GERMAN CEMETERY AT NEUVILLE ST VAAST
The cemetery at Neuville St Vaast is the largest German Military Cemetery in France. There
are 36,792 burials marked mainly by crosses, with some headstones. The headstones mark
the graves of Jewish soldiers. During the Second World War Hitler ordered their removal
but his order was never carried out.
German military cemeteries in France and Belgium often contain mass graves. The
German authorities were not granted enough land to bury all of their fatalities individually,
so it became common practice to have multiple names on grave markers, and bury
many bodies together in mass graves. At Neuville St Vaast, a mass grave situated along
the front wall holds the remains of 8,040 soldiers; the names of the 842 identified bodies are
marked on the metal plaques. In contrast to Commonwealth War Graves Commission
(CWGC) cemeteries, German cemeteries of the First and Second World War are often
quite different from each other – there was no uniform design, but a common sense of loss
and the destruction of young lives can be found at them all.
The equivalent of the CWGC in Germany is the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge.
After the First World War, Germany was in political and economic turmoil, and the
Volksbund was run as a private organisation rather than by the German government. It
therefore relied heavily on donations and voluntary help to maintain German war graves
and a strong tradition of voluntary help sprang up which still continues today, although
today the Volksbund is a government funded body. Accordingly, a lot of work was done
to care for the cemetery at Neuville St Vaast by volunteer youth groups, who helped plant
the trees and shrubs as well as tending the soil. In 1974 the German Army and Youth
Organisations began a four-year task of moving the 10,000 concrete posts for the new
crosses. Slowly the old wooden crosses were replaced with new metal ones each
engraved with up to four names. The municipality of Neuville St Vaast donated a wooden
cross with the inscription Paix aux Hommes de Bonne Volonté (Peace to men of good will.)
It was set up in the middle course where today's high cross is (a reproduction is at the
outside wall of the new entrance building.)
Inside the entrance gate is a stone relief, which not only marks out the location of the
battlefield but also the cemeteries of other nations in the immediate locality - English,
French, Canadian, Czech and Polish.
NOTRE DAME DE LORETTE
The German infantry captured Souchez Ridge, known as Hill 165, on 4 October 1914. As
part of the Battle of Artois the French tried to recapture this tactically important hill, which
overlooks Vimy Ridge about five kilometres away. The counter attack started on 17
December 1914 and it was thought that Lorette would be captured on the third day.
However, despite a ferocious bombardment, the German second line of machine guns
was undamaged and the French troops were cut down. The ground was waterlogged
and ploughed by artillery shells (1.5 million French shells were fired onto the slopes) and
with the weight of all their equipment it took minutes for the French soldiers to wade a
hundred metres, after which their rifles were so choked with mud they couldn't be fired.
This meant that the old tactics of movement and cavalry charges were impossible.
The beginnings of the trench system were started making use of shells holes. Over the
months the Germans defended the area of the chapel with six lines of deep trenches,
reinforced with concrete, machine gun posts and a forest of barbed wire and other
obstacles. The German artillery and their observers supported the soldiers from the
surrounding high ground, where they had a good view of the French troops. It took until
12 May 1915 to retake the ground, which became known as the bloody hill, the mound of
death. During the opening months of the war the French lost about a quarter of their
casualties for the entire four years of the war, with their policy of outright attack.
From the General's statue, the Canadian monument on Vimy Ridge opposite, and the
Loos-Lens mining fields can be seen. Just below is Souchez, which ceased to exist. To the
right is Cabaret Rouge CWGC Cemetery with its white domed entrance. The body of the
Canadian Unknown Soldier was chosen from this cemetery.
Notre Dame de Lorette is the site of the largest cemetery for French soldiers on the
Western Front. Nearly 40,000 French troops who died during the First World War are buried
here, some in individual graves and many in mass graves. It is also the site of a memorial
chapel, the Lantern Ossuary and museum.
The Basilica
Monseigneur Eugène Julien, Bishop of Arras, was the inspiration behind the building of the
basilica, which is dedicated to the memory of those who had fallen in this particularly
bloody corner of France. The founding stone was laid on 19 June 1921, the chapel was
blessed in the presence of Marshal Pétain on 26 May 1927 and finally consecrated on 5
September 1937. The inside is decorated with mosaics and thousands of memorials. Six of
the windows were donated by Britain in thanks for the land given by France for British
Cemeteries.
The Lantern – Ossuary
The first stone was laid by Marshal Pétain on 19 June 1921 and the building work took four
years. The lantern is 52 metres high on a 12 metre square base. At night the 3 000 candle
power lamp revolves every 12 seconds and can be seen up to 70 kilometres away. The
crypt contains the coffins of Unknown Soldiers from the Second World War, the
Concentration Camps (A deportee), Northern Africa, and Indo-China. A marked tomb on
the floor records the burial of about 23 000 unknown soldiers.
