2002 - First World War Battlefields - France and Belgium
Late in 2002 I heard two very different people state that two very different experiences were "like being on the Somme."The first comment related to a car park which had been turned into a mud heap by the affects of too much rain and too many vehicles on a spare piece of land. The second referred to the state of a football pitch where a game had to be postponed.
Until October neither of these comments would have had much affect on me. All that changed, however, thanks to a short two day visit to the First World War battlefields of Ypres and the Somme in France and Belgium.
Today the battlefields are situated in peaceful rolling countryside - the kind of insignificant scenery that wouldn't usually command a second glance.But amongst the peace and tranquility lie appalling stories of degradation and waste of human life. I defy anyone visiting the area not to return with a one word question on their lips: "WHY?"
On purely historic grounds there could be justification for the Great War. Too many nations were positioning themselves to dominate too few. On humanitarian grounds, however, there can be no justification for the bloodshed that turned peaceful hamlets into raging blood-letting which ended with thousand upon thousand of young lives being lost.There are literally thousands of war graves in the area I visited in hundreds of cemeteries. Many of those buried there were teenagers fighting for their King and country because they believed that this would bring them a better life than the one they left at home.
And the Somme and Ypres are just a small part of the massive theatre that was the Great War.
I returned to Norfolk with a feeling of the futility of it all and an anger that so many people could be mis-led into believing that they were part of an elite fighting force moving on towards glory when the stark reality was that many were moving on to be simply butchered for a cause that the politicians soon lost sight of.
To read the individual graves is heart rending enough but you only realise the size of the calamity by visiting sites such as the Menin Gate at Ypres or the Thiepval Memorial where the names of those missing are inscribed on the towering walls.It is also hard to comprehend that these names were fathers, sons, brothers and uncles. They were living flesh reduced to letters a few inches high - each one a life cruelly extinguished.
It is impossible to imagine what some of these men could have contributed to our country had they survived and lived to make their mark on life. How many children were never born because of the Great War?And of course I refer not just to the United Kingdom. Our trip also took in the German cemetery at Langemark where thousands of students are buried. They included students of philosophy, medicine and the classics. How the world could have benefited from their futures!
Until October neither of these comments would have had much affect on me. All that changed, however, thanks to a short two day visit to the First World War battlefields of Ypres and the Somme in France and Belgium.
Today the battlefields are situated in peaceful rolling countryside - the kind of insignificant scenery that wouldn't usually command a second glance.But amongst the peace and tranquility lie appalling stories of degradation and waste of human life. I defy anyone visiting the area not to return with a one word question on their lips: "WHY?"
On purely historic grounds there could be justification for the Great War. Too many nations were positioning themselves to dominate too few. On humanitarian grounds, however, there can be no justification for the bloodshed that turned peaceful hamlets into raging blood-letting which ended with thousand upon thousand of young lives being lost.There are literally thousands of war graves in the area I visited in hundreds of cemeteries. Many of those buried there were teenagers fighting for their King and country because they believed that this would bring them a better life than the one they left at home.
And the Somme and Ypres are just a small part of the massive theatre that was the Great War.
I returned to Norfolk with a feeling of the futility of it all and an anger that so many people could be mis-led into believing that they were part of an elite fighting force moving on towards glory when the stark reality was that many were moving on to be simply butchered for a cause that the politicians soon lost sight of.
To read the individual graves is heart rending enough but you only realise the size of the calamity by visiting sites such as the Menin Gate at Ypres or the Thiepval Memorial where the names of those missing are inscribed on the towering walls.It is also hard to comprehend that these names were fathers, sons, brothers and uncles. They were living flesh reduced to letters a few inches high - each one a life cruelly extinguished.
It is impossible to imagine what some of these men could have contributed to our country had they survived and lived to make their mark on life. How many children were never born because of the Great War?And of course I refer not just to the United Kingdom. Our trip also took in the German cemetery at Langemark where thousands of students are buried. They included students of philosophy, medicine and the classics. How the world could have benefited from their futures!
My journey began on an ordinary Monday morning when we boarded a coach at 6 a.m from the Ramada Jarvis Hotel in Norwich.
Apart from a "comfort break" and a very swift cup of coffee at a service station, it was non stop to Folkestone for the Channel Tunnel Shuttle. A misunderstanding regarding the bookings meant we were unable to catch our scheduled 10.21 a.m shuttle and had to wait for over an hour.
Our late arrival at Calais meant that the first stopping point - Poperinge - had to be dropped and so it was straight to our first war graves at Essex Farm.
Essex Farm stands as a memorial to John McCrae and got its name from a small cottage that stood nearby. During the war it was the site of bunkers and included a medical dressing station.
Canadian medical officer McCrae served at Essex Farm and whilst there wrote the famous poem "In Flanders Fields" in 1915 in memory of a fallen colleague.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place.
The poem was responsible for the poppy becoming the emblem of the Royal British Legion.
Many of those who died contain unidentified bodies with the simple inscription: "A Soldier of the Great War Known Unto God."
In his illustrated history of the First World War, John Keegan puts it all in a nutshell:
"The graveyards remain. Many of those who died in battle could never be laid to rest. Their bodies had been blown to pieces by shellfire and fragments scattered beyond recognition. Many other bodies could not be recovered during the fighting and were then lost to view.
At the war's end the remains of nearly half of those lost remained lost in actuality. Of the British Empire's million dead, the bodies of over 500,000 were never to be found."
Each British body was given a separate grave, recording name, age, rank, regiment and date and place of death. The cemeteries were planted as classic English country gardens with mown grass between the headstones and roses and other plants.
