pecunium

One of the things I did in Ottawa was visit the Canadian War Museum. The building is impressive. From large parts of the city it can’t be missed. A sharp prow of brown splitting the horizon; rising into the sky. At the risk of being a clueless foreigner, I’ll give my impressions.

Walking toward it, from the south, the face of the wall is broken with a string of Morse code, “Lest we forget/n'oublions jamais.” The museum itself is divided into sections by period. The wars of settlement and conquest. The “American War” (where they quite rightly point out that they ate our lunch). The Boer War (about which they are, with some justification, a trifle bitter) World Wars 1, and 2, and the various peacekeepings they’ve been doing since. Some of the art is touching, some of it magnificent, some of it sobering, and a few pieces of wrenching candor. Some require knowing both the history of events, and the smallness of Canadian society.

They seem much more aware of what they ask their soldiers to do, and what it costs to do it.

They’ve also been less belligerent than we. Our seminal conflict, the one which is still affecting how we see ourselves, is the Civil War. For them it’s WW1, which was when they (as did Australia) cut the last sense of being second string to Britain. Passchendaele and Vimy Ridge were when they cut the final ties (though it’s amusing to me that the seminal Canadian novel of the Great War, Generals Die in Bed was written by an American. Which is almost as amusing as the most famous poem from the Foreign Legion having been written by an American too. The latter is perhaps because English readers don’t know any of the others, but I digress).

Passchendaele was one of the most appalling battles, in a string of appalling battles of WW 1. Not only was it a wet season, but the various preparations had destroyed the water management. The ground was sodden. The artillery preparation for the advance made it even worse.

There was no solid ground, there was nothing but shell holes to take cover in. They might be solid at the bottom; they might be nothing but muddy sinkholes. Thousands of soldiers died, not from wounds, but because they fell down and drowned.

The WW1 Exhibit is moving. They have a section of simulated trench, in gloomy light. A dugout is carved in the side wall. Marna commented I was one of the few people she knew who was small enough to fit it, with some semblance of ease. I commented that it was cozy, to which she said I was daft. The periscope had the pleasant anachronism of footage from some push; it was in black and white.

Then to the Passchendaele exhibit. One of the reasons the Canadians are bitter about WW1 is that battle. The British left them in the lurch. When all was said and done the Canadians had pushed a bulge in, and held it, despite the mud, the isolation and being exposed on their flanks they held. The result? Five months later, when the ground was firmer, the Germans took it all back.

This exhibit wasn’t grim, it was gruesome. As with the trench it was dark. The walkway was “duckboards” down to the right was a smooth featured bronze, a pit of mud. In it was the helmet, and wrinkled back of a drowned soldier.

Vimy Ridge was another case of the Canadians pushing on, and the British playing catch up. During the Battle of Arras, in 1917, they managed to take the high ground of Vimy Ridge. Among other things it was the only place the entirety of Canadian forces fought in one unit during the war. Four of them were awarded the Victoria Cross. The 92nd anniversary of the taking of Vimy Ridge is in a week.

The WW2 exhibit was as well done, if a little more, viscerally disturbing. They have a piece of street, modeled on Italy, and a soldier is leaning back, preparing to go through an archway. It made me more than a trifle nervous. When I crossed through, there was a German soldier on the other side, with an MP-40. There was also an electric eye, which triggered the sound of gunfire. I flinched.

But the keynote of the museum is downstairs. After all the upstairs, one heads down to the “motor pool”, where a huge collection of vehicles/armaments (from black powder artillery, to modern vehicles), all in the closest to working order as can be managed, are kept.

To get to that one has to down to, and through, the “Regeneration Hall” where some of the casting models for the memorial at Vimy Ridge are kept. On entering there is an eerie (and quickly irritating) ululating bit of choral music, meant I suppose, to establish mood. It isn’t needed. Across from the entrance, 200 feet away, and 30 feet below is a statue. Framed in the window is the Peace Tower. The light is all from that window, and the Morse code inscription (which is revealed to be windows).

Suffice it to say, the >models are stunning. From the initial impression, through the evolution of affect as one moves from far above them, to being on their level, to below.

Staggering.

Once more unto the breach...