In the First World War the major loss of human life was from the soldiers. The scale of lives lost was incredible and never before seen by man. One way of telling of the destruction of war was the mass graves. Because of the heavy bombardment and shelling, many bodies of those men killed in no-mans-land were unidentifiable. These thousands of men were placed in mass graves, such as
the one at Langemark cemetery. Out of the 44,000 burials here in this German cemetery, 25,000 of them are in the Kameradengrab, or mass grave. There was no room in the plot of land given to them to bury each person individually, and, even though those in the Kameradengrab were unidentifiable, each individual grave has 5-12 people in it, which just shows the enormity of the loss of life. The cemetery at Notre Dame de Lorette is one of the largest cemeteries in terms of land, holding 45,000 men, 23,000 unknown soldiers in 32 acres of land. It seems bigger as you walk around because of the fact that it is on the crest of a hill. Divided in to religion (i.e. Muslim, Christian, Jew) and then by country, the graves are fairly impersonal, holding details of name, number, rank and age when killed. This is in contrast to, for instance, the Devonshire Cemetery, which because of its small size contains personal messages and family details. The impersonality of the graves shows how the men were buried quickly and methodically, suggesting that there was a lot of people to be buried.
The sheer size of the cemeteries shows the scale of the destruction of human life. Places such as Tyne Cot hold 12,000 gravestones, along with a further 35,000 names that could not fit onto the Menin Gate after its 55,000 names. These numbers are almost beyond belief. From the text book we get a general, blurred idea of actually how many men were killed, such as from page 33, source 52. I can be critical of this source as it is showing a sample of 24 names from Ba to Bl, taken from a small register for one battalion from one town. Only by visiting places such a Thiepval do we get the true emotional experience. Only by walking under huge stone columns engraved with the names of 72,000 British men can we really understand the enormity of the loss of life in the First World War.
Another view on the destruction of the First World War is the individual loss of life. We can look at the big picture, at the tens of thousands who gave their lives, but each of those people had a story. Poets such a Hodgeson of the 8th Devonshire Regiment and John McCrae of the Canadian Army Medical Corps. wrote such moving poems as “In Flanders Fields” and “Before Action”, which are touching to those who delve deep into their lines. It is emotional to see such graves as Rifleman Valentine Joe Strudwick, age 15, who was killed by a sniper in 1915. Hundreds of underage soldiers signed up, the youngest being Private John Cordon of the 2nd Royal Irish Regiment, who died 24th May 1915, aged just 14. To be this young and to be killed needlessly for no gain is deeply moving. It makes us appreciate the war in a totally new light, because learning about people like Joe Strudwick’s life only reminds us of their death.
The destruction of the First World War can be seen in a few different ways. Firstly there was the devastation of the towns and cities. Secondly there is the terrain, pitted with marks that will never fade. Subsequently there is the loss of civilian life, and finally there is the loss of the soldiers’ lives, on the grand scale and from an individual’s point of view.
Tactics
One of the most interesting things I learnt from the battlefields trip was the types of stratagem that both sides employed in order to gain ground, information and trenches on the enemy.
When looking at the types of strategy used for defence by both sides, one of the tactics which is most obvious was the use of natural defences. Hills and valleys were most important, giving space for an ambush, a sight over the enemy and making it harder for the enemy to attack. One such place was the valley where the Devonshire Cemetery lies. Guarded by a single machine gun, it was almost impossible to attack without the use of tank warfare or such diversions as attacking the post’s rear as well as from the front. This valley was employed by the Germans as a killing ground, and it proved fatal to the 8th and 9th Devonshire Regiments who were slaughtered in that valley. The machine gun was a devastating weapon when used against charging troops, which was the main method of attack employed by the B.E.F. In contrast, hills were used, not only for the visionary bonus, but to make it harder for men to attack it. Vimy Ridge is on the top of a hill and trenches were dug here to give the attacking Germans difficulties. At Newfoundland Park, the gently sloping hill will have made it hard to counter attack the British. Some natural dips on a battlefield would have provided easy cover without having to dig down into the boggy ground. Again at Newfoundland Park the Y Ravine would have been used for supply lines and to give troops cover before attacking. The German army was able to make use of this sort of natural advantage because the Germans were already in Belgium and had time to set up their defences. The British trenches were built much more hurriedly, sometimes under heavy fire. They were not as strong, and were easily taken. Sometimes the water table would be too high for good trenches to be built. The trenches therefore would be full of water, which would eventually collapse the section. One way of getting around this problem was to build concrete bunkers above ground, the method used at Tyncot. These bunkers were easily destroyed by bombardment, and left dazed men to face an oncoming enemy. Therefore here the Germans had the upper hand.