On top of the one million British Empire troops, the Germans lost two million, the French 1.7 million, the Habsburg Empire 1.5 million, Russia 1.7 million, Italy 460,000 and Turkey lost hundreds of thousands. Little surprise that the phrase "a lost generation" came to have particular significance after the war.
Apart from a "comfort break" and a very swift cup of coffee at a service station, it was non stop to Folkestone for the Channel Tunnel Shuttle. A misunderstanding regarding the bookings meant we were unable to catch our scheduled 10.21 a.m shuttle and had to wait for over an hour.
Our late arrival at Calais meant that the first stopping point - Poperinge - had to be dropped and so it was straight to our first war graves at Essex Farm.
Essex Farm stands as a memorial to John McCrae and got its name from a small cottage that stood nearby. During the war it was the site of bunkers and included a medical dressing station.
Canadian medical officer McCrae served at Essex Farm and whilst there wrote the famous poem "In Flanders Fields" in 1915 in memory of a fallen colleague.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place.
The poem was responsible for the poppy becoming the emblem of the Royal British Legion.
Many of those who died contain unidentified bodies with the simple inscription: "A Soldier of the Great War Known Unto God."
In his illustrated history of the First World War, John Keegan puts it all in a nutshell:
"The graveyards remain. Many of those who died in battle could never be laid to rest. Their bodies had been blown to pieces by shellfire and fragments scattered beyond recognition. Many other bodies could not be recovered during the fighting and were then lost to view.
At the war's end the remains of nearly half of those lost remained lost in actuality. Of the British Empire's million dead, the bodies of over 500,000 were never to be found."
Each British body was given a separate grave, recording name, age, rank, regiment and date and place of death. The cemeteries were planted as classic English country gardens with mown grass between the headstones and roses and other plants.
On top of the one million British Empire troops, the Germans lost two million, the French 1.7 million, the Habsburg Empire 1.5 million, Russia 1.7 million, Italy 460,000 and Turkey lost hundreds of thousands. Little surprise that the phrase "a lost generation" came to have particular significance after the war.
From Essex Farm we drove to the German Cemetery at Langemark - a complete contrast to the British cemeteries.
For understandable reasons the German troops were given very little land in which to bury their dead. As a consequence Langemark contains mass burial sites with commemoration stones placed along the ground rather than in the British individual way.
Perhaps this illustrates more than anything the futility of the war. Langemark contains a memorial containing the names of thousands of university students who are buried there. Students of philosophy, students of medicine, students of the arts and science. They were encouraged to join up on the promise that the war would be over by September in time for their return to college!
We must never forget that it wasn't just the British who lost a generation during the Great War. Langemark is a memorial to this fact. The Kameradengrab is a large Azalea bed containing the remains of 28,834 men.
The remainder of the afternoon was full of stories of heroism including Vancouver Corner with its commemoration of the Canadian war effort, the Commonwealth war graves at Tyne Cot and Sanctuary Wood. Tyne Cot has the greatest number of bodies in a Commonwealth war cemetery. There are 11,908 graves to the known dead. On curved walls at the back are recorded the names of 34,888 men with no known grave from after August 16th, 1917 to the end of the war.
And at the back is another cemetery where New Zealand commemorate their own missing. All had their own stories to tell, their own places to play in the history of the Great War.
In many areas ammunition is still being dug up - well over 80 years after the war ended. Workmen have obviously become so used to this that they just leave anything found at the side of the field ready to eventually be picked up.
For understandable reasons the German troops were given very little land in which to bury their dead. As a consequence Langemark contains mass burial sites with commemoration stones placed along the ground rather than in the British individual way.
Perhaps this illustrates more than anything the futility of the war. Langemark contains a memorial containing the names of thousands of university students who are buried there. Students of philosophy, students of medicine, students of the arts and science. They were encouraged to join up on the promise that the war would be over by September in time for their return to college!
We must never forget that it wasn't just the British who lost a generation during the Great War. Langemark is a memorial to this fact. The Kameradengrab is a large Azalea bed containing the remains of 28,834 men.
The remainder of the afternoon was full of stories of heroism including Vancouver Corner with its commemoration of the Canadian war effort, the Commonwealth war graves at Tyne Cot and Sanctuary Wood. Tyne Cot has the greatest number of bodies in a Commonwealth war cemetery. There are 11,908 graves to the known dead. On curved walls at the back are recorded the names of 34,888 men with no known grave from after August 16th, 1917 to the end of the war.
And at the back is another cemetery where New Zealand commemorate their own missing. All had their own stories to tell, their own places to play in the history of the Great War.
In many areas ammunition is still being dug up - well over 80 years after the war ended. Workmen have obviously become so used to this that they just leave anything found at the side of the field ready to eventually be picked up.
Arguably the highlight of the two day trip was the evening ceremony at the Menin Gate in the picturesque town of Ypres.
The town is a remarkable monument to human spirit. Having been virtually raised to the ground during the First World War, it has been re-built into an extraordinary town that to all intent and appearances looks like a typical historical middle ages Flemish town. Ypres was the site of the first German gas attack on the Western front and the scene of heavy fighting in 1915. The city was virtually destroyed by shell fire.
Scratch beneath the surface and you will find that in fact today's town is very modern - appearances can certainly be deceptive.
But the wonder of the town of Ypres lies in a simple ceremony which takes place every night at 8 p.m throughout the year at the Menin Gate. At that time the traffic is re-routed and the Last Post sounds out as tourists and historians stand shoulder to shoulder in remembrance of the fallen.
The Menin Gate records the names of 54,900 "missing" who died in the battles around Ypres.
It was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and work started in June, 1921, thanks to a grant of £150,000 from the British Cabinet.
Blomfield (1856-1942) was an architect, garden designer and author who also designed the memorial at Tyne Cot.
