After it was all over

[ray hoggart]

Reading Paul Reeds 'Walking the Salient', the picture on page 27 of comrades looking at graves of fallen friends after the war made me wonder. What was it like in the middle of no mans land in say December or January of 1919 before the grass had time to grow and the civilians reclaimed their land? We are all aware of the trenches that are left and the beautiful but sanitized cemeteries, what must it have been like in that December or January? Something like Wembley on Cup Final day when the last spectator has gone?

Ray

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[Desmond7]

Ray - I've been reading 'War Letters to a Wife' recently. In it, R.C. Feilding of the Connaught Rangers describes how he visited the Somme battlefields just ONE year on from 1916 ... weeds and grass everywhere, tumbled in trenches but still asbolutlely LITTERED with debris of war. From helmets to rifles to human remains.

Des

[ray hoggart]

Desmond,

It's one of those 'wish I could go back in time' things. It must have been pretty eerie.

The book you mention I found a good read.

Ray

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[Desmond7]

Agreed on both counts!

[Piscator]

I should imagine there was little euphoria at the end. Most surviving servicemen would I think been a little withdrawn and relief would probably have been the emotion most visible, having seen so many comrades either killed, injured or horribly maimed, the only thing they'd want to do is get away and forget for a while, to try and bring some form of normality back into their lives.

Many never recovered from their experiences, and some couldnt live with the memories and like my own G-Father took their own lives, in my G-Father's case some years later, 2 years before I was born, so I never had the chance to talk to him.

Len

[marina]

I read an account of a visit to the Somme in the summer of 1919. Still a wasteland, but with flocks of butterflies hovering everywhere.

Marina

[NIGEL]

I should imagine there was little euphoria at the end. Most surviving servicemen would I think been a little withdrawn and relief would probably have been the emotion most visible, having seen so many comrades either killed, injured or horribly maimed, the only thing they'd want to do is get away and forget for a while, to try and bring some form of normality back into their lives.

  Many never recovered from their experiences, and some couldnt live with the memories and like my own G-Father took their own lives, in my G-Father's case some years later, 2 years before I was born, so I never had the chance to talk to him.

Len

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Did he state why he took his own life Len???????????

[ackimzey]

I posted a photo which belonged to a great uncle. He didn't arrive in France until Aug. 1918. The photo is in A Place To Play. For some reason I can't get it to post as an attachment to this post. The text from the verso of the photo reads:

This is a picture taken between Chateau Thierry and Fismes These dugouts are in the side of a big hill just as far as can be seen on each side and they were occupied at times by the Boche and then the allies, [i?] was all thru several of the larger ones and they were well kept on the inside and some were quite large. The bags in front are all filled with sand and laid smoothly, only a short distance from here was where Lieut. Quintin Roosevelt was brought down by the Boche on July 14th. Some very hard fighting took place all thru here.

Sorry about the quality of the photo...it has seen "better days"

Ann Kimzey

[Piscator]

Did he state why he took his own life Len???????????

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Nigel,

When he returned from France, and I understand that he was pensioned out in "17" my father told me he was in a bit of a state, kept shouting about the shelling, so I assume he must have suffered from shell shock or whatever else you call it, he lost his eldest son in the 20's and his wife in 1930 so I think he must have been pretty low. At the time of his death he was bed ridden and the death cert indicates his balance of mind was disturbed, my father who didnt get on with him. more or less said he'd gone "barmy", his words not mine. Having read about the Great War I dont think many people at the time understood the full implications of what it was like, I, for one wouldnt want to find out the way my Grandfather did.

Len

[Steve Bramley]

Ray,

Not exactly immediate, but if you can get a copy of 'Thirteen Years After' by an ex-Canadian soldier Will R. Bird, it will give you an excellent description. A very good read in my opinion.

Regards,

Steve.

[NIGEL]

Shame Len

[chrislock]

Steve. I quite agree, it,s a super read and I have read it loads of times! One day I will try and follow his route! Chris.

[ray hoggart]

Steve,

Thanks for the book tip, I'll add it to my list!

I imagine that not many old soldiers visited the Western front after they came home, not just because of bad memories but the cost! My grandad came home in 1919, couldn't get a job so re enlisted!

