Canadian troops crossed the dry bed of the Canal du Nord in northern France at 5:20 a.m. on Sept. 27, 1918, opening an assault that breached one of the last intact stretches of Germany’s Hindenburg Line, according to the Canadian War Museum and Canada’s Department of National Defence.
The attack was the idea of Lieutenant-General Arthur Currie, commander of the Canadian Corps, who spotted an opening other planners had passed over. Most of the canal ran full of water and was heavily defended, but a section between the villages of Sains-lez-Marquion and Moeuvres had never been finished and sat largely dry. Sources differ on exactly how wide that gap was, the Department of National Defence describes a 3,500-metre dry section, while the Vimy Foundation puts the crossing corridor closer to two kilometres, but all agree it was narrow enough that funnelling an entire corps through it was considered a serious gamble. Currie’s plan called for four infantry battalions from the 1st and 4th Canadian Divisions, about 2,100 soldiers, to squeeze through the gap behind a barrage from 785 guns, then fan out across a front more than nine kilometres wide to bring three Canadian divisions and one British division into the fight, according to the Vimy Foundation. Royal Canadian Engineers followed the leading troops to throw prefabricated bridges across the canal bed under fire, letting artillery and support units move up in time to back the advance.
The gamble paid off. Canadian troops advanced nearly eight kilometres on the first day, capturing the Marquion trench line and the high ground at Bourlon Wood, which had commanded German artillery fire over the whole sector, the Canadian War Museum says. German resistance stiffened over the following days along the Marcoing Line and the Canal de l’Escaut, and the advance slowed considerably before Canadian and British forces consolidated their gains. The Department of National Defence dates that consolidation to around Oct. 1, while the Vimy Foundation treats the fighting as continuing into mid-October amid the push toward Cambrai.
The victory came at a heavy cost. The Department of National Defence puts Canadian casualties at more than 10,000 killed, wounded or missing in the Canal du Nord fighting, including more than 230 whose bodies were never recovered. The Canadian War Museum describes the combined Arras and Canal du Nord operations of August and September 1918 as among “the most costly but impressive engagements fought by the Canadian Corps” in the war.
Among those who died was Lieutenant Samuel Lewis Honey, a schoolteacher from Conn, Ontario, serving with the 78th Battalion. When every other officer in his company became a casualty on the opening day, Honey took command, reorganized the unit under fire and led it forward, according to his Victoria Cross citation. He rushed a machine-gun post alone, capturing its guns and 10 prisoners, then helped beat back four German counterattacks over the following two days. He was fatally wounded on Sept. 30 and died before learning his Victoria Cross had been approved; it was gazetted in January 1919. He is buried at Queant Communal Cemetery in Pas-de-Calais, and his medal is now held at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. He was one of several Canadians decorated with the Victoria Cross for the battle, alongside soldiers such as Captain John MacGregor of the Canadian Mounted Rifles.
The breach at Canal du Nord opened the road to Cambrai, which Allied forces liberated within days, and contributed to the broader collapse of German defences during the Hundred Days Offensive that ended the war on Nov. 11, 1918. Historians consider the battle, alongside Vimy Ridge, one of the clearest examples of the tactical innovation the Canadian Corps developed over four years of fighting on the Western Front.
