G. F. Schleebenhorst said:
Sorry but this is yet another yank with the stupid and completely incorrect view that "The US won WWI"....that is a load of crap. The British (and its Commonwealth, particularly the ANZAC) and the French sacrificed millions of lives bringing that war to an end. The British invented the tank for crying out loud. The yanks just came along at the end with their stupid hats to claim all the glory. Even Canada probably did more.
I am sick of this crap.
Even Canada probably did more?
At the end of the war there was a victory parade in France. The US paraded their troops through the streets behind a big sign that some of them had made up that read “WE WON THE WAR” The US troops were followed by the Troops from Canada who made up their own little sign which read “WE HELPED” The humour and irony of that statement has been lost through the generations of the past but at that time the people who were there knew the score.
I sometimes think that if doughboys had the reputation of Canadian troops in WWI and the role that they had in the last 100 days of the war then we all would be hearing a lot more of the “America won the war crap.”
The Canadians had such a reputation in WW1 that it made a lasting impression.
Winston Curchill once said “Give me an army with British officers, Canadian soldiers and American equipment.”
Although the Canadians in WW2 had big boots to fill from WW1 and they did live up to that reputation its pretty safe to say that Churchill made the statement with the history of WW1 in mind.
During WWII Goebbels made a radio broadcast saying that if the Allies really wanted to capture Berlin, they would give each Canadian a motorcycle and a bottle of whiskey, and declare Berlin to be off limits to Canadian troops, and they would be there in 48 hours.
That’s not because they were undisciplined and drunks but because Canadians were known everywhere to consist of shock troops second to none on the western front and were frequently used as the spearhead with which to pierce particularly tough parts of the enemy defenses. The enemy said that the Canadians fought like devils as well as being their toughest opponents in the war and when a Canadian attack was sounded they would say their goodbyes to each other.
The victories at Ypres, Passchendaele, the Somme and Vimy Ridge gave Canadian soldiers an early reputation as a formidable fighting force that was able to overcome the most difficult obstacles. Canadian troops and their officers gained not only experience, but pride in their fighting ability, and glory from the recognition by other countries that they were the best storm troops for leading attacks.
At Ypres they were battered by shrapnel and machine-gun fire, hampered by rifles which often jammed solid, and violently ill from gas and gasping for air through mud-soaked handkerchiefs or for those who had the good fortune of hearing some advice from a Canadian officer who just happened to be a chemist in his previous life, pissed on their handkerchiefs to neutralize the effects of the gas. Their lines were destroyed but they held on until reinforcements arrived.
The Somme had cost Canada 24,029 casualties, but it was here that the Canadians confirmed their reputation as hard-hitting shock troops. "The Canadians", wrote Lloyd George, "played a part of such distinction that thenceforward they were marked out as storm troops; for the remainder of the way they were brought along to head the assault in one great battle after another. Whenever the Germans found the Canadian Corps coming into the line they prepared for the worst."
Many historians and writers consider the Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge a defining moment for Canada, when the country emerged from under the shadow of Britain and felt capable of greatness. Canadian troops confirmed their reputation as formidable, effective troops because of the stunning success that was made possible from rehearsing the attack before the battle and the innovative tactics that they used, many of which were developed by the two greatest Generals of World war I. An Australian, General Monash and a Canadian, General Curry.
British military historian Sir Basil Liddell Hart would later call the Canadians "matchless attacking troops" he also said “Regarding them as storm troops the enemy tended to greet their appearance as an omen of a coming attack."
The beginning of the last Allied offensive August 8-11 1918 was the battle of Amiens. For Amiens it was more important to conceal from the enemy the intentions of the Canadian Corps than any other formation. The Germans were used to anticipating where the attack would be launched based upon where the Canadians were located.
The Germans were deceived into thinking that the Canadians, who had shown themselves, had moved to one part of the line further North of Arras. The Allies dragged heavy chains around to simulate the sound and dust created by a large tank concentration. Fake wireless traffic was also used as they knew the Germans were able to listen in. While the Germans were preparing for an attack the Canadians were secretly moved farther south to Amiens.
Amiens was the fist battle to use the power of combined-arms warfare with infantry and artillery, machine-guns, tanks, aircraft and armoured cars. British historians have said that the innovative Canadian tactics for rapid attack and this use of combined arms influenced the Blitzkrieg tactics that Germany used in WW2.
The Canadians spearheaded this attack with the Australians, who were also known as shock troops, on their left flank. On the Canadian right was the French army and on the Australian left was the British.
The Allied forces won a major victory. The 4 Canadian divisions defeated parts of 15 German divisions, routing 4, at a cost of some 9000 casualties. Sir Julian Byng, a British general, said that the Canadian performance at Amiens was “the finest operation of the war.”
In the first day at Amiens the Canadians gained 13 kilometres, the Australians 11, the French 8 and the British 3. I should say here that the Americans also had a part in the beginning of this last great offensive. Unfortunately some US battalions who were attached to Australian divisions to gain experience were taken out of the line by Pershing who thought that they were not yet ready to be committed to a battle. Another US unit attached to a British reserve division did see action. But as so many times later in WW2 and so happens to this day with the US military it was a friendly fire action. A handful of Australians assisted by some British took a hill and had already captured German prisoners and were leading them down when the doughboys opened up on them. The prisoners fled and the Aussies hit the dirt. Some things never change.
The Germans lost 27,000 men and 400 guns as well as hundreds of mortars and machine-guns on that first day. The Canadian’s penetration of the enemy line was unequalled: no other engagement on the Western Front up to that time had achieved this kind of success as the result of a single day’s fighting.
The German General Ludendorff, said that August 8, 1918 was “the blackest day of the German Army in the history of the war.”
This Allied success initiated the "hundred days" which threw the Germans back all along the Western Front, The Canadians had more casualties then any other British or Commonwealth army but their morale was high and they continued to fight as the Allies spearhead almost continuously all the way to the end of the war. Taking up the attack again on August 23 and onto the Queant-Drocourt line on September 3 and 4 which was considered the most difficult of the Hindenburg defensive lines by both Allies and enemy alike. They continued to push the enemy farther back through many battles with the Allied armies until from October 26th to November 2d the Canadians had the signal honor of capturing Valenciennes being the first troops to break through the fourth and last Hindenburg line.
On the last day of fighting the Canadians were in the city of Mons on November 11 1918, the city where the British started their war in 1914.
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/firstworldwar/051806/0518060601_e.html
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/heirloom_series/volume4/160-161.html
http://www.lermuseum.org/ler/cof/sacrifice/wwi/canadas100days.html
... In victory Germany would have then gone on to fuck things up in the Middle east just as much as we all did and with twice the mustard gas.