Battles Of A Hundred Days

 Here we see a battlefield medical kit of the World War One era.

Blood transfusion sets were being brought to the field of battle, saving lives.

Men from across Canada and all sorts of backgrounds fought in the First World War. Women served as nurses and in other capacities, as well as doing work at home.

The Hundred Days is the final stage of that war, in which the stalemate of four years of trench warfare was finally broken, and victory was achieved at a high cost, a series of battles along the western front in which Germany was pushed back again and again.

What broke the stalemate? The concept of combined-arms fighting, simply the coordinated work of infantry, artillery, tanks, and aircraft in fighting together and supporting each other in battle. After four years of futility and throwing masses of men at heavily defended positions for nothing, someone finally got it right. 

Arthur Currie commanded the Canadians from June 1917. While not a popular commander among his men, he was nonetheless a very effective general, and a believer in being prepared. His ceremonial sword is displayed here.

Newfoundland was a separate dominion at the time, not part of Canada, and sent troops to fight in the war, and yet also sent some of them to fight alongside their Canadian counterparts. Robert Pilot was one of them. In the years afterwards he would be known for his vivid art.

Lieutenant Samuel Honey won the Victoria Cross for his bravery and leadership at the Canal du Nord, part of the Hundred Days. Like so many others, he did what seemed impossible, but did it anyway.

This is a model of a tank making its way across terrain, with supporting infantry.

The tank was brand new to warfare; while slow, they provided a reason for the enemy to worry.

The Conquerors is a work by Eric Kennington, painted after the war. It depicts Canadian soldiers during the Hundred Days on the march. Among them, characterized by pale faces black rimmed eyes, are the ghosts of their fallen comrades.

The Hundred Days saw Canadians doing the extraordinary, pushing back the Germans time and again in a series of fierce battles, but at an enormous cost in casualties.