The hommes en béret are there every day to watch over the ensemble and to help visitors
with information. They are made up of ordinary citizens who have taken an oath to attend
the Ossuary at least one day each year. Their intention is to represent through their own
ordinariness those who lie here at Lorette.
The Cemetery
There are approx 20 000 identified graves and in front of the lantern, there are two mass
graves of unidentified soldiers each containing about 5 000 soldiers. Near to the Muslim
plot there is a further row of mass graves each containing about 1 800 soldiers. In total
there are about 45 000 burials here. A further 12 080 identified soldiers were returned to
their families for private burial.
‘It is thought that about a quarter of a million men died fighting in this small area. When
you visit Notre Dame de Lorette, don't just note the sea of white crosses, look at the mass
graves hidden in the trees by the Muslim Plot and in front of the lantern. The resting place
of the unknown, they lie by the thousand’.
THE YPRES SALIENT
A Salient is a bulge in the front line that extends into enemy territory. It is a difficult line to
protect as the defending forces can be attacked from three sides at once. The Ypres
Salient was formed early in the First World War in the autumn of 1914, during the First Battle
of Ypres. The British Expeditionary Force were pushed back by the advancing German
forces but eventually held their position just outside the town before the beginning of
winter, with the German forces on the high ground, surrounding Ypres.
Ypres was of crucial strategic importance to Britain and her allies. It was seen as ‘the
guardian of the channel ports.’ If the Germans captured Ypres they would have been
able to advance across the flat Flanders plains of Belgium to the nearby channel ports of
Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne. The British would then have been unable to transport men,
weapons and supplies to their troops on the Western Front. The British were determined to
defend Ypres at all costs. As a result, this small city became the focus for four terrible
battles.
The Second Battle of Ypres began in April 1915 when the Germans released poison gas
into the Allied lines north of Ypres. This was the first time that chemical warfare had been
experienced by troops on the Western Front and most had no idea what the clouds
coming toward them were. They had no protection against the choking gas and many
turned towards Ypres and ran. This left a large gap in the front line and Canadian
battalions were rushed up to prevent a German breakthrough. This was the first
experience of combat for the Canadians. Although the Germans did advance they
failed to realise the weaknesses in the Allied line and the Canadians managed to hold
them, despite very heavy casualties.
In 1917 an offensive, the Third Battle of Ypres, was launched to try to distract the Germans
from problems with the French line further south. At first the attack was successful and
Messines Ridge south of Ypres was captured, but the weather turned and it took until
November to take Passchendaele Ridge north-east of Ypres. Flanders means ‘flooded
land’ and with the drainage systems destroyed by the constant shelling the ground
became a sea of mud and swamp. The soldiers had to live and fight in terrible conditions.
During the spring of 1918, the Fourth Battle of Ypres, the Germans launched their last major
offensive of the war, trying to breakthrough the Allied lines before large numbers of
reinforcements started to arrive from America. Most of the ground captured during the
Third Battle was lost. The German advance was eventually stopped just a mile away from
the Lille Gate at Ypres and the entrance to the city. But by the summer of 1918, British and
French forces were striking back and the German army was on the verge of defeat. On 28
September, Belgian and British forces drove the German army from the high ground to the
east of Ypres. During the Fourth Battle of Ypres villages such as Passchendaele, Gheluvelt,
Zantvoorde and Kruiseecke, along with the Messines Ridge passed into British hands for the
final time as German resistance in the Ypres sector finally collapsed. After years of bitter
fighting the First World War was finally coming to an end.
The once beautiful medieval town had became a city of the dead through which soldiers
passed on their way to the nearby front line trenches. By the end of the war, Ypres was a
ghost town with hardly a building left undamaged.
Watefields Farm
Waterfields Farm is the site of the Canadian ‘jumping off’ position on 26 Oct 1917 for their
attack on Passchendaele Ridge. To commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Battle of
Passchendaele the local community are hosting a number of temporary exhibitions.
Although the farm buildings were totally destroyed during the war the father of the
present farmer rebuilt them during the 1920s. Today the large barn at Waterfields Farm is
the site of an exhibition prepared by the Canadian War Museum. It tells the story of the
battle and the contribution of the Canadian battalions to the capture of Passchendaele
Ridge.
Crest Farm Memorial
Crest farm was a German strong point between Waterfields Farm and the village of
Passchendaele. It was captured by Canadian troops on 6 November 1917 and is now the
site of a battlefield memorial. It took another four days for them to reach the village, just a
few hundred yards away.
A trench map showing Passchendaele village and Crest Farm
Crest Farm memorial with Passchendaele Church in the background
Passchendaele Church
The church in the village of Passchendaele was the furthest point ever reached by Allied
soldiers. Rebuilt after the war the church is now hosting another of the commemorative
exhibitions: a photographic exhibition entitled Fields of Battle, Flanders 1917 by Michael St
Maur Sheil. He believes that, with almost no one left alive to tell the story of the war from
first hand experience, the landscape itself has become the only ‘eyewitness’. Even at the
time of the terrible devastation some soldiers recognised that nature has a way of
recovering, and that the evidence of battle would soon start to disappear. The
photographs and accompanying contemporary quotations reflect these ideas.
