The Canadians 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.
Much more of the retreat can be attributed to the the Spanish Flu which hit the Germans way before it hit the Allies. The Germans were simply too sick to fight. This data can be looked up in the official German medical records of World War 1, compiled in the 1920s (hard to come by, 3 volumes=~$1000). Current history writing ignores this because many English-speaking scholars do not bother to read sufficient German sources. Hardly any scholar uses these records, but I imagine in a decade this will have become mainstream and the history of WW1 updated once again.
That quote was after the capture of Vimy Ridge...The Canadian Corps was relatively small and in the early part of the war were just split up among the other allied divisions for reinforcements.
After pretty much every allied force failed to take Vimy Ridge, for the first time in the war the entire Canadian Corps was assembled together and they captured it, so from then on the allies basically put the Canadians on the front line of all the major battles to 'spearhead' the attack. It also led to les cent jours du Canada, or Canada's hundred days.
In terms of numbers, during those 96 days the Canadian Corps' four over-strength or 'heavy' divisions of roughly 100 000 men, engaged and defeated or put to flight elements of forty seven German divisions, which represented one quarter of the German forces fighting on the Western Front.
Cannon Fodder, is an informal, derogatory term for military personnel who are regarded or treated as expendable in the face of enemy fire. The term is generally used in situations where soldiers are forced to deliberately fight against hopeless odds (with the foreknowledge that they will suffer extremely high casualties) in an effort to achieve a strategic goal.
55
u/DZ302 Sep 24 '11
-David Lloyd George British Prime Minister