Silent Cities: Forceville 1921
As the clearance of the battlefields was coming to an end and the cemeteries established, work on making them permanent began. Initially it had been discussed that the wooden crosses as featured in last weeks post showing Acheux British Cemetery would simply be replaced by stone ones. In the end headstones were chosen as it was felt more information about the casualty could be recorded on them.
Several locations were chosen to become ‘experimental cemeteries’ – sites where the initial plans for permanent commemoration could be seen and demonstrated. Forceville Communal Cemetery and Extension on the Somme battlefields was one site, pictured here in 1921 just after the cemetery was finished. The crosses had been replaced with headstones and a Cross of Sacrifice, which would become commonplace in all major war cemeteries, had been erected along with the Stone of Remembrance seen in the background here. Forceville was one of the locations visited by King George V during his King’s Pilgrimage in 1922.
Silent Cities: Acheux British Cemetery 1920
The so-called ‘Silent Cities’, the soldier’s cemeteries of the Great War, numbered in the thousands when the conflict came to an end. While the war was no there had been no thought towards permanence or any architectural design and the then Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) and now Commonwealth War Graves Commission, were faced with a huge task of properly recorded what was in the existing cemeteries while their senior staff looked at ways to ensure the war dead would be properly remembered on a long term basis.
This image of Acheux British Cemetery was taken in 1920 and shows a typical Somme cemetery at this time; in good order and with graves marked by wooden crosses. Acheux had been behind the British lines in 1916, but had seen fighting again in 1918 but the fields beyond the cemetery show how an area so close to the battle area could largely escape the hand of war. The early pilgrims to the battlefields saw cemeteries like this and the IWGC were busy during this period photographing graves for the next of kin. But a permanent solution had to be found and the next phase of the IWGC’s work will be featured in next weeks post.
Aftermath: A New Community Emerges at Ypres
In the years following the end of the Great War the civilian population that had once lived in the towns and villages on the former battlegrounds began to return. In the immediate area around Ypres the villages were uninhabitable for the first couple of years, so people lived in Ypres at night and went to work on their former homes during the day; clearing detritus and rubble in preparation for a rebuild.
This image shows one of the temporary communities for such people. The provisional wooden housing was put in place until permanent residences could be rebuilt, in most cases at least 3-4 years after the war was over.
In the background are the ruins of the Cloth Hall and St Martin’s Cathedral and their state would indicate this image dated from around 1920-21.
Aftermath: British Tank at Langemarck
During the Third Battle of Ypres tanks from the recently formed Tank Corps operated in Flanders, but usually with limited success. The nature of the ground meant that many bogged down and were either damaged or destroyed by artillery fire. Many infantry soldiers referred to them as ‘shell magnets’ on the open battlefields leading up to Passchendaele.
These tank wrecks were still very visible in the 1920s and many became tourist attractions, most notably close to the Menin Road at the so-called ‘Tank Cemetery’.
This particular Mark IV tank was lost ‘near Langemarck‘ according to the caption and appears to be a partner of another Langemarck Tank previously featured on the website. There are no distinguishing marks on this vehicle so it is impossible to speculate when and how it was lost. However, research indicates it may be a tank from B Battalion Tank Corps, who were action here in August 1917.
Aftermath: Clearing The Dead at Ypres
This unusual image from the early 1920s shows a British party from one of the Graves Registration units involved in clearing the dead from the Great War battlefields.
Few photos of this work survive, and the caption for this says it is at ‘Nieuport’ but that seems unlikely given the nature of the ground and the fact that British soldiers were only there a short period.
A Sergeant sits on the edge of a trench while people work in the background and another civilian helping stands in the remains of a Great War defence work. There are no evidence of any bodies but it does demonstrate to some degree the sort of work that went on under the watchful eyes of an NCO in charge of such a unit. The work continued for some years after the war and many thousands of soldiers were found and reburied, albeit it often as unknown soldiers. What the work must have been like for those carrying it out we can only imagine.
Aftermath: This Place Was Hooge
The Aftermath period of the Great War is an intriguing one as we know when the war ended, we know that people came back, we know that communities were rebuilt and cemeteries and memorials constructed. But actually it is probably the least documented period connected with the war and one that many find fascinating, so it is always good to find some images connected with it and this is part of a small collection recently acquired for the Great War Photos archives, and a new image will be appearing every Friday this month.
This image shows the community that the village of Hooge had become after the war. Hooge was just a hamlet on the Menin Road, east of Ypres, but it had become a pivotal site during the Battles of Ypres and had literally been blown off the map by 1918. A large Hooge Cemetery was constructed close to the site of these buildings, most of which are either recovered Nissen huts from army camps near Ypres or the type of provisional housing that was provided in 1919; all that most Belgians had to live in when they came back after the war. In most cases Belgian families lived in these until the 1922/23/24 period when the main rebuilding took place; hard for us to imagine now.
Aftermath: Peronne Chateau 1920
We return to the Aftermath of the Great War this week with a photograph from the stereocards which contain images taken on the battlefields in 1920.
Peronne was a town which had been a German headquarters until it was abandoned in 1917. It was then used by the British until lost in the German Offensive of March 1918 and then finally liberated by Australian troops in September 1918. Although not raised to the ground like Ypres, none of its buildings escaped damage and it classified as part of the Zone Rouge post-war.
The Chateau in Peronne was actually an old French infantry barracks, which had seen brief fighting between Wellington’s Redcoats and French troops in the aftermath of Waterloo in 1815. The Germans had used it as an Army Headquarters as its walls were so thick; by the end of the war although badly damaged it was the only building which survived partially intact and it remains in the centre of Peronne to this day. For many years the Chateau was abandoned but in 1992 it re-opened as the local war museum, the Historial and it remains in use for that purpose to this day. Parts of the structure seen in this image are still visible in the Historial today.
Aftermath: Desolation at the Menin Road, Ypres 1920
The Menin Road was the old Roman road which ran between Ypres and Menin in Flanders. During the Great War much of the fighting revolved around the area where the road passed and as such it was turned into a virtual moonscape by the close of the war in 1918.
This image from 1920 shows an area which appears to be north of the Menin Road close to Hooge. The houses in the background could well be those on the Menin Road, then being rebuilt and the large crater could be a smaller mine crater, one of many in this sector. Again the photograph gives a vivid insight into the desolation of the Great War battlefields just a few short years after the war.
Aftermath: Plugstreet Wood 1920
The village of Ploegsteert – ‘Plugstreet’ to the British troops during the Great War – was at the southern end of the Ypres battlefields and was dominated by a huge expanse of woodland: Plugstreet Wood. The area saw fighting in the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914 but then settled down to static trench warfare and rapidly became known as a ‘nursery sector’ where units fresh from England could acclimatise to the conditions of trench warfare. Many famous people served here in WW1: author Henry Williamson in 1914, war poet Roland Leighton in 1915, and Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden in 1916. The wood was overrun in the Battle of the Lys in April 1918 and finally taken by the Hull Pals in September 1918.
This image – another of the Nightingale stereo-cards – dates from 1920 and is taken on the Ploegsteert-Messines road, just south of Hyde Park Corner. The trees on the left are the western side of the wood and show what state it was in by the end of the war. The buildings ahead are close to the site of Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) Cemetery, opposite which today is the Ploegsteert Memorial. The rising ground in the distance is Hill 63, beyond which was Messines and the Messines Ridge. Although not a lunar landscape like the ground immediately around Ypres, the photo once again gives an insight into the desolate state of the battlefields at this time.
Aftermath: Hooge Crater Cemetery 1920
I recently purchased some more of the George Nightingale & Co Stereocards, produced in Britain around 1920 and sold in aid of ex-servicemen. They give a real insight into the Aftermath of the Great War and they will feature on the site over the next few weeks.
This image shows Hooge Crater Cemetery around 1920. This cemetery had been started by burial officers in October 1917 and there were less than a hundred graves by the end of the war; however it was chosen as one of the sites to become a main concentration cemetery and burials were moved in from 1919 creating a burial ground with more than 2300 graves.
Given the angle of the photograph, it is taken to the rear of the cemetery looking up the slope of the Menin Road Ridge towards Hooge itself. Among the standard wooden crosses with their metal ‘ticker-tape’ name tabs are numerous individualised graves brought in from other cemetery to form the neat rows visible here. Great War period duckboards form the walk way and the gentlemen in the photo is likely to be an early Imperial War Graves Commission gardener.
Aftermath: A Tank at Langemarck 1920
The final Aftermath image this week comes from the same collection of stereo cards and the caption for it states the photograph was taken at Langemarck, one of the Flemish villages heavily fought over near Ypres during the Great War.
On close examination of the image it is clear the tank is a Mark IV Female – armed with machine-guns – and the legend ‘B4’ is painted on it which identifies the tank as being part of the 2nd (‘B’) Battalion Tank Corps.
Research online at the Landships website shows that tank B4 was lost in the fighting north of Inverness Copse on 23rd August 1917. Commanded by 2/Lt P.C.Chambers it first broke down, was repaired, and then moved up only to be hit and burnt out – evidence of the battle damage is clear on the photo. Chambers got out and survived Third Ypres only to be killed on the Somme in 1918.
This tank formed part of the famous ‘Tank Graveyard‘ close to Clapham Junction, which remained a tourist attraction well into the 1920s and 30s. Here the hulks of tanks knocked out in 1917 littered the ground where they had bogged, been disabled or knocked out.
