17.
Ypres.
When the plans to reconstruct Ypres were being made, it was decided that the eastern Menin Gate to the city would be made into a memorial to the British and Commonwealth soldiers who were missing and had no graves. This location was chosen as it was the entrance that was closest to the fighting and not because the men would have walked through it on their way to the battlefields. Some of them will have, but the vast majority used other entrances, due to the heavy German shelling which pounded the Menin Gate on a daily basis.
The memorial commemorates 54,395 Commonwealth soldiers who disappeared in the Ypres Salient between the start of the war and 15th August 1917. I don’t know if this cut off date is significant, but maybe they ran out of room? The soldiers who disappeared after this date are commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial instead.
At 8pm, every night since the unveiling of the memorial in 1927, the local fire brigade conduct a ‘Last Post’ ceremony to express the gratitude to the men who paid for their freedom with their lives (this wasn’t possible during WW2, instead the Belgians living in England did their own version whilst living in exile.)
I arrived there at about 7 o’clock, which gave me a bit of time to look around before the ceremony and it humbled me to read the names of the missing. During the service I decided to stand at the back and just look at the sky, whilst the bugler played the last post. It was the first memorial ceremony that I had been to since I had started my journey. Everybody else there will, no doubt, have been thinking about the men who were killed near Ypres and I was, too- but then my mind drifted off to the other battlefields along my route. Some of them will be unknown to the vast majority of people who were stood there with me on that warm July evening. I don’t wish to take anything away from the dead and missing of Ypres, I’m just trying to get a few more people to recognise those from the smaller battles... the ones such as Kumkale, Dojran, Babuna Pass, Mount Lovcin and Mt Krn. Who will remember their sacrifices?
After the ceremony I walked around Ypres for a while, admiring the fact that the people had managed to reconstruct their devastated town in a way that looked like the buildings had been built centuries ago. I had a pint of beer for the lads who were killed and then I called it a night because I was tired and I had another long day ahead of me.
The following morning I headed back up Menin Road before turning northeast at Hellfire Corner. My destination was the British cemetery at Tyne Cot. There wasn’t much to see until I reached the town of Zonnebeke about four miles away and I felt grateful to be able to ride uninterrupted for a while. I visited some recreated trenches at Zonnebeke, but they weren’t great so I carried on along my way towards the village of Tyne Cot. I would be returning this way again, but for the moment I carried on along that road as there was somewhere else to go first, the reason why so many British and Commonwealth soldiers were buried at Tyne Cot. I reached that reason soon enough, the village of Passchendaele (Passendale.)
The Third Battle of Ypres, which was also called the Battle of Passchendaele began on the 31st July 1917 and was part of the British plans to break out of the Ypres Salient. The first objective was to capture the strategically important Passchendaele Ridge, before carrying on north to cut off the ports of Ostende and Zeebrugge which had been in German hands since 1914. It was also intended to draw German attention away from the Aisne Battlefields to the south, where French commanders were trying to quell a mutiny by French soldiers.
It started off well with a couple of miles gained on the first day, but then it began to rain and it didn’t stop. Because of the high water table, the battlefield soon became a quagmire, as the shelling had destroyed all of the natural drainage which meant that there was nowhere for the water to go. The vision in our minds of the soldiers having to fight in deep mud probably comes from Passchendaele. If men or horses didn’t watch their step, then they’d end up in the mud, never to be seen again. It was the mud that stopped the British advance, not the Germans and it took them eight bloody weeks to capture the ridge. (Precise casualty figures for the 3rd Battle of Ypres are unknown, but some estimates put it at between 2-300,000 dead, wounded and missing for the British with a similar number for the Germans.)
There wasn’t that much to see in the village of Passchendaele as it was literally obliterated, so I visited Passchendaele New British Cemetery to the north which contains the graves of 2,101 Commonwealth soldiers, before heading back to the western edge of the village where the Passchendaele Canadian Memorial is located. From there, I followed a small road which led me through the old battlefield towards the location of Tyne Cot Cemetery.
Tyne Cot Commonwealth Cemetery.
I have decided to write this section separately from everything else, as it was easily the most uncomfortable and hurtful place that I visited throughout my long journey. No, I am probably wrong to say that, as it wasn’t the place....
