The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted BBRs for several years, even cancelling BBR20 The Liberation of the Netherlands. However, BBR was revived in 2022 as Canada’s Last 100 Days of World War 1. This was a ride from Amiens, France where the Last 100 Day campaign began to Mons, Belgium. Here, General Sir Arthur Currie, commanding the Canadian Corps, led the fighting into the city where the war would come to an end. Ironically, this is also where the first battle of World War 1 was fought.
The Armistice that ended the fighting was signed in Mons on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918.
In a military cemetery, shared by British, Canadian and German soldiers, near Mons are buried the first British casualty of the war, Private J. Parr of the Middlesex Regiment and the last Canadian casualty of the war, Private George Price of the 38th Battalion, Canadian Infantry.
During BBR22, we made a stop at Vimy Ridge. Very close to Vimy, the French have erected a unique memorial, L’Anneau de la Mémoire, the Ring of Remembrance. This memorial lists the 576,606 soldiers of forty different nationalities who were killed in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region during WW1.
The 328 metre long elliptical ring comprises 500 panels, each 3 metres tall with the names of 1,200 men.
This is the only memorial that lists names alphabetically with no distinctions in rank, nationality, or allegiance.
The memorial is situated just 150 metres from France’s largest military cemetery at Ablain Saint-Nazaire. The site of the three Battles of Artois.
This, my second BBR, was significant to me as my grandfather fought in many of the battles of this campaign. You can read about him in My Military Family Tree.
The Road To Valour 