100 Years Later, Battle of Vimy Ridge Remains Key Symbol for Canada

100 Years Later, Battle of Vimy Ridge Remains Key Symbol for Canada
By IAN AUSTENAPRIL 9, 2017
OTTAWA — Several hundred people gathered at Canada’s national war memorial at sunset on Saturday to mark the 100th anniversary
of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, a fierce World War I fight in northern France that looms large in Canada’s national identity.
Speaking of the nearly 3,600 Canadian soldiers who died during the battle, he added, "It was through their sacrifice
that Canada became an independent signatory of the Treaty of Versailles, and in that sense, in that way, Canada was born here." The ceremony in France was attended by other world leaders, including President François Hollande of France, Prince Charles of Britain and his sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.
After the war, France gave 100 hectares of the battlefield to Canada, and the Canadian government decided
that the memorial would serve as the country’s primary overseas monument to World War I, a struggle in which a country of just eight million people lost 66,000 soldiers.
Tim Cook said that I don’t think we’d be talking about Vimy right now if the monument had not been built there,
That sentiment was reflected at the ceremony in Ottawa
and at others across Canada throughout the weekend, and at the Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge near Arras, France, on Sunday, where about 25,000 people gathered, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and relatives of those who fought in the four-day battle.
Though the view that modern Canada was created out of the country’s involvement in World War I is now widely held outside Quebec,
a debate continues over the degree to which the sense of nationhood can be attributed to the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
"I can’t exactly explain why at certain times and moments in our history we focus on certain things from our past,
but we certainly focus on Vimy." Vimy has endured as a symbol of Canada’s role in the war partly because of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial on the battlefield.