FRANK HURLEY/AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL COLLECTION/E01220

Stalemate: How the First World War reached a four-year impasse

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Red piping or blue adorn cages surrounding elm saplings at seemingly random points alongside roadways around the town of Ieper in western Belgium.

A centennial project of the In Flanders Fields Museum, they trace the near-encirclement of the town and delineate the furthest point of advance by invading German forces (red) and the corresponding Allied (blue) front lines through five major battles around what was then known, and is forever remembered, as Ypres.

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More from Front Lines

• The complicated life and career of Fritz Haber, father of chemical warfare
• The Flanders legacy: Stijn Butaye and the iron harvest
• The Calgary Mosquito project: Resurrecting a WW II legend in Nanton, Alta.

CWM/20110129-002

Painting the Battle of Ortona

STORY BY PAIGE JASMINE GILMAR

“The price of Peace, borne by the brave—

Is priceless…”

So goes part of the final stanza of George Elliott Clarke’s “At Ortona: An oratorio,” a poetic memorial of the blood, guts and glory of the Second World War’s Battle of Ortona. While lauded by CBC war correspondents as an example of Canadian heroism in the 1940s, the battle was largely forgotten.

The fight to push Nazi forces from the Italian town in December 1943 left more than 500 dead and nearly 2,000 more casualties, and featured dramatic house-to-house urban combat. It was Canada’s first stand-alone victory of the war. But as its 80th anniversary nears, Ortona remains for many people an obscure moment in Canadian history.

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More from Military Milestones

• A Canadian commander of the War of 1812
• The Korean War’s only RCAF prisoner
• The many sides of Arthur Currie

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