Armistice Day has just passed, marking 105 years since the end of the First World War. In Belgium, where some of the fiercest fighting took place in eastern Flanders, it was a somberly marked occasion as it has been since peace was declared. Despite my interest in The Great War, as it was known, I had never visited the battlefields of Flanders.
Learning about the First World War as a schoolboy, it wasn’t the names of the monstrous battles that raged across Flanders – the First Battle of Ypres in 1914, the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, The Somme in 1916, Passchendaele in 1917 – that etched themselves into my memory. It was the many tiny, near irrelevant places that were bitterly fought over, often again and again, that really stuck with me.
Sanctuary Wood, Polygon Wood, Hellfire Corner, Larch Wood, Hill 60, Bellewaerde Ridge, Vimy Ridge, Yorkshire Trench, are names that resonate globally because those who faced death attacking and defending them came from Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies and Pacific Islands. Visiting them today is a poignant reminder that this vast global conflict was fought on small parochial patches of land in Europe.
Over the last year, I’ve visited Ypres several times and walked in the nearby countryside littered with reminders of the history of 1914-18. Weeks of devastating fighting with tens of thousands of casualties could result in barely any change in the front line, yet I always had the impression that the conflict raged across a vast area. It’s strange to discover that places bearing witness to the carnage are little more than a stone’s throw away.
Sometimes, even the opposing forces were little more than a few dozen yards away from each other. Hill 60, one of the few pieces of high ground and scene of frequent, vicious fighting, was left largely undisturbed after the war. The scars of battle are still visible – trench lines and the pockmarks of artillery shells – and there are markers identifying the German and British trenches. Some are absurdly close to each other.
Nearby is Caterpillar Mine, a vast water filled crater on a slight rise in the landscape. Now a peaceful woodland scene, it was here in 1917 that a massive mine was exploded under German trenches, one of nineteen mines detonated as part of the Battle of Messines. It’s said that Hill 60 and the area around the mine is little more than an unmarked grave. It is heart wrenchingly tranquil today.
I’d set off from Ypres and made my way through rolling countryside to Railway Dugouts Cemetery, the brilliant white Commonwealth gravestones in neat rows are testimony to the global nature of the conflict, as are those of nearby Larch Wood Cemetery. Mostly these are men from the Commonwealth, but occasionally you find Belgian, French and German soldiers buried here.
Reminders of the scale of the tragedy, bravery and suffering are everywhere. In the small village of Hooge, where I stopped for a beer and came across a group of tipsy middle-aged Scots touring the battlefields, is a memorial to the dead whose bodies were never recovered when a massive mine was exploded under the German lines. Hooge was one of the most fought over areas and was the place flamethrowers were first used.
To reach Hooge I passed through an area of woodland to reach Hill 62. Here on this small hill with views across the flat landscape to Ypres, is a large memorial to Canadian troops who fought and died here in 1916, their losses were great, but three weeks later the opening day of the Somme offensive would dwarf those numbers. A short walk away is Sanctuary Wood and a private museum.
Hill 62 museum is a jumble of First World War memorabilia, weapons, helmets, photos, shells and uniforms. In the grounds though is what is thought to be an original system of British second-line trenches from 1915 and 1916. These Sanctuary Wood trenches give a real sense of the claustrophobic life of the soldiers who were crammed into them under constant shelling and sniper fire.
It’s a fascinating experience and really drives home the truly awful, primitive conditions the troops endured even when not actively fighting. Sanctuary Wood cemetery was one of three in this area, all were destroyed by later battles. This was the only one to be found afterwards. As a result, many gravestones bear inscriptions like “Buried near this spot” or “A soldier of the Great War”.
I walked to Hooge, passing through the cemetery there on my way back to Ypres. In the village of Zillebeke is the China Wall cemetery, named for the nearby Great Wall of China communications trench. It was was renamed Perth cemetery because of the number of Scots amongst the 2,782 men buried here, only 1,428 of whom were identified. The rest remain unknown.
My last stop was Hellfire Corner, an important transit point for troops en route to and from the front lines. Constantly shelled by German artillery, it was one of the the most dangerous places to be on the Western Front. The tiny memorial marking the spot seems to be in inverse proportion to the horrors witnessed here.
Notes from Camelid Country 
Such folly. And so plainly visible. And yet, yet… we’re all ready to jump at each other’s throats. Damn it. And if the Tramp is elected, nothing will stop the Russians…
Truly, we live on the knife edge of the US elections.
I always tell my American friends foreigners should be allowed to vote… LOL. (I hope I haven’t already said that…)
Terrible