Tyne Cot Military Cemetery is both a sad but beautiful place, home to 11,961 Commonwealth and 4 German soldiers, who are buried there. A further 35,000 men, who were posted as missing in the fighting around Ypres and who have no named grave are commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial Wall, a place where I found it extremely difficult to keep my emotions hidden from the other visitors, but the same could be said about all of the other cemeteries that I had visited, from both sides.
The original Tyne Cot Cemetery was constructed after 343 Commonwealth soldiers were buried on either side of a large German bunker that the 3rd Australian Division had converted into an advanced dressing station, after capturing it during early October 1917. The original bunker now stands underneath the central memorial cross that was constructed at the suggestion of King George V, during his visit of 1922.
No, it was not the place, but some of my fellow visitors. British visitors!
I was hoping that it would be fairly quiet in the morning, but it’s probably never really quiet at Tyne Cot during the summer months. As I arrived and locked my bike to a barrier in the car park, there were already a few coach loads of visitors at the cemetery, there to pay their own respects to the dead just like I was. But there was one particular obnoxious group led by an older gentleman who sounded like he had a plum stuck in his throat. They were probably all partially deaf as well, seeing as they were practically shouting at each other. Now I’m usually very respectful towards our older generations, as they’ve made us what we are but my respect towards them evaporated when I saw a woman point my way and shout to her husband that people like me shouldn’t be allowed there. “He looks dreadful dear, like a tramp or something.” It was something to that effect anyway. I remember thinking that I agreed with her, as my clothes were torn and filthy. After deciding that just ignoring them was the best thing to do, I headed inside to say hello to the lads and leave some of my remaining poppies.
Sometime later, whilst kneeling at the grave of one of the unknown German dead, they must have walked behind me as I heard the distinctive posh sounding voice say, “I think it’s OK, dear, he won’t have understood you as he’s obviously a bloody Hun!”
Oh you bastard! Insult me all you want, but never, ever insult the dead!
I really wished that I had said that to him, but I didn’t want to cause a scene. His words had caused me to well up inside and I managed to leave by the back entrance before letting it all out. It had been a long time coming, well not really, as I’d already shed quite a few tears throughout my journey but that outpouring was unprecedented since I left childhood many years ago.
His words were the exact reason why I felt the need to do my little journey for the dead from both sides. That reasoning probably makes me look unpatriotic to some British people, but I don’t care, they can think what they like. I hope that those people eventually read this and realise who the disrespectful ones really were during that summer’s morning at Tyne Cot Cemetery.
As for the rest of the people in the UK, who might regard me as some kind of traitor (yes, I know they exist.) Just think for a few minutes about what it must be like for the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians. Like most countries, Germany has a day of national mourning that was originally started to remember the dead from the Great War. Volkstrauertag (Peoples Day of Mourning) is commemorated two Sundays before the first day of Advent, which translates to the middle of November for those of us who don’t know. Unfortunately the original Volkstrauertag that was first started in 1922 was hijacked and corrupted by the Nazis during the 1930s. The modern incarnation was restarted in 1952 and as well as a time to remember their dead, it is also used to speak out for peace.
Unfortunately the Austrians don’t have a special day set aside to remember their dead and I can’t find out anything about a Hungarian version either. I’d also noticed a distinct lack of visitors at the German and Austro-Hungarian cemeteries along my route. I can understand about them wanting to forget about the events that took place in the 1930s and 1940s, but most of those cemeteries were full of their dead from the Great War. They are still the sons of Germany and Austro-Hungary and they don’t deserve to be ignored or forgotten. Please spare them a thought like I have. Talking of which, my next destination was the Langemark German Cemetery.
After leaving Tyne Cot, I headed northeast towards Langemark-Poelkapelle which is home to the vast German cemetery that bears its name. Before I reached this destination, I stopped at Dochy Farm New British cemetery that contains the remains of 1,439 Commonwealth soldiers from every corner of the old British Empire (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada, as well as the four home countries.)
Further along the road towards Langemark I came to the small hamlet of St Julien, where the “Brooding Soldier” memorial dominates a crossroads. Officially known as the St Julien Canadian Memorial at Vancouver Corner, it was built to commemorate the soldiers of the 1st Canadian Division. The following words are inscribed on a bronze plaque affixed to the memorial:
“THIS COLUMN MARKS THE BATTLEFIELD WHERE 18,000 CANADIANS ON THE BRITISH LEFT WITHSTOOD THE FIRST GERMAN GAS ATTACKS [on] THE 22ND-24TH OF APRIL 1915. 2,000 FELL AND HERE LIE BURIED.”
