Touring the Great War: Travels on the Western Front
The First World War is an oft ignored event because it lacks the moral absoluteness and Amero-centric nature of World War II. This year is the centennial of the end of the war, and I’m hoping that my jaunt over roughly 75% of the Western Front of the war gets you interested in the conflict. On a whim, I bought the video game Battlefield 1, set during WWI. After spending far too much time on Wikipedia to understand the context of what I was doing. I tackled Dan Carlin’s 20 hour+ hardcore history series “Blueprint for Armageddon” to learn more about the conflict. I was enthralled and have spent well over 100 hours reading dozens of books on the war over the last 18 months. Last week, as part of a European vacation, I took three days or so to visit the major sites on the war, which give a great survey of why remembering this war and learning more is very important to understanding the modern world.
Even if your not sold on this, the men who would go to prosecute World War II and the post-war world all fought in the war: Hitler, Truman, Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, DeGaulle, Petain, Churchill, Rommel.
I traveled a route roughly following the major battles of the war from the Belgian city of Ypres to the French fortress city of Verdun, examining memorials and museum dedicated to the troops of various allied powers. Britain, France, Belgium, the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa became radically changed nations as a part of the war (I’ll get to Germany later) and the path I took gives a good opportunity to explain their role.
Day 0: Bruges and Zeebrugge
Bruges is a quaint tourist spot in Northern Belgium that hit its heyday in the twelfth century, but being well behind German lines during the war, Berlin used the cites main port a few miles north, Zeebrugge, as a major base for its submarine effort. Germany’s submarine effort was likely the most major casus belli for American entrance into the war. As the war commenced in 1914, the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and later the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria) were confronted by an immediate starvation blockade by the dominant British Navy, cutting off Germany from its meager colonies and trade with neutral nations (The death rate of Germany’s civilian population increased by 30% during the war and by 1918, Germany civilians consumed only 800 calories a day). Germany challenged this surface supremacy with a large U-boat fleet. As the war progressed, the German Navy in desperation, and also because of British arming of civilian merchant traffic, began sinking civilian traffic without warning, eventually culminating the attack on the Lusitania and the turning of US public opinion.
In April 1918, British forces attempted a daring amphibious raid on Zeebrugge, attempting to sink several defunct vessels in the channel leading out to the North Sea and only partially succeeding. The town hall of Bruges is currently hosting an exhibit “Battle for the North Sea” prominently focusing on the submarine war and the raid. I checked it out while enjoying the city’s beer and chocolate. The exhibit was an excellent appetizer of the tour to come.
Day 1: Ypres
Ypres was the only sizable Belgian city behind allied lines. Formerly a major global textile producer, the city was ground zero for a large salient jutting out into German lines and could be hit by artillery in three directions. It is a near three major battles of the war and occupies an important place in the British historical psyche where its environs are referred to as Flanders Fields.
“I died in hell, they called it Passchendaele” — Siegfried Sassoon
My first stop on the trip was Memorial Museum Passchendaele near Zonnebeke, Belgium on the ground of an old chateau near the site of the Third Battle of Ypres, more commonly known as the Battle of Passchendaele. Allied forces in 1917 attempted to seize a vital railway hub behind German lines near the city of Ypres, but near constant rain, poison gas, and several hurricane artillery bombardments limited forward progress in a battle that left well over 800,000 men wounded or killed in the muck. Men would drown in water filled shell craters while avoiding machine gun fire while traversing duck boards.
The museum itself has an impressive collection of armaments and video displays from soldiers of various nations involved in the battle. It also included smell samples of various scents of the war, such as various new chemical weapons (pioneered at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915) and antiseptics in a fascinating exhibit on new medical technologies. The museum proceeds into an incredibly realistic reconstruction of a subterranean dugout, into recreating of British and German style trenches outdoors, highlighting the claustrophobic lengths troops would go through to avoid artillery bombardment.
We also visited Tyne Cot cemetery, the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world and the final resting place of near 12,000 men.
“In Flanders Fields, the Poppy Blow” — John McRae
On our way to Ypres, I visited the Yorkshire Trench, a preserved trench system accidentally discovered during construction on the outskirts of the city. The dugout has since flooded in the soggy Flanders soil, but its the closest to the real thing you will get.
In Ypres, we visited the In Flanders Fields Museum, which I can definitively say is the best museum I have ever been to. The museum issues you a poppy wrist band and you enter your age, state of origin, and gender, and throughout the museum your poppy wristband triggers exhibits with relevance to where you came from. The museum occupies the Cloth Hall, which was destroyed by German fire during the war, but rebuilt afterwards as a peace memorial. In Flanders Fields employs particularly moving live action monologues from real journal entries by participants in the way that really dials up the emotional impact of the war.
At 8PM everyday since 1928, the citizens of Ypres hold the last post at the Menin Gate, a reconstructed city gate with the inscription of thousands of those who have died in the Ypres salient with no formal grave. Hundreds of people gathered on a Tuesday while we were there to watch the march and bugle ceremony, while certain dignitaries lied poppy wreaths at the memorial. The ceremony is particularly moving and lasts about 30 minutes.
Day 2: Battle of Arras and the Somme
On our way to Albert, the heart of the Battle of the Somme. We stopped at Vimy Ridge, an important battle at the heart of Canada’s national ethos (it’s even on versions of their $10 note). The attack, part of the Battle of Arras initially a diversionary effort for the Chemin des Dames/Nivelle Offensive push that was to be France’s big 1917 offensive, involved Canadian forces scaling a large hill that dominates the geography near Vimy. The memorial’s placement really helps you visualize what the Canadians were up against as you can view for tends of miles from the top of the ridge. The remembrance center staffed by actual Canadians is also beautiful, newly built for the centennial. It also has an exhibit on the people left behind on the homefront, with a similar smell-o-exhbit format that really highlights the power of memories from home.
