Juillet 2011

Le duc et la duchesse de Cambridge dévoilent Les Canadiens face à Lens

Le duc et la duchesse de Cambridge ont procédé au dévoilement de l'œuvre Les Canadiens face à Lens du célèbre artiste Augustus John (1878-1961). Cette peinture d'une taille imposante, soit une largeur de 12 mètres (40 pieds) par une hauteur de 3,7 mètres (12 pieds), est l'une des grandes œuvres commandées par Lord Beaverbrook, le fondateur du Fonds de souvenirs de guerre canadiens. Il s'agit de la plus récente de ces œuvres commandées originales à revenir au Canada.

La bataille de la côte 70 entre Loos et Lens

Artiste: A.Y.Jackson

« Cité Jeanne d’Arc, Hill 70 in the distance » avec l'autorisation du musée canadien de la guerre

La feuille d'érable gravée dans le souterrain à Loos en gohelle en Août 1917

Le 20 juillet 2008

General Currie’s First Stand – The Capture of Hill 70

  By Richard Laughton

  In June 1917 the British 3^rd Army was planning a major offensive in the Ypres sector of Belgium. Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig called upon the Canadians to undertake a diversionary attack at Lens, a strategic coal and steel industrial area northeast of Vimy, seized by the Germans in 1914.  The area surrounding Lens was a mass of slag heaps overlooking the city, all of which the Germans had been using for 2 years to fortify the city.  To attack the City of Lens would be suicide for the Canadians, so the new Corps Commander stood his ground against the British High Command and presented his alternative – take Hill 70 and take control, do not take the City of Lens. Include a diversionary attack on Lens itself, but have the main emphasis on Hill 70.  The British “being British” did not record this as a Canadian action, thought out and planned in detail by General Currie and his team. Instead, Field Marshal Sir Arthur Haig reported in his diary “at 4:25 am First Army launched an attack consisting of 1^st and 2^nd Canadian Divisions against Hill 70 northwest of Lens”.³ That was all that was reported.

The area around Lens had been heavily fortified and flooded by the Germans and Currie knew that the Canadian troops must not only survive the attack; they must also survive the counter attacks. History proved Currie was correct.

The major action against Hill 70 started at 4:25 am “Z Day”, August 15, 1917, with an intense artillery and machine gun barrage ^{4, 5} The main attack on the hill, which is the focus of this review, was undertaken at Z+2 minutes by the 2^nd and 3^rd Infantry Brigades of the 1^st Canadian Division. From north to south, the units involved north of Hill 70 were 15^th Battalion “Toronto”; 13^th Battalion “Montreal”; 16^th Battalion “British Columbia” (all of the 3^rd Infantry Brigade – 14^th Battalion “Montreal” in reserve). The 3^rd Infantry Brigade was supported by the 3^rd Canadian Trench Mortar Battery, the 10^th Canadian Trench Mortar Battery (on loan from the 4^th Division, 10^th Infantry Brigade) and the 3^rd Canadian Machine Gun Company.  

The brigade war diary reports that the 5^th Battalion of the 2^nd Infantry Brigade began moving into position at midnight on the 14^th/15^th of August.⁴ The 10^th Battalion followed, under harassing bombardment, but was in position by 3:50 am. The 8^th Battalion on the right and the 7^th Battalion on the left, moved into the positions vacated by the 5^th and 10^th Battalions. Two minutes after the 4:25 am “zero hour”, the 2^nd Infantry Brigade began their advance, with the 7^th and 8^th moving forward to take vacated positions of the lead battalions. The German front line was captured on the left in a “lively fight” by “A” and “D” Companies of the 10^th Battalion, using “bombs and rifles with telling effect”, despite the intense machine gun and granatenwerfer (spigot mortar) fire. On the right “C” and “D” companies of the 5^th Battalion moved forward under concentrated German fire, to take their objective in advance of the 22^nd Battalion on their right. “A” and “B” companies of the 5^th then leap-frogged “C” and “D”, and moved to take the Blue Line. Concurrently, “C” and “B” companies of the 10^th Battalion leap-frogged their “A” and “B” companies. Once the Blue Line had been taken, the leap-frog process started again, as the 7^th and 8^th Battalions moved forward to the Red Line. Steady machine gun and rifle fire from the Cité St. Auguste and the Brickfields resulted in increased casualties; however the battalions pushed forward and had the Red Line by 5:55 am.  By 6:30 am they were moving on the Green Line, racing to keep up with the creeping Canadian artillery barrage. After suffering heavy casualties, the 8^th Battalion had to regroup and plan for a coordinated attack on the Green Line, with the 7^th Battalion on the left and the 8^th Battalion on the right.  It was not until 6:00 pm on August 15^th that the new attack took place, with elements of the 10^th Battalion reinforcing the 7^th Battalion and 5^th Battalion reinforcing the 8^th Battalion.  The units held overnight, despite persistent counter attacks by the enemy.

The portion of Hill 70 allocated to the 3^rd Infantry Brigade to the north (left) was taken by 5:33 am on August 15^th.⁵  Despite stiff fighting, the 15^th Battalion had reached its objective by 4:56 am and by 5:35 am the 13^th Battalion was pushing on beyond its objective. By 6:15 am both the 13^th and 15^th were at the Green Line and were joined by the 16^th at 6:30 am. By 9:28 am the Germans were massing for a counter attack, which started at 10:55 am and continued throughout the day.

On August 15^th alone, the war diary reports 5 counter attacks against this newly won ground and another 4 counter attacks that did not mature.  In all 21 counter attacks took place during the battle. For complete details of the attack, please refer to Appendix 21 of the 3rd Brigade War Diary for August 1917.  For details of the 2^nd Infantry Brigade, please refer to Appendix 10 of the 2nd Brigade War Diary for August 1917.

The artillery of the Canadian Army Troops was strategically involved in the attack, with conventional shelling and the firing of burning oil barrels.  The use of the burning oil was reported by the 3^rd Brigade as “spectacular”, although there were no reports of its effectiveness. Currie once again used the “artillery creeping barrage”, which had been used so successfully at Vimy Ridge in April 1917.

The extent of casualties from the individual battalions involved in the main attack on Hill 70 is clearly summarized in the Brigade War diaries: (total officers and other ranks) ^{4, 5}  

The Battle of Hill 70 involved more than what is reported here, if you include the attacks on Lens by the 4^th Canadian Division and the action south of Hill 70 by the 2^nd Canadian Division.  Later in the month the 44^th Infantry Battalion of the 10^th Infantry Brigade, 4^th Division was all but annihilated in attack on the Green Crassier (slag heap) south of Lens, a special task Haig had requested and noted in his diary on August 15^th.³ General Currie wrote in his diary that he estimated some 5,680 Canadian casualties versus 20,000 Germans in the period of August 15^th to 18^th.  Currie suggested that “it was altogether the hardest battle in which the Corps had participated. There were no fewer than twenty-one counter attacks delivered.”¹

Other units were involved in the battle that is seldom reported in the literature.  For example, the 107^th Pioneer Battalion furnished working parties for the 2^nd Infantry Brigade, digging communication trenches and bringing wire to the front lines. The 2^nd Field Company Canadian Engineers moved forward with the 2^nd Brigade to the Blue Line to construct strong points. The 1^st Canadian Motor Machine Gun Brigade provided harassing fire during the preparatory stages of the operation, in support of the 1^st and 3^rd Canadian Divisional Artillery which provided the moving barrage and responded to the numerous counter attacks. The 12^th Canadian Trench Mortar Battery was on loan to the 2^nd Infantry Brigade for the attack.

The “Battle of Hill 70” resulted in the award of 4 Victoria Crosses to Canadian soldiers: Private M. J. O’Rourke, Private Harry Brown, Sergeant Frederick Hobson and Major O. M. Learmonth. An excellent overview of all of these V.C. awards is available in the Legion Magazine’s special series “Canada and the Victoria Cross”.⁷

The success of the mission was attributed to great planning and great execution by the Canadian Expeditionary Force, lessons learnt after the Battle of the Somme in 1916. In writing of these battle tactics and lessons in his new book “At the Sharp End”, Canadian War Museum WW1 Historian, Tim Cook stated: ⁸  

“Like steel tempered in fire, the Canadian Corps emerged with the tools and harsh experience to become one of the most effective fighting forces on the Western Front”.

General Currie moved on from General Commanding Officer of the 1^st Canadian Division at the Somme in the fall of 1916, to become the Corps Commander for the Capture of Hill 70 in August 1917. The lessons he and his senior officers learnt at the Somme were evident in the planning and execution of the capture of Hill 70 during that fateful period in August 1917. General Currie's first stand had been a great success but the history of the battle has often been forgotten. We shall not forget.

Notes:

1. For a web based (hyperlinked) version of the complete article, please go to http://www.censol.ca/research/hill70. That version provides links to the maps, war diaries and other Internet Resources.
2. An extracted copy of Appendix 10 of the 2^nd Infantry Brigade War Diary and Appendix 21 of the 3^rd Infantry Brigade War Diary, as extracted with Marc Leroux’s “LAC Extract” Program can also be found on the above noted web site.
3. Sir Arthur Currie was no stranger to the forces described herein. Currie organized the militia of the 8^th Infantry Battalion of the 2^nd Brigade and was Brigadier-General of the 2^nd Brigade at 2^nd Ypres in April 1915. Currie would later assume command of the 1^st Canadian Division, then the Canadian Corps.

References:  

1. Humphries, M.O. (ed). 2008. The Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie – Diaries, Letters, and Report to the Ministry, 1917-1933. Wilfred Laurier University Press, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
2. Christie, N. DVD. Lost Battlefields: The Battles of Mount Sorrel and Hill 70. King and Empire Series. Breakthrough Entertainment.
3. Sheffield, G. and Boue, J.(ed).2005. Douglas Haig: War Diaries and Letters 1914-1918. The Orion Publishing Group Ltd., London, England.
4. Canadian Expeditionary Force. 1917. War Diary of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade, 1st Division: August 1917. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
5. Canadian Expeditionary Force. 1917. War Diary of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade, 1st Division: August 1917. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
6. Laughton, R. V. 2006. Nicholson Map 8: Hill 70 and Lens 15-25 August, 1917.  Google Earth Community.
7. Bishop, A. 2005. Canada & the Victoria Cross, Hand-to-hand On Hill 70: Part 8 of 18. Legion Magazine, Kanata, Ontario Canada.
8. Cook, T. 2007. At the Sharp End – Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914-1916, Volume 1.Penguin Group, Toronto, Ontario Canada.

Richard Laughton is the grandson of two Great War Soldiers, each of whom served in the CEF and BEF. They are responsible for his interest in Great War Research. A scientist-engineer by trade, Richard now dedicates most of his research time to the Great War Matrix Project and by helping other researchers “Keep the Flame Alive”. Richard is a member of Branch 136 of the Royal Canadian Legion, the Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group, the Western Front Association (Central Ontario) and is a founding member of Canada Company.

Novembre 2008

Le film de 8 minutes traite de la libération d'Écourt Saint Quentin (Pas de Calais, France) par 'the Canadian Grenadier Guards' (87e bataillon canadien), le 3 septembre 1918.

voir la vidéo: clique ici

Michel GRAVEL