Across Canada, ceremonies were held Friday to remember the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

This is the 93rd anniversary of the battle, and the first with no surviving veterans of World War One.

John Babcock, the last remaining Canadian who was enlisted during the Great War, died this past February aged 109.

In a statement issued Friday in honour of the anniversary of the battle at Vimy, the Queen said Babcock's generation "helped to end the most terrible conflict the world had ever known."

"These gallant men and women went off to Europe to … defend the principles of peace, freedom and justice for their country and, indeed, for all mankind," she said.

In Quebec City veterans of WWII, the Korean War and other conflicts, along with families, friends, and a respectful public, gathered to mark the occasion.

"My dad died in the Second World War in Normandy so I'm always there," said Real Donati, himself a veteran of 33 years in the armed forces..

The ceremony offered a moment to look back, but also the opportunity to look to the present war in Afgahistan, in a city that has a long and ongoing military tradition.

In fact yet another contingent of soldiers is leaving from CFB Valcartier in November, to do battle against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

At Friday's ceremony Premier Jean Charest said Vimy was a moment that shaped the nation.

"Thousands of men left their lives on that battlefield so we could have the freedoms we have today," said Charest.

The enormous death toll affected the country's future.

"The number of lives that were lost had a very direct impact on the development of Canada as a country," said Charest. "It slowed us down and that's just one measure of the sacrifice that was made."

Retired Gen. Rick Hillier, former chief of the defence staff, called the battle a singular moment in Canadian history, memorable for both what was achieved by Canadian troops working side by side and how they achieved victory in a battle that allied forces had already tried, but failed, to win.

"The Canadians took that ridge in the face of the worst conditions you could imagine. Blowing snow, terrible ground, uphill attack into machine gun and artillery fire that would have been prepared for years," he told CTV News Channel Friday. "Thousands of German troops were waiting for just such an attack and were expecting it. Two other countries had tried to do it and failed dismally, and so the fact that we won was huge, because it was against this very dark background of two years of war by now and millions of casualties already."

But even more important than the fact that the battle of Vimy Ridge was won on April 9, 1917 is the fact that it was won by Canadian soldiers from all four divisions fighting, for the first time, together in battle.

"We did not have our forces spread across a variety of fronts or military structures," Hillier said. "We had them all together, fighting for Canada, and I think what we achieved, how we achieved it and doing it for Canada as one group is something that continues, 93 years later, to feed our country."

Ceremonies were also held at the Vimy Ridge National Historic Site, a 100-hectare portion of the battleground in France that now serves as a memorial park, and at the Canada Memorial in London.

With files from The Canadian Press