A man and a woman, separated by a large cross, all carved of dull black volcanic rock. They are clearly mourning the 21 500 men buried here!.

Canadian Vimy Memorial

Reconciliation - I thought of the memorials found in every French village, not for those fallen in this war
but those who were "Mort pour la France" in the First World War. That and the Treaty of Versailles
whose terms both humiliated and bankrupted the fledgling democracy of the German Wiemar republic thus paving the way for National Socialism, Hitler and World War II.

I remembered my feelings earlier in this trip, as I had stood between the white limestone spires of the Vimy Ridge Memorial, honouring the sixty-six thousand Canadians who perished in the First World War...

The memorial, reputed to be the most beautiful in all of France, rises from the crest Hill 145, the highest point of the Ridge.

Vimy

From the memorial on top of Vimy Ridge, I can see the town in the distance. Twin mountains of coal mine tailings, a church steeple, and indistinct buildings, all nestled on the green clouds of surrounding trees and grassy
fields - unassuming, sleepy, now peaceful. This ground is so soaked in Canadian, French, British and German blood that any flower growing here must surely blossom red.

The pamphlet's description of the memorial reads " The twin white pylons, one bearing the maple leaves
of Canada, the other the fleur-de-lis of France, symbolize the sacrifices of both countries. At the top are
figures representing Peace and Justice, with Truth, Knowledge, Gallantry and Sympathy below them. In
the centre, at the base of the pylons, a young dying soldier, the Spirit of Sacrifice, throws the torch to his
comrades."

A noble picture, with no trace of the mud and carnage of trench warfare. Life, so little valued, that the
deaths of one of every six soldiers, and a further half of the rest being wounded, was considered an
acceptable price. This was the first war of the industrial age. Mass production applied to killing.

The Grange tunnel. Part of a vast maze of tunnels built to protect the soldiers from the "toxic" open fields. Eighty two years ago on this ridge, on Easter Monday, April 9, 1917 there was no peace, no leaves, no
grass, no memorial, only ceaseless noise, unending mud (tilled by countless artillery shells) swallowing
the bodies of thousands of nameless men. Four divisions -one hundred thousand Canadians- men and
boys, many as young as sixteen, fought together for the first time as a distinct army corps. Here 20,000
soldiers, marching behind a "creeping artillery barrage" from 1079 guns rose out of their tunnels and
trenches and launched into the north-west wind that swept the devastated countryside with sleet, snow
and machine gun fire. Three days later they emerged, having accomplished what the French, with one
hundred and fifty thousand casualties over three years had failed, to achieve. They had taken Vimy
Ridge. Of the 10,602 casualties, 3,598 were young Canadians. They would never in the words of John
McCrae, "feel dawn or see sunset glow" again.

Many claim that this battle marked the end of our country's adolescence. This was the place where we earned the right to play at war with the bigger, older boys. In recognition, the French government gave the land to Canada and has recognised it as Canadian soil. When I read this I thought: so now we own a piece of French real estate, the price, only sixty six thousand Canadian lives, a bargain at the time. I put my hand on some of the names engraved on the monument, the ones whose bodies disappeared in the mud without a trace, and felt chagrin replace my earlier feelings of pride. Pride would have meant I had a right to glory in the suffering, pain, the fear and death of these Canadians who willingly or not, lost
their lives defending their King and his British empire.

Behind the memorial the battlefield has been preserved. The mud is gone. The trenches are lined with cement "sand bags." The tunnels and the great craters, some more than thirty metres across, named after Canadian cities (Montreal, Winnipeg) are now covered in grass.