The gas was chlorine and although it was bad enough, it was possible for disciplined soldiers to carry on fighting despite being ‘gassed.’ This wasn’t an option later in the war when more lethal gases, such as phosgene and mustard were developed and used by both sides. Fortunately, by that time, effective respirators had also been developed to counter the threat. (It should be noted that respirators weren’t much use against mustard gas, which caused blisters and could be absorbed through the skin to attack a victim’s organs.)
The 2nd Battle of Ypres began at 5pm on the 22nd of April 1915, when the Germans released chlorine gas from over 5,000 cylinders from their positions at Langemarck. The prevailing wind blew the huge cloud of gas towards the French held trenches which were manned by colonial troops from Morocco and Algeria, who understandably panicked and fled when the gas caused them to suffer difficulties in breathing. This attack caused a 4 mile wide gap to be formed in the front lines northeast of Ypres, but fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint) the Germans didn’t have the necessary reserves available to exploit their quite unexpected ‘success.’ However, they did advance to capture the now abandoned French trenches. This left the Canadians, who were holding the section of the front to the right of the French, in a bit of a tricky situation. They managed to somehow hold their trenches despite also being on the receiving end of the German gas attack, but that wasn’t all- they also managed to fight off the advancing Germans and hold the French section of the front until reinforcements could be brought forwards!
Langemarck German Military Cemetery lies about half a mile from the centre of the small town of Langemarck-Poelkapelle. The entrance gateway was typically German looking. By that I mean it reminded me of the German ossuaries at Bitola and the Pordoi Pass (i.e. built from stone with a dark tunnel like passageway.) The view towards the cemetery from inside that tunnel is very evocative to say the least and that’s probably what the designer of the four sculptures that were placed on the western side of the cemetery in 1956 intended. Those sculptures are in the form of mourning German soldiers who stand guard over the dead. From the entrance, no features were visible, just their silhouettes. It was almost like the dead had risen and I felt my emotions start to get the better of me again.
After wiping my eyes, I ventured through the inner entranceway only to stop a few paces in; a mass grave blocking my way. 24,917 men were buried under that patch of earth no bigger than a tennis court. I haven’t just said that it’s Germans who are buried there, as there are probably some British and French remains in that mass grave. During the war, the Germans were just as good at burying the dead of their enemies as well as their own and they did that in the same cemeteries. After the war, things became a bit confusing with regards to the cemeteries behind the German lines. The remains were exhumed and mostly reburied in the cemeteries of each respective country, unfortunately a lot of the remains couldn’t be identified and the German records for the dead had either been lost or destroyed. So it was decided that all of the unidentified dead from the area around Langemarck should be buried in the ‘Comrades’ mass grave at the German cemetery. Nearly 8,000 of the dead in the Comrades Grave are unknown souls, lost to the world.
I couldn’t take much more death and misery, so instead of walking around Langemarck, I just sat under a tree and stared at what lay before my eyes.
Langemarck was different to all the other cemeteries that I had seen in one respect; the gravestones were laid flat to the ground instead of standing upright. It was hard for me to get a true sense of just how many men lie beneath the grass. If the gravestones were upright and more visible it might be easier to comprehend that there are over 44,000 soldiers buried at that location alone.
Like I’ve already said quite often, I’d well and truly had enough of seeing the detritus of human suffering, so whilst sat with the German dead I decided to finish my journey that very day. I was, at that point, only about 25 miles or so away from the coast. It was possible but as it was already late in the morning it would mean missing out a few of the sites that I had intended visiting. After wishing the statues well for their lonely vigil, I said goodbye to the German dead, before heading back towards Ypres.
About 1 ½ miles to the north of Ypres along the canal, lies the small town of Boezinge and a couple of sites that, being a Yorkshireman, I couldn’t possibly miss out. The first was Essex Farm Cemetery, which is the last resting place of 1,200 Commonwealth soldiers, with about half of them being fellow Yorkshiremen. This cemetery was built around a dressing station that was in use between April 1915 and August 1917, it was also the place where the Canadian poet Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote the poem “In Flanders Fields.”
