I recently returned from my latest Leger Battlefield Tour... All Quiet On The Western Front. Once again I had the company of my good friend and fellow history enthusiast John Chisholm.
In this article I look back at the tour and the various sites we visited along with a brief overview of what happened during those dark days. I have also included just a few of the many photographs I took during the tour.
An early start saw us heading to Folkestone where we boarded our tour coach before taking the short journey to Dover and the ferry crossing to Dunkirk.
We were booked in for four nights at the Hotel & Aparthotel Alize in Mouscron, a lovely hotel with great facilities, staff and only a couple of minutes walk from the town square, restaurants and bars. It was also central for our planned visits over the following few days.
On our way to the hotel we made an unplanned stop at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery about a mile from the Belgian city and municipality of Poperinge in the province of West Flanders.
The cemetery contains 9,901 Commonwealth burials from the First World War with 24 unidentified. There are a further 883 war graves, mostly French and German.
During our brief visit we visited the grave of Staff Nurse Nellie Spindler who had joined the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and in May 1917 went across to France. At first she was stationed at a hospital in Abbeville before transferring to No. 44 Casualty Clearing Station which, in July 1917, was based in Brandhoek, Belgium, close to the frontlines.
On 21 August 1917 the hospital was shelled throughout the day and Spindler was knocked unconscious by an explonding shell. Despite efforts to save her she died less than 30 minutes later in the the arms of another nurse.
Having checked in to the hotel John and I took the opportunity to take a walk around the local area and ended the evening with a refreshing pint at one of the many bars.
Our first full day concentrated on The Battle of the Somme. An 8 o'clock start saw us heading to Peronne and the first of our museum visits, the Grande Guerre Museum (Museum Of The Great War). Situated in a Medieval Castle it is full of great exhibits. Displayed in cut-outs on the floor are an amazing collection of uniforms, firearms and various pieces of militaria.
In one area of the museum can be found many items and relics found on the various battlefields and includes some fascinationg pieces of militaria.
Another unplanned stop was the Devonshire Cemetery where we learnt about the 8th and 9th Battalions of the Devonshire Regiment who attacked the German lines on 1st July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme.
They suffered heavy casualties as they left their forward trench and later the same day those who had survived buried their comrades in the same trench. Of the 163 graves, ten are unidentified and two are not from the Devonshire Regiment.
When you look along the two rows of graves it is easy to see where the original trench had been located.
We learnt about one grave in particular, that of Lieutenant W. N. Hodgson. He was a poet and one of his poems, Before Action was published in The New Witness on 29 June 1916 two days before he went into action with the 9th Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. He was only 23 when he was killed during the attack on 1 July 1916.
Before Action is a poignant and powerful reflection on the emotions of soldiers in wartime. It's mixture of reverence, nostalgia and finally resignation covers the universal themes of life, death and sacrifice. The final few words are somber but also an acceptance of the inevitable... "Help me to die, O Lord."
Three days after the attack a wooden cross was placed bearing the words, 'The Devonshires Held This Trench, The Devonshires Still Do.' Sometime later the cross disappeared, possibly stolen, and in the 1980s officers of the regiment who were visiting the site made plans to replace the cross and a new stone was placed at the entrance to the cemetery bearing the same words.
Lochnagar Crater, close to the village of La Boiselle, was our next stop. The crater, which is 21 metres deep and 100 metres wide, was created when a large mine was detonated under the German lines at 7.28am on 1st July 1916. One of 19 mines placed, it is the largest man-made crater on the Western Front.
The mine was placed by the 179th Tunnelling Company, Royal Engineers to assist the infantry advance at the start of the Battle of the Somme. The British named the mine after 'Lochnagar Street', a British trench from where tunnelling had begun. They dug almost 90 foot down then excavated a distance of 1,030 feet towards the enemy lines. They placed 27 tons of ammonal explosive in two seperate chambers 60 feet apart with the intention of destroying the formidable German Schwaben Hohe (Swabian Heights). Debris from the explosion flew nearly 4,000 feet into the air
Sufficient explosive was used so not only would it break the surface and form a crater, but enough to result in the spoil falling in the surrounding fields and causing a lip around the crater approximately 15 foot high which would protect the British troops who were advancing. The crater was captured and held by the British but the attack on either flank was defeated by the Germans except for the extreme right flank between La Boiselle and the crater.
The redoubt was a fortified position that overlooked the River Ancre with commanding views. It consisted of many machine-gun emplacements, trenches and dug-outs.
The tower commemorates the 36th (Ulster) Division, who made a historic charge on 1st July, and all those from Ulster, who served in the First World War.
Standing 70 feet tall it was the first official memorial to be erected on the Western Front and was dedicated on 19th November 1921. It is a replica af the Ulster landmark, Helen's Tower, which is located in the grounds of Clandeboye Estate in County Down, Northern Ireland.
There was a small museum and cafe both of which we took time to visit during our time there.
Before we left our guides pointed out some remains in a field close to the tower, a German observation post in an area known as the Pope's Nose Salient. Unable to take a closer look I did try to capture an image which unfortunately is not that great but I have included it here.
Our next stop was Newfoundland Park, near Beaumont Hamel, one of the few areas which has remained largely undisturbed since the First World War.
The Park gained its name due to the significance to Newfoundland, as it was the Newfoundland Regiment, part of the 29th Division, that attacked here on 1st July 1916. Purchased by Newfoundland in 1921 and maintained ever since as a memorial, it was designated a Canadian National Historic Site in 1997. Young Canadian volunteers spend time greeting visitors and providing information.
As you enter the park one of the first things you see is a memorial to the 29th Division but it is a little further on that the most impressive structure comes into view, The Memorial to the Missing. The statue of the Caribou atop some stones was chosen as it is the symbol of the Newfoundland Regiment. On the base are three bronze panels listing the missing.
Directly in front are the original 1st July frontline trenches from where the British and Newfoundland soldiers attacked. We took the opportunity to walk along these original trenches which are zig-zagged, as are most of the trenches on the Western Front, so that if a shell fell in the trench the blast would be contained. It also meant any enemy getting into the trenches could not fire in a straight line.
Following a marked path there are many sites to see including the remains of trenches, both British and Canadian, along with shell holes and dugouts. While some of the trenches are from July 1916 many date from November. It was interesting to spot the corkscrew ended metal poles which were used to support the barbed wire on no-man's-land.
Mid-way across no-man's-land is the Danger Tree, a preserved tree that is thought to be original and possibly marks the limit of the Newfoundlands advance on the firs day of the Battle of the Somme.
As we walked further on there were more trenches, this time German, and the path then passes Y Ravine Cemetery. The park contains two more cemeteries, Hunter's and Hawthorn Ridge No. 2, and two more memorials to the 51st Division.
The first is a simple wooden cross, which originally stood at High Wood and bears the inscription, 'This cross is erected in memory of the Officers, NCOs and men of the 51st Highland Division who fell at High Wood in July 1916.'
The other memorial, near the rear of the park, features blocks of Rubislaw granite, from Aberdeen, assembled into a pyramid. At the top stands a statue of a kilted Highland soldier looking east towards Beaumont Hamel which the men captured in November 1916. Three panels have inscriptions in Gaelic, English and French and can be translated as 'Friends are good on the day of battle.'
I could have spent hours at Newfoundland Park as there is so much to see. However it was time to move on.
Standing approximately 46 meters high, Thiepval Memorial to the Missing is an impressive structure and dominates the local area. It was the next stop on our tour.
The Memorial bears the names, on stone panels, of more than 72,000 men who died in the Somme Sector before March 1918 and have no known grave. Almost 90% of those named died between July and November 1916.
Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and constructed from Portland stone it comprises a series of arches of varying size interlocked at right angles. The main arch is topped with a tower. In the central space is the Stone of Remembrance and there are sixteen stone wreaths with the names of the battles that made up the Battle of the Somme and subsequent actions in which the men commemorated on the memorial fell.
