What the soldier saw - changes to the countryside

[centurion]

A number of threads have raised the question of how much the French (and Belgian) countryside today resembles that which the soldiers of the Great War would have seen. One way to answer this is to pose the hypothetical question – if we could bring such a soldier forward through time to the present how different to him would be what he saw today? Much depends upon the word ‘seen’ as a country lad would notice differences that would be invisible to a ‘townie’ and one should remember that Britain alone of the major European powers of the time had reached the point where more of the population lived in an urban environment than a rural one. However given this caveat I have attempted to answer the question.

The underlying bones of the countryside remain the same (except where major civil engineering has been undertaken or in a few places, such as Messines, where the impact of mining operations are visible). Places like Sausage Valley will still be much the same shape as they were in 1916, however:

• Watercourses will have altered in some places. This is a natural process, over time streams gradually silt up channels and cut new ones, but the hand of man will also be seen. Marshy places get drained, the changing needs of drainage and irrigation mean that some streams and ditches have vanished. For example some marshy areas along the Somme river still extant in WW2 have now gone. Photos around St Omer taken before WW1 and in more recent times show a huge impact of drainage.
  
• The patterns of landholding will have altered. The demands of modern farming techniques including increasing mechanisation result in larger farms and larger fields. To be sure the French government (with the aid of the CAP) ever conscious of the rural vote have resisted this over the years but insidiously farms have enlarged and fields merged to allow larger tractors and machinery to operate efficiently. Returning last month to some parts of France I had not visited for more than a decade it was noticeable at how much more open it had become. Boundaries and hedges have shifted or been removed altogether. I think a soldier from the Great War would certainly notice the difference.
  
• Woods and copses will have changed. In places they will be smaller or vanished altogether. Where they remain their composition will have altered. The first signs of Dutch Elm disease were observed in North Western Europe in 1910 and since then there have been two major epidemics eliminating vast swathes of elm. A similar fate has befallen the Pedunculate Oak. These will have been replaced over time by trees of other species and to a townie there may be little observable difference but for a country boy (as many WW1 soldiers were) there would be a significant difference to the look of the wood.
  
• Farming techniques are very different now than they were then, mechanisation again being largely responsible. Ploughs in the area were animal pulled and with a single non reversible shear. The small farms gave little economic incentive for ploughs being cable pulled by agricultural steam tractors. Today’s ploughing is done with tractors with multiple reversible shears. This gives a difference to the pattern of furrows. The depth of furrow would also be different. The width of the headlands at the end of the field would also be different. A ploughed field seen by the men of the Great War would look different to today's. This might well be reflected in the pattern of growing crops. It is usual today to leave ‘tramlines’ in crops like wheat to allow the wheels of machinery to pass whilst spraying etc., these would not be present in the fields of 1914. Baling machines did not exist in 1914 so that the huge “cotton reels” seen in today’s fields or the smaller square bales would have been absent and in their place hay stacks would spring up after hay making. There would have been no stacks of straw in the fields. Grain crops were cut either by hand or using horse drawn reapers and then arranged in stooks to dry before being taken off by cart to a suitable barn for threshing to separate the grain from the stalk (straw).
  
• The crops grown were different. For example the varieties of wheat commonly grown today are different from those planted in 1914. The Green Revolution (1940 -1960) saw the development of many new varieties of wheat with such aims as disease resistance, increased yield and greater suitability for mechanical harvesting and these have largely replaced those grown during the Great War period. A field of wheat today would look different to one in 1914 depending on the variety used being probably denser, shorter and a different shade. Similarly Maize (Indian Corn) is found in different varieties today and has become shorter. The new varieties have made it more economically viable to grow in the North West of Europe and demand has also increased. At one time in France it was forbidden to sell it for human consumption and it was produced as an animal feedstuff and for making industrial alcohol. Cultivation in 1914 tended to concentrate in the Midi and the South of France and whether British soldier on the WF would have encountered it is a matter for some conjecture. Again a difference most likely to be observed by a countryman and a town dweller.