It is a great triumphal arch in the Roman tradition with concrete piles driven 36 ft into the ground. It is 135 ft in length. 140 ft wide and 80 ft high. Each night the Last Post is sounded by buglers from Ypres Fire Station.
The short service of prayers is conducted in both English and Flemish. The ceremony leaves a feeling of well-being in everyone there. After all there can't be too much wrong in a nation where every night they remember the sacrifices made by so many young men so long ago. It would have been so easy to decide that enough is enough. But Ypres will always remember both today and in the long days of the future. This is a town confident in its present and future but with a debt to the past.
The town is a remarkable monument to human spirit. Having been virtually raised to the ground during the First World War, it has been re-built into an extraordinary town that to all intent and appearances looks like a typical historical middle ages Flemish town. Ypres was the site of the first German gas attack on the Western front and the scene of heavy fighting in 1915. The city was virtually destroyed by shell fire.
Scratch beneath the surface and you will find that in fact today's town is very modern - appearances can certainly be deceptive.
But the wonder of the town of Ypres lies in a simple ceremony which takes place every night at 8 p.m throughout the year at the Menin Gate. At that time the traffic is re-routed and the Last Post sounds out as tourists and historians stand shoulder to shoulder in remembrance of the fallen.
The Menin Gate records the names of 54,900 "missing" who died in the battles around Ypres.
It was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and work started in June, 1921, thanks to a grant of £150,000 from the British Cabinet.
Blomfield (1856-1942) was an architect, garden designer and author who also designed the memorial at Tyne Cot.
It is a great triumphal arch in the Roman tradition with concrete piles driven 36 ft into the ground. It is 135 ft in length. 140 ft wide and 80 ft high. Each night the Last Post is sounded by buglers from Ypres Fire Station.
The short service of prayers is conducted in both English and Flemish. The ceremony leaves a feeling of well-being in everyone there. After all there can't be too much wrong in a nation where every night they remember the sacrifices made by so many young men so long ago. It would have been so easy to decide that enough is enough. But Ypres will always remember both today and in the long days of the future. This is a town confident in its present and future but with a debt to the past.
Day two started with a two hour coach journey from our overnight Hotel in the French village of Neuville en Ferrain to the Somme area.
Time to catch up on some sleep and then it was a whistle stop tour of some of the most famous areas of the Great War.
First stop was Serre and then the Sheffield Park Memorial to the Pals Battalions - which were battalions made up of friends or workmates or people from the same town or area. They joined up together and consequently died together. The Sheffield Park is their memorial.
Many joined through promises of a short war that would be over by Christmas. Others felt that by joining up they would be better off than living in the poverty back in Britain. At least in the army they would receive square meals, warm clothing and accommodation - or so they thought. The reality was more likely to be foot rot from standing in water filled trenches, a lack of food and sodden clothing.
Next on the itinerary was the Sucrerie where an execution post can still be seen. This was used to shoot deserters, often young men suffering shell shock who had deserted through no fault of their own.
Another highlight of the trip was the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial Park which is a beautifully preserved memorial to the Newfoundland troops who were quite literally massacred after going "over the top."
The park was opened by Earl Haig on 7th June, 1925, and consists of 84 acres which today belong to the Canadian government.
Today it is a peaceful area where sheep graze. The original trenches have been preserved, although today they seem little more than furrows in the grassy landscape. The tell-tale signs are of a monument in the shape of a Caribou which was the emblem of the Newfoundland Regiment and the graves in the distance.
During one of the most dramatic days of the 1916 campaign, the 1st Newfoundland Regiment lost more than threequarters of its soldiers in less than half an hour!
Time to catch up on some sleep and then it was a whistle stop tour of some of the most famous areas of the Great War.
First stop was Serre and then the Sheffield Park Memorial to the Pals Battalions - which were battalions made up of friends or workmates or people from the same town or area. They joined up together and consequently died together. The Sheffield Park is their memorial.
Many joined through promises of a short war that would be over by Christmas. Others felt that by joining up they would be better off than living in the poverty back in Britain. At least in the army they would receive square meals, warm clothing and accommodation - or so they thought. The reality was more likely to be foot rot from standing in water filled trenches, a lack of food and sodden clothing.
Next on the itinerary was the Sucrerie where an execution post can still be seen. This was used to shoot deserters, often young men suffering shell shock who had deserted through no fault of their own.
Another highlight of the trip was the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial Park which is a beautifully preserved memorial to the Newfoundland troops who were quite literally massacred after going "over the top."
The park was opened by Earl Haig on 7th June, 1925, and consists of 84 acres which today belong to the Canadian government.
Today it is a peaceful area where sheep graze. The original trenches have been preserved, although today they seem little more than furrows in the grassy landscape. The tell-tale signs are of a monument in the shape of a Caribou which was the emblem of the Newfoundland Regiment and the graves in the distance.
During one of the most dramatic days of the 1916 campaign, the 1st Newfoundland Regiment lost more than threequarters of its soldiers in less than half an hour!
As our whistle-stop tour approached its end, more and more we realised just how few of the Great War sites we had visited.
The extent of the war is quite mind-boggling - so many parts of the world touched and blighted. In two days we could only scratch the surface of the horrors that existed.
After a packed lunch at Newfoundland Memorial Park, it was on to Ulster Tower - a reproduction of a tower in Ireland. It is an ornate memorial to the fallen and is pictured below.
There were still two major sites to see. The first was an amazing crater in the earth at Lochnager. Today there is a poppy strewn memorial and it is still unknown how many bodies still lie underneath the ground there.