The tactics employed by the British whilst attacking were meant to incorporate several things: speed, ease of charging and previous destruction. The previous destruction was meant to be from bombardment – the guns would pound at the front line, destroying the barbed wire, demoralizing the enemy troops and leaving them disorientated. The infantry would then run towards the enemy trenches, kill all troops, and then repair the trenches, fortifying them against a counter-attack. However, the factors needed for a successful raid did not sometimes come together.
The first thing needed for a raid was the ability to move, both out of the trenches and in. To move out needed a firestep, one thing that the constant bombardment from the German guns almost totally destroyed. At sanctuary wood, a forward attack point, there is almost no firestep remaining, merely a steeply sloping bank. This shows that it would have been difficult to get out of the trenches, especially under heavy fire. (This may not be a credible source of information however, as the owner of the trenches at Sanctuary Wood has tried to replicate the conditions in the trenches too much, turning it almost into a playground for children, and it is difficult to tell what is historical fact and what is commercialisation.) The trenches at Newfoundland Park do have a firestep, however worn by nature it is. This shows how this was a forward attacking post for the British Army. The downward slope would have helped in attacking this place as well.
Another factor for a successful attack was the ease of getting across no-man’s-land. Attacking uphill towards Bayerwald, also with its superior trenches, would have been demoralizing, and most soldiers would have been killed or mortally wounded on the uphill attack.
A downward slope, as I have mentioned At Newfoundland Park, would be a considerable burden lifted from the soldiers. Newfoundland Park would probably have been the easiest out of the sites we have studied to attack, because it would not have been too muddy due to the type of earth here, and the downward slope would have meant the attackers would have been near the trenches very quickly. However, due to this ease the Germans defended the place very well. The barbed wire, meant to have been cut by the shelling, was not, meaning that troops were stranded in no-man’s-land, under fire from machine guns. This happened at many places. “It got dark before we were halfway out and…we almost had to give up. We would lose our way, get caught in barbed wire, step in holes…” This extract is from the diary of . I take this as primary evidence, and reliable information. It is useful to have seen all the places rather than studied them in a text book. The text book gave me the impression that every trench was the same, and the problems that the soldiers faced were all similar. The picture in my head was of a flat, muddy land, where trenches were straight sided and barbed wire stretched across the lot. This picture was given to me by the text book, but actually being at the battlefields has shown me that there were many changeable factors and differences in the terrain and conditions at each site.
With regard to both the attacking trenches and defending trenches, there is an evident difference of quality in them. For instance, the trenches at Vimy Ridge and at Bayerwald were both strong, deep trenches that provided maximum cover. Both were sites of defence, and these were much better built than the attacking trenches. At Newfoundland Park the trenches were less imposing, suggesting heavy fighting and many men trampling the mud down.
One tactic of war that was changed by the invention of the machine gun was the fact that if you threw thousands of men into the line of fire, the enemy would be worn down and eventually broken. The machine gun however destroyed this idea, as it was able to fire 600 rounds per minute at a range of 4,500 yards, and against inexperienced Generals who pushed men forward the tactic did not work. Another tactic that has always been employed is holding ground. Once a piece of land was taken, it was customary to fight and hold onto that land for as long as possible. This sacrificed many men. Letting the attackers come towards you meant that sometimes they chased you, and could be easily slaughtered by a well disciplined backup regiment. It is evident that these two failing tactics were employed during the First World War, because of the thousands of graves. If Generals and other leaders had recognized that warfare was changing, the lives of so many men could have been spared.
Morale and Mental Warfare
In this theme I will explore how my understanding of the use of mental warfare and the morale of the troops on the front lines was added to by my visit to the battlefields.
There was a lot of low morale among the troops during the First World War. This was caused by many things, such as the constant pounding of the guns, the sense of defeatism and loss of friends and comrades. This is the one topic that my understanding was added to not through factual data, but through the emotional experience of visiting the battlefields, and by trying to experience the conditions that the soldiers would have done. This gives us a first person view into what they would have experienced. For example, at Vimy Ridge the trenches, being quite deep and being preserved in the conditions that they were in at the end of the war in concrete, gave us a sense of misdirection and disorientation. We can imagine what it must have been like for soldiers who, under heavy shelling and machine gun fire, had to find their way swiftly from one place to another, and in the dark mostly. This gives even us a sense of despair, even in our safe little world. To be in this situation, it is understandable that so many troops deserted or became depressed, and their morale dropped.
