We were picked up this morning to begin our day long tour of WWI cemeteries and battlefield. I learned immediately that this entire area we are traveling through is called Flanders FIelds. There is an American Cemetery called "Flanders Fields" in another part of Belgium. What we are seeing today are all Cemeteries and Battle areas of the soldiers from Great Britain, Canada, Austrailia, New Zealand, France, and Germany from 1914-1918.
"The Ypres Salient is the area around Ypres in Belgium which was the scene of some of the biggest battles in World War I. In military terms, a salient is a battlefield feature that projects into enemy territory. Therefore, the salient is surrounded by the enemy on three sides, making the troops occupying the salient vulnerable.
The Ypres Salient during the Second Battle of Ypres
The Ypres salient was formed by British, French, Canadian and Belgian defensive efforts against German incursion during the 1914 "Race to the Sea", culminating in the Battle of the Yser and the First Battle of Ypres.
These battles saved the Ypres salient and the corner of Belgium around Veurne from occupation, but also led to the beginning of trench warfare in the salient as both sides "dug in" around the line. The area of the salient is mostly flat, with few rises or hills. Those that did exist became the focus for the 1915 Second Battle of Ypres, which saw the first use of gas and the almost total destruction and evacuation of Ypres, and the 1917 Third Battle of Ypres at Passchendaele.
After the third battle, the Ypres salient was left relatively quiet until the Fourth Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Lys, when the Spring Offensive threatened to overwhelm the entire area. This offensive was stopped at the point the Allies were closest to being forced to abandon the salient. By August 1918, the Fifth Battle of Ypres (part of the Hundred Days Offensive) pushed the German forces out of the salient entirely and they did not return".
This map shows how little the front line moved from 1914-1918. They went back and forth taking and losing the same territory for four years. The black dotted line closest to Ypres was how close the Germans got to taking Ypres before the War ended in 1918.
Little wonder that the entire Flanders area looked like a moonscape
The great poem "In Flanders Fields" was written here in this area (more on that later).
I will attempt to write this if I can with a battle attached to a cemetery. However in some cases the cemeteries have been consolidated with missing and dead from numerous battles. If interested, I invite all to google any of these landmarks we visited for more in depth information on the battles.
Our first stop was the German Cemetery "Langemark". It is the second largest of the four German Cemeteries containing 44,000 bodies. Among them are more than 3000 German students who died during the Battle for Langemark, more famously known as the "Massacre of the Innocents".
Langemark is located about four miles north-east of Ypres, and it was near here that the Germans first used poison gas on the 22nd of April 1915 (officially the Battle of Gravenstafel Ridge).
Langemark Cemetery is for German soldiers killed in and around the Ypres Salient in World War One. There are relatively few German war cemeteries on what was the Western Front. Though the cemetery at Langemark is smaller in size that the nearbyTyne Cot cemetery, it contains more burials. 
In October 1914, the German Volunteer Reserve Corps attacked what was deemed to be a weak British position at Langemark. The Corps was made up of young students who had just six weeks training. They advanced on British positions with their arms linked and singing patriotic songs about the Kaiser, Wilhelm II. Men from the British Expeditionary Force cut them down. The fire from their standard issue Lee Enfield rifles was mistaken for machine gun fire. 1,500 Germans were killed and 600 taken as prisoners. It was the start of the war around Langemark. Langemark Cemetery is sometimes called the ‘Students Cemetery’ as a result of the 3,000 students in total who died in the fighting around Langemark between October to November 1914 and who are buried at Langemark
Burials of the German dead at Langemark started in 1915 but increased between 1916 and 1918 as a result of a directorate from the German High Command. 44,061 men are buried at Langemark; 19,378 of these are known and their names are on the graves that are at Langemark.
The land where the cemetery is situated was damaged during the war as the Ypres Salient saw a great deal of fighting. The three German bunkers that are still in the cemetery can see memories of this fighting. In the mid-1920’s the German Burial Service was given permission to renovate German cemeteries in Flanders. In the 1930’s about 10,000 German soldiers were brought from other burial sites to Langemark to be buried.
