vimy (and arras in general) saved
	lives for the remainder of the war by leaving the allies
	in a good position on the line.  Had the battle been
	broken off when the objectives were attained, it would
	have been something of a classic. On a smaller scale,
	Petin had launched several such battles (one reason he
	was popular with the troops).  Perhaps the British had
	learned from him.


> This was true of *every* breakthrough achieved by *either* side. 


	Not really.  In 1918 Ludendorff's attacks were quite out of
	the normal type.  They gained tremendous ground and inflicted
	casualties at least as great as those of the attackers.
	(Had the germans attacked in this style in 1915, the result
	of the war might have been very different)
	In these attacks the posession of Vimy by the allies was
	very important.  As the germans nearly reached paris in 1918
	as it was, it is not unreasonable to suppose that with the
	Vimy bastion in their hands they might have succeeded to the
	point of prolonging the war considerably.

	The British attacks later in 1918 followed this same pattern,
	with great success.

	I would give citations but some yankee book stealer has
	my book on Vimy (Are you reading this, Mitch?).


						Bill Hyde
Department of Oceanography
Dalhousie University,
Halifax, Nova Scotia
hyde@ac.dal.ca or hyde@dalac