The crater is an astonishing 90ft deep and 300ft across. Over 50,000 lbs of amonal blew the hole at precisely 7.28 a.m on July 1st, 1916. Today the site at La Boiselle is privately owned.
In 1998 the body of Private George Nugent of the Tynesdie Scottish Regiment was uncovered there. He was buried with full military honours in July 2000.
Our final destination was the Thiepval Memorial where a wreath was laid by the Rotary Club in memory of the dead. Like the Menin Gate, Thiepval contained the names of thousand upon thousand of those missing. Each wall is divided into a separate battalion, at times it is beyond the mind's comprehension with a total of 73,357 names.
On its own the memorial is of tremendous architectural interest, add to it the significance that it takes on and it really is a magical place.
It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and was opened on 31st July, 1932, by the Prince of Wales. It is the largest British war memorial in the world and stands 150 ft high. At the back is a burial ground for French and British troops. The memorial took four years to build.
Lutyens is probably best known for designing the Cenotaph in London in 1919. He was born in London on 29th March, 1869, the 11th child of a soldier turned painter. He was a delicate boy who suffered illness. In 1885 he enrolled in the Royal College of Art to study architecture and he soon excelled.
Lutyens also designed the art gallery in Johannesburg, the British Embassy in Washington, buildings at both Oxford and Cambridge universities and the Irish National War Memorial in Dublin.
He was knighted on New Years Day 1918 and died on New Year's Day 1944 at the age of 73.
It was all summed up by our excellent guide Mick Mizen at the end of the tour. "Now let's do something they couldn't do, let's go home."
So ended our brief tour. It made me realise just how little I know about the First World War, but, more importantly has given me a thirst to find more out.
The extent of the war is quite mind-boggling - so many parts of the world touched and blighted. In two days we could only scratch the surface of the horrors that existed.
After a packed lunch at Newfoundland Memorial Park, it was on to Ulster Tower - a reproduction of a tower in Ireland. It is an ornate memorial to the fallen and is pictured below.
There were still two major sites to see. The first was an amazing crater in the earth at Lochnager. Today there is a poppy strewn memorial and it is still unknown how many bodies still lie underneath the ground there.
The crater is an astonishing 90ft deep and 300ft across. Over 50,000 lbs of amonal blew the hole at precisely 7.28 a.m on July 1st, 1916. Today the site at La Boiselle is privately owned.
In 1998 the body of Private George Nugent of the Tynesdie Scottish Regiment was uncovered there. He was buried with full military honours in July 2000.
Our final destination was the Thiepval Memorial where a wreath was laid by the Rotary Club in memory of the dead. Like the Menin Gate, Thiepval contained the names of thousand upon thousand of those missing. Each wall is divided into a separate battalion, at times it is beyond the mind's comprehension with a total of 73,357 names.
On its own the memorial is of tremendous architectural interest, add to it the significance that it takes on and it really is a magical place.
It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and was opened on 31st July, 1932, by the Prince of Wales. It is the largest British war memorial in the world and stands 150 ft high. At the back is a burial ground for French and British troops. The memorial took four years to build.
Lutyens is probably best known for designing the Cenotaph in London in 1919. He was born in London on 29th March, 1869, the 11th child of a soldier turned painter. He was a delicate boy who suffered illness. In 1885 he enrolled in the Royal College of Art to study architecture and he soon excelled.
Lutyens also designed the art gallery in Johannesburg, the British Embassy in Washington, buildings at both Oxford and Cambridge universities and the Irish National War Memorial in Dublin.
He was knighted on New Years Day 1918 and died on New Year's Day 1944 at the age of 73.
It was all summed up by our excellent guide Mick Mizen at the end of the tour. "Now let's do something they couldn't do, let's go home."
So ended our brief tour. It made me realise just how little I know about the First World War, but, more importantly has given me a thirst to find more out.
The following extracts are taken from my personal diary of the time
Monday 9th September, 2002
Off to the First World War battlefields today which meant a very early start.
Somehow I awoke yet again well before the alarm went off at about 4.30 a.m which gave me plenty of time to have breakfast, finish packing and load the car up and set off at 5.20 a.m for the hotel on Boundary Road where I was leaving the car and picking up the coach which arrived at about 6 a.m.
We left shortly afterwards for the two day Rotary Club trip on the 30 plus seater coach with just 23 of us on board. It came all the way from County Durham!
There were only a few people I knew but I sat next to Bill, who was a friend of Jane and Trevor Bond. That meant there was somebody to chat with on the journey. Then it was off to Folkstone with just a stop for a ridiculously quick coffee at Birchanger Services in Essex.
There was a very good and relatively cheap CD shop there and I bought the new double Muse album. Then it was on to Folkstone for the Channel Tunnel journey and so into France and Belgium on our journey to Ypres.
First stop was Essex Farm. That was due to the fact that the first part of the trip had to be cancelled. When we arrived at the shuttle we found we were booked onto a later train and that meant we couldn't stop at the village of Poperinge. That was a shame.
Essex Farm gave us the first feel of the vastness of the conflict and the waste of life. It was just one of 144 cemeteries in the area.
We then went to the German cemetery at Langemark which was a great contrast. The British troops were buried in individual plots, whereas the Germans had mass graves. This was one of the only cemeteries allowed the Germans after the war.
Next stop was Vancouver Corner which celebrated the Canadian war effort and then on to Tyne Cot Commonwealth war graves site and Sanctuary Wood to bring the first afternoon of the trip to a close.
There was certainly plenty of walking round and getting on and off the coach. It was all very interesting and poignant and Mike Mizen was a wonderfully knowledgeable guide who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject.