The layout of the cemetery is different from Allied cemeteries as eight soldiers are buried in a plot with their names on a horizontal lying gravestone. Where the names of those buried are not known, the gravestone states this.
Oak trees were planted; the oak is the national tree of Germany. The oak trees have grown very tall over the past 80 years and dominate the sombre atmosphere of this cemetery.
Basalt Lava Crosses used as an architectural feature since 1920's in Germany
Statue of Mourning Soldiers: The statue by Professor Emil Krieger was inspired by a photograph taken of soldiers from the Reserve Infantry Regiment 238, helmets in hand, mourning at the grave of a comrade in 1918.
Bodies that were exhumed from other cemeteries during the consolidation and buried here.
Note the square structure (One of the German bunkers mentioned above)
Stone Grave marker for 16 soldiers
There is a plaque commemorating two British soldiers: Privates Albert Carlill (Loyal North Lancers) and Leonard Lockley (Seaforth Highlanders). Both these men died late in 1918, Carlill just a week before the end of the war. Both originally had commemorations in CWGC cemeteries (Carlill at nearby Cement House, although his name is also on bronze panel 10 here), but recently they were officially recognised as being among those buried here at the German Cemetery, and so the plaque was put in place in around 2005.
Visit by Adolf Hitler in June 1940
"A local man from Wytschaete, south of Ypres, who was a young boy at the time, recalled the impression it made on him suddenly to see a convoy of big black cars and lots of German officers in their grey uniforms driving near his family's farmhouse. He hid in the wood owned by his family and watched Adolf Hitler walking nearby with his entourage of officers. In the First World War Hitler had served with the Bavarian Reserve-Infantry-Regiment 16 and had been in action south of Ypres in the area of Wytschaete on the Messines Ridge.
Adolf Hitler spent two days visiting the Ypres Salient battlefields. His tour included the town of Ypres and Langemark military cemetery".
The Brooding Soldier at Vancouver Corner: Memorial to 2000 Canadian soldiers who lost their lives in the St Julian area during the first gas attacks in 1915.
The memorial stands in quite a large area, and the floral displays can be stunning here. In autumn the area is covered by red flowers. At the base of the monument is an inscription commemorating the Candaian soldiers, and set in the paving stones around it are directional arrows to various sites on the battlefield - including Landemarck.
By 22 April 1915, the German Army had 168 tons of chlorine deployed in 5,730 cylinders opposite Langemark-Poelkapelle, north of Ypres. At 17:30, in a slight easterly breeze, the gas was released, forming a gray-green cloud that drifted across positions held by French Colonial troops from Martinique who broke ranks, abandoning their trenches and creating an 8,000-yard (7 km) gap in the Allied line. However, the German infantry were also wary of the gas and, lacking reinforcements, failed to exploit the break before the 1st Canadian Division and assorted French troops reformed the line in scattered, hastily prepared positions 1,000 to 3,000 yards apart. The Entente governments quickly claimed the attack was a flagrant violation of international law, but Germany argued that the Hague treaty had only banned chemical shells, rather than the use of gas projectors.
In what became the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans used gas on three more occasions; on 24 April against the 1st Canadian Division, on 2 May near Mouse Trap Farm and on 5 May against the British at Hill 60. The British Official History stated that at Hill 60, "90 men died from gas poisoning in the trenches or before they could be got to a dressing station; of the 207 brought to the nearest dressing stations, 46 died almost immediately and 12 after long suffering."
The New Zealand Memorial, Gravenstafel: "From the Uttermost Ends of the Earth". On October 4th, 1917, during the advance on Passchendaele, the New Zealanders took this section of ridge known as 't Gravenstafel or the "Grab and Stumble". Only 10% of the NZ forces survived the assault.
The toll was horrendous. There were about 3700 New Zealand casualties, of which 45 officers and 800 men were either dead or lying mortally wounded between the lines. In terms of lives lost in a single day, this remains the blackest day in New Zealand’s post-1840 existence.
Tyne Cot Cemetery and Memorial Wall: The largest of the Commonwealth cemeteries. Almost 12,000 soldiers are buried here and another 35,000 (missing) are listed on the memorial wall at the back of the cemetery - soldiers with no known grave. The cemetery also houses the memorial to the Australian 5th Division.