One other factor that would have deepened the soldiers’ sense of desperation is the smell. Many tourists comment on how the smell is one of the poignant memories of their trip to the battlefields. It is a smell that cannot be described, but must originate from the death and destruction that accompanied trench warfare. “…talk of the mud that bogged down their every movement and of the filth and smells of the trenches and no man's land in between…” from The Diary of Percy Totten, Red Arrows Division, 32nd Division AEF.
To the troops, the smell of rotting bodies, rats, gunpowder smoke, mud, unwashed bodies and the lingering stench of gas would have been overwhelming, and enough to make any soldier wretched. Although there is little factual evidence existing at the trenches to show that this smell existed, only a faint lingering odour at Sanctuary Wood and Bayernwald, it is something that is only mentioned in the book through sources. However, reading a source cannot prepare you for the actual thing, and if, 90 years later, the smell is still detectable, we can only imagine what it was like in 1916. I can however be critical of sources from soldiers, who may have exaggerated their experiences in order to gain sympathy from interviewers or authors.
Because of the nature of war, men would have become close to comrades whom they fought with. But because of the nature of war, these friends would have likely to have been killed quickly. The soldiers made friends to fill the gap that had been occupied by the friendliness, comradeship and peace that the war had taken away, and when these friends were ripped away it gave a great sense of loss and hopelessness. My visit to the battlefields has helped in my understanding of this, for instance in Flanders Field Museum it showed how soldiers would make friends and even keep pets to try and escape from the horrors of war. Seeing pictures of hardened soldiers playing with kittens, or training dogs, is a very moving thing, and one that no text book could convey. In conjunction with my previous experience of understanding what terrors the soldiers had to face, it is easy for me to understand why soldiers might make such efforts to escape to their own little world.
With the conditions in the trenches it is easy for someone to understand how a soldier would have felt. The typical weather during the First World War was rain, fog and snow. The bottoms of the poorly built trenches would have been filled with a thick mud which made feet freezing and wet. The painful condition “Trench Foot” would have affected many hundreds of men, causing loss of feeling, rotting and ultimately amputation of the foot. Having to live with this awful condition along with (according to sources at Flanders Field Museum) lice, which itched and made you feel dirty and unwashed, rats, which helped to scare the soldiers into madness, and finally nits, which had to be removed on a regular basis, must have lowered the troops spirits a greatly.
Another huge thing that would have lowered the troop’s morale is court marshalling. Many soldiers suffered from shell-shock, an infliction caused from a bomb exploding too close to a person, causing loss if memory, confusion and dizziness. Soldiers who suffered from this may have deserted or disobeyed orders because they were confused and wanted to escape. The army was extremely tough on insubordinations like deserting or cowardice or disobeying orders and the most common punishment was death by firing squad. At Poperinge there is evidence that this was practised from the Execution post, and actually seeing a post riddled with scars of bullets gives us an empathetic view of a soldier’s fate in this way. A text book can only describe what happened, but only by being there can someone truly be emotionally involved. I know from the text book that 306 men were executed, not only as a punishment but as an example to others. This ‘friendly fire’ would have damaged men’s morale, leaving them terrified of making mistakes and scared of their commanders.
These four themes show how my visit to the Battlefields has increased my understanding and improved my knowledge both factually and emotionally of what it must have been like to be a soldier in the First World War.
Question 2: “How and why do national cemeteries and memorials built in the 1920’s commemorate those who died in the First World War in such different ways?”
In the first part of this question I will explore how the sites are physically different to each other. The first most obvious difference is the size. Cemeteries will often differ in size, according to how many people are buried there, and I will explore later into other reasons why they are different sizes. There are large British and Allied cemeteries like Tyncot and Lijssenthoek, and then smaller but still large cemeteries like Delville Wood and Essex Farm, right down to the smallest cemeteries for single Regiments like the Devonshire. The French only have one major cemetery, Notre Dame de Lorette, which is the largest cemetery in the area. The Germans however only have one: Langemark Cemetery, which is of small proportions but holds a great number of bodies. Another varying factor from site to site is the layout. Some are laid out orderly, like Notre Dame de Lorette. There are different areas for religion, and in these areas the graves are laid out by the name of the soldier. Tyncot is also orderly, positioned row upon row and in alphabetical order, moving outward from the central cross of sacrifice. Even Langemark, with its small stature, is laid out to make it attractive and easy to browse. However, at Essex Farm, a British hospital cemetery, is not set out in an orderly fashion. It is ordered chronologically, so the only way of finding a grave is to know when each person died. This is a random lay out.