Aftermath: Battlefield Wilderness Somme 1920
Nearly a century after the Great War it is hard for modern battlefield visitors to imagine what a desolate wasteland the battlefields were immediately after the war. In areas like Flanders and the Somme nothing was left after four years of war; buildings were dust, ground was polluted by gas and the battlefields overgrown with war detritus scattered everywhere.
The journey made by the unknown photographer who took these stereo card images featured over the past couple of weeks was quite something in 1920 and this image shows the sort of landscape he had to deal with. His car has paused on an old battlefield trackway. These paths were created by men of the Labour Corps to allow movement across the devastated zone and were usually made of wood planking or railway sleepers. The sleeps were often covered with hessian material so that those using it had some degree of traction. By 1920 many were still in use as the only ways to cross areas where the fighting had been at its greatest.
The caption for this image reads ‘Mametz Wood‘ – one of the key areas of fighting on the Somme in both 1916 and 1918 and where in July 1916 the 38th (Welsh) Division suffered heavy casualties in their first major battle of the Great War.
Aftermath: Ypres Cloth Hall 1920
Continuing with the series of post-WW1 stereo cards showing the battlefields as they were in the early 1920s
The Ypres Cloth Hall was one of the medieval gems of Europe prior to 1914. It has once been the centre of the European cloth trade and home to numerous stalls selling cloth from across the globe. This trade had made Ypres rich, wealthy enough to fund its own Vauban designed defences during the long periods of conflict that followed.
During the Great War the Cloth Hall came under fire during the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914 and then caught fire the same November. Some, but not all, of its many treasures were saved and gradually by 1918 it was reduced to rubble as every shell from 77m up to 420mm naval shells fell on it at some point. Only the central tower stood proud, but that in ruins and two years after the end of the war we see it in this photograph pretty much in the same state it was at the end of the conflict. The howitzer was one of several war trophies on display in the main square at this time and appears to be a German 150mm howitzer. The photographers son is once again used for scale, as he sits on the gun.
Ypres was gradually rebuilt, using the original medieval plans, but it took time – the Cloth Hall was not finished, for example, until the early 1960s. Today it houses the council offices and the In Flanders Fields Museum.
Aftermath: Ypres in Ruins 1920
This post-war stero-card shows some of the ruins of central Ypres in 1920. In fact it shows some of the rubble and walls of the Cloth Hall with one of the Menin Gate lions in front. The sign among the rubble reads:
THIS IS HOLY GROUND.
NO STONE OF THIS FABRIC MAY BE TAKEN AWAY,
IT IS A HERITAGE FOR ALL CIVILISED PEOPLES.
It was at this time that the future of Ypres was still under discussion; Winston Churchill put forward the idea of preserving it in its wartime state and foresting the old battlefields. The people of Belgium rightly wanted their land back and did not want to reside inside a museum so this never happened, but the rebuilding of the city was not complete until the 1960s.
The Menin Gate Lion seen here was one of a pair that was eventually given to Australian in 1936 and now reside in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
Aftermath: Gouzeaucourt Cemterey 1920
Continuing with the images from the collection of post-war stereo-cards today’s photograph shows ‘Gouzeaucourt Cemetery’.
Gouzeaucourt is a large village on the Hindenburg Line battlefields reached by the British in early 1917 and fought over in the Battle of Cambrai that year and in much of the fighting of 1918. There are a number of cemeteries in the area but a good clue here is the grave visible towards the front, where a name is clearly visible. Research shows this is the grave of L/Cpl B.S. Allen of the 2nd Lincolnshire Regiment who died here on 2nd April 1917 and is buried in what is now Gouzeaucourt New British Cemetery.
The cemeteries remained in this original state well into the mid-1920s and in some cases well into the 30s. The majority of the original crosses were burned when replaced with headstones but some families came to claim them and others did so by post; many exist as war memorials in parish churches around Great Britain.
Aftermath: A Tank in Peronne 1920
I recently acquired a small collection of stereo-cards from around 1920 which were images taken by a British photographer who toured the battlefields at this time. They give a fascinating insight into what the battlefields looked like in this aftermath period and some of them will feature on the blog this week.
This image is taken in the main square in the town of Péronne, a small town on the Somme used as a headquarters by the Germans from 1914-17, the British in 1917-18 and retaken by the Germans in March 1918 until captured later that September. The ruined building behind was the town hall used as a headquarters by the Australians after the capture of Péronne in September 1918 and they remained the street in front ‘Roo de Kanga’ – the local mayor officially renamed the street with that name in 1998 on the 80th anniversary of the liberation. Under German occupation before 1917 the town hall once bore a sign in German which read “Nicht argern nur wundern!” (“don’t be angry only marvel!”) and which is now in the Historial museum in the town. The tank is likely to be a MKIV or MKV, both used in the fighting around Peronne in 1918.
The young man in the image is likely to be the photographer’s son as he appears on other photographs that will appear this week.
Great War Photos 