Ruins of Passchendaele village. The church stood on the mound in the background. Photo from the
Michelin Guide to Ypres
TYNE COT BRITISH CEMETERY
The Third Battle of Ypres began on 31 July 1917 and ended with the capture of the village
of Passchendaele on 10 November 1917. By the beginning of October, the advancing 3rd
Australian Division had captured the area near to an old farm building that was marked
on British maps as "Tyne Cottage" or "Tyne Cot". The area was heavily defended with lines
of barbed wire and concrete blockhouses protecting machine guns. The British began to
use the largest of these buildings as a dressing-station and a small cemetery was
established, which continued to be used until the German advance of March 1918, when
the area fell into German hands again. By the end of the war, there were 343 burials in the
cemetery behind the blockhouse, plus other isolated burials in the immediate area. Apart
from this small cemetery, the Tyne Cot position was the same as any other battlefield after
the war, marked by broken ground, trenches, shell-holes and debris and battlefield
graves.
Most of the surviving defences were destroyed after the war but the blockhouses at Tyne
Cot were left in place to avoid disturbing the graves that had been made around them.
After the War, it was decided to use the site as a concentration cemetery and the bodies
of some 11,500 men were brought here for burial, the cemetery being slowly extended
towards the road, to a design by Sir Herbert Baker. When it was finished it contained the
graves of 11,908 men, although with later additions and removals, the figure quoted today
is 11,953 - the greatest number of Great War burials in any British War cemetery anywhere
in the world. Almost two-thirds of the soldiers buried here are unknown (8366.)
There are four German soldiers buried in the cemetery, three unknown and one, Otto
Bieber, commemorated by name. These soldiers were originally found buried just outside
the cemetery boundaries.
There are also Special Memorials - gravestones which have no bodies buried beneath
them. These include memorials to 80 men who are known to be buried in the cemetery,
but whose exact graves can't be located. 20 more gravestones without burials form the
memorial to men who were originally buried nearby but whose graves were lost in later
fighting. The Kipling Memorial proclaims, "Their Glory Shall Not Be Blotted Out" and they
are considered to be buried within the cemetery. They are not mentioned by name on
any Memorial to the Missing. ("Special Memorials" and "Kipling memorials" are not unique
to Tyne Cot; they can be found in many British cemeteries.) The curved rear wall of the
cemetery forms the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing, one of four memorials to the missing
in Belgian Flanders which cover the area know as the Ypres Salient. The names of 34,870
men from the UK and New Zealand who were recorded as Missing in the Salient from 16
August 1917 to the end of the war are inscribed here. The memorial was unveiled by Sir
Gilbert Dyett in July 1927.
King George V made a pilgrimage to the battlefields in 1922 and visited Tyne Cot before
work was complete. He suggested that the Cross of Sacrifice, which is part of every
Commonwealth War Cemetery, should be built on top of the largest of the blockhouses (a
small fortification.) Two others can be seen either side of the entrance. The remaining two
blockhouses are hidden from view; there is one under each of the two domed pavilions at
either end of the curving Memorial to the Missing at the far end of the cemetery.
VANCOUVER CORNER
Situated in St. Juliaan village at Vancouver Corner, the simple Brooding Soldier memorial is
a 35ft-high statue of a Canadian soldier with bowed head and hands resting on arms
reversed. The memorial was carved from a single shaft of granite. It was designed by the
Canadian sculptor Frederick Clemesha and was the ‘runner up’ in the competition for a
national memorial – the winner being the Vimy Memorial. It was unveiled by the Duke of
Connaught on 8 July 1923. The surrounding cedar trees are trimmed to the shape of shells.
A plaque at the foot of the memorial reads ‘This column marks the battlefield where
18,000 Canadians on the British left withstood the first German gas attacks (from) the 22-25
April 1915. 2,000 fell and lie buried nearby.’
Gas
Small amounts of gas had been used in shrapnel shells by the Germans against the French
at Neuve-Chapelle in October 1914 but nobody had noticed. In January 1915 the
Germans had again used gas, this time on the eastern front against the Russians at
Bolimor, but the gas froze in the low temperatures.
In April 1915, they launched the first successful gas attack at Ypres. The Allies condemned
it, but in reality it enabled everybody to use it as a weapon. In 1915 both sides tended to
use chlorine but later in the war mustard gas would also be used.
Once trench warfare became the way of life on the western front each side
endeavoured to find some way to break through. At 5pm on 22 April 1915 the Germans
bombarded the French lines to the north of Ypres in the first phase of the 2nd Battle of
Ypres.
