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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:


KateJ

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This memorial has to be one of my favourite memorials. Standing close up to it on Sunday morning was a very emotional experience.

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The storm clouds over it make it even more dramatic.

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..

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One of my favourites too - have you ever seen it late at night?

Yes - we drove past it late Saturday and Sunday night after eating out in Ypres - but I forgot to get a photo. On Sunday morning there was a British marked police car parked alongside it - I guess it "belonged" to the Avon and Somerset piper!

Kate

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This is indeed a powerful memorial. Nice pictures.

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Kate

This is also one of my favourite memorials. It's a wonderful, thought provoking piece of sculpture. The heavily clouded sky captured in your photos provides a sombre setting.

The technique of an image rising from a structure or column has been used elsewhere, but nowhere to the effect of the St Juliaan Memorial. Thanks for sharing the photos.

Chris

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Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

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A lone dissenting voice. I couldn`t empathize with a soldier blending into a block of stone, though I do strongly with full bronzes. He just didn`t seem like a representation of a real man. :( Phil B

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it's a favoutite of mine as well

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It's one of my favourites, too, different from any other monument I've seen. I believe the position of the soldier is known as "rest on your arms reversed" - seen for example when the Queen Mother was lying in state. I also understand that the design for the monument was runner up in a competition - the winning design being the Vimy Ridge monument.

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post-1365-1149364541.jpgThe Brooding Soldier was designed by F C CLEMESHAW 1921.

Regards

John

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As said before, this statue represents 'rest on your arms'.

When Clemeshaw designed it, it was a representation of a nation in mourning and the fact the structure is built from a single column of Granite, shipped from Canada, stands indeed as a truelly momentus memorial.

It is meant to represent, I believe, as a Canadian Soldier rising out of the Gas attack and all the mayhem that surrounded it.

Apparently the fleeing soldiers of the Gas attack and subsequently the ensuering counter attacks could only see the soldiers from the chest up, as the gas obscured the bottom half.

The result was the Brooding Soldier, that is why the bottom half is unsculptered.

Quite correct in saying this design was runner up.

At the time the Canadian Govt. ran a competion for the best memorials. Vimmy ridge came first, Brooding Soldier came second and when they ran out of money (due to the Canadian heroics), they had to opt for the single Granite stone, as found at Passendale, Courcellete, etc.

Only these stones were to be placed on points of significance of the Canadian Battles.

Of course when the Newfoundlanders joined Canada in 1949, the Canadians had to take care of all their Carabous too!

Danke

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Fogot to mention

The trees that surround it are meant to represent nose cones/shell fuses.

Not shell explosions as some people say, as shells explode outwards, not inwards!

Danke.

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You are not alone Phil.

Whilst I agree the monument creates an imposing impression, I believe that the important part, the soldier, is overwhelmed by the column.

Best wishes

David

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You are not alone Phil.

Whilst I agree the monument creates an imposing impression, I believe that the important part, the soldier, is overwhelmed by the column.

Best wishes

David

I believe its all an important part, not just the top half.

The whole monument is a representation of what went on within that area!

Please see my earlier description.

You need to understand the Artist/Sculpture.

Look down the road at Langemarck, at the German memorial, that is very depressing.

Danke

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I think the way the figure rises out orf the stone is truely remarkable.

This is the first time I have seen this and I thank you.

zoo

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Private W Underwood

1st Canadian Division

It was a beautiful day. I was lying in a field writing a letter to my mother, the sun was shining and I remember a lark singing high up I the sky. Then, suddenly the bombardment started and we got orders to stand to. We went up the line in two columns, one either side of the road. But as soon as we reached the outskirts of the village of St Julien the bullets opened up, and when I looked around I counted just 32 men left on their feet out of the whole company of 227. The rest of us managed to jump into ditches, and that saved us from being annihilated.

Then we saw coming towards us the French Zouaves. They were in blue coats and red pants and caps and it was a revelation to us, we hadn’t seen anything but khaki and drap uniforms. They were rushing towards us, half staggering, and we wondered what was the matter. We were a little perturbed at first, then when they got to us we tried to rally them but they wouldn’t stay. They were running away from the Germans. Then we got orders to shoot them down, which we did. We just turned around and shot them as they were running away.

Then, as we looked further away we saw this green cloud come slowly across the terrain. It was the first gas that anybody had seen or heard of, and one of our boys, evidently a chemist, passed the word along that this was chlorine. And he said, “if you urinate on your handkerchiefs, it will save your lungs.” So must of us did that, and we tied these handkerchiefs, plus pieces of putty or anything else w could find around our faces, and it did save us from being gassed.

There were masses of Germans behind this gas cloud, we could see their grey uniforms as plain as anything, and there we were, helpless, with these Ross rifles that we couldn’t fire because they were always jamming.

“Forgotten voices of the Great War” – Max Arthur

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Whilst the above memoir gives us a vivid idea of the action around St Julien, it strikes me a little odd that the Canadians had no trouble shooting down the fleeing Zouaves, but when faced with Germans, suddenly they were 'helpless' because their rifles always jammed. Perhaps Ross rifles were made to German specifications and only worked when pointing away from German soldiers? :)

I'm not suggesting for a moment any degradation of the Canadians' character - it's just how the piece seemed to come over to me.

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I think the way the figure rises out orf the stone is truely remarkable.

zoo

I suppose it`s a case of wine glass - half full or half empty? I see it as the soldier being consumed by the stone. Rather like a wounded man sinking into a water filled shellhole. Ah well, to each his own! Phil B

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Private W Underwood

1st Canadian Division

...snip ...

Well there you go, never heard this before in all the years I've been visiting the area.

I have never heard of the British shooting the French/Colonists in the Gas attack of April 22nd 1915.

As said before, why did they shoot the French and when it came to the Germans, the weapons jammed. If that was the case, then surely the Germans would of pushed on through and gained the advantage.

I was always led to believe the Germans did not take advantage of this attack as they were unsure of the gas, as the British were.

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