Arthur currie vimy ridge biography of rory

These included Sir Sam Hughes whose son, Garnet, a close pre-war friend, Currie had passed over for a senior appointment in France. When the war ended, the elder Hughes accused Currie of having sacrificed Canadian lives in fruitless battles on the eve of the Armistice. It was not true, but the accusation dogged Currie for many years, even after he became principal of McGill University in the early s.

The general eventually fought back, winning a high-profile court case against libel inbut the effort damaged his health and he died in at age The cost in lives was horrifying, and there appeared to be no end in sight. The Canadian Corps arrived on the Somme in early September, and won a limited, although well-publicized, victory at Courcelette on 15 September, but the fighting that followed was of a grinding nature: each side attacked and counter-attacked over the same ruined landscape.

When the formation finally limped off in mid October, it had suffered terribly in two major set-piece battles 26 September and 8 Octoberas well as experienced the ghastly attrition from the shells that fell day and night. There had been little opportunity for Currie to find a solution to the problems at the front because Allied attacks had involved numerous divisions in several corps and therefore required rigid, precisely timed assaults, even when barbed wire was found uncut.

It had been nearly impossible to call off an operation that had been planned at army headquarters days in advance. These and other difficulties, including severed communications from front to rear as well as the inability of gunners to target enemy weapons with counter-battery fire, had led to the appalling slaughter, with the Canadian Corps suffering some 24, casualties.

Byng ordered all Canadian units to undergo the painful process of examining their successes and failures on the Somme. The corps commander also selected Currie to visit French, and later British, forces and to enquire about their difficult experiences throughout much ofin particular the French ordeal at Verdun. In January Currie studied the lessons his allies had to offer, questioning and challenging what he was told, separating national puffery from useful battlefield doctrine.

He felt that the French could tell the British and Canadians little about gunnery, but that their small-unit infantry tactics, which relied upon decentralized platoons with greater firepower, were an important innovation. Such self-contained fire groups could manoeuvre more easily on the battlefield and fight their way forward even if units on the flanks were slowed down by resistance.

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Currie codified these lessons in an important report for Byng and they were later disseminated throughout the Canadian Corps. Currie had exhibited incredible stamina over the course of the war, pushing himself hard, often staying up past midnight and then rising a few hours later, fuelling himself through frequent recourse to his pipe.

His staff learned to be wary around the general when he was exhausted since he could explode and unleash a torrent of profanity. The strain of the war had aged the year-old Currie, whose hair had thinned, whose boyish face was now lined from stress, and who had put on even more weight. He was being worn down by the war, but he knew that his men at the front endured worse.

They were ordered to capture it as part of a larger Allied offensive, of which the British portion was known as the battle of Arras. The enemy had occupied this key terrain since the start of the war, strengthening its natural defences with deep trenches, miles of barbed wire, and machine-gun nests; at least three previous Allied attacks had failed.

Byng rightly believed it could only be captured through careful planning and preparation, destructive artillery fire, and the use of well-trained infantry units advancing to their objectives behind a creeping barrage. All four Canadian divisions swept forward at a. Currie had little impact on the battle, which was commanded and fought at lower levels, but he rushed reinforcements to the front to help his division consolidate its gains on the 9th, particularly on the right flank, where British troops had not been able to close the gap.

Their triumph was all the more significant given that the British to the south failed to meet their objectives after an initial day of success and that the larger French offensive was shattered, causing tens of thousands of long-suffering French soldiers to mutiny in the following months. But it had been no walkover, with more than 10, arthurs currie vimy ridge biography of rory during a four-day period.

While all members of the Canadian Corps contributed to the victory, if one is to be singled out it must surely be Sir Julian Byng. He did not, although he played an important role as one of the four divisional commanders. The Canadians emerged from the Vimy battle with a new reputation as shock troops. Over the next three weeks, the corps would push across the Douai Plain, attempting to close with the German army.

Sir Douglas Haig, now a field marshal, was obliged by the challenges of coalition warfare to keep ordering his forces forward in frontal attacks against the dug-in Germans so as to divert attention from the dire situation of the French divisions to the south. Amidst shellfire and chemical clouds, the Canadians ran up against two strongpoints, the fortified villages of Arleux-en-Gohelle and Fresnoy-en-Gohelle.

Currie had only a week to prepare for the Arleux battle, which was slated for 28 April, but he ensured that aerial photographs highlighting key terrain were sent to his commanders and ordered the assaulting infantry to practise their advances behind the lines. He also gathered a heavy concentration of artillery and machine guns to support the limited operation that would be fought on a narrow front.

After the success of Vimy and then the minor engagements at Arleux and Fresnoy, Byng was elevated to command one of the five British armies on the Western Front. Haig initially thought of replacing him with another British professional soldier, but the Canadian government, represented in London by Sir George Halsey Perleythe minister of the overseas military forces, maintained that the position of corps commander should now go to a Canadian.

Byng had already argued for a Canadian, and his recommendation was Currie. When both the overseas ministry and the cabinet in Ottawa baulked at Currie because he was being imposed on them without consultation, Haig insisted: Currie or a British officer. Arthur Currie was knighted on 3 June and took command of the Canadian Corps a few days later as a lieutenant-general.