Another difference between the different cemeteries is the colours of the gravestones, and the general colour scheme used. For example, at Vimy Ridge the British gravestone are all made of white stone, which is a bold colour and is easy to spot from far away. The same is true for every grave at Notre Dame de Lorette. However at Langemark every slab of marble is black and the general colour scheme for the place is dark grey, brown and black.
One huge difference between different country’s gravestones is the shape and inscriptions. For instance, while the French graves are in cross shapes, with a rank and a name, the British have rounded tops and more information on the soldier, i.e. their name, rank, date of death, age, regiment, and a personal message from friends or family. The common difference is that the French gravestones tend to be more of a record, whereas the British are a commemoration of the soldier’s life.
The main differences between the cemeteries themselves are the visual prominence from far away. For example, we can compare Langemark cemetery and Notre Dame de Lorette. While Langemark is set in a valley, covered by trees and with no monument over 7 feet tall, Notre Dame de Lorette is set upon a hill, the colours contrasting with the surroundings, and with the Lantern Tower set above the ossuary, which stands 52 metres high with a revolving lamp that can be seen for 70km. This is a huge contrast between the two nation’s major cemeteries. This is for a number of reasons, such as to show the sense of loss and to try and forget what happened, and also to show glory, and to commemorate those who fell in the First World War.
As well as the different types of cemetery are the many different memorials scattered around Belgium and Northern France. These memorials differ in many ways as well, and the size of them is one of the most important ones. For instance, there are the great looming memorials of Vimy Ridge, and the vast blocks that are Thiepval and Meningate. There are also the small, subdued sites of Delville Wood, where a modest building and museum sit. In most cemeteries there are crosses of sacrifices which, while small, add to the meaning of each site. The layout of these memorials is so that they are easy to use and find names, such as at Vimy Ridge the names in alphabetical order are followed by a path around the edge. Thiepval contains 72,000 names of the missing, along with 600 graves of French and British dead. These are also in alphabetical order, and it is easy to see the highest row to find names. These examples are of an orderly layout, the reasons for which will follow. Most of the memorials are set out in an orderly way, because, unlike the cemeteries, they were built after the war, and therefore the builders had time and space in which to make them neat.
Many of the memorials in Belgium and Northern France are white, grey or black, and this is probably due to the fact that these are neutral colours, which stand out against a backdrop. However, some memorials like Thiepval are set in red brick, which shows a more glorious and commemorative tribute.
Places like Vimy Ridge, Tyncot and Delville Wood are both shockingly white coloured, and set, as they, are, against a green background they can be seen for miles. Meningate is grey, blending into the surrounding city, just as Essex Farm is grey, blending into the bleak countryside. Finally, as I have mentioned earlier, Langemark cemetery is predominately black, the show a number of things, such as the sense of loss, and to hide the cemetery amongst the trees and hills.
The difference of being able to see the memorials for miles around and not so much is whether or not the memorials are meant for commemoration or remembrance. For places like Notre Dame de Lorette are set upon a hill, with its vast lantern tower shining for 70km, it is almost impossible not to notice and remember the dead at that place. However, the cross of sacrifice set in the Devonshire Cemetery is almost impossible to come across unless you are looking for it, and therefore those who do find it are there for a purpose, and that is to see their loved ones commemorated.
Finally, each memorial has a different purpose, whether it is the weeping angels sitting atop the bell towers to show the loss at Tyncot, or the National Animal set atop a hill to watch over the country’s fallen at Newfoundland Park. It may be the sombre figures at Langemark, who stand through the ages to remember those from every walk of life who gave themselves for their countries, or the soaring white marble fingers of Vimy Ridge, reaching out towards those who are commemorated there. Whatever form these memorials take, the common purpose for creating them is so that we never forget.
In this second part I will explore why the memorials are different from each other. The reasons for these differences are contrasts between two things, and will start with the contrast between winners and losers.
