Advertisement
Published: March 30th 2013
Edit Blog Post
Another cool day today in Belgium. Even the natives think the weather has been nearly inhumane. We decided to take a guided tour of Flanders Fields and the WWI battle sites around Ypres.
As we have been lost on and off in Belgium for going on a week, we had been through a lot of the area - but having a guide explain what was happening, when and why made for a more interesting experience.
As you all probably already know, the Americans did not play much of a role in the fight to liberate Belgium - but there are two divisions who did participate and have a memorial. The 27th and 30th divisions - both National Guard Divisions - and both played a role in the battles around Ypres .. Specifically the fight to seize Mount Kemmel.
There were 5 battles of Ypres in total over the 4 years and the total ground covered was less than a mile. As we went around the battlefield, we could see where the allied and German lines were, and sometimes they were less than 100 yards apart. The key terrain changed hands 6 times between 1914 and 1918 ... Back and
forth and back again .. All for a few meters of ground and at a cost of hundreds of thousands so casualties. The web site
http://www.greatwar.co.uk/ypres-salient/battles-ypres-salient.htm has a good recounting of all of the fighting that went on for this key piece of terrain.
The bottom line is that the Allies were committed to defending Ypres to deny this terrain to the Germans. The devastation on this area was immense .. Almost everything was completely devastated and had to be rebuilt after the war. There are many cemeteries to the dead ... Both known and unknown. There are still many unknown casualties from soldiers that died but have either never been found or identified. Every year - to this day - Belgium farmers recover unexplored ordnance and other war artifacts as they plow their fields. One factory site recovered over 250 casualties when they went to build. The issue seems to be the mud ... This area has a water and mud issue that seems to suck things down into the muck and then return them to the surface. During WWI the mud was so bad that the troops built bridges over the mud ..and if you fell off the bridge, rescue was difficult. There were troops that became engulfed in the mud and could not get out.
Today, we also ran into a school trip from Waterloo, Iowa. They were cycling the battlefield, and looked cold when we ran into them at the German cemetery. They were planning to cycle all day, but we never saw them again.
Brugge was gearing up for the Tour of Flanders race tomorrow ... We saw lots of team busses and cars, and there were plenty of free events in the squares tonight. We decided to stay in the hotel for dinner tonight and get ready for the early departure
tomorrow morning. Fabian Cancellara and Peter Sagan are the betting favorites for tomorrow ... But here in Flanders, everyone likes Tom Boonen.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0328s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb