This was a long weekend trip to look at the First World War battles around the Belgium town of Ypres and the fields of Flanders where between 1914 and 1918 thousands upon thousands of young men lost their lives.
The trip starts from the heart of London and the Victoria Bus Station on a Friday morning. There’s a great uncertainty as the French fishermen are on one of their seemingly regular blockades of Calais, so whether the nearest we’ll get to Ypres is the white cliffs of Dover is a great question . For some bizarre reason the blockade results in us catching an earlier ferry. Whoever criticised those awfully nice French fishermen?
Our guide John Lee quickly adds in an extra stop on the Friday afternoon to take advantage of our good fortune. We stop firstly at the end of the salient that was held by Belgian troops at Dixsmuide, the hauntingly called ‘’Trenches of Death’’. There is a very good museum but it is the painstakingly preserved trenches that are our first reminder of the horrors of the First World War.

The trip soon falls into a routine of hopping on and off the bus to make a quick visit. The second stop is the Belgian Memorial to the first victims of Gas attack on 22 April 1915 at Steenstraat. It’s a roadside simple steel cross towering above the Belgian countryside. John gives a concise talk that readily conveys the story behind the memorial in a very interesting manner; by no means can John be described as a dry teacher.
We then hop back on the bus for our additional stop, to Hill 60. In Flanders the countryside consists of rolling farmland hills all of which tend to be fairly small. Hill 60 was a spoil tip from the building of a railway. But in Flanders it became a major vantage point and thus fiercely fought over and tunneled under by the Allies to blow a mine. The crater is still clearly evident together with large chunks of German pill boxes.
Our hotel is the Ariane in Ypres, it’s very comfortable. It’s a group dinner so a great chance to chat to some of the other people on the trip.
The next day and we start looking at the battles around Ypres in a, broadly, chronological basis. Occasionally it seems a bit odd as we criss cross the area but the area is so small it doesn’t really cost a lot in time. But it really clarifies my understanding of the battles over the 5 years of the war.

We start at the Household Cavalry Memorial at Zandevorde, a beautiful but simple stone cross standing on a low ridge. Just a few hundred yards away is a well preserved German concrete command bunker. Unfortunately there is some right wing graffiti inside, a swastika and ‘Adolf Hilter’ sprayed on the wall, whoever said educational standards are slipping!
We then move onto Gheluvelt village scene of fierce fighting in 1914. There is a small Memorial to the Second Worcester Regiment. Our guide points out where the inscription has been changed from referring to the Germans as a ‘dastardly foe’ to ‘determined foe’. Did someone mention a Basil Fawlty?
We move onto a number of 1914 battle sites now all peaceful rural landscapes.

We lunch in Ypres. It would be very easy to describe the town as being full of old beautiful buildings, but the photographs of Ypres in 1918 show a town completely razed to the ground. The town was rebuilt pretty much as it was and boasts the massive Cloth Hall and a fine cathedral. The main square is lovely.
After a lunch we visit Brooding Soldier Memorial which commemorates the Canadians who died in the gas attacks of April 1915. It’s one simple figure bowed in contemplation towering above the countryside, very moving.
We then move to the German cemetery at Langemarck. It was established around the remains of some Germa pill boxes. The centerpiece is the sculptures designed by Emil Krieger of people grieving, but the most moving part is the communal grave of 25,000 soldiers of whom half are unknown. There are also memorial to the German university students who fought and died in horrendous numbers.

The last trip of the afternoon is the craters left by the mine blown by the Germans at Hooge in 1916, whilst they are now still lakes you can appreciate the ferocity of the mines by the positions of the pillboxes in the lake.
Finally on Saturday we visit the Menin Gate in Ypres for the Last Post Ceremony. The Menin Gate is a massive memorial to 55,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the salient and has no known grave.It is built on the spot where the Allied soldiers would have marched on route to the front lines.
The ceremony is conducted every night at 8pm, and has been since 1929 interrupted only by the Second World War. Whilst wreaths are laid the main part is the playing of the last Post by members of the Ypres Fire Brigade. It is simple yet intensely moving. Many people are moved to tears as the bugles echo around the stone porticos of the Menin Gate and certainly the crowd leaves quietly and very chastened.
Sunday morning is not good. We manage to visit the Canadian Memorial at Hill 62 before it starts raining. But by the time we get to the restored trenches in the woods below Hill 62 it is raining hard and looks to be set in for the day.

But amazingly it soon passes over and by the time we get to the Messines Ridge it is sunny. We then visit the Memorial to the London Scottish the first Territorial Battalion to fight in the First World War on the Messines Ridge. It’s a small and simple cross on a bare ridge.

We visit the Pool of Peace at Spanbroekmolen site of a massive mine blown by the British in 1917 on the ridge. However the nearby Lone Tree cemetery is the highlight of this stop. It’s only a small cemetery with 88 British graves but it occupies a beautiful spot overlooking the rolling verdant countryside of Flanders.
We stop nearby for a short talk on the British army medical services in the First World War and how things are organised today. It’s given by a former army medic so it’s very immediate and interesting.
After lunch we visit the Australian 5th Division memorial and cemetery at Buttes in Polygon Wood. The large stone obelisk overlooks the cemetery a place of peace and calm in the wood.

We then move the Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves cemetery on the Passchendaele ridge. It’s the largest in the area resulting from the 1917 battles to take the ridges around the village of Passchendaele, a name synonymous with the mud and slaughter of Flanders to the allied armies in the war. The cemetery occupies a massive are on one of the slopes up to one of the key ridges. The pill boxes that gave the cemetery its name are still there.
The name Tyne Cot is derived from the British soldiers seeing the German pill boxes on the ridge saw a similarity to Tyneside cottage and the nickname stuck
It’s a sobering sight to see line upon line of white gravestones ‘marching’ up the hill as they did in 1917 and paid the ultimate price to take some tiny sleepy village. As I’m there a black raincloud passes over before the sun breaks out again and the changes in light are really awesome on the cemetery.

The next and final morning we visit the Memorial to the Canadian Corps at Crest Farm on the very edge of Passchendaele. The village was finally taken in the late autumn of 1917 by the allies. The village was then lost in the Spring of 1918 before being retaken in the summer.
We then move onto the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing, it bears the names of 11,447 British soldiers who died in Flanders who have no known grave. It’s a rotunda guarded by two massive stone lions. It’s very sombre and a fitting memorial to so many lost lives.
Across the road is the Hyde Park Corner cemetery. It has the grave of Albert French who was killed aged just 16. The War Office refused to pay his family a pension as he was too young. Words cannot describe the stupidity that was involved in such a decision, but his Member of Parliament made them change their tiny minds.
Our final stop is at Hooge cemetery. Again it is impossible not to admire the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission who look after all the cemeteries and maintain them to a wonderful high standard letting beautiful flowers bloom between the simple white headstones giving the feel of an English garden.

After that it’s back to London to find the transport system is on what they call a bank holiday timetable, this actually means that there aren’t any trains, as I said earlier whoever said educational standards are slipping!
I travelled with Holts Tours www.holtstours.co.uk I found them to be very good although they are not too cheap, particularly if you have to add an overnight stay in London to the overall cost of the holiday. Their big advantage is their list of guides who are all eminent historians. We had John Lee on this trip and his knowledge and enthusiasm was absolutely top notch.