At the end of the tour, there was quite a long drive to the hotel which was in the French border village of Neuville en Ferrain - the Hotel des Acacias. We arrived at about 6.30 p.m and booked in and were back on the coach by 7 p.m. I was sharing a room and got on very well with the other guy. We only had time for a very quick wash and then it was off to the town of Ypres.
Had a wander around the shops before the nightly ceremony at the Menin Gate. The short 10 minute service was very moving. It was in English and included prayers and the Last Post. Apparently it has been held every night since 1928 apart from a couple of days during German occupation during the Second World War.
At the end of the ceremony we walked to the main square to have an evening meal at the Den Anker restaurant. Surprise, surprise it was chicken and chips (what else could it be for a group of English tourists?)
At least there was some good entertainment. We were in an upstairs balcony area, looking down on the diners below and there was a chap who was quite the rudest eater I have ever seen. He kept stuffing food into his mouth like there was no tomorrow.
Ypres itself is a fascinating place. It was raised virtually to the ground during the Great War and has been completely re-built with an astonishingly beautiful cathedral. The reconstruction has given it the fell of an ancient Flemish town once more.
At the end of the meal we got the coach back to the hotel and I was so tired I only had the energy to drop into bed and was asleep in a matter of moments.
Tuesday September 10th, 2002
Day Two! Woke up very early and was up at just after 6 a.m. Had a shower and got ready and at 7 a.m we chanced that breakfast would be ready. It was so I had quite a substantial breakfast and coffee and then returned to the room to pack and loaded onto the coach at 8.30 a.m for the two hour journey to the Somme area.
I just couldn't keep awake on the coach. It always has that affect on me. The first stop was at Serre to view more war graves (a seemingly never ending stream). Other stops were made at the Sheffield Park Memorial to the Pals Battalions, the Sucrerie, the Newfoundland Memorial Park, Ulster Tower, Lochnager Crater and the Thiepval Memorial. It was a day full of poignant history. The areas were all relatively short distances from each other and so there was plenty of getting on and off the coach.
Mike Mizen had plenty of stories to relate and there were some outstanding places to visit. It was easier to visualise battles on the Somme rather than at Ypres where the lay-outs were somewhat difficult to comprehend.
Yesterday included a visit to a museum which included mock trenches. They were in the same positions as the original but had been reconstructed to add to the effect. Today at Newfoundland Park we saw trenches in their more original settings. Over 800 Newfoundland riflemen were butchered there. Today there is peace and tranquility with sheep grazing.
We walked up tracks, through cemeteries and saw huge craters and even discarded ammunition which is still being dug up. The graves were, a s always, immaculately kept and one can't help but think that this is at least a better resting place than what those who died might be afforded if their bodies had been brought home.
The Pals Battalions were exactly as the words implied - battalions made up of friends and work colleagues, or people from the same area and town. They signed up because of promises of good conditions and a short fight which would be over by Christmas - was that wishful thinking or downright lies I ask myself.
Ulster Tower was an exact replication of a real tower in Ireland. The Lochnager Crater was a massive crater where thousands were literally blown to pieces by a land mine.
Our tour concluded at the Thiepval Memorial which was massive and contained the names of 60,000 killed, all listed in their battalions. It was the final piece of poignancy in two marvellous days. The Rotary Club laid a wreath and Mike added a fitting end to the day with the words. "Now let's do something that they couldn't - let's go home."
We left at 3.30 p.m for the return coach drive to Calais. There was time to stop at a wine warehouse where the prices didn't seem tremendously different to at home. I got some cheap wine and beer.
Before getting the return shuttle, there was time for a snack. The return journey dragged rather as we were all rather tired. We were back at the Norwich Hotel by just after 10 p.m. Loaded my car up and drove home, taking a circular route to avoid road works and the possibility of getting stuck in football traffic. Norwich got knocked out of the Worthington Cup by losing at home 3-0 to Chelmsford!
I was home by 11 p.m and did a small amount if unpacking before going to bed at the end of two very interesting days. I really would like to do some further research and Internet work and writing on the propaganda aspects of the war. It fascinates me how so many young men could simply blindly follow orders. There was such a huge gap between what was promised and the reality.
Ultimately there are so many lessons for us to learn from this. Taken to the ultimate this kind of blind fanaticism could lead to the total breakdown of society (a theme I intend to take up in my Internet writing).
The object of my brief pieces on the First World War has not been to look at the military strategies or the history of the conflict, but to try and provide a basic understanding in words and photographs of the hopelessness of not only this war, but other conflicts as well.
There will always be aggressors and there will always be a need for armed combat to ensure that an unsteady peace exists in the majority of the nations of the world.
But the futility, stupidity and crass lying of the First World War makes it a unique subject to study. This was the point where propaganda and hypocracy reached new heights. In my short journey I soon became aware of the lies and misleading information being used to get young men of all nationalities to sign up. If lying was the norm were these men truly gullible or true patriots?
The answer probably lies somewhere between the two. The Germans told their students that the war would be over by September so that they could return to their studies, the British were slightly more conservative in stating that the war would be over by Christmas. Were these idle promises or did the respective nations use them as a sop?
To believe the latter would lead to a total breakdown in belief in the human race. To believe the former would lead to an equal belief that the rulers of various nations were naive to say the least.
Whatever the reasons, young British men signed up to serve King and Country without any realisation of what that would entail. They thought war would be heroic - presumably a friendly exchange of fire followed by a hot meal and comfortable bed for the night.
What they encountered was so different. Sleep deprivation, miles and miles of marching with heavy equipment, water filled trenches, little food - and they were the good things about the conditions. Shattered limbs and death awaited many and for those suffering from shell shock - well they weren't killed by the enemy but by their own country!!
