Today I headed out of town again, on my first official “tour” of this trip, to visit some sites related to World War I.
As a history reminder, WWI started in Bosnia (I was at the spot where it began, last year!) with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. At the start, it was Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire on one side as the “Central Powers” and then France, Great Britain, Russia, and eventually Italy and the US on the other side as the Allied Powers.
On August 3rd 1914, Germany declared war against France. On August 4, Germany invaded Belgium, since it was in their way, as a part of their “Western Front” plan. (This is perhaps the start of why they really dislike it if you speak German?)
I was told that Germany told Belgium they had 12 hours to open their country and get out of the way, otherwise Germany would enter by force. Belgium declined.
This is also when Great Britain got involved – prior to that they were staying out of it, but they were committed to defending Belgium.
(The US didn’t enter the war until April 6, 1917).
Ieper (Ypres)
This is the name of the city I spent the start and the end of the day in, but also is the name of three larger battles. The area now has over 100 cemeteries.
Ypres was completely destroyed during the fighting, but was rebuilt generally as a replica.
Ypres also has the “main” war museum in the area, Flanders War Museum. Flanders is the name of the region we’re in. Antwerp fell on October 10, 1914, and the war moved into Flanders. Trenches were basically created from the Swiss Alps to the North Sea – and though they’d have three major battles here, the battlefront basically stayed the same until Fall 1918. Part of this was because of the weather. This region is known as a very rainy region – and the Germans kept getting stymied from the mud. The Allied forces did too, but the Allies just had to hold the line worst case, while the Germans needed to advance it.
People from more than 50 countries or regions fought on the side of the Allied in these three battles. The museum was nicely done – lots of war memorabilia and artifacts and information.
Ypres is now a thriving city – but at the time, after the end of the war, it was said to be as bare as the Sahara. Churchill actually said it was best to leave the town in ruins as a monument itself. Others disagreed, but started arguing about what should come next – should it be modernized, etc. Apparently the locals had no time for the politics of it all and just moved forward with the reconstruction. They just wanted their town back.
Vladslo German War Cemetery
This is the home of the ‘Grieving Parents’ sculpture by Käthe Kollwitz. This cemetery contains 25,664 Germans; many smaller cemeteries and graves were relocated here, the last in 1956. The sculpture was designed at the request of the two parents, at the loss of their 18 year old son in the war.
The artist was a woman, a socialist and a pacifist. A few years after the completion and unveiling of this piece, when Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, her work was deemed to be unacceptable to the Nazi regime. In 1936 her work was removed from German art galleries, and she was later interrogated multiple times by the Gestapo.
Brooding Soldier
I visited the “Brooding Soldier” monument, which is honoring Canadian soldiers. This is also known as the Saint Julien Memorial.
This memorial commemorates the Second Battle of Ypres, which included fighting in the face of the first poison gas attack. The gas was used on April 22, 1915. The chlorine gas actually drifted over an area French soldiers were in; after seeing the impact of the gas, the French broke ranks and abandoned their trenches. The First Canadian Division re-formed the line and held it, until they were relieved on April 24. In those 48 hours, one of every three men became a casualty, but the Canadians held the line. Turns out, maybe you shouldn’t mess with Canada?
(Later, I then wound up making small talk with a school trip chaperone – he was one of only FOUR adults with 50 7th and 8th graders from Toronto. They were on day 5 of the trip, which had started in Paris. Canadians really are strong people, clearly.)
Passchendaele Museum
Passchendaele – also known as the Third Battle of Ypres – was fought between July and November 1917. There were heavy casualties on both sides and the conditions were terrible. Now, Passchendaele is used as slang around here to mean “futility.”
General Sir Douglas Haig thought this could be a war-winning break through – if he could capture this high ground and a rail junction nearby, he could then advance on the German troops on the Belgian coast – which they needed for their U-Boats. The battle lasted over 100 days, the Allies had over 250,000 soldiers killed or wounded, and they only advanced about 5 miles.
The museum includes a new garden addition. There is a memorial to each of the main countries in the war, and each memorial contains plantings from that area. This includes Canada, England, New Zealand, Belgium, and Germany. Germany was understandably a contentious conversation, but the museum decided that in addition to remembering the war, it’s also important to honor who Germany is today.
It also includes what conditions would have been like, including the “protection” they had in the field.
Tyne Cot Cemetery
This is one of the largest Commonwealth cemeteries in the world, with 11,956 graves.
‘Tyne Cot’ was originally a German defense position on the first line in Flanders. In October 1917, the Australian troops established an aid station there that soon grew into a small cemetery with 340 graves for the soldiers who had succumbed to their injuries on the spot. After the war – between 1919 and 1921 – the British ‘Exhumation Companies’ collected 12,000 dead from the surrounding battlefields. Of these, only 3,800 bodies could be identified. The wall behind the cemetery contains the names of 35,000 soldiers with no known grave. They include British, Irish and New Zealanders.
The Battles in Flanders
This is where the poem “In Flanders Fields” was inspired. It was written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, who was a Canadian soldier, surgeon, poet and artist. He died in Belgium in 1918.
The poem is often used around Memorial Day, or Remembrance Day, as well as taught in school. Though the war was about many things, what I learned in high school was it was meant to be the “war to end all wars” and to make the world safe for democracy. The last stanza of In Flanders Fields is asking all of “us” to continue the fight for democracy. The poem tells us that if we don’t, those that have died for the cause can never rest.
Menin Gate Memorial
We got here in time for the “Last Post Ceremony” at Menin Gate – a tribute to fallen soldiers. Each night at 8, traffic is stopped by the local Fire Brigade at what they call the “Last Post.” The event has taken place every night since 1929, with the exception of May 20 1940 to September 6 1944 (when the Germans were back in Belgium, fighting – and losing – another war).
Menin Gate itself is one of four memorials to the missing, and includes the names of 54,370 soldiers whose graves are unknown.
Of the nearly 10,000,000 that died in this war, about 550,000 of them died in Flanders.
There are obviously things like the museums, and cemeteries, and services at Menin Gate that keep it top of mind for those that live here – but there are less “nice” things as well. They still have an “iron harvest” ever year, where they go out to find/recover munitions. They also continue to find human remains in fields.
It was a long day. I left home around 7:30, and got home about 14 hours later. I didn’t go to Waterloo (where Napoleon was defeated, about 100 years before WWI) though it was nearby on the journey. One war was enough for the day.
Not all tears
I absolutely cried during the ceremony at the Menin Gate, and the day was pretty heavy, but there were a handful of lighter moments as well.
I stopped in a restaurant for lunch that I had read about beforehand, to order the cheese croquettes. A cheese croquette is basically a square of fried cheese. Each square was larger than the size of my palm. It was supposed to come with a salad, but I didn’t want to be wasteful so I asked the waiter to not bring the salad. I just wanted the cheese. I have no regrets.
Also, while walking through one of the trenches, I somehow got my foot stuck and fell into the wall, and then my other foot got stuck underneath, and I was facing into the wall, but with my legs crossed. Like, I physically do not think I’m flexible enough for me to have been in the position I was – and yet, I was. I had to take my shoe off to get my foot out. I was clearly meant to be a lover, not a fighter.
I made it home, with both shoes, so I consider that a success.