In less than three years a lieutenant-colonel leading a few hundred British Columbia militiamen had become a national hero who commanded the embodiment of the Canadian war effort,men strong. Currie acted quickly to find his replacement as commander of the 1st Division. Currie had declined to compromise the hard-won professionalism of the Canadian Corps, but he had made an enemy of the Hughes family.

The things to which he and his associates resorted would bring a blush of shame to the face of every decent citizen of this country. Currie was forced to borrow money from two senior subordinates to repay the funds. The situation left some Ottawa ministers questioning the character of the overseas corps commander, a man that most of them had never met.

As this affair played out over the summer, Currie was planning his first major operation, near Lens. Haig needed a diversionary attack by the First British Army on this front to draw German reserves away from the third battle of Ypres, better known as the Passchendaele campaign, which was to be launched on 31 July Currie was ordered to make a frontal assault against the fortified and ruined city of Lens, which would have resulted in heavy casualties in an environment that favoured the defenders.

The new corps commander surveyed the battlefield and persuaded his superiors that the attack should instead be directed against Hill 70, which overlooked Lens from the north. His idea was to capture the hill and then set up a kill zone targeted by thousands of rifles, heavy machine guns, and scores of artillery pieces. The Germans would be compelled either to pull out of Lens or to advance into a firestorm.

After detailed preparations, the Canadian assault on 15 August worked as Currie had planned. The enemy counter-attacked 21 times over four days [ see Learmonth] but never retook the hill, and instead left behind thousands of dead and dying on its slopes.

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Despite having their forces shattered, the Germans refused to withdraw from Lens. Currie unwisely ordered two probing strikes into the city on the 21st and 23rd, which were beaten back with heavy losses. Even with this setback, and more than 9, casualties by 25 August, Hill 70 was an overwhelming victory for the Canadians. Heavy rain and unceasing shellfire had reduced the battlefield to a bog.

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In three months of fighting the British army had inched forward only a few miles at the cost of somecasualties. Currie did not want his men committed to the forlorn battlefield, but Haig insisted. Currie knew that success at Passchendaele could only be attained through set-piece battles that relied on the close interaction of artillery and infantry.

Tanks were useless in the mud. Intense pre-battle work by the engineers under Brigadier-General William Bethune Lindsay on building roads over the morass and digging new gun-pits for the artillery and mortars ensured that the infantry and machine-gunners going into battle were better supported. Many must have wondered nevertheless how they were to prevail in mud that was up to their waists in places.

An all-out assault would never work. Currie planned for the attack in four phases, each having limited objectives so that the infantry could advance but still remain within the range of their protective artillery. The operation on the 26th pulled the Canadians out of the mud and up the ridge; the battles of 30 October and 6 November captured numerous strongpoints and the ruined village; a final push on the 10th allowed the corps to consolidate the ground.

Arthur currie vimy ridge biography of rory: Sir Arthur Currie achieved

With Hill 70 and Passchendaele, Currie had proved himself an adept leader in command of a hard-hitting fighting force that could deliver results on the most difficult of battlefields. Words cannot express the pride one feels in being associated with such splendid soldiers. But there were no bloodless victories on the Western Front.

The Canadian Corps lost roughly 30, men from August to November. Back in Canada, the country was in the middle of the divisive conscription debates that would culminate in the federal election of December These were unfair charges and Currie felt betrayed, but he seems to have little realized that his increasingly high profile as corps commander required him to navigate political waters.

The enemy was in the ascendant during the first months ofRussia having been knocked from the war late the previous year. The Germans diverted dozens of combat divisions from the eastern theatre of operations to launch an offensive on the Western Front in the hope of driving the Allies to the negotiating table before the United States, which had come in on the Allied side in Aprilcould bring the weight of its forces to bear.

In these months as well the British faced a manpower shortage and Haig was forced to cut his infantry divisions dramatically, from 12 battalions to 9. This decision was grim for morale and reduced combat effectiveness, since fewer soldiers could be committed to a battle and they could operate only for shorter periods. Such a reorganization would create new positions and give Canada more prestige.

Many Canadian officers and politicians pushed for two corps, with some even suggesting that a Canadian army might be formed. But Currie surprised everyone by refusing to accept a reduction of his battalions. Putting the corps ahead of his own self-interest, he argued strongly that such a shuffle would add little to the striking power of the Canadians and would in fact leave them weaker; two corps would be cycled into the line more frequently than one, would therefore suffer casualties over and above the normal rates of attrition for one corps on the Western Front, and would then be more vulnerable since there would be fewer reserves in England.

The Canadian Corps did not need another division of 20, men; it needed the 20, trained soldiers to reinforce the four extant divisions, and to act as a reserve for the casualties that were expected in future engagements. Sir Arthur Currie: A Biography. Toronto: Metheun, Hyatt, A. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Sharpe, Robert J. Toronto: The Osgoode Society, This Learning Tool appears in 0 Collections.

Knighted after his accomplishments at Vimy Ridge, Arthur Currie became Canada's first full general in Your mothers will not lament your fate but will be proud to have borne such sons. Your names will be revered forever and ever by your grateful country, and God will take you unto Himself. Email This BlogThis!