In his book World War One - A Narrative (1965), Philip Warner succinctly sums it all up in the following words:
It seemed incredible that thousands of young men could have been killed on the Somme and at Passchendaele because of nationalists squabbling in countries they had probably never heard of, or if they had heard of, would not be able to place on a map.
He goes on to say:
Even today, the battlefields and cemeteries of northern France and Belgium convey a sense of chilling horror with their rows and rows of graves, some with pathetic headstones with the name of an only son, perhaps aged 19, some with no name at all, just the inscription "A Soldier Known Unto God"And on the conditions, he has the following to say:
For four years men lived and died in stinking, often sodden, trenches, incessantly harassed by gunfire, snipers and gas, and infested with rats, lice, bugs and fleas. The only reason why more men did not die of disease was that they were killed by bullets, shells, snipers and gas before disease could get a hold. Nothing in previous wars had prepared armies for horrors of this scale .... As the months crawled on, all the belligerents began to feel that this situation was now the norm and there was no end in sight in the forseeable future.And this was what the men suffered when it came to eating:
Huge armies on the march need enormous supplies of food forage and ammunition. The two German armies on the right wing of the German sweep in 1914 soon advanced faster and further than their food supplies would allow. As these two armies alone numbered 600,000 men, it is obvious that even if they had plundered Belgium unmercifully they would still have faced dire shortages.... the troops had no bread for four days, and a day's food consisted of a piece of stale bread, a cup of soup, and a cup of coffee. From the fields and orchards through which they marched the Germans looted turnips and fruit, which they ate raw and often unripe.The propaganda idea of the war is perfectly underlined by the famous (or infamous) Angel of Mons. The legend grew up that angels had been seen fighting side by side with the British troops.... it was not the only fanciful story to raise morale at the time ... Wild rumours circulate spontaneously in wartime and are sometimes officially inspired, if thought good for morale or misleading to the enemy.
And for those who hadn't yet taken part in the fighting there was still an optimism that far outshone the realities which they were not aware of:
In spite of the mental adjustments to the fact that the war had not ended by Christmas, as had been hoped for and expected, enthusiasm for it by those who had not taken part in the fighting did not slacken. Volunteers continued to overwhelm the recruiting offices. The problem was not a shortage of men, but of everything else: camps, weapons and instructors... Totally unsuitable people were commissioned and put in charge of young enthusiasts. The latter tolerated the discomforts and frustrations of their early days in the Army because they believed that once they were overseas military life would be well ordered and practical... In all armies, before the grim realities of death and maiming were seen, there was a general sense of elation that this was a man's job, that it would impress ones wife or girlfriend, that it would offer comradeship, possible glory, public esteem, the chance of easy sex and, not least, a relief from the tedium of everyday existence.Most of the young thought war was an exciting adventure, a form of crusade.... Many wrote poems which were nothing more than romantic nonsense in contrast to the later ones by Sassoon, Owen, Rosenberg and others who had experienced the horrors of trench warfare.
Unfortunately, many well-educated young men, schoolmasters, lawyers, medical students, engineers etc, were so infected with romantic patriotism that they enlisted as privates and welcomed the fact that they were rushed off to the front immediately to fill the gaps left by the casualties. Many of them were soon killed in suicidal infantry attacks.... Scores of potential officers were killed in the early days of trench warfare, a process which led to an acute shortage of qualified officers later in the war.
Many of the regular officers displayed remarkable indifference to death, danger or even discomfort. Some commanding officers flatly refused to wear steel helmets and would advance across No Man's Land carrying nothing more lethal than a walking-stick. Many soldiers who had joined in order to get away from the tedium of peacetime jobs were surprised to find that war consisted of long periods of boredom, often shared with companions one would never have chosen in peacetime, and shorter periods of acute terror.
At some time in the future I will continue my look at the propaganda aspects of a war in which there were no winners, only losers. But for now I would like to finish with a poem written by a resident of my village in England - Hethersett. Bea Ewart's grandfather Lance Corporal Henry Grant of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards was killed at the Battle of Ginchy on 15th September, 1916, and is remembered on the famous Thiepval Memorial in France which includes the hames of those who have no known grave. Bea visited the Somme in 2006 and wrote the following moving poem about that visit. I am very grateful to Bea for permission to reproduce the poem on this site. It is simply entitled "THIEPVAL."
For miles around, it towers above
The fields that once were gouged
And ravaged by the shards of war,
Blasting the land, as if in readiness
For those who would not leave.
Their names, cut in the stone by caring hands,
Now grace its piers for all who come to look
And take a little time to think of who they were
And what they might have been
Before they heard the call to arms
That drew them, like a moth to flame,
Until that day when they were lost
To loved ones far away,
Falling, broken, unknowable,
Among the stark and splintered trees
On cratered ground where poppies grew
Next Spring.
© Beatrice Ewart - 2006
Monday 9th September, 2002
Off to the First World War battlefields today which meant a very early start.
Somehow I awoke yet again well before the alarm went off at about 4.30 a.m which gave me plenty of time to have breakfast, finish packing and load the car up and set off at 5.20 a.m for the hotel on Boundary Road where I was leaving the car and picking up the coach which arrived at about 6 a.m.
We left shortly afterwards for the two day Rotary Club trip on the 30 plus seater coach with just 23 of us on board. It came all the way from County Durham!
There were only a few people I knew but I sat next to Bill, who was a friend of Jane and Trevor Bond. That meant there was somebody to chat with on the journey. Then it was off to Folkstone with just a stop for a ridiculously quick coffee at Birchanger Services in Essex.
There was a very good and relatively cheap CD shop there and I bought the new double Muse album. Then it was on to Folkstone for the Channel Tunnel journey and so into France and Belgium on our journey to Ypres.