At the foot of the memorial there is the Anglo-French Memorial, containing 300 British Commonwealth headstones and 300 French crosses. Many are unknown and were re-buried after discovering the bodies in 1931 and 1932, mostly from the Somme Battlefield but also from Loos and Le Quesnel.
On the Cross of Sacrifice the joint British and French contributions are remembered with the inscription, 'That the world may remember the common sacrifice of two and a half million dead, here have been laid side by side Soldiers of France and of the British Empire in eternal comradeship.'
Before leaving the Memorial I took time to walk through the nearby woods where there were remains of some German trenches, although they were heavily overgrown and barely visible.
Our final stop of the day was another unplanned visit, this time to the area of some of the most iconic images of the First World War... Hawthorn Ridge and The Sunken Lane. This is one of my favourite sites on the Western Front and I had been there ten years earlier during my first battlefield tour.
Hawthorn Ridge was a German redoubt close to the village of Beaumont Hamel and one of the planned objectives on 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Prior to the start of the battle the 252nd Tunnelling Company dug a tunnel 300 metres towards the Ridge and packed it with 40,000 pounds of ammonal.
The British plan, after days of constant shelling, was to blow a number of mines before going over the top. They were due to be detonated at 7.30am as whistles blew and troops were advancing out of the trenches. Unfortunately, the mine under Hawthorn Ridge was detonated ten minutes early giving the Germans advance warning of an attack.
Geoffrey Malins was one of two cameramen sent to France to capture footage for newsreels. On 1st July he was in an area called Jacob's Ladder where he set up his camera and captured the incredible footage of the mine being detonated. The footage has become one of the most iconic images of the war.
Malins had earlier in the day filmed troops from the Lancashire Fusiliers who were in the area known as The Sunken Lane and waiting to go over the top. They had moved into the area at 0300 hours on 1st July and his film captures the men, some sitting and some leaning against the banks. A few are looking at the camera but many don't. The look on their faces capture men waiting to go forward knowing they may not make it.
At 07.30 they rose up out of the Sunken Lane and were cut down before making it only a few metres. They were vunerable from the high ground they were attacking, because of the early detonation of the mine, and were being fired upon by the Germans who had advance warning of the attack. Their positions enabled them to fire from the left, right and front. The soldiers didn't stand a chance and by lunchtime the Sunken Lane was filled with the wounded and the dying. They lost 163 men killed and a further 323 wounded or missing.
Malins produced the film 'The Battle of the Somme' which was shown in British cinemas in August 1916 and seen by more than twenty million people in its first six weeks. It remains one of the most historicallty important films of the war.
It was a long day that examined The Battle of The Somme and we learnt so much from the guides during the journey between each place we visited.
Day three of our tour would find us in Northern France where we learnt about the 'Forgotten Front' between Flanders and the Somme. The day started with a visit to St. Mary's A.D.S. Cemetery near Haisnes
The St. Mary's Advanced Dressing Station, where wounded soldiers would receive emergency treatment, was established during the Battle of Loos. The cemetery, which took its name from the Dressing Station, is at the same location and created after the Armistice. The cemetery has 1,815 graves with over two-thirds unidentified.
Buried in the cemetery is Second Lieutenant John Kipling, son of novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling. He had joined the 2nd Battalion, Irish Guards two days before his seventeeth birthday. Sent to France in August 1915 he was posted missing in action in September during the Battle of Loos.
There was some doubt about the grave being that of John Kipling and it was first marked as an 'Unknown Soldier'. However, mistakes discovered in paperwork and research undertaken by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission proved that it was his grave and in 1992 the inscription was changed.
At our next stop, Dud Corner Cemetery, we learned about the Battle of Loos which took place between September and October 1915. The first major British offensive, involving six divisions (60,000 men), often referred to as 'The Big Push' and the first time the British used poison gas.
The idea was to support the French who were trying to break through the German lines at Artois. The ground chosen to make their attack was not ideal and although ammunition and heavy artillery were available in large numbers and they had the use of gas it was not the success they had hoped for. Despite success on the first day with advances towards Loos and Hulloch the battle soon turned into attritional warfare for very few gains. This was, in part, due to the reserves being held a long way back from the frontlines to have any effect.
