In memory of

Peter Sylvere Arsenault, Private
Died 05 May 1917, age: 21

Peter Sylvere Arsenault, Service Number: 712869, served in the Army with the Canadian Infantry, Nova Scotia Regiment, 25th Bn.

He was the son of Sylvain E. and Celeste Arsenault of Tignish, Prince Edward Island.

Peter Sylvere was laid to rest in the Vimy Memorial in France.

Cemetery Location and Information: Canada's most impressive tribute overseas to those Canadians who fought and gave their lives in the First World War is the majestic and inspiring Vimy Memorial, which overlooks the Douai Plain from the highest point of Vimy Ridge, about eight kilometres northeast of Arras on the N17 towards Lens.

The Memorial is signposted from this road to the left, just before you enter the village of Vimy from the south. The memorial itself is someway inside the memorial park, but again it is well signposted. At the base of the Vimy Memorial, these words appear in French and in English:

"To the valour of their Countrymen in the great war and in memory of their sixty thousand dead this monument is raised by the people of Canada"

Inscribed on the ramparts of the Vimy Memorial are the names of over 11,000 Canadian soldiers who were posted as "missing, presumed dead" in France.

The land for the battlefield park, 91.18 hectares in extent, was (as stated on a plaque at the entrance to the Vimy Memorial) "the free gift in perpetuity of the French nation to the people of Canada". Eleven thousand tonnes of concrete and masonry were required for the base of the Vimy Memorial: and 5,500 tonnes of "trau" stone were brought from Yugoslavia for the pylons and the sculptured figures. Construction of the massive work began in 1925, and 11 years later, on July 26, 1936, the monument was unveiled by King Edward VIII.

The park surrounding the Vimy Memorial was created by orticultural experts. Canadian trees and shrubs were planted in great masses to resemble the woods and forests of Canada. Around the Vimy Memorial, beyond the grassy slopes of the approaches, are wooded parklands. Trenches and tunnels have been restored and preserved and the visitor can picture the magnitude of the task that faced the Canadian Corps on that distant dawn when history was made.

Grave Reference: N/A

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