The cemetery grounds were assigned to the United Kingdom in perpetuity by King Albert I of Belgium in recognition of the sacrifices made by the British Empire in the defence and liberation of Belgium during the war. It is the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world, for any war.
No name is listed twice in this cemetery
Two of four German graves (Easy to identify as the stones are square on top and not rounded)
Polygon Wood: contains two cemeteries.
The small, original cemetery of Polygon Wood
and the larger Buttes New British Cemetery which was created after the war by concentrating isolated bodies scattered around the general area. There were also two memorials here. One is the Australian th Division. The other is to those of the New Zealand Division who held the Polygon Woods sector from September 1917 until May 198 but who have no known grave.
Hooge Crater Museum (and cemetery) The best private museum in Flanders Fields and our lunch stop.
The British position in the ‘Hooge’ area had become quite unstable in the summer of 1915. The German troops had an excellent overview over the British frontline. The Brits tried to eliminate this fortified German bastion with a limited but well targeted attack. They let explode more than 1700 kg of dynamite in a tunnel, made by the special Tunneling Companies of Royal Engineers. All this happened on July 19th, 1915. What follows was an immediate attack of the formed crater by the allies. This crater was later recalled ‘Hooge Crater’.
Full scale reconstructions of war scenes, an extended collection of weapons, war equipment and photos present a pretty good picture of the times.
Pieces of a trench flooring put down to keep their feet dry. Where trench foot got its name.
Gas masks. Didn't really work very well as they didnn't seal well around the face.
Ambulance
Farmers are still finding shells like these today when they plow their fields. There are still Bomb squads that go around collecting them and dismantling them when they are found.
Probably found in a field. Hand grenades are found frequently. Farmers call them "Heavy Potatoes". When sorting a potato harvest they will find them and yell "Heavy Potato". They lay them aside to be picked up by bomb disposal units. The munitions from this war are still killing people to this day. People who foolishly try to dismantle live shells (including those with poisonous gas) have been killed as recently as this year. Other accidents such as a plow running over a shell has caused explosions and death or injury, not to mention loss of a good tractor.
Former school that houses the museum and entrance to
the cafe where we had lunch
i walk around the area after lunch a little and took a couple pictures of nearby countryside. Hard to believe this was battlefield wasteland 90 years ago. Now a peaceful bucolic landscape.
Phillipe showing us a "Heavy Potato" from a farmers field. This is not where we were at the time, but we saw this earlier in the tour and the farm looked much like this rural area. Just a peaceful farm by the road. However these little potatoes can still be lethal. I thought it appropriate to put here after seeing all the munitions in this museum.
Hill 60 Preserved Battlefield Messines):
Phillipe, our very knowledgeable guide
The hill itself is a artificial dump, made from the spoil of the Ypres-Comines railway, and 60 metres above sea level which makes it higher than the surrounding ridge. The terrain has memorials to the Australian 1st Tunnelling Company and the Queen Victoria Rifle Brigade.
(Above inscription to the Memorial)
"Hill 60 the scene of bitter fighting was held by German troops from the 10th December 1914 to the 17th April 1915. When it was captured (after the explosion of five mines) by the British 5th Division on the following 5th May. It was recaptured by the German XV Corps. It remained in German hands until the battle of Messines (7th June 1917) when after many months of underground fighting, two mines were exploded here. And at the end of April 1918, after the battle of the Lys, it passed into German hands again. And was finally retaken by British troops under the commnd of H.M. King Albert I of the Belgians on the 28th September 1918.
In the Broken tunnels beneath this Enclosure many British and German dead were buried and the Hill is therefore preserved, so far as nature may permit in the state in which it was left after the Great War"
There are large depressions in the ground on the right hand side as you enter, and these result from the craters blown by mines during the course of the war. Nearest the front as you enter are craters from 1915 and 1916.