At the back of the cemetery, near the banks of the Ieperlee Kanaal (Ypres Canal) is located the memorial to the British 49th West Riding (Yorkshire) Division. I have some of the war records for three of my Great Grandfathers and they all spent some time with the 49th West Riding Division, either near Ypres or in France. Two of the three joined up as reserves in the Territorial Force before the war and the other soon after. Somehow, despite the heavy losses sustained by the 49th, they all survived the war. I feel fortunate to be here in this world, many never even had the chance to be born due to the events that took place a century ago. Such is life I suppose, fate is inexorable.
A few hundred yards to the northeast on the other side of the canal lay my next destination.
Yorkshire Trench is the name of a recreated trench system that was discovered by a group of Belgium amateur archaeologists “the Diggers” in 1992. These trenches were originally dug by men from the 49th Division during 1915/16, but the majority of the finds that the group discovered date from later in the war, including the remains of 155 British, French and German soldiers who were previously lost to the world. I’m usually sceptical about recreated trenches, but like those at the Massiges site, the work at Yorkshire Trench is beyond reproach. The recreated trenches were an afterthought; a memorial to the dead who were only found due to the diligence of a group of amateur archaeologists. Unfortunately, it was only possible to identify one of the 155 soldiers who were discovered at Yorkshire Trench. His name was François Metzinger, a Frenchman who was killed on the 21st of May 1915. He was lost for 80 years, but at least he now has a named grave.
The fighting around Boezinge isn’t as well known as the battles around Ypres, a mile or so to the south. Located on the northern side of the Ypres salient and originally held by the French during late 1914/ early 1915, this sector was taken over by regular soldiers from the British 4th Division in June 1915, before they were replaced by the 49th West Riding Division in the late summer of 1915. They were in turn replaced by the Guards Division in spring 1916, who held it until the harsh winter of 1916/17 when temperatures dropped to below minus 20 degrees. A lot of different units held this sector through the winter period due to the suffering that those on the frontlines had to endure.
The soldiers at the front throughout the war didn’t spend all their time in the front line trenches; they were on a rota of four days in the trenches, followed by four days in close reserve and finally, four days at rest behind the front lines. The harsh winter meant that this routine had to be changed to two days at the front or in reserve, as there were more casualties from the climate (frost bite, trench foot and hypothermia) than there was from enemy action.
After leaving Yorkshire Trench I visited the last British cemetery of the Ypres sector of the Western Front. I’m not entirely sure where the British held line ended and the Belgium held sector began, but as there were no more British cemeteries until I reached the coast, then I will guess that it was just to the north of Boezinge.
Artillery Wood Cemetery is an amalgamation of three cemeteries that were brought together after the war. 1,307 Commonwealth soldiers are buried or commemorated there and, like a lot of the other cemeteries in Flanders, I noticed that nearly half of them are unidentified.
From the cemetery, I followed a small B road which roughly traced the route of the old front lines alongside the Ypres Canal, before heading north towards the town of Diksmuide.
I passed straight through the town as I intended to return after quickly visiting a cemetery which was located about five miles to the north east.
Vladslo German cemetery contains the remains of 25,645 soldiers, but it wasn’t always this large. In 1956 it was decided that to best care for the remains of the dead Germans, it would be better to move their remains from several smaller cemeteries in the region and enlarge the Vladslo cemetery. In the years after the war the smaller cemeteries in that part of Belgium had become neglected and vandalised. I’m not going to get into the politics of it all, but I’ll just say that the locals weren’t too happy about their former enemies being buried there, so it was probably a good idea to move them.
This would never happen to a British cemetery, as the Belgians freely gave Britain the land that their dead are buried beneath, but unfortunately, the Germans have to rent the land and after the war, a lot of Belgians wanted all of the German dead removing completely. After visiting the German dead and walking around the quite large cemetery, I came to the main reason why I had added ten miles onto my day’s journey: two statues.
“The Grieving Parents” are a pair of stone statues created by the artist Kathe Kollwitz to commemorate her youngest son Peter, who was killed in 1914 and is buried at that cemetery.