The memorials of the winners, i.e. the Allies, are tall and proud, standing out from the countryside, such as Vimy Ridge. It is meant to show how the Canadian soldiers (for it is a Canadian monument) would have been, facing their death with a strong disposition, their uniforms gleaming and clean. Of course it is highly unlikely that the soldiers would have been like this, in the mud and terror of the trenches, but it is an idealistic view and serves as an encouragement to those who might take this view to believe it.
Another example of this is at Thiepval, were the great structure stands strong, unlikely to fall through weakness. The British Tommies were seen as this, only being killed almost by unfairness from the enemy, not the incompetence of the men. Of course, the men were killed because old military tactics were no use against an efficient killing machine like the machine gun, but because of the ignorance of the British Public they knew none of this horror.
Delville Wood tries to show how the South African soldiers were better people than the other Allied countries. With no huge monument to their men, begging attention from the residents nearby and the tourists, Delville Wood gives the South African men a quiet but proud legacy. The museum lets people find out more about the men, and the neat, orderly lines of gravestones are easily explored. The wood which it is named after has had corridors cut into them, and walks through the wood can be enjoyed in the quiet air. The monument itself is built to resemble the castle of the Cape of Good Hope, and this also gives the place a sense of nationhood.
These three monuments, in their different ways, celebrate and commemorate the Allied men to the rest of the world. The cemeteries also do this. Notre Dame de Lorette is obviously an example, with its lantern tower above the ossuary, shining for 70km, and set atop a hill it is an eye-catcher from many roads. Tyncot also does this, being the largest British Military Cemetery in the world. With row upon row of gleaming white graves, surrounding a large cross of sacrifice in the middle, it is built to commemorate the individual whilst keeping the sense of comradeship and nationhood. Finally, the smaller cemeteries such as Essex Farm and Devonshire both try to commemorate the dead in a smaller yet somehow grander way. It gives us a sense that if a small band of soldiers can be honoured so much then the hundreds and thousands must also be honoured in the same way. When we look at the bigger picture, and compare it with the small section we see in the Devonshire Cemetery, it shows visitors how much we are thankful to these men.
Now we have looked at the winners’ monuments and cemeteries, we are able to compare them against the losers, that is, the Germans. Starting with the cemeteries, one major difference is the size. Langemark cemetery is ¼ of the size of Notre Dame de Lorette, yet holds the same number of bodies. This is because the Belgians gave the Weimar government very little time and space to bury their dead after the war. Therefore to same space and time the bodies were buried 8 to 20 people to a grave, and they were buried standing up. The trees are a metaphor for hiding the Germans’ achievement in conquering Belgium, and the whole place with its silent air is trying to keep that victory quiet. There are no big landmarks, in fact apart from the trees no structure is over 7 feet tall. The flat plaques, cut in black marble, are laid in rows like the crosses and gravestones at Tyncot or Notre Dame de Lorette. Touches such as these are subtle, and give the place a dignified air, which is what the government tried to do when it was built. The Germans have managed to regain some dignity in that this is, in my view, one of the most attractive cemeteries in the area.
The large Kameradengrab, or mass grave, is not present in any of the Allied cemeteries, and this was needed because of the crush and concentration of men needed to be buried there. For instance, on the flat plaques there are inscriptions such as “here lie 20 unknown soldiers”.
Another focus of Langemark cemetery is the tragedy of the 3,000 school children who died fighting in 1914. This is different to the other British and French cemeteries, which either commemorate everyone as an individual or everyone as a nation. The Germans have done this because of the limited space in which they had to work, and have therefore decided to simply honour one group of individuals.
The memorials also differ between the winners and the losers. The great, vast monuments of Thiepval and Vimy Ridge both shout out metaphorically to the countryside, commanding attention, whereas the four small statues in Langemark cemetery do not do this, in fact they are only visible from inside the cemetery due to the high corn fields that surround it.
