After having shattered the German defensive plan with their startling victory at Amiens, the Entente and Canadian forces quickly moved north to the Arras region of France to commence a final push that would lead to the end of the war.
In front of the Canadians lay a series of formidable defensive positions, including trenches that stretched for tens of kilometres, machine gun emplacements, masses of barbed wire, and concrete fortifications. Worse still, the Germans knew the Canadians were coming.
To counter the lack of surprise, the Canadians opened the battle with a rare night attack on August 26, 1918. They battered their way through the German front lines, kicking off extensive fighting by all four Canadian divisions. Within a week, they had reached the Drocourt-Quéant Line, one of the most daunting German defensive positions on the front. Because the Canadians had advanced so rapidly, there was little time for planning—or for the extensive artillery barrage that preceded most attacks.
On September 2, infantry of the 1st and 4th Canadian divisions pushed forward again, and, despite heavy casualties, captured the entire German position. Outmanoeuvred, the Germans retreated behind Canal du Nord, setting the stage for perhaps the Canadian Corps’ boldest attack of the war. The deep but dry canal separating the Canadian and German lines was more than forty metres wide. The Canadian plan called for the divisions to cross a stretch of the canal only about 2.5 kilometres long—barely enough room for a single division to ford, let alone four at once. Once across, the Canadians intended to fan out and capture the whole position.
The plan was risky, as the Canadians would be exposed to potentially decimating artillery fire over a bottlenecked area. Furthermore, the Germans maintained an extensive defensive position in Bourlon Wood, a small forested area on the other side of the canal. After nearly a month of planning, the Canadians attacked at dawn on September 27. Nearly every lesson gained through four years of hard fighting was applied in a violent strike across the canal and through the heart of the position. Every square inch of ground cost the Canadians dead and wounded, but they captured their goal and once again broke a key German line of defence.
Over the final month of the war, the Canadians would liberate the French cities of Cambrai and Valenciennes and, pushing a further seventy-five kilometres, reach the Belgian city of Mons. All told, the last hundred days of the war, including the Battle of Amiens, cost the Canadians more than 45,000 dead and wounded, a staggering total. The soldiers’ sacrifice was critical to ending the war against Germany.
— Text by Joel Ralph