RANGERS ROADS - October 1th 1918 Iwuy: The Rangers’ Bitter Breakthrough

The “Hundred Days” of spectacular achievement and bitter price between August 8th 1918 and the Armistice of November 11th are little understood in Canada.  The 20th Battalion, the Rangers, remember October 11th at Iwuy for both.

After the ‘Black Day’ for the German Army at Amiens where the Canadian Corps bored 13 km deep into their lines in a single day, the Kaiser’s generals placed their hope on the thick belts of layered fortifications, the Hindenburg Line.  By October 11, the Canadian spear-tip had lanced almost all the way through; it wasn’t easy.

Now, at Iwuy, just northeast of Cambrai, the Germans were desperately clinging to the very last vestiges of that line.  The Rangers (and the other battalions of the 4th Canadian Brigade) were tasked with sweeping them away.

This time, however, the ground was wide open and rolling, artillery support was minimal, and what cover that existed was in German hands.  At full strength, the Rangers had 1,100 men, that morning they could count some 750.  By the end of the day, only 300 mostly unwounded were on hand.

However, the Rangers went well beyond Iwuy.  Maxim guns had taken a heavy toll as had several German counterattacks – one of which was foiled by the daring of Lt Wallace Algie and nine volunteers who cracked open the defences of Iwuy itself.  Several minutes after his spectacular achievement, he was killed by a sniper – making his Victoria Cross a posthumous award.

With that day’s achievements, the Germans had no remaining unbroken defence lines on the Western Front, and the Allies began a general advance from Switzerland to the North Sea.  Still, retreating Germans have to be prodded constantly, and another month of hard work awaited the shrunken battalion.