How Canada Won the Great War E-Book

Robert Child

• Herausgeber: Robert Child
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

For 100 years Canada's role in ending WWI sooner than anyone thought possible has gone largely unrecognized. Canadian soldiers unlike British "city boys" hailed from hard scrabble farms and logging camps. Their natural survival and hunting instincts were exactly what the Great War required. The Canadian Corp on the Western Front led by Currie, became the premiere allied fighting force. The fact that Canada was not yet a formalized nation but a Dominion at the close of the war may be the reason for the absence of recognition yet the record of the Canadian WWI military accomplishments is irrefutable. Currie took over command of the Corp after the ill conceived Somme operation and executed a brilliant strategy which led to Canada's greatest military triumph of WWI at Vimy Ridge.

Leseprobe

How Canada Won the Great War

by

Smashwords Edition

© Copyright 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Works published and produced by Robert Child can be obtained either through the author’s official website: www.robchild.net

or through any online retailer.

Works by Robert Child:

Fiction

Ghost Carrier

Blood Betrayal

The Russian van Gogh

Rush On, Boys - Hamilton at War

Nonfiction

How Canada Won the Great War

Weather and Warfare

Gettysburg: Voices from the Front

Films

The Wereth Eleven

USS Franklin: Honor Restored

Silent Wings: The American Glider Pilots of WWII

Lincoln and Lee at Antietam: The Cost of Freedom

Gettysburg Three Days of Destiny

Gettysburg The Boys in Blue and Gray

*More information about all the above titles is located at the end of this book.

Preface

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Yes, I agree the title of this book is provocative but it is my opinion based on working in Toronto for fifteen months on this project. The record is clear to anyone who bothers to look. But that opinion does in no way lessen my respect and regard for what the French, British, Australian and American armies accomplished in some of the most terrible fighting soldiers ever faced.

I spent a great deal of time in Europe at Vimy Ridge, at Arras, at Amiens and many other far off places including Jigsaw Wood, Burlon Wood and Castle Boves. I stood in now peaceful fields that were once battlefields of the Hindenburg Line which Canadians shed blood to cross. And I said a silent prayer over the hallowed ground where many remain.

The evocative aspect of the location of WWI Commonwealth War Grave Commission cemeteries is the fact that they are the spots on which the soldiers drew their last breaths and almost all are situated on ground that leads up hill. The fact that Canada was not yet a formalized nation but a Dominion at the close of the war may be the reason that the country has not been given the credit it is due.

In a small way I hope this short book opens some eyes. I am not Canadian yet I have a profound respect for guts, heroism and the tenacity expended to keep pushing forward when all before you is horror and darkness. There are few wars, which can match the carnage of WWI with perhaps the exception of the American Civil War. And that is why I believe people are so fascinated by these events. They illustrate the limit of human endurance as well as the depth of its depravity. General Sir Arthur Currie sums up war best at the end of this book and it is fitting that he has the last word. I hope you enjoy the story.

Robert Child

Chapter 1

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July 1, 1918 Tincques, France.

Rising mirage-like in the July haze from the battle scarred Western Front, a simple playing field and grandstands stood as an oasis of sanity, and symbolism. A nation, before the war deemed not deserving of the title "allied power", boldly invited the world to its Dominion Day party and they came. The Prince of Wales, the Duke of Connaught, American Commander-in-Chief General John Pershing, British Commander Douglas Haig and Allied Supreme Commander Ferdinand Foch. They all came to commend, to honor, a nation, a Corps and a man whose invitation they would not refuse General Sir [...]