This bombardment was followed by the release of 135 tonnes of chlorine gas, a green mist
that gently floated on a light breeze into the French Lines. The gas attacked the lungs of
the soldiers and they choked - literally drowning as their lungs filled with fluid. The French
Line collapsed leaving the Canadians to their right badly exposed. The breach in the
allied line was far greater than the Germans had been expecting and they were not able
to fully exploit it.
The allies counter-attacked to prevent a total collapse and the loss of Ypres. On 24 April
the Germans launched another gas attack, this time against the Canadian troops
defending St Julien (Sint Juliaan). Gas masks had yet to be invented and the soldiers had
to fight with soaked handkerchiefs as their only protection. The Canadians managed to
hold on until they were relieved, but ultimately they and the British were forced back
closer to Ypres.
In their first major engagement of the war the Canadians suffered 6,035 casualties. 2,000
are buried in the cemeteries nearby.
LANGEMARK GERMAN CEMETERY
Langemark Cemetery, the only German cemetery in the Ypres Salient area, contains
44,292 burials. The bodies of those buried here were moved from many smaller German
cemeteries that appeared in the area during the First World War; after the war they were
collected here. If you compare Langemark to Tyne Cot Cemetery, for example, Tyne Cot
is many times larger yet Langemark has four times as many burials.
The flat stones are the grave markers. Each grave contains more than one soldier, some of
whom are unknown, and the mass grave in the centre, planted with flowering shrubs,
contains 25,000 burials. The small stone crosses are symbolic - they don't mark actual
graves.
A sculpture of four figures by Professor Emil Krieger can be seen at the back of the
cemetery. Sometimes referred to as ‘The Watchers’ the sculpture depicts four mourning
soldiers with their tin helmets off, looking over the cemetery.
With sombre black crosses symbolising loss and bereavement, and with row upon row of
modest commemorative plaques marking the graves of soldiers who died, German
cemeteries are often very different from those of other nations and are very thought
provoking.
YPRES
‘A more sacred place for the British race does not exist in the world’.
Winston Churchill (1919)
The casual visitor to Ypres might struggle to understand why Churchill once argued that
the city was of crucial importance to the British people. Today Ypres is an attractive,
peaceful Belgian city. During the First World War life here was very different and the town
was almost entirely destroyed. A once beautiful medieval town quickly became a city of
the dead through which soldiers passed on their way to the nearby front line trenches. In
little over four years, centuries of history were wiped out by the fierce fighting that took
place around the once thriving city. By the end of the war Ypres was a ghost town with
hardly a building left undamaged.
Ypres – the symbolic city
When the war ended Ypres found itself at the centre of a new battle. The city had come
to stand as a symbol of the sacrifices made by Britain and her Empire during the First World
War. Ypres would play a hugely significant role in how nearly one million British war dead
would be commemorated. Apart from a single day in 1914, the Germans had never set
foot in Ypres during the war, except as prisoners. However, British determination to hold on
to Ypres ‘come what may’ had cost the very existence of the town. By 1918, more than
200,000 British soldiers lay dead or missing in the battlefields surrounding the city. Ypres had
therefore acquired a special significance for the British. So many men had died in its
defence that politicians and leading figures within the army were determined to fix the
sacrifices made by British soldiers in the minds of future generations.
How Ypres should be rebuilt after the war became the subject of much debate. This
debate did not just take place amongst leading architects and politicians. The pros and
cons of various ideas were discussed and debated widely in the newspapers of the day in
Belgium and Britain. At times this debate became very heated as British visions came into
conflict with the attitudes and needs of the local Belgian population.
In Britain people debated whether to leave Ypres in ruins or to erect a great marble
chapel and sanctuary opposite the ruins of the Cloth Hall. Some people believed that a
series of cemeteries (one for each division of the British army) should be built within Ypres.
Winston Churchill, who had commanded a Scottish battalion at Ploegsteert in the spring
of 1916, had just become Secretary of State for War. He told members of the Imperial War
Graves Commission in January 1919, ‘I should like us to acquire the whole of the ruins of
Ypres … A more sacred place for the British race does not exist in the world.’ He proposed
that the town be left in ruins as a memorial to the million men who fought on the Ypres
salient. There were some enthusiastic supporters of Churchill’s ideas. However, not
everyone in the Imperial War Graves Commission thought that Churchill’s plans were
realistic.
Arguments over the future of Ypres also raged in Belgium. The government appointed
architect argued that the city should be rebuilt in a modern style and that a memorial
park should be established in the centre of a modern town. This park would contain the
remains of the Cloth Hall and the Cathedral. His key idea was that this would create a
‘zone of silence’. The Burgomaster (Mayor) of Ypres wanted to rebuild Ypres in its original
image, with exact replicas of the most famous pre-1914 buildings. While the debate
raged on, civilians began to return to Ypres, rebuilding their homes and their lives.
