Nice lie-in this morning, so it was nearly 9am before I was on the road. Followed the Meuse through some excellent hilly woodlands up past Givet to Dinant. Some lovely views and villages on that drive.
That also left Mons on the straight line route to my final overnight stop on this tour. Mons is where the British had their first battle of WWI, one from which they had to withdraw towards France “to keep up with the French armies.”
It was lunchtime before I reached my destination. A village in Belgium called Zonnebeke. Midway between Ieper and Passchendaele it hosts the museum and memorial gardens for the Battle of Passchendaele. I did like their reconstructions of the trenches, showing the engineering involved and it was a bit eerie going through their reconstructed British dugout as it’s basically a wooden version of the non-turret parts of the concrete fortifications I’d explored yesterday. It felt a little fake though in comparison. I couldn’t enter the real thing as it’s completely flooded – the water comes to within a foot of ground level.
The Ypres Salient is more relevant to British (and Commonwealth) people than Verdun, and much more accessible. What the French have done with the Verdun battlefield though, and its inescapable shellholes, make it a far better place to visit and really understand that war. Zonnebeke and Ypres are interesting and the sheer number and size of war cemeteries tells its own tale, but for emotion, impact, understanding and authenticity I’m glad I stopped at Verdun.
I skipped Tyne Cot and checked into my hotel early for a nap. I need to be up early in the morning to catch a boat home, but had plans for the evening. That started with a walk into town. Looks like this isn’t expected.
I was seeking a 90 year old chunk of masonry. Nations build arches to commemorate their war dead. They often incorporate a memorial to the ‘unknown soldier’ – indeed, that’s a key role for l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission built one in Ypres with a slightly different purpose. Every internal wall of the gate (and several external ones) is covered in the names of those that fought, died and have no known grave.
It’s not just the 54,395 names inscribed that you notice. It’s that they ran out of room for the other 34,984 names.
Sadly Ypres is a beautiful little Belgian town overrun with obnoxious tourists. The locals must hate the British – just 20 minutes here and I was starting to. Except the locals have a daily tradition since 1928. At 8pm each day someone walks into the gate with a lump of brass, 20 people listen to a quick toot and two minutes later everyone leaves in tears.
Not tonight.
I’d seen a fair few Australians walking around in dress uniform, which has a bloody silly hat. It didn’t feel the time or place to tell them this. Long before 8pm the Menin Gate had dozens of them under it, a whole contingent of New Zealanders (also silly hats) and around 500 people in total. I found myself next to an Australian naval officer so spent the half hour before the ceremony talking to him. He and his colleagues had been touring war cemeteries all day, doing ceremonies, and this was their last of the day. He’s the guy that told me it was Anzac Day. So quite important to our colonial cousins.
The Last Post was less moving than I’d anticipated. I will though never forget the Australian army singing Amazing Grace a capello under the Menin Gate.
Even that, as poignant as it was, I could handle. It was after the 30 minute ceremony, the dignitaries and senior officers shaking hands, then standing back and clearing the centre of the arch. The New Zealanders, who’d done some girly singing earlier, moved out of formation and claimed the centre. Hats off, they started the calls, squatted down and stuck out their tongues.
The haka is amazing anywhere. Under the Menin Gate from 10 feet away, in front of 500 people? My ‘tears in the rain’ speech has a new entry.
No photographs, no video. I had my camera with me but sometimes you just have to be there.
Tonight’s dinner is home made tomato soup and an 18 euro burger. It’s not worth 18 euro, it’s just the prices are all at ‘aha, British tourists!’ levels.
To be fair, it was a perfectly good burger. It could just have been a perfectly good burger for a tenner. Happily the waiter speaks English. I have no idea what his natural language is; the menu was in three languages, including Dutch (so Flemish?) and English. Note the comedy bounty bar that came with the coffee.
Today’s warscore is straightforward. 500,000 casualties to advance 8km? This isn’t war, this is industrialised mass murder. The British, the Germans, everybody: I’m disqualifying the lot.
Today’s drive:
Tonight’s hotel feels it should be in Sweden. Pine boards inside and out.