World War One started nearly a hundred years ago. Known as the great war, the death toll was epic: ten million soldiers dead in just four years. Over two million of them alone died on the Western Front near Ypres, and the once-lush landscape of Flanders, in what’s now Belgium, was completely devastated. Not a living tree or blade of grass survived. You’ve probably seen the iconic photos of the front lines reduced to a mess of mud and metal by years of incessant bombing and artillery fire. The last of the soldiers who fought in those trenches has died. There are no living human memories. But how long does it take a landscape to lose its memories? We wondered whether the scars of the erroneously named 'war to end all wars' were still visible in the landscape today.
Producer Anik See and her young son went to the Flanders fields to see for themselves. She was shown around by René Declercq, a resident and owner of the restored trenches at Bayernwald, and Kristof Blieck, a researcher and scientific officer at the Memorial Museum of Passchendaele.
- Image: The country landscape near Ypres. The sign reads: “Military Terrain – Access Forbidden”. (photographer: Anik See)
- Image: The Spanbroekmolen Mine Crater, now called “The Pool of Peace” – created by the explosion of 19 mine on the Ypres Salient , it is now a peaceful pond. (photographer: Anik See)
- Image: A mine basket lies rusting in a field close to the trenches. The basket was used to lower men down a mine shaft to either dig under the trenches of the enemy, or to try to hear where the enemy was digging (Anik See)
- Image: War cemeteries dot the countryside around Ypres, many in the middle of fields (photograph; Anik See)
- Image: A map of present-day Ypres [or Ieper, in Flemish].If you look closely, you can see the crosses which mark the war cemeteries. (courtesy: Anik See)
- Image: The German trenches at Bayernwald, near Ypres, which have been reconstructed by Rene Declercq. The allied trenches were only 200 metres away. (photograph: Anik See)
- Image: Producer Anik See's son, who's three and a half, running through the Bayernwald trenches. (photograph: Walter van Broekhuizen)
- Image: A screw-picket, used to hang barbed wire during the war, still in use today. (photograph: Anik See)
- Image: A piece of shrapnel found in a field near Rene Declercq's property (photograph: Walter van Broekhuizen)
- Image: Signs showing the way to five different war cemeteries. There are over one hundred in the area surrounding Ypres. (photograph: Anik See)
- Anik See