GREAT WAR SITES IN BELGIUM AND FRANCE
This page contains photographs taken of places, cemeteries and museums connected with the Great War. They were taken on three visits that I made to the Continent.
The first visit that I made was a long weekend on a battlefields tour run by Leger Holidays based in Menin between Friday 3rd and Monday 6th October 2014.
The second visit was a five day trip that I did on my own staying in Albert from 7th to 11th September 2015.
The third visit was a five day trip that I did on my own staying in Ypres from 5th to 9th September 2016.
The photographs show most of the places that I got to with the exception of the Historical Museum of the Great War at Peronne on the long weekend trip. The omission was for practical reasons as I should have tried to take a photograph of the outside of the Museum and the photographs that I did take in it are of individual exhibits.
Why did I go? Well in the first instance I decided that I wanted to try and see what one of the organised battlefield tours was like and in the second and third instances I wanted to see more. Of course as you can see from the page on Royal Flying Corps Stow Maries I had already been to one Great War site already.
I do have a direct connection to the Great War as my late father Albert Phillips served in the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry between 1917 and 1918. His two brothers Frederick and Charles also served in the war. Charles did not come back. Like an awful lot he died a few months before the end of the war.
I have included photographs of three cap badges from the Great War. The one with the rose belonged to my father and is of the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. The one with the knot is of the North Staffordshire Regiment, to which my uncle belonged but was bought in Ypres in 2016. The one with the castle is of the Essex Regiment, the regiment of the county I was born in and live it. This was also bought in Ypres in 2016.
If it appears that there is a distinct British Empire bias in the places visited that is because being English I automatically wanted to see places where British Empire forces were involved. I say Empire because at the time of the war the Empire still existed and the Commonwealth had not come into being. Different countries have different perceptions of the war. A good example of this is Britain and France in relation to the West Front and in particular the year 1916. To the French the Battle of Verdun was the most important battle of 1916 whereas to the British because they were not involved in the Battle it is of a lesser significance. To the British the Battle of the Somme was the most important battle of 1916 because although the French were involved the British were main allied player and suffered the heaviest losses. To the French it was the secondary action of 1916. Again although the French were involved in the fighting in Belgium the British were more involved. Passchendaele does not mean the same to French as it does to the British.
The selection of photographs tries to show what I saw but also to give an impression of the war including the more unpleasant aspects of it. No museum or war site will ever be able to give a true impression of what it was like to be in the war. The Passchendaele Memorial Museum at Zonnebeke which I think is the best museum of all tries very hard even to the point of having little boxes in which some of the smells such as of gas and of bully beef have been replicated. However it has not been possible to replicate the feel of what it was like to be in the war. To replicate what it felt like to have lice on your body would, were it possible, be going too far. To get a feel of the trenches the Sanctuary Wood Museum with it trenches preserved in as near original condition as possible does enable the visitor to experience the mud.
Apart from the Paschendale Memorial Museum at Zonnebeke my favourite museums are the Somme Trench Museum at Albert and Talbot House at Popperinge. If I am allowed to have favourite war cemeteries they are the Communal Extension Cemetery at Albert and Essex Farm at Ypres, where John McCrae composed his famous poem ‘In Flanders Fields’. The most impressive war site to my mind is Vimy Ridge. The Theipval Memorial may be bigger but the Vimy Ridge Memorial stands out better to my mind plus the fact that the complex includes trenches, tunnels and cemeteries.
I am very open on the merits of organised guided tours versus self-guided tours. The former do have the merit that you do not have to worry booking a hotel, arranging transport to place and arranging lunch and recommending where to have diner in the evening. You do have the service of an expert guide and so you do not have to worry about doing research on a subject. The disadvantage is that you are tied down by the schedule of the tour. This means that you may feel that you either do not have long enough to visit a particular place or have too long to visit. Another thing is that you will probably have to watch a video or videos on the coach relating to the subject of the tour when you would rather be looking at the scenery. If you go on a self-guided tour you do have the merit deciding how long to spend in a particular place, but you do have to book your own accommodation and travel and work out your routes to particular place as well as doing your research. You will also need to have some knowledge of the language of the country that you are going to. The Belgians are not too bad if you can’t speak Flemish or rather Dutch, but the French like it if you can speak some French. The only thing I would not recommend is trying to organise a group coach tour as you will have the stress of having to arrange all the things that organised guided tours have the facilities to do and wish that you had not started the whole thing.
