The Easter Monday That Changed the World
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On an Easter Monday a little over 90 years ago, the world changed forever. On that day a terrible battle was fought and won, in a place called Vimy Ridge, in France.
The battle marked the first major victory for the Allied nations facing the German and Central Forces. Prior to the victory at Vimy Ridge, those same Allied forces had been met with one staggering defeat after another. The First World War was the first post Napoleonic-era war and Europe and the rest of the world would never be same. In the end, the war was to cause the disintegration of four empires that had changed the world. The Austro-Hungarian, German, Russian and Ottoman Empires were lost. Half a dozen new states were created in Europe, and Poland and Lithuania were recreated. Most importantly, the First World War was a transitional war. Whereas wars were once fought exclusively for territory and resources, the First World War was fought about ideas and the imposition of those ideas, some of which were less than savory, to be sure.
With newest technologies of the day factored in, the engines of war were fierce, indeed. The casualties of the day were unprecedented.
On April 9, 1917, Easter Monday, four Canadian divisions from that new nation across the Atlantic, were called upon to fight together in Old Europe, to secure Vimy Ridge, a hellish place on this earth that had claimed 150,000 French lives alone. Other thousands of British soldiers were to make the ultimate sacrifice, too.
For a week prior to the actual battle, artillery barrages and exchanges could be heard across the channel in the south of England, 100 miles away.
On that Easter Monday, the Canadian soldiers were given a hot breakfast (about as common as Loch Ness monster sightings) and some rum: