World War One battlefields: Northern France and Belgium

Posted by Anura Samara, 14 September 2014

Arras

We made Arras our base for this part of our holiday, as it’s roughly in the centre of the major Australian battlefields, cemeteries and memorials.

We stayed in a hotel in the heart of the old town, in one of the squares directly opposite the town hall and it’s imposing bell tower. On the night we arrived, there was a ceremony involving combined British and French military bands so we almost had a military display right on our doorstep.

It’s only when you start exploring the history of the town that you realise how little of the ‘old’ town is left. Around the town hall are a series of hoardings showing the destruction to the town during World War Two. And look at old photos of the town you can see the destruction caused by World War One. So even in our little square, we can see that the building our hotel is in was the only survivor in its row, and even the bell tower had been demolished.

Wellington Tunnels

Arras itself was practically on the frontlines during World War One.

Right in town itself are the Wellington Tunnels. These are a network of tunnels that were dug by primarily New Zealand soldiers to connect disused mines. This network of deep tunnels were then used to hide troops who could emerge behind the enemy’s lines.

The tunnel system is complex. There was a hospital, running water and electricity, railways, offices and sleeping quarters and a system of signposts to guide soldiers around.

The tour is well presented. Access is through a lift, and then a guide takes you through key sections of the tunnels. There are audio-visual displays at various stops, and the entire complex contains original items from the war. There’s also original graffiti by soldiers on the walls and some really good pencil sketches too.

Australian memorials

The main reason for visiting this part of France was to see the Australian memorials and cemeteries. Although we set off to see the Australian sites, we quickly realised that this whole area of France is mingled with memorials and graveyards of all the Alllies and even German cemeteries. Even within the Australian cemeteries themselves, there were often soldiers from other nations buried side-by-side with the Australians.

Villers Bretonneux

Our first visit was to the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux. This has important family connections, as it is were Juliane’s great-great-uncle Lance Corporal Joseph Gregory is buried. As far as we know, she is the first member of her family to see his grave since he died.

This is a large and formal site. The large tower and cross of sacrifice that you see in so many photos are off in the distance when you first enter the memorial, and slightly dip following a curve in the ground. The graves are laid out in formal rows on either side, with Joe Gregory’s grave quite close on the left-hand side. It was an emotional time, as we have a close connection with him – his sister (known to all as “Big Nanna”) was alive when we were married with young children, and she shared many stories of her brother, her memories of the war years and ended up leaving a case full of letters and postcards with us (now safely held by the Australian War Museum). Standing at his grave, I was struck by how strange it must have been for a country boy to find himself in the middle of France. Of course, standing amongst all of those graves there’s the overwhelming sense of loss, of pointlessness and a scale that’s almost impossible to imagine.

After that, we then wondered up to the tower, commemorative walls and cross. We made sure to spend some time in front of the wall where a relative of a friend is commemorated – it felt like an important role, to stand in someone else’s shoes to remember their family. It’s good to be able to climb the tower itself, with great views of the rolling countryside. It’s so beautiful, it’s hard to understand the utter carnage that must have surrounded this place nearly 100 years ago.

While Villers Bretonneux is beautfully designed and well-laid out, it’s a place to contemplate rather than confront.

4th Australian Division Memorial, Bellenglise

This is a hard place to find. It’s well off the beaten path, literally involving drive 1-2 kms on a gravel road.

The 4th Australian Division Memorial itself is a single obelisk in a neat, hedge-lined square which has been created out of the surrounding fields. There’s no other human structures around so it feels like a lonely, windswept place.

The Bullecourt Digger

The Bullecourt Digger is a bronze statue of an Australian digger standing alone in a small memorial park. There’s not much there apart from a plaque giving a short history of the statue – after being commissioned to create the statue, the sculptor realised that his own father had fought at Bullecourt.

In the village of Bullecourt nearby is a small cafe called “Le Canberra”. We just had to stop in for a drink and a photo opportunity.

2nd Australian Division Memorial, Mont St Quentin

The 2nd Australian Division Memorial is much easier to get to, as it lies on a main road with good room to pull up and park. Like the other memorials, it’s a simple stone memorial (this time a plinth with a bronze statue of a digger on top. Interestingly, the first statue was of a digger slaying a German eagle but the Germans removed it during the Second World War. The new digger is less aggressive, in a pensive stance.

VC Corner and Pheasant Wood, Fromelles

Although VC Corner at Fromelles looks like any other memorial – cross with a commemorative wall – it is in fact a graveyard with common graves for soldiers who died near here.

Nearby there is a real memorial park. This one is dominated by a large bronze sculpture called Cobber of a soldier carrying a wounded comrade on his back. Although this is a sculpture of a real individual, it’s meant to commemorate the bravery of all those who went into no-man’s land to rescue the wounded.

We wanted to see the cemetery at Pheasant Wood as it’s a much newer cemetery. It’s the final resting place for soldiers who were exhumed from a mass burial site nearby and reburied herein 2010. Of course, it follows the same pattern as the much older cemeteries – rows of graves, central cross and a commemorative wall. But this was of interest as I followed along in the news the reports of the finding of the original burial site and the work to exhume and identify the bodies before burying them in the new cemetery.

German cemetery

We were just driving between different locations when we came across the German cemetery at Maissemy. It’s the second largest cemetery in France for Germans killed in the Great War, with over 30,000 men buried here. Each cross bears the names of up to four men, with Jewish men lying side-by-side with their countrymen. In the centre of the cemetry is a large tomb with a sarcophagus, and flanking the tomb are granite slabs with the names of men who have no known graves.

This cemetery lacks the formal grandeur of the other memorials and cemeteries we saw. The rows of graves are broken up with trees and even the lines seem to be less rigid.

We found this to be a much sadder place than the Allied cemeteries. After all, the stories of these men and boys are very little different to those of our own – young, sent to fight, living and dying in the mud – but there was sense that there sacrifices and deaths weren’t recognised. For example, there was little sign that these graves were still visited by relatives and very few flowers on any of the graves.

Canadian memorials

Unlike the Australian memorials, we had see in various brochures that the Canadian memorials include remnants of shell craters and trenches.

Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial

The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial is set inside a large park, with a memorial, some remaining trenches and then a small cemetery at one end. The whole area seems to be built on undulating fields, but on closer inspection you realise that this is the effect of shell craters that have never and will never be filled in.

The memorial itself features a bronze statue of a caribou set high on a rocky outcrop, with winding paths to the top. The advantage of this feature is that you can look out over the entire park. At the foot of the memorial are a series of trenches that you can walk through. Sure, there covered in green grass but you do get a sense of what it must have been like to scurry along the duckboards with your head just below the edge of the trench.

One of the great things about this memorial were Canadian guides on hand to provide explanations of the key features of the memorial.

Canadian National Vimy Memorial Park

As with Beaumont-Hamel, Vimy is a large park with a mix of memorials, cemeteries and other things to see.

When we arrived, we immediately joined a free tour of the bunker system. This is a series of tunnels and bunkers deep underground that were originally used as headquarters and a way for reserve troops to reach the frontlines unseen. They are well preserved, and are relatively spacious and the tour guide was informative, providing lots of information about the design and construction of trench systems. You imagine someone just digging a trench to escape gunfire but there were lots of design concepts built in to make them safer, to connect them together for communication and to turn them into sem-permanent structures.

Above ground there are yet more trenches and shell craters, with sheep grazing peacefully amongst it all. One of the things that strikes you was how close the opposing trenches were – literally within throwing distance

The whole area now sits within a pine forest, and leaving the forest you make your way to the Canada National Vimy Memorial itself. This is a grand and imposing feature, with two tall towers flanking two central figures. It’s built on a rise which lets you look down on the rolling fields below. The memorial is set by itself in its own large park, allowing you to walk around and see it from different angles (the reverse side is different to the side we approached it from).

Categories: France

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