"The Battle of Hill 60 (17 April – 7 May 1915) took place in Flanders, south of Ypres on the Western Front. Hill 60 was captured by the German 30th Division, on 11 November 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres(19 October – 22 November 1914). The ground south of Zillebeke rises for 2,000 yards (1,800 m) to a ridge betweenZwarteleen and Zandvoorde. Roads ran north-west to south-east through the area from Ypres to Verbrandenmoelen and Hollebeke and from Zillebeke to Zwartelen and Zandvoorde. The Ypres–Comines railway ran roughly parallel to the roads from Ypres and 600 yards (550 m) from Zillebeke, went through a cutting 15–20 feet (4.6–6.1 m) deep, which extended beyond the crest of the ridge. Earth excavated when the railway was built, had been dumped on either side to form small hillocks. Two were on the west side, a long irregular mound atop the ridge called "The Caterpillar" and a smaller mound 300 yards (270 m) down the slope towards Zillebeke, known as "The Dump". On the east side of the cutting on the highest point of the ridge, was a third mound known as "Hill 60", from which observers had excellent observation of the ground around Zillebeke and Ypres. French preparations to raid the hill were continued by the British 28th Division, which took over the line in February 1915 and then by the 5th Division. The planned raid was expanded into an ambitious attempt to capture the hill, despite advice that Hill 60 could not be held unless "the Caterpillar" nearby was also occupied. A French 3 by 2 feet (0.91 m × 0.61 m) mine gallery under the hill, was extended by experienced miners from Northumberland and Wales, after it was found that Hill 60 was the only place in the area not waterlogged. The British attack began on 17 April 1915 and captured the area quickly, with only seven casualties but then found that the salient which had been created, made occupation of the hill very costly. Both sides mistakenly accused the other of using poison gas in the April fighting; German attacks on the hill in early May, did use gas shells and recovered the ground at the second attempt on 5 May.
Deep mining under the German galleries beneath Hill 60 began in late August 1915 with the 175th Tunnelling Company R.E. which began a gallery 220 yards (200 m) behind the British front line and passed 90 feet (27 m) beneath. The 3rd Canadian Tunnelling Company took over in April 1916 and completed the galleries, the Hill 60 mine being charged with 53,300 pounds (24,200 kg) of explosives in July 1916 and a branch gallery under the Caterpillar filled with a 70,000-pound (32,000 kg) charge in October. The 1st Australian Tunnelling Company took over in November 1916, led in part by Captain Oliver Woodward and maintained the mines over the winter. At 3:10 a.m. on 7 June 1917, 19 mines filled with 450,000 kilograms (990,000 lb) of explosives, were detonated under the German lines. Although two mines did not explode, the blasts created one of the largest explosions in history, reportedly heard in London and Dublin, demolishing a large part of the hill and killing c. 10,000 German soldiers".
Below is the larger depression of a crater dating from 1917. This was one of those blown at the start of the Battle of Messines. Lumps of fortified concrete remain scattered around the bottom of this crater. As you walk further towards the rear of the site, more lumps of concrete protrude. In a clump of brambles towards the rear the remains of a pillbox can be discerned.
Demolished German pillbox
On the top of the Hill, the remains of at least four bunkers (plus an almost intact one) can be seen.
Remains of Allied pillbox (you can tell its allied because it is round. The other and more important reason is the direction in which the machine gun ports are facing. They were placed to defend Ypres which is down the hill behind the pillbox and thus facing the enemy.
Also on top of the Hill, near the front of the site, is another memorial, this one to Queen Victorias Rifles, commemorating where the regiment fought their first open engagement, in which they lost 12 officers and 180 men in casualties. However, this is not the original memorial. That was erected in 1923, commemorating all ranks of the QVR who gave their lives for their country in the First World War. It was unveiled by General Sir Charles Fergusson, at a ceremony at which Captain G.H. Woolley VC was the clergyman. Woolley, then serving as a Second Lieutenant in the QVR had won the Victoria Cross here at Hill 60 on the night of the 20th-21st of April, 1915. The original memorial was approached by an impressive fenced track with steps.
a close-up of the original memorial.
However, the original memorial was destroyed in 1940 by the Germans, and the plaque on the current memorial was placed by the Regiment on some of the stones of that original memorial. From the black and white photo, it would seem that the four flat stones forming a tier on top of the much larger plinth of today's memorial are the original stones referred to.
All the trees and vegetation have grown back on its own. Other than the construction of the monuments the area has been left to nature.