Another way of contrasting the cemeteries are those that were built during the war and those that were built after it had ended in 1918. For example, in the hospital cemeteries of Essex Farm and Lijssenthoek the graves are set out in chronological order, that is, when someone died they were buried next along in the line until the end of the line, when a new line was formed, and so on. This is different to in those cemeteries built after the war, where the graves are set out in alphabetical order, to make it easier to find specific graves. Another difference is the placement of some cemeteries. The ones built after the war were placed in sites of great prominence, for example, on top of hills (Notre Dame de Lorette) or in valleys (Tyncot) or on large areas of land (Thiepval). The difference is that those that were built during the war were placed specifically to mark a place. The Devonshire Cemetery is placed were the regiment attacked from, the trench that “the Devonshires still hold”. Delville Wood is placed because it is the same wood that they were ordered to take, with disastrous results. Another difference is that after the war the builders of the cemeteries knew how many people they had to place in what size area, and so concentration cemeteries could be built, like Tyncot and Delville Wood. One final difference between the things built before the war and after it is that there were no memorials built during the war. The soldiers could not have known whether the land they trod would be theirs the next week, and a memorial with names could not have been built as no official body count had happened.
The final two categories compare the difference between the acknowledgment of national sacrifice and individual sacrifice. Sites such as Meningate, Thiepval and Notre Dame de Lorette make a huge statement about how the soldiers died for their country and their country alone. With bright flags from each nation, and, on Meningate especially, a huge chunk of names that no-one will probably ever read, the focus is on the statement that these memorials make. The huge panels with thousands of names are predominately to show just how many people died for that individual nation. This is extremely different to the Devonshire cemetery, where each gravestone is separate, with a touching inscription on each one. You would move round this site looking at each name individually, thinking about the story behind each name and reflecting on how that individual solely would have felt in their attack. At Tyncot it is the same. Although it is the largest British Military Cemetery in the world, it manages to convey a sense of individuality for each person. Even though it has the list of 35,000 names which did not fit onto the Meningate, each name is set with a larger gap than usual, in large type, with their rank and number also beside them. The highest name is a mere 8 feet above the ground, making it easier to read than at Meningate, where the highest name is around thirty to forty feet high. Space was not a matter when Tyncot was being built, as the names could have stretched for miles in order to commemorate each person individually.
This idea of Individual Sacrifice is shown at these places, with a more emotional feel to them, whereas the sites identifying national sacrifice are usually much bolder and more outstanding.
Along with these basic reasons for the cemeteries and memorials being different, the circumstances in the 1920’s also had an impact. After the war large numbers of tourists travelled to the places associated with the First World War. Over 7 million visits were made to the Imperial War Museum, and the war memorials erected in towns and villages all over the nation were described as tourist attractions. Soon, many people wanted to visit the battlefields themselves, and Thomas Cook & Son, seeing this huge trend about to begin, announced tours in 1919. Before this date, there were military objections to this idea, as they believed that the tourists would have no respect or sympathy for the scores of men killed on those plains, but these were lifted in July of that year, as it was evident that the gap in the market needed to be exploited. Thomas Cook & Son offered two tours, a more expensive one that ensured luxury travel and accommodation and a cheaper one which was more popular among the masses. The huge profit allowed the travel company to make up for the gap in the tourism market during the war.
The cemeteries and memorials are different because of the need to cater for different groups of visitors. I will start with normal tourists, those who come to the battlefields simply to see where the battles were fought. These people came to the battlefields and many of them took home souvenirs: ammunition, shell casings and shrapnel. The book, The War Illustrated, published in 1924, showed pictures of tourists searching for German bullets in the grass. This was not appreciated with open arms by many people, who believed that the tourists belittled the sanctity of the experience which the men of the front lines had undergone. The tourists seemed to trivialise the war experience, and it was said that the tourists could not understand the experiences of the servicemen and the bereaved. However, some site were created specifically for tourists, such as Sanctuary Wood, where the photographs of the wall try to show what some of the men had gone through, and the artefact museum, where visitors can touch some relics from the battlefields. The trenches themselves have been modified so as to get the ‘true’ understanding of what the conditions in the trenches were. Although the site may be not much good for factual understanding, it allows visitors to wander through muddy, wet ditches and traverse tunnels, and then they are content that they have walked the places that the servicemen would have walked. The owners then know that content visitors will spend their money in the owners’ cafes and shops.
Another site that is specifically aimed at tourists is Talbot House. With memorabilia from the days when the house was in use on the walls, and a museum containing information on the residents, the tourists are able to see what it was like in wartime. The museum and regenerated house is not aimed at veterans who would be visiting, for they know what it used to be like, and the bereaved relatives of servicemen would have no interest in Talbot House, it is specifically aimed at tourists.
We know that the sites were tourist friendly from the facilities that were provided when tourists started visiting. There is a toilet at Langemark cemetery, kept in good condition. The workman’s hut at Tyncot was renovated into a café, and the Wellington Quarry Tunnels provide an audio tour and video clips. All of these things are added to make tourists feel more comfortable, and therefore stay longer and spend more money.
