Essex Farm Cemetery in Ieper, Belgium
Ieper, in Flanders, Belgium, is the heart of the Ypres Salient, the scene of a series of bloody battles in World War I. Since it's part of Flanders, the Flemish spelling is the one I'll use, though you may have seen it more often spelled as Ypres. It's pronounced EEper, or EEP, or even EEpray, though the British soldiers entrenched there referred to it as "Wipers".
Wipers was not a place you wanted to be during the Great War. Today we'd refer to it as a quagmire, a place where advancing was impossible and retreating even more so. Yet life in the trenches was unbearable, and for too many, death was the only way out.
Over 400,000 men died in the Ypres Salient (a salient is a piece of land that projects into enemy-held territory), some from the poisonous gas the Germans used for the first time during the Second Battle of Ypres. Although casualty figures are imprecise, all agree that huge numbers on all sides died during the muddy battles, making Flanders fields truly one of the bloodiest pieces of soil in history.
In 1915, Major John McCrae, a Canadian doctor, wrote the moving poem In Flanders Fields. We visited the field hospital where the poem was written, now a memorial and cemetery. Essex Farm Cemetery is a couple of miles north of Ieper, a lovely little spot where the remains of 1500 British soldiers—including many unidentified—are buried in orderly rows.
What's left of the concrete hospital barracks lie entrenched under a cow pasture, which overlooks the Ieper Canal. There were no poppies blooming in October, yet hundreds of red plastic poppies graced the graves of the fallen.
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
As we drove to Ieper, I noticed the surrounding homes and buildings all seemed different, somehow, from the usual European ancient stone and brick structures. Then I realized: They'd all been rebuilt since the Great War, which left the area a barren mud swamp.
The former cloth market town of Ieper was flattened during the four battles fought there, despite being occupied only one day by the German forces. The allied governments wanted to preserve it in its flattened state, but the residents naturally wanted to rebuild. The medieval buildings were recreated with the help of photographs, and today, there're few hints the bricks and stones weren't originally placed in the 17th century.
In Flanders Fields Museum, located in the Cloth Hall, tells the story of the Great War in Flanders. With thousands of quotes from participants bringing the war to life, it's a particularly moving place. It also brings home the futility and stupidity of the war: generals who relied on outdated techniques based on calvary charges and politicians who insisted on advancement—even when advances through the Salient were death traps for thousands of soldiers. Life in the trenches, except for the occasional truces, was abominable.
"They came out of their trenches and walked across unarmed, with boxes of cigars and seasonable remarks. What were our men to do? Shoot? You could not shoot unarmed men." —Count Gleichen, Brigadier General of the 15th Brigade.
During the unsanctioned Christmas truce in 1914, soldiers on each side spontaneously stopped exchanging fire and exchanged gifts instead—rations, beer, Christmas puddings—and crossed the lines to shake hands. The soldiers had decided to make their own peace. They even played a peaceful game of football—presumably with no referee waving flags. But the holiday from battle was short, and many didn't believe it had ever happened, until letters home described the remarkable events. In later years, the leaders of the war threatened to court martial anyone who participated in such a truce, so threatening was it to the fighting spirit of the troops.
The Great War went on for four more years, and hundreds of thousands lost their lives despite the fact that one Christmas, the two sides discovered they had more in common than they had differences. (You can read more about this fascinating period in this Independent article from 2005.)
Ieper was rebuilt after the war with money from German reparations. The tall cathedral of St Martins was rebuilt in 1930 and stands guard over the carpark. The Cloth Hall looks almost as it would have in the 17th century. And the sound of modern construction has replaced the sounds of battle.
On the way out of the town center stands the Menin Gate, a memorial to the British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient but were never found. Fifty thousand names are engraved, row after row, on the white walls. The British descendents of those who died cross the Channel to visit the memorial, as evidenced by the ever-present poppies. Poppy wreaths line the steps and small crosses bearing the names of the missing stand discretely along the base of the walls.
Outside Ieper, there are other battlefields and cemeteries in the Salient that are open to visitors, but we had to make it to Brussels by evening, so we crossed the Salient on modern motorways, the landscape still eerily flat and featureless.
Somehow, Ieper has risen from the bones and blood of the hundreds of thousands who died in the muddy flats of the Salient. Today it's a pleasant Flemish town, with coffee shops and cafes where once there were bunkers. But as we left I couldn't help but remember those dead, those without names, those without graves, those without descendents to remember them now, almost a hundred years later.
War is hell. Even the Great ones.