If you do decide to use public transport it is easier to get round in Belgium than in France. Be careful of weekends as the train and bus times are not the same as on weekdays. Rather like Britain. In the case of France regardless of the day of the week you are going do your research.
When visiting a cemetery it is nice to have very few other people there both for yourself and for the others. However this depends on luck. In you are on a conducted tour this is impossible. Equally if you turn up and find a lot of conducted tours there this again is impossible. If you are lucky enough to have a whole cemetery to yourself it can be very pleasant. If the cemetery is not too big you can find time to look at every single grave. And reflect. On what a waste of life.
Do not touch, never mind pick up anything any relic that you see lying on a battlefield. Just because a shell or a bullet or a grenade is about 100 years old does not mean that they will not longer explode. If they were not designed to kill in some way they might well give you tetanus. Also it is illegal to take things off battlefields.
Be careful what you bring back in the way of original relics. The best things to bring back are cap badges. Any weapons even if they are de-activated or any shells or grenades are out.
Whilst I wish that the Great War had never happened I think that because of the mood of the time I think that it was inevitable although I think that Britain could have kept out of it. You may disagree and I respect you for that.
Whilst it is quite true that the generals, admirals and politicians were trained for the wars of the 19th century and not the 20th century I would go so far as to say that nor were public either.
I personally think that the Passchendaele Memorial Museum at Zonnebeke is the best museum to get a flavour of what things were like and should be visited. The Somme Trench Museum at Albert is another very good museum and should be visited.
Some brief notes on the photographs.
I apologise for the less than perfect quality of some of them. The museums I visited permitted photography only without the use of flash. I set my camera to automatic without flash.
All the war sites I visited are shown in alphabetical order. The battle sites for which the photographs relate to are those of the Ypres Salient which had four battles between 1914 and 1915 and 1917 and 1918, the Somme which was in 1916 and Vimy Ridge which was in 1917.
I have tended to avoid showing individual gravestones except for a good reason such as to show a grave of an unknown soldier or one who died on the First Day of the Somme or my own uncle.
The visit to Cabaret Rouge Cemetery was the only one that I made to see a specific grave – that of my uncle.
It is recommended that if you want to get a very good view of the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate at Ypres you arrive at least an hour before the ceremony takes places at 8 p.m. and that you try to get as near as possible to where the buglers will be which is at the end of the Menin Gate furthest away from the Market Square. If you have not been the ceremony is a very moving one.
The first visit that I made was a long weekend on a battlefields tour run by Leger Holidays based in Menin between Friday 3rd and Monday 6th October 2014.
The second visit was a five day trip that I did on my own staying in Albert from 7th to 11th September 2015.
The third visit was a five day trip that I did on my own staying in Ypres from 5th to 9th September 2016.
The photographs show most of the places that I got to with the exception of the Historical Museum of the Great War at Peronne on the long weekend trip. The omission was for practical reasons as I should have tried to take a photograph of the outside of the Museum and the photographs that I did take in it are of individual exhibits.
Why did I go? Well in the first instance I decided that I wanted to try and see what one of the organised battlefield tours was like and in the second and third instances I wanted to see more. Of course as you can see from the page on Royal Flying Corps Stow Maries I had already been to one Great War site already.
I do have a direct connection to the Great War as my late father Albert Phillips served in the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry between 1917 and 1918. His two brothers Frederick and Charles also served in the war. Charles did not come back. Like an awful lot he died a few months before the end of the war.
I have included photographs of three cap badges from the Great War. The one with the rose belonged to my father and is of the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. The one with the knot is of the North Staffordshire Regiment, to which my uncle belonged but was bought in Ypres in 2016. The one with the castle is of the Essex Regiment, the regiment of the county I was born in and live it. This was also bought in Ypres in 2016.
If it appears that there is a distinct British Empire bias in the places visited that is because being English I automatically wanted to see places where British Empire forces were involved. I say Empire because at the time of the war the Empire still existed and the Commonwealth had not come into being. Different countries have different perceptions of the war. A good example of this is Britain and France in relation to the West Front and in particular the year 1916. To the French the Battle of Verdun was the most important battle of 1916 whereas to the British because they were not involved in the Battle it is of a lesser significance. To the British the Battle of the Somme was the most important battle of 1916 because although the French were involved the British were main allied player and suffered the heaviest losses. To the French it was the secondary action of 1916. Again although the French were involved in the fighting in Belgium the British were more involved. Passchendaele does not mean the same to French as it does to the British.
