The calm after the storm: Ypres, Belgium
The first world war fallen have not been forgotten in tranquil Ypres, Belgium, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting a century ago, writes Ed Peters
It is a bright, cold day in April, and while the clocks aren’t actually striking 13, it feels as if they might at any moment. Almost a century after the outbreak of the first world war (on July 28, 1914), Flanders – where hundreds of thousands fought and died – still retains a faint air of Armageddon.
Travellers normally head to Belgium to get a taste of its legendary chips, chocolate and alcohol, or to take in its architecture and diverse cultures. A battlefield tour provides a different perspective and, of course, there’s no prohibition on a few Hoegaardens and a plate or two of French frites or Flemish frietjes at lunch or dinner, plus a handful of Leonidas afterwards.
Besides, the tour lasts just four days, so heading on to Antwerp or Bruges is perfectly feasible.
The tour centres on Ypres – Ieper in Flemish, “Wipers” to thousands of foreign troops who fought here – a manufacturing hub dating from the Middle Ages that was obliterated in five battles.
“If the German armies had got past Ypres, they’d have got to the Channel ports and the war would have been over,” says Marc Le Fleming, an unconventional Anglo-Dutch historian whose Belgian battlefield tours take in Waterloo and the Ardennes as well as first world war sites.
“The British alone suffered 56,000 casualties at Ypres in the autumn of 1914, which annihilated what had been the regular army. This was the start of a total war, and the world has never been the same since.”