Sint Juliaan Canadian Memorial

Saint Julien Wood is a section of forested land in Belgium, near Langemark at the north east of the Ypres Salient. During World War I, the location was known as 'Vancouver Corner'. Kitchener's Wood is close by. It is where one of the most infamous battles of World War I occurred from the 22nd to 24th of April, 1915 between the 5th, 8th, 10th and 15th Battalions of the 2nd Brigade of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and the German Army. The Canadian battalions were the some of the first Allied Powers to experience a German chlorine gas attack, at the beginning of the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. Of 816 Canadian soldiers from 10th Battalion CEF, who were on the left flank of the British forces, 623 of them lay dead by the end of 23 April. They were buried where they fell. Visible for miles around, the memorial stands 11 metres tall. The central column rises from a flagstone terrace and is sculpted at its top to form the bowed head and shoulders of a Canadian soldier, his hands resting on his reversed rifle. The column is surrounded by gardens of tall cedars trimmed into the shape of artillery shells and low cut cedars trimmed to look like shell explosions. The memorial was unveiled on 8 July 1923 by the Duke of Connaught and the tribute was made by Marshal Foch, former supreme commander of the Allied Powers armed forces on the Western Front.The Canadian Battlefield Monument Commission established after the Great War was appointed to select the location and design of the memorials to commemorate the Canadian participation in the First World War. The Canadian National Vimy Memorial at Vimy Ridge was selected as the national memorial site and seven other locations at St. Julien, Passchendaele and Hill 62 in Belgium, as well as Le Quesnel, Dury, Courcelette and Bourlon Wood in France were chosen to commemorate significant battles the Canadian Expeditionary Force had engaged in. Each of the seven sites were to have an identical granite block inscribed with a brief description of the battle in both English and French. St. Julien however, received the 'Brooding Soldier' monument after its design placed second to Walter Allward's plans for the Vimy Memorial, but it was thought to be too good to go unused..