First stop was Essex Farm. That was due to the fact that the first part of the trip had to be cancelled. When we arrived at the shuttle we found we were booked onto a later train and that meant we couldn't stop at the village of Poperinge. That was a shame.
Essex Farm gave us the first feel of the vastness of the conflict and the waste of life. It was just one of 144 cemeteries in the area.
We then went to the German cemetery at Langemark which was a great contrast. The British troops were buried in individual plots, whereas the Germans had mass graves. This was one of the only cemeteries allowed the Germans after the war.
Next stop was Vancouver Corner which celebrated the Canadian war effort and then on to Tyne Cot Commonwealth war graves site and Sanctuary Wood to bring the first afternoon of the trip to a close.
There was certainly plenty of walking round and getting on and off the coach. It was all very interesting and poignant and Mike Mizen was a wonderfully knowledgeable guide who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject.
At the end of the tour, there was quite a long drive to the hotel which was in the French border village of Neuville en Ferrain - the Hotel des Acacias. We arrived at about 6.30 p.m and booked in and were back on the coach by 7 p.m. I was sharing a room and got on very well with the other guy. We only had time for a very quick wash and then it was off to the town of Ypres.
Had a wander around the shops before the nightly ceremony at the Menin Gate. The short 10 minute service was very moving. It was in English and included prayers and the Last Post. Apparently it has been held every night since 1928 apart from a couple of days during German occupation during the Second World War.
At the end of the ceremony we walked to the main square to have an evening meal at the Den Anker restaurant. Surprise, surprise it was chicken and chips (what else could it be for a group of English tourists?)
At least there was some good entertainment. We were in an upstairs balcony area, looking down on the diners below and there was a chap who was quite the rudest eater I have ever seen. He kept stuffing food into his mouth like there was no tomorrow.
Ypres itself is a fascinating place. It was raised virtually to the ground during the Great War and has been completely re-built with an astonishingly beautiful cathedral. The reconstruction has given it the fell of an ancient Flemish town once more.
At the end of the meal we got the coach back to the hotel and I was so tired I only had the energy to drop into bed and was asleep in a matter of moments.
Tuesday September 10th, 2002
Day Two! Woke up very early and was up at just after 6 a.m. Had a shower and got ready and at 7 a.m we chanced that breakfast would be ready. It was so I had quite a substantial breakfast and coffee and then returned to the room to pack and loaded onto the coach at 8.30 a.m for the two hour journey to the Somme area.
I just couldn't keep awake on the coach. It always has that affect on me. The first stop was at Serre to view more war graves (a seemingly never ending stream). Other stops were made at the Sheffield Park Memorial to the Pals Battalions, the Sucrerie, the Newfoundland Memorial Park, Ulster Tower, Lochnager Crater and the Thiepval Memorial. It was a day full of poignant history. The areas were all relatively short distances from each other and so there was plenty of getting on and off the coach.
Mike Mizen had plenty of stories to relate and there were some outstanding places to visit. It was easier to visualise battles on the Somme rather than at Ypres where the lay-outs were somewhat difficult to comprehend.
Yesterday included a visit to a museum which included mock trenches. They were in the same positions as the original but had been reconstructed to add to the effect. Today at Newfoundland Park we saw trenches in their more original settings. Over 800 Newfoundland riflemen were butchered there. Today there is peace and tranquility with sheep grazing.
We walked up tracks, through cemeteries and saw huge craters and even discarded ammunition which is still being dug up. The graves were, a s always, immaculately kept and one can't help but think that this is at least a better resting place than what those who died might be afforded if their bodies had been brought home.
The Pals Battalions were exactly as the words implied - battalions made up of friends and work colleagues, or people from the same area and town. They signed up because of promises of good conditions and a short fight which would be over by Christmas - was that wishful thinking or downright lies I ask myself.
Ulster Tower was an exact replication of a real tower in Ireland. The Lochnager Crater was a massive crater where thousands were literally blown to pieces by a land mine.
Our tour concluded at the Thiepval Memorial which was massive and contained the names of 60,000 killed, all listed in their battalions. It was the final piece of poignancy in two marvellous days. The Rotary Club laid a wreath and Mike added a fitting end to the day with the words. "Now let's do something that they couldn't - let's go home."
We left at 3.30 p.m for the return coach drive to Calais. There was time to stop at a wine warehouse where the prices didn't seem tremendously different to at home. I got some cheap wine and beer.
Before getting the return shuttle, there was time for a snack. The return journey dragged rather as we were all rather tired. We were back at the Norwich Hotel by just after 10 p.m. Loaded my car up and drove home, taking a circular route to avoid road works and the possibility of getting stuck in football traffic. Norwich got knocked out of the Worthington Cup by losing at home 3-0 to Chelmsford!
I was home by 11 p.m and did a small amount if unpacking before going to bed at the end of two very interesting days. I really would like to do some further research and Internet work and writing on the propaganda aspects of the war. It fascinates me how so many young men could simply blindly follow orders. There was such a huge gap between what was promised and the reality.
Ultimately there are so many lessons for us to learn from this. Taken to the ultimate this kind of blind fanaticism could lead to the total breakdown of society (a theme I intend to take up in my Internet writing).
The object of my brief pieces on the First World War has not been to look at the military strategies or the history of the conflict, but to try and provide a basic understanding in words and photographs of the hopelessness of not only this war, but other conflicts as well.
There will always be aggressors and there will always be a need for armed combat to ensure that an unsteady peace exists in the majority of the nations of the world.
But the futility, stupidity and crass lying of the First World War makes it a unique subject to study. This was the point where propaganda and hypocracy reached new heights. In my short journey I soon became aware of the lies and misleading information being used to get young men of all nationalities to sign up. If lying was the norm were these men truly gullible or true patriots?
