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In
June 1917, Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur
Currie became the first Canadian to command
the Canadian Corps. That October-November,
fighting on horrific battlefields in
waist-deep mud, the Corps captured Passchendaele,
in Belgium, but suffered 16,000 killed or
wounded. From 8 August 1918 to the Armistice
of 11 November, the Canadians were in
the forefront of the Allied advance that
finally defeated Germany. This period
is known as Canada’s “Hundred
Days”. General Erich Ludendorff,
then Chief of Staff of the German Army,
referred to 8 August, the first day of
the Canadians’ offensive at Amiens
as, “The Black Day of the German
Army”. The Corps had advanced as
far as Mons, Belgium when the war ended.
The cost of victory was steep: in the
last three months the Canadians had lost
45,000 men killed or wounded.
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