[Guest birdflightless]

Hi All,

I had the pleasure of transcribing the auto-biography of Basil Green, an Englishman who served with the 8th Can. Inf.

Below is a part of his memoires. He visited the battlefields on four occassions, this being the first in 1922, when, he took his wife on a cycling tour to show her where he had been.

I hope it is of interest.

"What sort of Ypres should we find? The four years of peace had seen great progress in the rebirth to this once thriving gateway into the industrial towns of Belgium. The population had returned as their homes were rebuilt. The medieval character of the town had been preserved and some shops, cafés and hotels had reopened in and around the square. Yet in the centre stood the bare skeleton of the famous Cloth Hall and cathedral.

Priority of restoration had rightly been given to re-housing and the time was yet to come when Ypres would once again return to its former glory.

We found a small hotel, still under completion and slept in a bare-boarded room with the minimum of furnishing. The uncanny silence of the night was, to me, the strangest contrast to the Ypres of my dreams, that lived vividly in my memory - The Ypres that died in defiance of the enemy, through four years of war.

A few newly-built cottages marked the villages of St. Jean, St. Julien, Langemark, Poelkapelle and Passchendale. We passed through all of these on our tour of the Salient. I have a well thumbed-through album containing ninety photos taken during this pilgrimage. Amongst them is a photo of the war memorial to the 1st Canadian Division, erected on the site of the first gas attack. It is simple but dignified – a tall column of granite merging into the body of a Canadian soldier, his head bent and arms reversed.

I was able to locate the spot where my platoon was entrenched, when the gas cloud came over on April 23rd 1915. The course of the battle, in my mind was, and still is, unclear and I made no attempt to describe it. My wife and I just stood together gazing across the ground that once was no-man’s land, towards Gravenstafel Ridge and beyond. What thoughts passed through my mind I cannot recall.

Our journeyings took us the entire length of the British battle zone from Ypres to the Somme. In some quieter parts there were few traces of warfare, except that the old farms and cottages had given place to new red-tiled buildings. What formerly were picturesque villages, now all looked much alike. Further back, in the billeting areas, nothing appeared to have changed. Those who lived there had picked up the threads of their former lives and life was again tranquil.

Contrasting with such places were areas, which probably can never be restored. In particular the battlefields of the Somme, where in 1922, little more than the filling-in of shell-holes on the roads and the recovery of many thousands of bodies into war cemeteries had been attempted. Every-where broken trenches, now overgrown with vegetation, scarred the country, with an occasional up-ended tank protruding. Near Thiepval we were warned by the War Graves Commission workmen, not to proceed any further. The process of exhumation was not a pleasant sight and the going was almost impossible with our bikes. We had seen enough. This much fought over ground of some 1000 sq. miles contains more war cemeteries than one who has not visited the Somme could appreciate.

Having completed our pilgrimage to the British front, we took the train (2nd class this time) stopping off at Douai, Valenciennes, Mons to take photographs with my V.P.K. (Vest Pocket Kodak) which never let me down. Then on to Brussels, Louvain, Malines, Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges and finally Ostende. By this time we had exhausted our last roll of film, but satisfied with what we had been able to record".

I have no idea what happened to his photos, but I am in touch with his family, and will ask.

Regards

Stewart

[museumtom]

I was fascinated by this thread and located the three books mentioned above and ordered them from;

http://dogbert.abebooks.com/

Including postage to Ireland they came to 50 euro in total which I think is a bargain.

As far as I know they have more.

Regards.

Tom.

[Tom Morgan]

Ray,

Not exactly immediate, but if you can get a copy of 'Thirteen Years After' by an ex-Canadian soldier Will R. Bird, it will give you an excellent description. A very good read in my opinion.

Regards,

Steve.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree with you Steve - an excellent account of a visit to the battlefields relatively soon after the event. Still in print too.

Tom

[ray hoggart]

Hello again,

Sorry for the delay, thanks for the input, I can see that others are curious too! The piece from Stewart particularly interesting, can still feel the goosebumps.

Ray

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[Old Tom]

Hello,

Many thanks to Stewart for that informative and moving piece. I have visited Thiepval and walked about a little. The farm where the Schwaben redoubt was, if my map reconstruction is correct, had a small heap of duds in the corner of the yard.

Old Tom