St George’s Memorial Church, Ypres
St George’s Memorial Church represents the strong links that have existed ever since the
First World War, and still exist today, between Belgium and the British people. Calls for a
British memorial church in Ypres were made as early as 1920 and the foundation stone of
the church was laid in 1927. After the war there was a sizeable British population living and
working in Ypres – mainly as employees of the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC later the CWGC). The building next to the church was set up as the ‘British School’ as a
tribute to the 342 old Etonians (past pupils of Eton School) who died during the war. It
subsequently became a Royal British Legion clubhouse.
Every item in the church is a memorial – from the windows to the chairs, each one bearing
a brass plate naming a soldier who did not return home to his family after the war. The
church now commemorates the fallen from both World Wars. Each year, on 11 November,
huge numbers of veterans and others come here for a service to remember the dead.
New memorials continue to be erected within the church.
Also within the church are busts of Sir John French, Earl of Ypres, who was instrumental to
the building of the church, and of Sir Winston Churchill and Field Marshall Montgomery.
Churchill and Montgomery were hugely important figures during the Second World War,
and both fought in the Ypres Salient during the First World War. Churchill thought that the
entire town of Ypres should remain in ruins as a memorial to those who had died fighting to
protect it and the surrounding land, but the local Belgian population thought differently
and the town was rebuilt, some parts according to its original medieval design.
The Menin Gate - Beginnings
Reginald Blomfield, the royal architect, was sent to Ypres to explore the different
possibilities for a British memorial. He did not support the idea of a ‘zone of silence’ in the
Market Square area of the city center and was in favour of a memorial being built at the
Menin Gate. The location was excellent. It was close to the city centre but would not be
overshadowed if the Cloth Hall and cathedral were rebuilt. It was also on a main road into
the city, with an excellent view from across the moat. The site also had a great deal of
symbolic importance. Many of the British soldiers who had fought in the four battles of
Ypres had passed through the old gate and over the ramparts as they moved out of the
city and onto the Menin road, towards the front lines. It is estimated that thousands of
men died in the area around the gate as battalions were hit by deadly accurate German
shellfire.
In contrast to possible memorial sites on or near the Market Square in the centre of the
city, the Menin Gate site was uncontroversial. The City Council had already agreed to
transfer the land to the British. Blomfield’s plans for the memorial were for a gigantic
‘triumphal archway,’ which would be erected on a causeway over the moat.
However, it was not until 1921 that the British government finally made a decision on what
form commemoration should take place within Ypres. In April they informed the Belgian
government that they no longer intended to build a monument in the market square and
therefore saw no need for the surrounding area to be preserved as ruins. The British
government had decided that the Menin Gate was the most suitable site for their
memorial.
Meanwhile the Imperial War Graves Commission was considering how the hundreds of
thousands of soldiers who had been reported ‘missing in action’ and had no known grave
should be commemorated. A number of proposals were being considered. Some people
suggested that the names of these soldiers should be engraved on stone tablets or
headstones, to be placed in the cemetery nearest to the place where they were believed
to have died. Another suggestion was that there should be a commemorative monument
in each cemetery, engraved with the names of the ‘missing’ soldiers. It was eventually
decided that the most practical and effective way to honour those soldiers who had died
was to build larger memorials in specific locations. Each monument would commemorate
the soldiers who died in a particular battle or geographical area and whose bodies could
not be found. These monuments would become known as ‘Memorials to the Missing’.
At Ypres it seemed unnecessary for two different monuments to be built: one a national
memorial (to be erected under the direction of the National Battlefields Memorial
Committee) and the other a commemorative memorial to the missing (constructed by the
Imperial War Graves Commission.) It was therefore decided that these two projects should
be merged and the IWGC was given overall responsibility for the Ypres monument. The
Menin Gate would now be both a national memorial commemorating all those soldiers
who died fighting in the First World War and a memorial to those soldiers who were
recorded missing in action in the Ypres area.
The only country that did not agree with this proposal was New Zealand. Their
representative preferred the idea that the missing should be commemorated in
cemeteries near the place where they were thought to have died. This explains why there
are no New Zealand names on the Menin Gate.
It was initially decided that the Menin Gate would commemorate all the soldiers with no
known graves who died in all four Battles of Ypres or who were lost in periods in between.
However, it was calculated that the gate could only provide space for 60,000 names. The
decision was therefore taken to build a second memorial to the missing at Tyne Cot
Cemetery for those who died after 15 August 1917 in the Ypres region. Exceptions were
made for Australian and Canadian soldiers who had died fighting in Belgium and had no
known grave. All of these men were commemorated on the Menin Gate, even if they
were reported missing in action after August 1917.
Work on the Menin Gate began in 1923. It was unveiled on 24 July 1927 by Field Marshal
Plumer in the presence of the King of Belgium and many thousands of veterans and
relatives of the fallen. The whole ceremony was broadcast by the BBC. Loudspeakers were
set up in many British churches and other public places to allow people to follow the
ceremony.