The answer probably lies somewhere between the two. The Germans told their students that the war would be over by September so that they could return to their studies, the British were slightly more conservative in stating that the war would be over by Christmas. Were these idle promises or did the respective nations use them as a sop?
To believe the latter would lead to a total breakdown in belief in the human race. To believe the former would lead to an equal belief that the rulers of various nations were naive to say the least.
Whatever the reasons, young British men signed up to serve King and Country without any realisation of what that would entail. They thought war would be heroic - presumably a friendly exchange of fire followed by a hot meal and comfortable bed for the night.
What they encountered was so different. Sleep deprivation, miles and miles of marching with heavy equipment, water filled trenches, little food - and they were the good things about the conditions. Shattered limbs and death awaited many and for those suffering from shell shock - well they weren't killed by the enemy but by their own country!!
In his book World War One - A Narrative (1965), Philip Warner succinctly sums it all up in the following words:
It seemed incredible that thousands of young men could have been killed on the Somme and at Passchendaele because of nationalists squabbling in countries they had probably never heard of, or if they had heard of, would not be able to place on a map.
He goes on to say:
Even today, the battlefields and cemeteries of northern France and Belgium convey a sense of chilling horror with their rows and rows of graves, some with pathetic headstones with the name of an only son, perhaps aged 19, some with no name at all, just the inscription "A Soldier Known Unto God"And on the conditions, he has the following to say:
For four years men lived and died in stinking, often sodden, trenches, incessantly harassed by gunfire, snipers and gas, and infested with rats, lice, bugs and fleas. The only reason why more men did not die of disease was that they were killed by bullets, shells, snipers and gas before disease could get a hold. Nothing in previous wars had prepared armies for horrors of this scale .... As the months crawled on, all the belligerents began to feel that this situation was now the norm and there was no end in sight in the forseeable future.And this was what the men suffered when it came to eating:
Huge armies on the march need enormous supplies of food forage and ammunition. The two German armies on the right wing of the German sweep in 1914 soon advanced faster and further than their food supplies would allow. As these two armies alone numbered 600,000 men, it is obvious that even if they had plundered Belgium unmercifully they would still have faced dire shortages.... the troops had no bread for four days, and a day's food consisted of a piece of stale bread, a cup of soup, and a cup of coffee. From the fields and orchards through which they marched the Germans looted turnips and fruit, which they ate raw and often unripe.The propaganda idea of the war is perfectly underlined by the famous (or infamous) Angel of Mons. The legend grew up that angels had been seen fighting side by side with the British troops.... it was not the only fanciful story to raise morale at the time ... Wild rumours circulate spontaneously in wartime and are sometimes officially inspired, if thought good for morale or misleading to the enemy.
And for those who hadn't yet taken part in the fighting there was still an optimism that far outshone the realities which they were not aware of:
In spite of the mental adjustments to the fact that the war had not ended by Christmas, as had been hoped for and expected, enthusiasm for it by those who had not taken part in the fighting did not slacken. Volunteers continued to overwhelm the recruiting offices. The problem was not a shortage of men, but of everything else: camps, weapons and instructors... Totally unsuitable people were commissioned and put in charge of young enthusiasts. The latter tolerated the discomforts and frustrations of their early days in the Army because they believed that once they were overseas military life would be well ordered and practical... In all armies, before the grim realities of death and maiming were seen, there was a general sense of elation that this was a man's job, that it would impress ones wife or girlfriend, that it would offer comradeship, possible glory, public esteem, the chance of easy sex and, not least, a relief from the tedium of everyday existence.Most of the young thought war was an exciting adventure, a form of crusade.... Many wrote poems which were nothing more than romantic nonsense in contrast to the later ones by Sassoon, Owen, Rosenberg and others who had experienced the horrors of trench warfare.
Unfortunately, many well-educated young men, schoolmasters, lawyers, medical students, engineers etc, were so infected with romantic patriotism that they enlisted as privates and welcomed the fact that they were rushed off to the front immediately to fill the gaps left by the casualties. Many of them were soon killed in suicidal infantry attacks.... Scores of potential officers were killed in the early days of trench warfare, a process which led to an acute shortage of qualified officers later in the war.
Many of the regular officers displayed remarkable indifference to death, danger or even discomfort. Some commanding officers flatly refused to wear steel helmets and would advance across No Man's Land carrying nothing more lethal than a walking-stick. Many soldiers who had joined in order to get away from the tedium of peacetime jobs were surprised to find that war consisted of long periods of boredom, often shared with companions one would never have chosen in peacetime, and shorter periods of acute terror.
At some time in the future I will continue my look at the propaganda aspects of a war in which there were no winners, only losers. But for now I would like to finish with a poem written by a resident of my village in England - Hethersett. Bea Ewart's grandfather Lance Corporal Henry Grant of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards was killed at the Battle of Ginchy on 15th September, 1916, and is remembered on the famous Thiepval Memorial in France which includes the hames of those who have no known grave. Bea visited the Somme in 2006 and wrote the following moving poem about that visit. I am very grateful to Bea for permission to reproduce the poem on this site. It is simply entitled "THIEPVAL."
For miles around, it towers above
The fields that once were gouged
And ravaged by the shards of war,
Blasting the land, as if in readiness
For those who would not leave.
Their names, cut in the stone by caring hands,
Now grace its piers for all who come to look
And take a little time to think of who they were
And what they might have been
Before they heard the call to arms
That drew them, like a moth to flame,
Until that day when they were lost
To loved ones far away,
Falling, broken, unknowable,
Among the stark and splintered trees
On cratered ground where poppies grew
Next Spring.
© Beatrice Ewart - 2006