The selection of photographs tries to show what I saw but also to give an impression of the war including the more unpleasant aspects of it. No museum or war site will ever be able to give a true impression of what it was like to be in the war. The Passchendaele Memorial Museum at Zonnebeke which I think is the best museum of all tries very hard even to the point of having little boxes in which some of the smells such as of gas and of bully beef have been replicated. However it has not been possible to replicate the feel of what it was like to be in the war. To replicate what it felt like to have lice on your body would, were it possible, be going too far. To get a feel of the trenches the Sanctuary Wood Museum with it trenches preserved in as near original condition as possible does enable the visitor to experience the mud.
Apart from the Paschendale Memorial Museum at Zonnebeke my favourite museums are the Somme Trench Museum at Albert and Talbot House at Popperinge. If I am allowed to have favourite war cemeteries they are the Communal Extension Cemetery at Albert and Essex Farm at Ypres, where John McCrae composed his famous poem ‘In Flanders Fields’. The most impressive war site to my mind is Vimy Ridge. The Theipval Memorial may be bigger but the Vimy Ridge Memorial stands out better to my mind plus the fact that the complex includes trenches, tunnels and cemeteries.
I am very open on the merits of organised guided tours versus self-guided tours. The former do have the merit that you do not have to worry booking a hotel, arranging transport to place and arranging lunch and recommending where to have diner in the evening. You do have the service of an expert guide and so you do not have to worry about doing research on a subject. The disadvantage is that you are tied down by the schedule of the tour. This means that you may feel that you either do not have long enough to visit a particular place or have too long to visit. Another thing is that you will probably have to watch a video or videos on the coach relating to the subject of the tour when you would rather be looking at the scenery. If you go on a self-guided tour you do have the merit deciding how long to spend in a particular place, but you do have to book your own accommodation and travel and work out your routes to particular place as well as doing your research. You will also need to have some knowledge of the language of the country that you are going to. The Belgians are not too bad if you can’t speak Flemish or rather Dutch, but the French like it if you can speak some French. The only thing I would not recommend is trying to organise a group coach tour as you will have the stress of having to arrange all the things that organised guided tours have the facilities to do and wish that you had not started the whole thing.
If you do decide to use public transport it is easier to get round in Belgium than in France. Be careful of weekends as the train and bus times are not the same as on weekdays. Rather like Britain. In the case of France regardless of the day of the week you are going do your research.
When visiting a cemetery it is nice to have very few other people there both for yourself and for the others. However this depends on luck. In you are on a conducted tour this is impossible. Equally if you turn up and find a lot of conducted tours there this again is impossible. If you are lucky enough to have a whole cemetery to yourself it can be very pleasant. If the cemetery is not too big you can find time to look at every single grave. And reflect. On what a waste of life.
Do not touch, never mind pick up anything any relic that you see lying on a battlefield. Just because a shell or a bullet or a grenade is about 100 years old does not mean that they will not longer explode. If they were not designed to kill in some way they might well give you tetanus. Also it is illegal to take things off battlefields.
Be careful what you bring back in the way of original relics. The best things to bring back are cap badges. Any weapons even if they are de-activated or any shells or grenades are out.
Whilst I wish that the Great War had never happened I think that because of the mood of the time I think that it was inevitable although I think that Britain could have kept out of it. You may disagree and I respect you for that.
Whilst it is quite true that the generals, admirals and politicians were trained for the wars of the 19th century and not the 20th century I would go so far as to say that nor were public either.
I personally think that the Passchendaele Memorial Museum at Zonnebeke is the best museum to get a flavour of what things were like and should be visited. The Somme Trench Museum at Albert is another very good museum and should be visited.
Some brief notes on the photographs.
I apologise for the less than perfect quality of some of them. The museums I visited permitted photography only without the use of flash. I set my camera to automatic without flash.
All the war sites I visited are shown in alphabetical order. The battle sites for which the photographs relate to are those of the Ypres Salient which had four battles between 1914 and 1915 and 1917 and 1918, the Somme which was in 1916 and Vimy Ridge which was in 1917.
I have tended to avoid showing individual gravestones except for a good reason such as to show a grave of an unknown soldier or one who died on the First Day of the Somme or my own uncle.
The visit to Cabaret Rouge Cemetery was the only one that I made to see a specific grave – that of my uncle.
It is recommended that if you want to get a very good view of the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate at Ypres you arrive at least an hour before the ceremony takes places at 8 p.m. and that you try to get as near as possible to where the buglers will be which is at the end of the Menin Gate furthest away from the Market Square. If you have not been the ceremony is a very moving one.