Open to interpretation: What is the purpose of the Menin Gate?
The Menin Gate is very much open to different interpretations. One reason is the
appearance of the memorial. The monument is designed to commemorate the dead – in
this respect its most important feature is the 60 panels that record the names of those who
were killed around Ypres and have no known grave. Also, the sarcophagus that crowns
the western (city) side of the monument gives the impression that this is intended as a
place of mourning.
However, in other ways the Menin Gate’s design could be interpreted as a monument of
victory. It has the same appearance as a Roman triumphal arch. There is also the
inscription – ‘PRO PATRIA, PRO REGE’ – For King and Country. The new monument was
soon to become the best known of all the Imperial War Graves Commission’s memorials
but it was not without its critics. The war poet Siegfried Sassoon’s poem ‘On Passing the
New Menin Gate’ criticised the monument.
… Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;
Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,
The armies who endured that sullen swamp.
Here was the world’s worst wound. And here with pride
‘Their name liveth for ever’, the Gateway claims.
Was ever immolation so belied
As those intolerably nameless names?
Well might the dead who struggled in the slime
Rise up and deride this sepulchre of crime.
Overall reactions were positive, especially from those who had lost husbands, fathers and
sons during the war. For those who had no body to mourn and no grave to visit the
memorial gave them some comfort. Large numbers of relatives visited the monument to
pay their respects; they at last had somewhere to place their flowers and crosses. As Field
Marshall Plumer said in his speech at the inauguration of the Menin Gate, for those who
had lost loved ones: ‘He is not missing, he is here.’ The Gate became a place where
relatives of the fallen could focus their grieving, a place where they could find ‘comfort
and solace.’
Sassoon’s criticism made it clear to the IWGC that it was possible to interpret the memorial
in different ways. His interpretation was very different from the way in which the
Commission hoped that the memorial would be interpreted. In May 1927 Major Ingpen,
the Commission’s representative in Brussels, prepared a press release that put forward the
IWGC’s intentions. He stated that it was important that journalists should not see the Menin
Gate as a monument to victory. He argued that to see the Gate as a British version of the
Arc de Triomphe, a celebration of a military triumph, would be an ‘offence to the next-ofkin of those names inscribed upon it, and who, no doubt, consider it purely as a Memorial
to their Dead.’
The debate about the true nature and meaning of the Menin Gate continues to the
present day. It has been viewed differently and used by different groups for different
purposes. In 1983 peace campaigners chose the gate as the place to paint their slogan
‘trees not bombs’. When Pope John Paul II visited Ypres in 1985 he seemed to see the
memorial as a monument to peace. During the Last Post Ceremony under the Menin
Gate he prayed explicitly for world peace.
War memorials are often interpreted in different ways. They can be seen as patriotic or as
glorifying war but this is not how monuments such as the Menin Gate were seen in the
inter-war period. The memorials that were built in Flanders and on the Somme were
primarily places designed to ‘heal wounds and soften the pain’ of those who had lost
people they loved. The purpose of the memorial was to commemorate those soldiers
who had died in the war. The Menin Gate was designed as a monument of
remembrance. It was not designed to glorify war, nor was it intended as a monument to
victory.
THE LAST POST CEREMONY
Every night at precisely 8.00pm all traffic under the Menin Gate Memorial is stopped, to
allow the buglers of the Last Post Association to sound their simple but moving salute to
those who fought and died here so many years ago.
The order of service for the ceremony is as follows:
 In the lead up to the ceremony members of the public take their places under the
Menin Gate, leaving the roadway and the entrances to the staircases free. The police
then stop the traffic. This is seen as an important moment, as ‘the modern world pauses
for a few seconds, to think of those who died’.
 The local buglers play the ‘Call to Attention’ followed by the ‘Last Post.’ The Last Post
was a bugle or trumpet call played in the British Army to mark the end of the day and
to call the troops back to their quarters. In military funerals it was played as a final
farewell to the fallen. It is used in this context as part of the Last Post Ceremony.
 An act of remembrance, the exhortation is then said, with members of the public
repeating the last line.
 This is followed by a minute’s silence and the laying of flowers or wreaths at the top of
the stairs leading from the main hall.
 Finally, the buglers play the ‘Reveille.’ This was a bugle call played in the British Army at
the beginning of the day to call soldiers to their duties. In military funerals and in the
Last Post Ceremony it signifies the return to daily life after the act of remembrance.
The Exhortation
The Exhortation is the fourth of seven verses from Laurence Binyon’s poem For the Fallen.
Binyon wrote his poem in September 1914, but it only became widely known after it was
published in the Times newspaper in November 1919, on the first anniversary of the
Armistice. During the 1920s the fourth verse of the poem became widely used during
remembrance services and in 1928 the British Legion was granted permission to use the
verse separately from the rest of the poem.