Most of the burials at Dud Corner Cemetery, which is on the site of the German Lens Road Redoubt, were those killed during the Battle of Loos. There are 1,812 British and Canadian graves of which only 686 are identified with the remaining 1,126 unknown and only identified as British or Commonwealth soldiers.
The two side walls and rear walls are known as the Loos Memorial and contain the names of over 20,000 officers and men who have no known grave and who fell in the area from the River Lys to the southern boundary of the First Army east and west of Grenay.
On either side tablets are fixed on which the names are carved, while at the back are circular courts in which more tablets are located. In the centre stands the Cross of Sacrifice.
The left hand tower at the front of the cemetery has a viewing platform from which you can look across the battlefield.
On our way to our next planned stop we learnt even more about the Battle of Loos and Vimy Ridge and took a detour to pass by the largest French cemetery in the world, Notre Dame de Lorette, just north of Arras. Also known as Ablain St.-Nazaire French Military Cemetery, it contains the graves of more than 40,000 soldiers. Standing in the middle of the cemetery is the Chapel of Notre Dame de Lorette.
The ridge it stands on, along with Vimy Ridge, dominate the flat Douai Plain and the town of Arras. This ground was strategically important during the war and the focal point of major battles... The Battle of Arras (October 1914), First Battle of Artois (December 1914), Second Battle of Artois (May 1915) and Third Battle of Artois (September 1915).
We then stopped for lunch in Arras which is a lovely city with some wonderful architecture, cobbled streets and a wide choice of places to eat and drink.
The city was strategic in the face of the German invasion and was heavily shelled during the war, suffered extensive damage and many of the cities famous buildings were destroyed.
In 1919 work started on the reconstruction of this martyred city and many of the buildings, including The Belfry, were rebuilt.
Following lunch we headed just south of Arras to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Visitor Centre. This was an opportunity to go behind the scenes at the work they undertake throughout the world.
As you walk around the centre you can watch skilled stonemasons, carpenters and blacksmiths at work and learn about the methods used to maintain the cemeteries. There are also sections on sign-making and the work that they do in the research, recovery and reburial of soldiers found on the former battlefields. Their work is crucial in preserving their memory.
Late-afternoon and the tour took us to The Arras Memorial which commemorates more than 35,000 soldiers from the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand who have no known grave and who died between 1916 and 1918 in the Arras sector.
Also located within the grounds is the Arras Flying Services Memorial. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, who also designed the cemetery and Arras Memorial, the four sides of the obelisk contain the names of 990 airmen from the Royal Naval Air Service, The Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force who were killed on the Western Front and have no known grave.
At the top of the memorial is a globe which has a significance as explained by Lord Trenchard, who unveiled the memorial in July 1932. In his speech he said, "The globe placed on the obelisk has a significance bridging the years that have passed since November 1918. It stands exactly, with its North and South points, as our globe hung in space on the morning of Armistice Day 1918."
Our final stop of the day was Vimy Ridge and the Canadian National Monument and, despite the heavy rain, it was somewhere I didn't want to miss.
Vimy Ridge formed a salient separating the Lens plain to the north from the Arras plain to the south. At its highest point it stood at an altitude of 145 metres and because of the height it was a strategic position.
The ridge was occupied by the German army from October 1914 who built a strong defensive sytem of trenches.
For several months during early 1915 the French army had tried to recapture the ridge without any success although they did capture the hill of Notre Dame-de-Lorette. They made a second, unsuccessful attempt in late 1915. The ridge was finally captured during April and May 1917 by the Canadians during the Battle of Vimy.Ridge.
The Canadian National Monument is located on Hill 145 and stands 110 metres above the adjacent Douai Plain. Along with the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing, it is one of the most impressive memorials on the Western Front and can be seen for miles around.
In December 1920 a design competition was held and there were 160 submissions which were narrowed down to just seventeen. It was Walter Allward's design that was chosen and work commenced on the memorial in 1924 when structural engineer Dr Oscar Faber was asked to prepare plans.
