Canada was forged as a nation in World War One—especially at Vimy Ridge when Canadian soldiers from the frontier taught their British and French allies how to fight the Germans. And it is to these soldiers, who defended civilization against barbarism, that we owe our democratic freedoms and our national independence. Or so say the “Vimyists”—those who wish to make war the source of Canadian identity and the First World War the Birth of the Nation. In this lecture, Dr. McKay will argue that these ideas about Canadian history are driven more by present-day politics than by a mature consideration of the complexities and subtleties of the past.