VIMY RIDGE AND THE CANADIAN NATIONAL VIMY MEMORIAL
Vimy Ridge was the scene of fierce fighting in 1917 when Canadian troops tried to force
German troops from their position. Heavy losses were suffered on both sides, with 3,598
dead out of 10,602 Canadian casualties. The site, on land owned by the people of
Canada for ever more, covers 250 acres and contains preserved First World War tunnels
and trenches, two Canadian cemeteries and the National Memorial. The ground is
planted with Canadian tress – one for each of the dead. The Memorial is a stunning
structure made of two massive ‘pylons’ representing Canada and France, with a central
figure of ‘Canada’ mourning her dead. It was designed by Walter Allward, who was
inspired by a dream in which he had seen legions of dead rising up and coming to the aid
of the living. Inscribed on the ramparts are the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers listed as
‘missing, presumed dead.’
It took two and a half years to clear the site of unexploded ordnance and Allward two
years to choose his material: limestone from near Sarajevo. He made half sized, detailed
plaster casts to act as guides for the French master stonemasons, who took ten years to
complete the monument. It was finally unveiled on 26 July 1936 before a crowd of more
than 100,000 spectators, including the mothers of many of the Canadian soldiers
commemorated there.
Over 80 years, both time and the weather had caused severe damage with wind and
water gradually destroying the monument. Extensive restoration was completed in time
for the 90th anniversary of the battle in April 2007.
Vimy Ridge had been held by the Germans for 2 years and protected their control of the
mining area around Lens, which was supplying Germany with much needed coal. It also
formed an important stronghold along the main German defensive system: The
Hindenberg Line. There were deep bunkers and the trench system had been fortified with
concrete pillboxes concealing machine gun positions.
The ridge had been assaulted on more than one occasion without success. In 1917 the
task of taking it fell to the Canadians who would have all four of their Divisions fighting side
by side for the first time. They arrived in late 1916 during the coldest winter of the war.
Planning and training were essential if their attack was to be successful: they needed
intelligence about the enemy positions and units, knowledge of the topography of the
ridge and every man had to know his exact task.
This was not a Canadian invention; the French planning in 1915 had been very similar and
the British were working on the same principles in their planning for the attack against
Messines (to the south of Ypres) in June 1917. In this case, the Generals commanding the
Canadian Corps were well organised and backed by an excellent administrative staff
and understood the necessity of having artillery and reserves readily at hand.
In the three weeks before the attack the Canadians suffered 1,400 casualties whilst
carrying out intelligence gathering raids into the German lines but the information they
gained was to bear fruit on 9 April.
Behind the lines Canadian soldiers practised on terrain similar to the ridge, following guide
tapes, in order to become familiar with possible obstacles and how to overcome them.
The remains of mining tunnels were extended by the Engineers to provide a system of
delivering assaulting troops right into the heart of the battle. Five kilometres of tunnels
were built to protect soldiers before the attack. They varied in length but some were up to
a kilometre long. They were equipped with water and electricity and ‘rooms’ were
excavated to provide space for Headquarters troops, communication points and dressing
stations. Above ground, roads were repaired and light railways built.
Lessons were learned from the Battle of the Somme, where the greatest barrage ever put
down by British Artillery had not been effective on 1 July 1916. Firstly the Canadians,
supported by British Artillery, would employ thirty times more guns than the French had
used in 1915. There were more than 350 heavy guns and 700 field guns (one heavy gun
and two field guns for every 20 metres of front to be attacked).
Secondly, a fuse had been developed which was sensitive enough to explode a shell on
contact with barbed wire. On the Somme, the British had had to use shrapnel shells in the
hope that the flying pieces of metal would cut the wire - often the shell went into the
ground before exploding and the wire remained uncut.
On 20 March the preliminary bombardment began the process of firing a million shells into
the German positions. On Easter Monday 1917 (9 April) there was a gale with sleet and
snow. The attack commenced at 5.30am and by midday the 1st and 2nd Divisions had
crossed the flat ground towards the villages of Thélus and Farbus. The 2nd Division had the
British 13th Brigade under its command, and they had reached the edge of Vimy, their
final objective for the day. The most strongly defended position was the highest point of
the ridge (Hill 145), but on the afternoon of 10 April, it finally fell and Vimy Ridge was
controlled by the Canadian Corps.
By the standards of the day, casualties had been light and the Canadian Corps had
proved their military skill. The success was so rapid and complete in comparison to other
battles and such a predominantly Canadian affair that it has become part of the
Canadian national awareness.
THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME
The French army had suffered terrible losses at Verdun and asked the British to attack in
the area of the River Somme to draw some of the German forces away. The British
wanted to launch a massive attack that would help push the Germans back and end the
war. The plan was for the British artillery to shell the German lines for 7 days in order to
destroy the enemy barbed wire and the soldiers in their trenches. At 7.20am on 1 July
1916 the first of 10 huge mines were exploded under the German front lines. Ten minutes
later 120,000 men went ‘over the top’ on a 14 mile long ‘L’ shaped front. Although there
was 1 Allied gun for every 17 yards of enemy front line, 1/3 of all shells failed to explode and
the guns were spread too thinly to be effective. They also warned the Germans of the
impending attack, so there was no element of surprise. The troops, weighed down with
60lbs of equipment, had to attack up-hill in daylight across waterlogged ground. The
Battle, originally designed to gain large amounts of ground very rapidly, eventually lasted
140 days and cost a total of 1.3 million British, French and German casualties, with 57, 470
British casualties on the first day alone (19,240 killed).
NEWFOUNDLAND MEMORIAL PARK
On 24 June 1916 the British artillery started to bombard the German front line with what
was at the time the heaviest bombardment they had ever carried out. It was thought that
the German defences would be totally destroyed and that the attack would be
straightforward with little resistance from the terrified German soldiers.
The area was a series of ridges and valleys with the village of Beaumont-Hamel at the end
of the valley, in front of the men in the trenches, in what is now the Memorial Park. The
Division was allowed 210 minutes to take the village and continue to the next ridge, an
advance of 3,700m. But the barrage had failed to cut the enemy wire and the German
troops had been protected by their deep dugouts. As soon as the artillery barrage
moved, they moved quickly back into position. From where the Memorial Park now stands,
the first troops to advance were the South Wales Borderers who were decimated by
machine gun positions in the Y Ravine directly opposite them. On their right the King’s
Own Scottish Borderers were also badly hit.
No one was sure exactly what was happening. The British signal to show they had
reached their objective was a white flare but the German signal requesting artillery
support was the same. The British Commanders saw the flares and thought progress was
being made, so sent in the next wave of soldiers. These were the Essex Regiment on the
right and the Newfoundlanders on the left. Both the regiments found the communication
trenches they were using to reach the front line full of dead and wounded soldiers, which
slowed them down. Some of the Newfoundland men climbed out early and were cut
down in the open by the machine guns in Y Ravine. A few managed to reach the
German lines but were killed there. The men from the Essex Regiment were completely
held up and did not reach their line until after the Newfoundlanders had already
advanced.
By 10.05am it was obvious that the attack was a terrible failure. In just 30 minutes the 1st
Battalion of the Newfoundland Regiment lost 310 men killed and over 360 wounded out of
the 800 soldiers that went into action on 1 July 1916. This was a massive percentage of the
population of this small Dominion which stood at about a quarter of a million; 5,482 men
went overseas with nearly 1,500 killed and 2,300 wounded.
When the park was set up after the First World War, the land was given to Newfoundland
‘in perpetuity.’ Newfoundland was a British Dominion at the time, becoming part of
Canada in 1949. Trees from Newfoundland were transported to France to plant within the
park. Other CWGC cemeteries employ similar methods to link back to the homeland of
those buried there, by trying to use plants native to that country in the horticultural design
of the cemetery.
THIEPVAL MEMORIAL
The Thiepval Memorial bears witness to the fact that a high percentage of those who died
in the Battle of the Somme have no known grave, many bodies have been lost entirely in
the pulverised battlefield, and many others not found until battlefield clearance took
place after the war, by which time all trace of identity had disappeared. The Memorial is
the largest ever built by the CWGC and commemorates 72,085 men who died in the
Somme sector up until 20 March 1918, the eve of the German push back across the
battlefield. It was designed by the renowned architect Sir Edwin Lutyens and built
between 1928-1932.
Over 90% of the names on the Memorial are of men who died in the battle from July to
November 1916. It includes British and South African soldiers, but those from Australia,
Canada, India, Newfoundland and New Zealand with no known grave are
commemorated on national memorials to the missing at Villers-Bretonneux, Vimy Ridge,
Neuve Chapelle, Beaumont-Hamel and Longueval respectively.
In addition to being a Memorial to the Missing, Thiepval is also a battle memorial,
commemorating the Anglo-French offensive on the Somme in 1916. In further recognition
of the joint nature of the Allied endeavors in 1916, an Anglo-French cemetery was laid out
in front of the Memorial with equal numbers (300 each) of French and British burials.
A major Remembrance ceremony is held here each year on 1 July. There are also
occasional smaller scale ceremonies when a body is discovered nearby – sometimes they
can be identified and given a proper burial with family descendants in attendance. A
ceremony like this took place 2004. Every time a body is discovered and identified, if the
name of the casualty appears on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing, the name is
deleted when the body is interred in a properly marked grave.
To help explain the history of the battle, the site and the Memorial, a Visitors’ Center was
opened recently. A photographic memorial of the men who are commemorated at
Thiepval is also being compiled.