Both of the statues are kneeling and obviously mourning their loss, they’re very expressive and I’m not ashamed to say that they got me going again if you know what I mean. The whole journey had changed my outlook of the world, but that pair of statues reaffirmed my belief of the reasons why I did that journey. During the centenary years, everybody will remember the fallen, but who will remember those who remained; the parents, wives and children of the slaughtered millions? Their lives were ruined forever too. I hope that some politicians might well read my humble words and think for a few seconds about the consequences that come with their actions. I don’t know about the other nations, but the British used to call it, “The war to end all wars.” What happened? The loathsome side of human nature is what happened, but it’s not too late, especially between so called civilised nations and I can’t think of a finer memorial to the dead....
Back at Diksmuide, I once again followed the route of the Ypres Canal north as it wound through the Belgian countryside. I had intended to visit some recreated trenches next to its bank, but as they were behind a fence and the only way to get to them was through a museum I missed them out. Anyway, I wasn’t really in the correct frame of mind to visit something called “The Trench of Death.” Instead, I followed a track that ran alongside the canal for about 5 miles or so, before heading west along a bicycle path that loosely followed the front lines, until I reached the southern outskirts of the town of Nieupoort, where I visited a refreshingly different cemetery from the war.
The individual headstones at Ramskapelle Belgian Military Cemetery and probably every other Belgian cemetery were more ornate than any of the other headstones that I saw on my journey. The stones were carved with scrolls and other embellishments whilst the soldiers details were on a brass plaque located below a brightly coloured circular Belgian flag. The cemetery layout was also different with the headstones laid out in a circular style instead of the more regimented lines that I was used to seeing. It was a very fine resting place for the 600 or so sons of Belgium who were buried at that location, I’m not sure about the total number of dead as about a third of them are unidentified, with quite a few headstones covering multiple burials.
The majority of the soldiers who lie at the cemetery were killed during the October 1914 Battle of Yser. This was a purely defensive battle by the Belgians, as they fought to the last in order to stop the German army capturing the whole of their country. 14,000 Belgian soldiers and an unknown amount of French soldiers were killed or wounded protecting that last corner of free Belgium, along a 22 mile long front that followed the Ypres Canal and the Yser River.
The German failure was mostly due to the fact that they had to retreat to avoid being cut off by deep floodwater after the Belgians opened the sluices at Nieupoort, causing the sea to flood a major part of the battlefield. That clever bit of thinking by the Belgians saved the day, but you can’t help wondering why they didn’t do it before 14,000 Belgians had been killed or wounded.
As I was cycling through Nieupoort, a strange smell hit my nose, one that I hadn’t smelt since the start of the Italian front many miles ago; the sea! I had four poppies left (plus about 400 spares!) and one of these was left on the British Nieuport Memorial that commemorates the 566 Commonwealth servicemen who were killed defending the Belgian coastline and who have no named grave.
Afterwards, I headed to the end of the Western Front (the start for most people) on the northern bank of where the canal reaches the sea. In an area of sand dunes, I found a couple of brick built trenches and dug outs. I don’t know which war they were from but as they were in the correct place, they were probably from the Great War. I left a poppy in the last one facing the sea, before pushing my bike through the low sand dunes and onto the beach.
From my diary.
“Throughout the length of my journey I have dreamt of this moment- the end of the battlefields. I thought that I would be sad to finish my journey, but happy at the same time. I also imagined that it would be a sunny day with children playing in the sand, yachts in the sea and an ice cream van.
Instead, I am sat on a windy, desolate beach and it’s drizzling. There aren’t any yachts or children and there’s definitely no bloody ice cream van.
My soul feels as desolate as the beach itself. ‘Sad’ does not describe my feelings. How I could imagine that I’d get one single ounce of happiness out of this moment, I don’t know. It has taken me three months to travel across the largest grave yard and charnel house in the world. How can I be happy?”
After dragging myself off that lonely and windswept beach, I went off in search of a campsite that I knew was nearby. Fortunately my luck seemed to be changing, as I had managed to erect my now threadbare and leaky shelter before a large thunderstorm came along. That’s where my good luck ended, as I then phoned Ruthy and she told me about a problem with the ferries running from Calais that was causing a massive backlog of traffic at the Dunkirk ferry terminal. It was something to do with the refugees trying to get to Britain. My first thought was. “I hope they don’t want my bike!” whilst my second thought was, “they can bloody have it now!”
In the morning I managed to find out the extent of the problem and it wasn’t good. I