Flanders Battlefield Tour

One can't go to Belgium without viewing one or the other of its famous battlefields so I hopped a Quasdsimodo tour bus to Yper with an incredibly knowledgeable  guide. It was all about a four year series of battles during the first world war that cost half a million lives. This was trench warfare at its worst: where chemical warfare was introduced, a little ground gained here, lost there, gained again and so, so many casualties. Poor Belgium, flat, friendly countryside that looked like the perfect route to the East and had ports to boot. No wonder Germany invaded and there they bogged down. Literally.

We visited several cemeteries and someone, asking about the wooden crosses, was told that wood rots and they were being replaced by headstones. It seems every commonwealth has its own cemetery, if not two, row upon row of stones, many marked 'soldier of the great war' which translates to 'unknown soldier'. Mass graves were moved and a monument or statue placed over them. The German cemetery is full of low black markers because white stands for purity which didn't define them, at least not in Belgium. That and the oak trees within gave it a stark look and feel.

15 years old.

Along the way we looked into bunkers, walked through a messenger trench, and visited the pockmarked Hill 60 which has been left as it was. One could hardly call it a real hill but any rise was valued for its long-range visibility so bitter battles were waged to determine who would be its occupier. Hill 60 is terribly uneven with dips and craters left from the shelling. Walking the trail, I could see bits of rusty metal showing and wondered if anything live was under there.

 

The area is now green agricultural land, so beautiful one might never suspect that it was once a vast landscape left bare,burnt and poisoned. Yet every farmer has shell casings, rusty rifles, the debris of war. A special squad deals with the live rounds that are still turning up and sometimes cause the death of some hapless farmer or construction worker. There are still thousands upon thousands of soldiers unaccounted for and a few are found each year. Its a war that never ends.

Tommy accepts carrot bribes from tour operators.

This arch in Ypers bears 50,000 names, about half the number missing.

And the poppies? There were none. This is the centennial, our guide told us, and the tourists pick them all.