In Flanders Fields – Part 12: The Battle of Vimy Ridge Part 2: Tactics & Strategies

By Joe Corrigan

When General Julian Byng was developing the battle plan for the coming assault on Vimy Ridge he sent General Arthur Currie to the Somme and Verdun to learn from the British and the French what went wrong with those battles and make his recommendations. Currie was a stickler for detail and the information he came back with was pivotal in the success achieved by the Canadian Corps during the attack on April 9-12, 1917. Some of the resulting tactics were new and some were refinements of things that had been tried at the Somme and Verdun but needed to be tweaked. The following is a summary of the innovations that the Canadians implemented in the attack:

·         Counter Artillery Barrage – The traditional role of the artillery was to focus on attacking infantry. Both sides traditionally followed this approach. The Canadian Corps’ head of Artillery was a 29 year old professor named Andrew McNaughton. McNaughton would become the commander-in-chief of the Canadian Army at the start of World War II. At Vimy Ridge he spearheaded efforts to develop artillery tactics. The idea of the Counter Barrage was to pinpoint the location of enemy artillery and, during the attack, target the German guns to knock them out so they couldn’t focus on the Canadian infantry. McNaughton used aerial reconnaissance and gun flash spotting along with microphone listening posts on the ground to determine the location of the enemy’s batteries. This work was all theoretical as the Canadians couldn’t try it out for fear of tipping their hand before the actual day of the attack. That would have allowed the Germans the opportunity to re-position their guns, spoiling weeks and months of detailed calculations. The gunners tried to isolate and elimination one gun position prior to the assault to test their theory but they missed. Despite the skeptics, McNaughton’s team was confident of their methodology and calculations and prepared for the attack.

Vimy Artillery

·         Creeping Barrage – This tactic was tried at the Somme with limited success. The idea was for infantry to follow closely behind an artillery barrage that was designed to keep the enemy in their trenches until the moment the attacking troops would be on top of them. The barrage would then be directed to the next line of trenches. It wasn’t successful at the Somme because of lack of coordination between the infantry and artillery. Troops got too close to the barrage and were killed by friendly fire or they lagged behind and the Germans had time to man their defenses before an attack could be launched. At Vimy Ridge the barrage would be timed and the infantry was given specific instructions as to how fast they should move. The result was something known as the “Vimy Glide”. The troops moved forward at a pace of 100 yards every three minutes. This pace proved fast enough to stay out of harm’s way but close enough behind the barrage so that the Germans had no chance of mounting an effective defense.

·         The “Week of Suffering” – Prior to the Battle of the Somme, British artillery pounded the German lines with millions of shells. The theory was that this much artillery fire would destroy all the barbed wire and eliminate all the Germans from the front line trenches. The problems were that the shells used, either high explosive or shrapnel, were ineffective at clearing away the barb wire which was still intact when the British troops went over the top on July 1st. They also didn’t have the desired effect on the German troops who, with their strategy of defense in depth, weathered the barrage reasonably well and had time enough to collect themselves and man their guns to meet the attackers. The result was over 50,000 casualties on the first day of battle alone. The Canadian’s 1,000 artillery pieces also let loose a million shell barrage of their own in the week prior to the assault on Vimy Ridge. The difference was in their use of explosives that detonated on contact with the barbed wire resulting in a clearer path for the troops to advance during the attack.

·         Indirect Fire – At the start of the war, Canada had more machine guns than their British counterparts. The machine gun battalions at Vimy Ridge added their fire power to that of the artillery shells. At long range the machine guns bullets added an extra element of devastation to the bombardment. This tactic, introduced at Vimy Ridge, was adopted in widespread fashion by both sides for the rest of the war.   

Vimy Machine Guns

  

·         Infantry Training – One of the problems at the Somme was that the British troops did not have a firm idea of their objectives. If their leaders were killed or put out of action, the survivors had no idea where to go. To ensure that this didn’t happen at Vimy Ridge, Byng and Currie set up models of the ridge in the rear areas and had the attacking battalions practice on them. The Canadian troops were let in on the secret plans for the attack and knew what they had to do every step of the way. The troops were given maps and, other than not knowing the actual date of the attack, were as well informed as their officers as to the strategies. Their platoons were re-organized into integrated fighting units. In the past, infantry, grenadiers and machine gunners fought in separate units. These divisions were eliminated and the platoons had elements of all three types of weapons so, when they came upon an enemy stronghold, they had the resources to effectively deal with it. Coupled with this was the independence of movement that allowed the platoons flexibility as opposed to having to walk towards the enemy in long lines that were easy targets for machine gunners.      

General Byng

Vimy Map

The next installment of “In Flanders Fields” will deal with the actual attack itself. The British and French were skeptical that the Canadians could take the ridge; a defensive strong-point that had cost those two armies over 160,000 casualties in the years prior to 1917. The Canadian Corps would cement its reputation as an elite fighting force as a result of the battle of Vimy Ridge.  

Joe Corrigan has been Museum Manager at Lang Pioneer Village since February of 2003. He has been a lifelong student of history. His specific areas of interest are Canadian and world political, military and sports history with a particular focus on biographical works. Joe has been interpreting Sir John A. Macdonald at the Museum's Historic Dominion Day event since 2007.