It took eleven years to construct using 11,000 tonnes of concrete and 6,000 tonnes of stone. The twenty sculptured figures were carved on site and made out of limestone from half-size plaster models made by Allward in his London studio.
The monument was opened on 26th July 1936 by King Edward VIII and French President Albert Lebrun. Over 50,000 people attended the ceremony.
The site also includes the Canadian Cemetery No. 2, Givenchy Road Canadian Cemetery, a visitor centre and tunnels and restored trenches. The weather and time meant there wasn't time to visit these but I am sure I will get back there one day.
Another busy, interesting and emotional day and time to relax in the evening with dinner and a refreshing drink.
Day four concentrated on Ypres and Passchenale and began with us learning how Germany commemorated their dead with a visit to the Langemarck German Cemetery. Located near the village of Langemarck, which was the scene of the first gas attacks by the German army, it is one of only a small number of German cemeteries in the Flanders region.
There are more than 44,000 soldiers in total buried there including 3,000 school students who were killed during the First Battle of Ypres.
Near the entrance is a mass grave known as the Comrade's Grave which contains almost 25,000 servicemen. This mass-grave is guarded by a statue of four mourning figures, added in 1956 and designed by Professor Emil Krieger.
Following a short journey we stopped at Vancouver Corner where we remembered the Canadians who defended Ypres in 1915. The St. Julien Memorial, also known as The Brooding Soldier, commemorates the Canadian's First Division and their participation in the Second Battle of Ypres. This battle saw the first use of poison gas attacks on the Western Front.
The memorial, which stands 11 metres tall, was designed by War veteran and architect Lieutenant Frederick Chapman Clemesha and selected following a design competition. On top of the memorial is a sculpture of a Canadian soldier with his hands resting on the butt of his down-turned rifle in 'arms reversed' position, a gesture of mourning and respect for the fallen performed at remembrance services. A plaque on the side reads... '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 lie buried nearby.'
Our next stop was Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest British military cemetery in the world, with 11,956 graves, most of which are unknown and marked as 'A Soldier Of The Great War.'. A further 35,000 names appear on the memorial, many of which were killed at the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917.
The cemetery has three Victoria Cross recipients buried... Captain C. S. Jeffries, Sergeant L. McGee and Private J. P. Robertson with a further three listed on the memorial... Lt-Colonel P. E. Bent, Corporal W. Clamp and Lt-Corporal E. Seaman.
Tyne Cot first became a cemetery in October 1917 after the ridge on which it is now located was captured by the British.
In 1922 King George V visited and at his suggestion a Cross of Sacrifice was built at the east end of the cemetery. It is on the site of one of three German pillboxes which had once dominated the ridge. They were kept in place as the cemetery was the resting place of many of the soldiers who had fought and died in their efforts to capture them.
I have visited many war grave cemeteries over the years and always been impressed and moved by the way they are construcrted, laid out and looked after. Tyne Cot is no different and stands as a place of remembrance and a reminder of the human cost of war.
Following the emotional time at Tyne Cot we headed to Hooge where we had lunch before exploring the museum, site of the Hooge Crater and the cemetery.
The front line of the Ypres Salient was here in 1914 and over the following three years there was fierce fighting which saw the village destroyed. A mine was laid by the 175th Tunnelling Company, led by Lieutenant Geoffrey Cassels, completed in just over five weeks and in July 1915 it was detonated.
The museum contains a fascinating collection, including uniforms, shell cases, an impressive selection of rifles and bayonets, various pieces of militaria, photographs and much more. There are also a number of life-size reconstructions of battle scenes which help tell the story of World War One.
Following our visit to the museum we took the short walk to the site of the Hooge Crater. Now filled with water you can walk around and there is much to see. Last time I was here I did take time to view the pillboxes, trenches, shell cases and other wartime relics. Unfortunately there wasn't time during this trip to take another look.
The cemetery now has nearly 6,000 graves, 2,348 identified soldiers from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada and 3,568 unidentified casualties. Many of the graves contain more than one burial and during our walk around we noticed several headstones marked 'Six' and 'Eight Soldiers Of The Great War.'
