The success at Vimy Ridge left the Canadian Corps brimming with confidence. The Canadians had become one of the best-trained and toughest attacking groups available on the Western Front.

With General Arthur Currie now in charge of all four Canadian divisions, their next mission was to capture the French city of Lens. British Field Marshal Douglas Haig hoped a direct attack by the Canadians on Lens would divert German resources away from the Allies’ main summer offensive at Ypres and Passchendaele in Belgium. Currie drew up an alternative attack plan, arguing that the capture of the city would be useless without control of the high ground that overlooked it. Haig accepted Currie’s revised plan and, in the early morning of August 15, 1917, the Canadians — like they did at Vimy Ridge — attacked behind a creeping artillery barrage. Soon, they controlled Hill 70.

As the Canadians dug in, artillery observers began directing concentrated fire against German counterattacks that were moving forward throughout Lens toward the newly created Canadian lines. Over the following days, the Canadians turned back no less than twenty German counterattacks.

Unfortunately, the Canadians failed to capture Lens. Fighting in the region of Hill 70 cost the Canadians more than nine thousand casualties — nearly as many as were lost capturing Vimy only a few months before. It also marked the first occasion that mustard gas was used against Canadian lines. But the attack did succeed in pulling German reserves from the Ypres Salient and helped bolster the troops’ reputation as being among the fiercest fighters at the front.

— Text by Joel Ralph