“Every Englishman has a picture of the Somme in his mind, and I will not try to enlarge it.” -AP Hebert
The first day of the Somme 1916 remains the bloodiest day in British military history, with nearly 20,000 dead and over 50,000 wounded. The battle itself took over a million men on both sides to either their graves or wounded enough to be sent home. Heeding French pressure for a major offensive, Britain’s first major big push of the war is still burned into the British national psyche, and the landscape of the rolling wheatfields of the Somme river valley is dotted with memorial after memorial to units lost nearly in toto and the blood spent by British Commonwealth forces like South Africa. Even more harrowing is the realization that many of these units were “Pal’s Battalions,” cobbled together by men from the same town or from the same neighborhood or profession in the big cities. Failed offensives would decimate the male population of whole localities, leaving practically no one untouched by the war. The Battle of the Somme served as JRR Tolkein’s (who served there alongside CS Lewis who wrote the Lion, the Witch, and Wardrobe) inspiration for the land of Mordor in Lord of the Rings.
I visited the largest and best known memorial at Thiepval, a monument to the 70,000 men who’s bodies were never recovered during the battle. Attached is a remembrance center with a beautiful 32 frame mural from comic book artist Joe Sacco, detailing the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The museum does an amazing job of using the piece of art, as it wraps around the room, to discuss the factors at play in the battle and the living conditions of the men.
From there I headed to the town of Albert, smack in the middle of the front during the Battle of the Somme. As I drove down backroads, we passed names that echo through the history of the war: Arras, St. Quentin, Perrone, Cambrai. The town’s cathedral was shelled by the British during the battle to deny the Germans the commanding view of the battlefield from the church bell tower. The city houses a Somme museum in its World War II-era bomb shelters. While the museum is dated, it does house many interesting artifacts and weaponry from the battle.
Day 3: The Chemin des Dames and the Meuse-Argonne
Driving on the way to Rheims, I drive through the Chemin des Dames, the center of the abortive 1917 Nivelle Offensive. Few monuments to the battle lie near the the city of Laon, but on the road is a modest monument to the Poilu or bearded ones, a common nickname for French soldiers generally unkempt appearance. The Nivelle offensive sparked widespread mutinies that let to hundreds of executions and ushered in new leadership on the front.
“The Americans are here. We can kill them but we can’t stop them.” — Letter, German officer
From Rheims, I visited some of the sites on the Meuse-Argonne offensive, America’s major contribution to the war. The Meuse-Argonne was America’s first real offensive action in Europe, designed to end the war in conjunction with French and British offensives known as the 100 Days after German power had petered out during the final German offensive, Operation Michael or Kaiserschlact. America, looking to prove her mettle and have a decisive seat at the post-war bargaining table in order to push for President Wilson’s 14 points, through it’s troops into front attacks at hardened German positions, designed to operate as a defense in depth. While many heroes were made, like Alvin York and Henry Johnson, the battle became the second bloodiest engagement in US history, second only to the Normandy invasions of World War II. First, I visited the Pennsylvania Memorial, PA’s only overseas memorial deep in the Argonne Forest in Varennes, memorializing the 28th Keystone Division of the PA National Guard.
From there, I headed to the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, the largest overseas American military cemetery. Eerily quiet, but absolutely breathtaking in its beauty, the cemetery is off the beaten tourist path, but is truly a sight to behold.
“God would never be cruel enough to create a cyclone as terrible as that Argonne battle. Only man would ever think of doing an awful thing like that. It looked like “the abomination of desolation” must look like. And all through the long night those big guns flashed and growled just like the lightning and the thunder when it storms in the mountains at home.
And, oh my, we had to pass the wounded. And some of them were on stretchers going back to the dressing stations, and some of them were lying around, moaning and twitching. And the dead were all along the road. And it was wet and cold. And it all made me think of the Bible and the story of the Anti-Christ and Armageddon.
And I’m telling you the little log cabin in Wolf Valley in old Tennessee seemed a long long way off.” — Alvin York, Medal of Honor
‘You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.’ — Kaiser Wilhelm, 1914
I visited one of the few well kept German military cemeteries off to the side of the road, even then most of the Germans are buried in mass graves with merely a stone roster of the fallen. Germany and the Germans have forgot about these men, and these graveyard are bereft of visitors, or even simple flowers to adorn the graves.
Day 3: Verdun
“Ils ne passeront pas!” — ‘They shall not pass!’- Henri-Phillipe Petain
No battle rests heavier on French memory than Verdun. Verdun, a fortress city dating back to Roman times on the frontier with German, was targeted in 1916 by a German offensive with the goal of “bleeding France white” and maximizing attritional warfare. Verdun, long a symbol of French strength, was to be held at any cost, and it was a high cost indeed; taking the lives of over 300,000 men over the course of the year. Verdun appears as a moonscape to this day. Particularly stark is the deep Catholicism with which the French express the war. The Verdun complex consists of a towering Ossuary and military cemetery, a memorial museum, the ruined village of Fluery, and the two key forts of Douaumont and Vaux.
If you have the opportunity, try to visit some of these sites on your next trip to Europe. This is the 100 year centennial of the end of the war and its so rare that you can view the epic tragedy of this war up close and personal.
“This is not a peace treaty, it is an armistice for twenty years.” -Marshall Ferdinand Foch
