People tend to agree that the tipping point for the outbreak
of the First World War was the
assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in
Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. Over the next month or so, a tangled web of
alliances was pulled tight, bringing most of Europe into the Great War. The
Schlieffen Plan was a German strategy to quickly invade France and capture
Paris before Russia, an ally to France, had an opportunity to mobilize its
forces—in order to do so, however, German forces needed to pass through Belgium.
The demand for passage was made on August 1, 1914—Belgium refused, opting to
maintain its neutrality. The result was a German invasion and occupation of the
country, but with the effect that Britain, bound to protect Belgium by the
terms of the 1839 Treaty of London, declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914.
The drive from Amsterdam to Brussels took just over two
hours on the Flixbus, moving through gentle lowlands and making a graceful
transition between the Netherlands and Belgium (thanks to the
Schenden Agreement, you don’t even need to get your passport checked moving between
these two countries). Hard to believe that this divide was once marked by an
electric fence to prevent Belgians from fleeing to the Netherlands during
German occupation—the so-called
Wire of Death claimed several thousand lives
during the Great War.
On Thursday morning, we made our way out of the heart of
Brussels on a tour bus with
Brussels City Tours, bound for the sparsely
populated farming country outside the city, in the Dutch-speaking region of
Belgium known as Flanders. The sky had a brooding demeanor, as though rain was
never far off—a fitting sort of day for visiting some significant sites
remaining from the First World War. Our guide aptly termed the day—a
long day, getting back to Brussels some
13 hours after leaving—a pilgrimage rather than a sightseeing tour, visiting
otherwise nondescript countryside whose names hold an ominous place in the
Western psyche: Ypres, Passchendaele, the Yser.
Our stops throughout Flanders Fields
This whole geographic region in Flanders marks the historic
Ypres Salient—a battlefield projected into enemy-held territory, such that
British, French, Canadian, and Belgian troops were surrounded by German forces
on three sides. From 1914 to 1918, there were half a dozen major battles in
this relatively small geographic area, each establishing their own narratives
of the First World War. Over the course of the entire war, the frontlines
changed—significantly if you take a microscopic view, but the overall shift
represented mere kilometres, at the cost of several hundred thousand human
lives. entire generation slaughtered on the fields around Ypres, a region still
scarred from the catastrophe.
Where once there stood a hospital, you can almost guarantee
there will now be a cemetery. Few junctions in the road lack a monument or
memorial to the lost generation. Every year, a farmer ploughing his or her
field in Flanders inevitably finds a landmine and occasionally sets it off.
This was the backdrop to our tour through Flanders Fields, a
livable, simple region that looks much as it did prior to the outbreak of the
War, despite the fact that Ypres was leveled and reconstructed after 1918. The
countryside at once reminded me of the fields around the Somme Valley, in
France, which most Newfoundlanders mark on their First World War pilgrimage
because of
Beaumont-Hamel—and the similarities shouldn’t be particularly
surprising, given that there’s just over an hour drive from Ypres to the
Caribou memorial.
The Trench of Death
Our first official stop, after picking up a handful of
passengers in Bruges, was to the site of the
Trench of Death, just outside
Dikemuide and along the banks of the Yser. German troops were in this area in
an attempt to get to the North Sea and capture the French ports of Calais and
Dunkirk, but the Belgians resisted, flooding the low river valley and forcing
both sides to resort to trench warfare, built up with sandbags rather than dug
into the waterlogged earth.
Most of the warfare around this region revolved around oil
tanks that had been captured by Germans, and the strategic position they
afforded. The Belgian strategy was to dig towards the oil tanks, approaching
the enemy lines at a rate of six metres a day, while Germans dug back to the
south, making a deadly confrontation inevitable.
It was not until 1992 that this portion of land was
recognized for its historical value, and a reconstruction of the Trench of
Death was started that included an interpretation centre and pathways through
cement-sandbagged trenches.
Langemark German
Military Cemetery
Oak trees surround the German military cemetery at
Langemark, the trees with their deep roots and outreaching branches the
supposed link between the earth and Heaven. Some 44,000 German soldiers are
buried in Langemark, one of the most-visited war cemeteries in Belgium. The
former German trench line from which chlorine gas was released on April 22,
1915 runs through the cemetery.
In a war situation, there are good guys and bad guys, but
the designation depends on what side you happen to be on. Being a 26-year-old
Canadian, I have no point of reference to understand what the relationship
between Germany and the Allied countries must have been like, after the First
and Second World Wars, or even now in 2015. What I do understand, however, is
that whatever the political situation that brought Europe to the Great War,
each side of No Man’s Land was populated by human beings—most of whom, at their
core, had no real interest in murdering other human beings.