The last post ceremony at Meningate, while moving for relatives, created so that tourists can appreciate how loved the lost servicemen were. With the information that the ceremony has taken place every night since 1928, a total of nearly 30,000 ceremonies to date, tourists can value the loss felt by everyone present.
The large monuments like Thiepval, Meningate and Vimy Ridge, along with the cemeteries at Delville Wood and Tyncot, were mainly created to show tourists the awesome numbers of men lost or killed in the First World War. To be able to walk under the arches of Thiepval and look around, as we did, at the names that stretch skywards, is to experience the gap created in the world by these men. The museum at Delville Wood lets visitors learn about the South African Regiment, and how they fought in that same place. All of these things allow tourists to learn about the First World War, and the sites have been created to achieve this aim.
The cemeteries and memorials are also different to cater for a different group: the relatives of the soldiers killed in the war. In the post-Great War period the sense of loss which it had created was a powerful presence in life in Great Britain. The most common example of this is the 2-minute silence on Remembrance Day each year, and the war memorials in towns and villages throughout the nation. People remembered in a community by taking part in these 2 minute silences, but individually people would have travelled to the battlefields on a pilgrimage to see loved ones’ graves. Relatives would have travelled to the battlefields to try and find some glory or good in what their lost loved one did. They look for signs of individual sacrifice, a sense that their lost loved one has been commemorated personally. Tyncot is a good place to recognise this. There are no flags promoting death or glory for their nation, only a few weeping angels looking over each grave individually. The names at the back have been made so it is easy to find a name and easy to read, with large type and spacing, and only 20 names per column, Even small differences like this make bereaved relatives feel that their country has recognised the achievement of the person independently. Another factor that relatives benefit from is the ability to actually traverse the terrain that their loved ones would have defended. The personal experience of this is comforting to the relatives, as they can now think that their loved one was not the only person to have walked this spot, and they are not alone in their suffering.
One major factor that was designed for relatives is the inscriptions on the British gravestones. While the French and German graves are more of a record of the soldier, the British graves are a commemoration of that person’s achievement and life. This is because the French took their dead home, and would have buried them in private plots with other family members, but the British had too many dead to move across two countries, so they were buried on the battlefields that they fought on. Over the years the graves have been engraved with personal messages from friends and family, touching messages that sum up the persons life and love.
The large monuments are also a tribute to the relatives, as it shows the lost family as part of a large community, part of their country, and that will give the relatives happiness to know that their dead loved ones are included as part of their country, and that there is a sense that their country respects and honours them for what they have done for their nation. On the other end of the scale, the smaller crosses of sacrifice in each individual cemetery show how the person fought as a unit with other members of his battalion, and the fact that they would have died together alleviates the sadness felt by the relative.
The final group that the cemeteries and memorials had to cater for when being built was the veterans, returning to the battlefields where they fought and the cemeteries where their friends fell. The Editor of the British Legion Journal emphasised that ex-servicemen did not return to the battlefields because they were curious, or because they liked the places, but out of comradeship. The cemeteries provided the regimental badges of each soldier for this reason on their gravestones, and the inscriptions are 100% accurate. This is needed because the veterans themselves may have buried their friends, and an incorrect inscription such as the date of death or age may have angered them. Some of the cemeteries are located where the fighting took place, such as the Devonshire, and it would have been emotional and moving for the veterans to return to the place where their friends were killed. Although there few War Veterans remain, there would have been more when battlefield tours started, and therefore places like Talbot House were renovated to provide accommodation. As it said on the sign, Talbot House was “Everyman’s Club: 1915 -- ” meaning that it was and is a club for everyone, regardless of rank or age. Since there is no end date on the sign, the club must still be open, and veterans went and stayed in the place they did when they were soldiers. This was needed to encourage other veterans to come and stay, and thus bring money into the area.
The cemeteries and memorials are mainly different to cater for these three groups: Tourists, Relatives and Veterans. They contain different features so as to give each party a true experience in everything that they would have wanted from the 1920’s and onwards to the present day. They commemorate those who died in the First World War in different ways, and these are appreciated by all who visit the cemeteries and memorials to the dead of the First World War.
On a .303 Vickers machine gun, the standard issue machine gun for the British Army.
For more detailed explanation see Part 2 below