Capturing Hill 70: Canada’s Forgotten Battle of the First World War
Edited by Douglas E. Delaney and Serge M. Durflinger
The product of nine leading scholars, Capturing Hill 70 explores key elements of the August 1917 Battle of Hill 70, a costly yet virtually forgotten Canadian engagement of the First World War. This event will illuminate the battle’s pivotal role in forging the character of the famed Canadian Corps. This presentation will appeal to those interested in the First World War and Canadian history.
Presenters: Dr. Serge Durflinger is a Professor in the History Department at the University of Ottawa. The co-editor and author of Capturing Hill 70, Dr. Durflinger is also the author of Fighting From Home: The Second World War in Verdun, Quebec and Veterans with a Vision: Canada’s War Blinded in Peace and War.
Dr. Tim Cook, the Canadian War Museum’s First World War Historian, contributed to Capturing Hill 70, and has published eight award-winning books on Canadian military history.
The Canadian War Museum is pleased to launch Capturing Hill 70: Canada’s Forgotten Battle of the First World War, the latest volume in the Studies in Canadian Military History Series published by UBC Press.
In August 1917, the Canadian Corps captured Hill 70, vital terrain just north of the French town of Lens. The Canadians suffered some 5,400 casualties and in three harrowing days defeated twenty-one German counterattacks. This spectacularly successful but shockingly costly battle was as innovative as Vimy, yet few Canadians have heard of it. Capturing Hill 70 marks the centenary of this triumph by dissecting different facets of the battle, from planning and conducting operations to long-term repercussions and commemoration. It reinstates Hill 70 to its rightful place among the pantheon of battles that forged the reputation of the famed Canadian Corps during the First World War.
This collection groups together leading scholars whose contributions expose different facets of the battle’s planning, conduct, and longer-term ramifications. Based on Canadian, British, and German records, these essays form a powerful addition to the emerging literature on Canada and the First World War, and will offer a detailed and comprehensive understanding of a little-known, yet significant, part of Canada’s wartime experience.
This book launch is presented in collaboration with UBC Press.