John and I stopped at the grave of Private P. Bugden V.C. of the Australian Infantry who was killed on 28th September 1917 aged 20. We placed a cross on the grave before we left.
A short five-minute drive took us to Sanctuary Wood Trench Museum. During the First Battle of Ypres the British Army had used the cover of a large wood near Hooge to care for casualties. The wood was west of and behind the British lines and given its name on trench maps as Sanctuary Wood as it provided a safe place (sanctuary) to the wounded.
After the war a farmer reclaimed the land and although some debris was cleared he left the British trench system exactly as he found them. It is one of the few places on the Ypres Salient where original trench layouts can be seen. Other than some scaffold poles used to support the sides of the trenches they are exactly as they would have been in 1914 and it is fascinating, and emotional, to walk along them. There is also a large pile of shell cases to be seen.
One thought comes to mind as you walk along the trenches, which in places are damp and muddy, is how life must have been unbearable with the conditions and, of course, the ever-present danger from the German trenches close by.
The museum, which is housed in two rooms, is another fascinating collection of relics from the war including rifles and personal effects. The most interesting part of the museum were the many photographs on the wall and the stereoscope viewers on which you could view 3-D images from the war, many were quite upsetting and hard to view.
We then travelled down the Messines Ridge towards Ploegsteert, a small village and wood about eight miles from Ypres that, to those who served there during the war, became known as Plugstreet.
Although no major battles took place in Ploegsteert it was an area that remained in British hands for most of the war only being occupied by the Germans for a short time in 1918.
Our visit was to the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing in an area which became known as Hyde Park Corner during the war. The Memorial stands within the grounds of the Berkshire Cemetery Extension which was started in June 1916 and in use until September 1917.
The memorial is a circular structure supported by pillars and feauring two lions on each side, one aggresive and the other serene. There are the names of more than 11,000 British and Empire servicemen with no known grave commemorated on the walls, listed by regiment and then alphabetically. Most of the men fought at battles including Armentieres (1914), Loos (1915) and Hazebrouck (1918).
Buried in the Berkshire Cemetery Extension are two brothers and we visited their graves.
Leonard Crossley and William Crossley were born in Wheldrake, Yorkshire, enlisted together in the King's Royal Rifle Corps and landed in France in May 1916. They were both killed on 30 June 1916 and are buried next to each other.
Across the road is Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) Cemetery, a small plot that contains just 90 graves. Our guide picked out a few graves and the saddest was that of Albert French of the Kings Royal Rifle Corps who joined up aged only fourteen and was killed in July 1916 aged just sixteen.
It is also the final resting place of Samuel McBride of the Royal Irish Rifles who was already serving a two-year sentence of hard labour for going absent. Released after a year he was executed for desertion at Hope Farm on 7th December 1916. Many of the graves of those 'shot at dawn' mention the fact but McBride's makes no mention of it.
Our final stop on the tour was to attend the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres. This was the third time I had attended this event which has been held every evening at 8pm since 2 July 1928 with the exception of the period 1940 to 1944.
It is a ceremony that never fails to move me and it was a fitting end to our tour of the Western Front.
It was back to the hotel for a refreshing pint before calling it a night after another really busy and emotional day.
An early start saw us heading back to Dunkirk for the return ferry and then our local coach back home. It was also a chance to reflect on the past few days and everything we had seen and heard.
Special thanks to our excellent tour guides, Ian and Lee, and our drivers Ian and Phil. Thanks also to John Chisholm for his company during the tour.
Another enjoyable and interesting tour with geat company. There are still so many other Leger Battlefield Tours I'd like to book and feel sure that it won't be long before I can look forward to another trip.
Although I had visited many of these places on previous tours in 2016... Lochnagar Crater, The Sunken Lane, Devonsire Cemetery, Hooge Crater and Thiepval Memorial it was great to have the chance to go back again.
This article is not intended to be an in-depth study of the various battles that took place in World War One but a look back at the tour and some brief background to the places visited. There are many resources, books, magazines, internet sites and much more, for those who want to delve further into this period of history.
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