The Christmas Truce, where opposing forces met in the middle of the battlefield to sing
carols and exchange small gifts (cigarettes, lapels, and the like), and the
football matches between regiments, are historic reminders, but the fact that a
German war cemetery stands in Belgium (and is currently undergoing a major
renovation project) is a more contemporary testament to that fact. Reassurance
that even the worst war the world had ever encountered can end in some
semblance of peace and understanding.
The Brooding Solider
(Saint Julien Memorial)
Poison gas was outlawed by international law, which was why
no one was prepared for 168 tonnes of chlorine gas—that’s close to 6,000
canisters—released by the Germans near Langemark. Borne on the wind, the gas was
fatal, and the Canadians were manning the position near the village of Saint
Julien where the damage was the greatest. The gas created a break in the Allied
lines; however, the Germans were slow to seize the opportunity (somewhat
naturally—they had no interest in charging into territory where a deadly gas
potentially still lingered), giving the Canadians time to reinforce the line
and prevent a German breakthrough.
The Canadians were reinforced on April 24, 1915, but by that
time there had been some 6,000 casualties. Now, the 11-metre tall statue of a
solider, head hanging in contemplation and hands resting on his rifle butt,
stands at the spot dubbed “Vancouver Corner,” surrounded by Canadian trees.
There had been a national contest in 1920 to design a single monument style for
the eight Canadian battlesites overseas (five in France, three in Belgium), but
the winner was instead constructed at Vimy Ridge (less than an hour from
Ypres), and the runner-up contructed here in Saint Julien, Belgium.
Despite the fact that Newfoundland and Labrador was not a
part of Canada in 1915 (were, in fact, preparing for their own infamous destiny at the Somme when the poison gas was unleashed in the Ypres Salient), it was still something
to stand beneath the watchful eyes of the Canadian memorial, at the foot of
which waves a Canadian flag and the air is now laden instead with the
fresh scent of Canadian fir trees.
Ypres
After a ploughman’s lunch of bread, cheese, ham, and salad
at a restaurant opposite a vast cobbled square, we ventured through the thick
sheets of rain to the
Ypres Cloth Hall. As I mentioned, Ypres was devastated in
the war, with next to nothing left standing.
That includes this massive,
beautiful building from the 13th century—however, it was reconstructed in the exact design as the
original building, and now hosts the In Flanders Field Museum.
Upon entering the building, you’re given a poppy bracelet, a
ticket that opens doors and activates displays throughout the museum. We had an
hour to spend amongst the displays, none of which glorify the First World War
but instead bring it back to the crudest, basest, most accurate presentation of
human suffering that happened here in Belgium one hundred years ago. An hour
was not long enough, but it was enough for a glimpse—particularly poignant were
the photographs of dead soldiers on the battlefields, exploited during the War
and sent as postcards, and the images of soldiers with physical deformities,
attempting to reintegrate into society after an unimaginable war. The mental
deformities were less easy to capture in black and white images, but those of
the lost generation who were not killed inevitably carried a casualty around in
their hearts for the rest of their lives.
At the end of the display hangs banners, upon which are
written the names and dates of other conflicts that have claimed lives in all
corners of the globe. The First World War was the war to end all wars—except it
really wasn’t. And there is plenty of space on these banners for more writing.
Essex Farm Cemetery
A
Stone of Remembrance—a horizontal tomb of white,
emblazoned with “THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE” as suggested by Rudyard
Kipling, who lost his only son in the First World War—sits at all commonwealth
graves with more than 1,000 buried. The
Cross of Sacrifice, its size dependent
on the size of the cemetery, likewise is a common feature of commonwealth grave
sites, standing prominently at gravesites with more than 40 buried.
These gravesites were, by and large, not planned, and
occurred where people died. Most often, this was a major battle site, or a
hospital. At the Essex Farm Cemetery, there was a dressing station during the
war years, and now the gentle land, skirted by wild poppies, is home to some
1,200 fallen soldiers.
It was here that Lieutenant-Colonel
John McCrae of the
Canadian Army Medical Corps was stationed in May 1915 when his friend, Alexis
Helmer, was killed. Dealing with death everyday and prompted by this personal
lost, the Canadian doctor wrote what has become the most iconic verse of the
First World War, here at Essex Farm:
Tyne Cot Cemetery
Imagine 12,000 people in one place. Imagine what that many
people, with youth and perspective, would be able to accomplish. That’s Tyne
Cot, the largest commonwealth cemetery in the world, containing some 8,000
unknown graves in concentric circles and the walls emblazoned with the names of
the missing in endless scrawls. It’s at once a numbing representation of what
the First World War meant in terms of human life, and the impact it continues
to have, long after the ringing gunfire around this area went silent.