At the front of the site there is a memorial to the 1st Australian Tunneling Company, and the plaque on this contains bullet holes (see picture below). These date not from the First but the Second World War, when this area was once again fought over, although much more briefly. The plaque explains that this permanent memorial replaces one erected in 1919 by comrades of those who fell here.
Although the topography of Hill 60, complete with shell-holes, still shows the ground as it was, grass, nature and time has softened the scars. There are no relics, although the remains of concrete fortifications can be seen. For many who fought here however, the place remained in their memory, and probably because of the friends he lost here, at least one veteran, Mr P G Arnold from Birmingham, asked his widow to scatter his ashes here after he died in 1931.
Another WWII Vet asked to have his remains here. Permission was denied as it was felt this should remain a memorial to the Great War. There was much contoversy over it, and at some point this little memorial appeared; it has not been removed.
Twenty-three years later (WWII) the area was fought over again and the British 5th Infantry Division, stopped the advance of three German divisions from 27–28 May 1940 and saved the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). This would have been when the original monument was destroyed by the German troops.
The Menin Gate in Ypres: is the memorial to almost 55,000 men who fell during the Great War and have no known grave,
A little break in Ypres (pronounced Eepers) (the Brits called it "Wipers"
Then
And now completely rebuilt
A little local beer Passchendaele (also a battle area)
Back on the bus. Only two stops to go.
The Yorkshire Trench and Dugout: The trench was excavated and reconstructed by a group of amateur archaeologists called the Diggers and opened to the public in 2003. The first trench was dug on the side in 1915, but with primitive trenching techniques. It soon became unusable so was re-dug slightly west of the original in 1917 by the 49th West Riding Division. The dugouts underneath the site were dug by the 173rd Tunnelling Company and consist of sleeping quarters, communication centre and woodworking and storage areas.
This is smack dab in the middle of an industrial and wind power farm
Before these signs went up you could walk the trench and see an underground bunker, but because the "Diggers" were amateurs, the reconstructions have not held up well and are now a danger.
It is unknown how many more dead may be beneath the area which has been overbuilt by industry and the wind farm. As a result of the protest of professional archeologists, Belgium passed a law in 2009 that no empty land could be built on until such time as Professional Archeologists could test the ground and study for any historical significance. Considering its history, I can't imagine there is a patch of dirt anywhere here that would not have historical significance.
Essex Farm Cemetery and Dressing Station: The cemetery is one of the original cemeteries and made up largely of burials from the dressing station on the site.
Advanced Dressing Station - Wounded soldiers were treated here first and then, if they survived, moved a mile or so behind the front lines to a field hospital
The larger rooms wre used for operating and smaller ones for supplies
Just behind the cemetery is a memorial to the 49th West Riding Division. Men from this Division served here in 1915, and several are buried in Essex Farm Cemetery, in Plot 1.
The unplanned layout of the graves here reveals the nature of the cemetery. There are 1,199 burials, only 102 of which are unidentified, again reflecting the location of the cemetery near a dressing station, where casualties returned from action and hence identification was the norm. There are also 19 special memorials to men believed to be, or known to be, buried here.
One of the youngest soldiers to die in the war - Valentine Strudwick, a 15 year old from Surrey, is buried here.
It is said that many teachers bring their teenage students here on field trips just to see this grave. Nothing speaks to peace like a child who dies at 15 fighting in a war.
THE DOCTOR
Dr. and Major John McCrae, a Canadian, wrote his famous poem "In Flanders Fields" here in 1915.
"Following this Major John McCrae was moved to the medical corps and stationed in Boulogne, France, in June 1915 where he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and placed in charge of medicine at the Number 3 Canadian General Hospital. He was promoted to the acting rank of Colonel on January 13, 1918, and named Consulting Physician to the British Armies in France. The years of war had worn McCrae down, however. He contracted pneumonia that same day, and later came down with cerebral meningitis. On January 28, 1918, he died at the military hospital in Wimereux and was buried there with full military honours. A book of his works, featuring "In Flanders Fields" was published the following year". I think it only appropriate to end this blog with the poem
A generation of young men lost. May they all Rest in Peace.
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