Fresh flowers still grow on the gravesites, those with names
and countries identified, as well as on those with a young man who is simply
“Known Unto God.” A single petal had fallen from one of the graves we walked
by, and we picked it up and stuck it between a book, a link between living and
death that is all too clear in a graveyard of this enormity.
The site of Tyne Cot is especially significant, in that it
sits on the “high ground” (a loose term in low-lying Belgium—however, it was
clear that even the slight elevation afforded an expansive view of the area,
and therefore made it a strategic location) that was contested in the Third
Battles of Ypres, in 1917. You’ll remember that offensive from history class as
the
Battle of Passchendaele, a controversial campaign that ultimately resulted
in the recapture of Passchendaele from German control in August 1917, but that
took much longer and cost many more lives than had been anticipated. Images of
war machinery and soldiers stuck in the thick mud around this difficult area
are iconic and persistent reminders of the futility of war, and even though the
rain had abated by this time in the day and the landscape could be regarded as
pleasant, it would have been outright impossible to strike that thought from
your mind, standing in between so many rows of headstones.
Hill 60
During the First Battle of Ypres, the Germans captured Hill
60, just south of the township. It remained in German control until 1917, during
the Battle of Messines. Given that the Germans occupied the high ground, the
logic made sense—the only way to get them out was to go under them. The digging had commenced in 1915 by British miners,
and by June 1917, the explosions were simultaneous and created 19 large craters
in the area. Apparently the tea-cups shook in London, in what was the largest
non-nuclear explosion of all human history.
We started this part of the tour at the Caterpillar, a ridge
in the area that represents the end result of 32,000 kg of explosives. Sitting
right in the middle of the crater is a tranquil lake.
Meanwhile, at Hill 60 itself, bunkers sit almost buried
beneath the earth that erupted in what must have been a terrifying onslaught.
The Menin Gate and
the Last Post
Back to Ypres for dinner, we passed under the massive arch
of the
Menin Gate on the border of the community. Inside are written all the
names of the commonwealth soldiers missing in the Ypres Salient—at least, that
was the intention, until even this huge archway failed to fit all the names. As
a result, the arbitrary cutoff date of August 15, 1917 was selected—all missing
since then are at Tyne Cot, where the walls are just as burdened with writing
as Ypres.
Since 1928, the
Last Post is sounded here every night at
8:00 pm. The only exception is when German forces occupied Ypres again in the
Second World War (when Poland liberated Ypres, the Last Post resumed, despite
the fighting still going on in parts of the town). To put that into
perspective, the 30,000th Last Post was sounded by the fire brigade
last month in Ypres, each night complete with the trumpets, the laying of
wreaths, and a recitation of the “Ode of Remembrance.” You would think that
after nearly one hundred years, the town would be tired of hearkening to the
First World War, night after night, but several hundred people ushered beneath
the Menin Gate for the short but poignant ceremony.
In truth, it was impossible to travel far in Flanders Fields
without being reminded of the First World War. The countryside has rebuilt
itself, but some things are deeper than the façade, and can never truly be
eradicated.
* * *
If all of this jumping around, through the different
campaigns of Ypres, the shifting frontlines, and the spread-out geography, is a
little bit confusing, I think you can take some solace in the fact that maybe
that’s intentional. There were no outright victories around Ypres, but it seems
that each side was continually losing, even when they captured some slice of
land. Tracing the movement of the frontlines across this part of Belgium would
soon turn into a mess—the only time your position was good and secured was when
there was a poppy six feet above your head. If that part of your body was
intact, that is.
We made our way back to Brussels as the sun went down over
the Belgian countryside, napping or lost in something else. To get to visit so many significant locations, each one isolated and spread out in unassuming pockets of farm country, guided by someone with a keen interest in First World War history was a rare opportunity that we were lucky to stumble upon during our short visit to Belgium, and I can only recommend a guided tour if you happen to have a day in Brussels to walk the footsteps of the soldiers long gone but not forgotten.
You can break the
First World War down into maps or politics or figures, and in doing so create a
picture of what these four years meant for Europe, and the rest of the world.
But I think you’re better off to spend time amongst the gravestones, reading
the names and the dates and trying to picture the men. The human beings, the
ones with wives and sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and friends and
interests and dreams and fears. Who they were, and who they might—should—have become.
In doing so, however, it’s important to remember that
flowers still grow amongst the graves. And that even though recorded history
has only 200 or so years without a war, people time and time again come up with
reasons for wanting to live in this place just the same.
Cheers,
rb
