Gateways to the First World War presents

VISITING ANDREVISITING THE WESTERN FRONT 1919-39

Image: Philip Woets

VISITING AND REVISITINGTHE WESTERN FRONT 1919-39Who went and how did they getthere and back?People from across the United Kingdom, Northern Irelandand the Irish Free State (as it then was) engaged in visitingthe battlefields in France and Belgium during the 1920s and1930s. Evidence was found of groups travelling from suchdisparate places as Aberdeen, Belfast, Burnley, Cardiff,Dublin and Truro.

The articles, letters and photographs published in Britishand Irish regional newspapers make it clear that visitswere made by a variety of people and organisations. Sometrips were undertaken by individuals and families, somewere made by small community groups such as churches,sports or social clubs, which meant that the formerbattlefields were visited by old and young, men andwomen. Veterans went in large numbers, sometimesexclusively, and at other times accompanied by theirfamilies and friends, often under the umbrella of theBritish Legion. Contingents of service personnel, schoolsand even specific trades and occupations also madecommunal visits. Of course, the precise badge underwhich a person travelled served to influence theatmosphere of the visit. A company of Territorial soldiersor public school boys attached to an OTC were likely tobehave in an entirely different manner to a group made uplargely of bereaved mothers, fathers and widows.

The modes of transport and accommodation varied greatly.In the immediate aftermath of the war the devastatedregions of the Western Front could make travel difficult, andsome places barely accessible, while the standard ofhospitality could be rough and ready. As time passed, andthe civilian infrastructure improved, the experience becameeasier. A significant influence on the experience was theamount each person or group could spend comfortably. Forthe wealthy, tours could be undertaken with personaldrivers and guides. An advertisement in the Lancashire DailyPost in July 1920 detailed ‘Belgian battlefields motor tour’ at£10 10s per person, whichwas a considerable sum forthose living on modestmeans. In May 1920, theYorkshire Post and LeedsIntelligencer carried anadvert for the London-based, Franco-British TravelBureau, informing readersof its ‘Battlefields Tour de Luxe’, and ‘visits to graves byprivate cars’ taken from a ‘fleet of high class’ vehicles. Bycontrast, charitable organisations such as the St. BarnabasHostels, founded to assist poorer people to visit the gravesof their loved ones, provided free passages through masstransport methods of trains and charabancs. However, 'free'travel usually meant between London and the battlefields;people had to pay their own way to London first, whichcould be just as challenging to personal finances.

The St. Barnabas Hostels and British Legion were themost active in organising large-scale group visits to thebattlefields, and their well-publicised ‘pilgrimages’ werethe subject of intensive and extensive press comment andcoverage. The Dover Express reported nearly 10,000people passing through its port in August 1928 for thebiggest British Legion pilgrimage ever undertaken. Itculminated in a service at the Menin Gate memorial to themissing in Ypres in which some 25,000 peopleparticipated, including 1400 war widows. According to aneditorial in the Falkirk Herald, ‘the impressive service musthave stirred deep feelings in the hearts of the men whoreturned… and the women-folks of those who lost dearones on those stricken fields’. As this report reveals, theseoccasions stirred deep emotions. In many instances theemotional rollercoaster must have been exacerbated bythe travel arrangements themselves, for in order to keepcosts to a minimum, and thus maximise the numbers ableto attend, organisations like the St. Barnabas Hostels ranmany of their pilgrimages as day trips.

Lancashire Daily Post, 15 July 1920.Image: © British Library(newspaper archive)www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.ukAll rights reserved.

Image: Philip Woets

This meant travelling on the night boat, thus making arestful night almost impossible, followed by muchcorralling and chivvying as the immense groups weregathered in the right places at the right time. Physical andemotional exhaustion was the likely outcome for all.

Most people would have travelled by train and then ontoa cross-channel steamer with the ports of Boulogne,Calais and Zeebrugge the most frequent points of arrival.For many people living in East Anglia and the east coast ofBritain, the reopening of Zeebrugge to commercial traffic inMay 1920 made visiting the battlefields significantly easier asservices were resumed from Hull and Harwich. Remarkingon the reopening of the sailings, the Burnley Newsimmediately reported that the Lancashire and Yorkshire andNorth Eastern Railway companies could now offer ‘two fulldays… to visit the battlefields of Belgium’.

Existing and established travel companies, such asThomas Cook and Henry Lunn, soon adapted their offerto include battlefield excursions, and specialist firms werealso established. Former officer, L.P. Cawston, was quickto realise the opportunity, forming the Battlefields Bureauwith a head office in London and at the Chateau des TroisTours in Brielen, a small village just outside Ypres, in1919. Advertising regularly in the UK national andregional press, he also informed readers that his firmcould provide photographs of particular war graves onbehalf of family and friends.

Why did people visit thebattlefields?The newspaper coverage of battlefield visits makes it clearthat people undertook the tours for a variety of reasons.The vast majority of the articles highlight poignant storiesof personal loss. Tens of thousands went seeking catharticrelease by visiting a loved one’s grave, place ofcommemoration or death. For those relatives left withouta grave to mourn over, the memorials to the missing werecrucial. The Kirkintilloch Gazette published a heart-rendingpoem by a local resident inspired by the unveiling of theMenin Gate memorial. ‘Now they sleep in unknown grave’,the poem stated of those whose names were inscribed onits walls, before concluding:

We miss you much, each year much more,Your memory dwells in hearts that’re sore,While o’er your grave the poppies bloom,We’ll reverence your sacred tomb.Farewell! Dear hearts, until we meet;Men bare their heads and mothers weep,Their sacrifice, like yours, was great,We’ll ne’er forget your Menin Gate.

By no means a great poem, nor even one with muchinternal logic, but its emotional charge is palpable; and itwas a local paper which gave this writer the platform tochannel that grief.

Others visited for far more prosaic reasons creating adistinction between ‘pilgrims’, meaning those undertakingthe visit due to bereavement, and mere ‘tourists’ referringto those seeking the weird, wonderful and macabre sites ofthe battlefields. The seventy year old Scottish lady who, itwas reported by the Aberdeen Press and Journal, walked 17miles to and from her ‘local’ railway station to join a grouptour was most definitely a pilgrim. In complete contrast, on4 November 1920, the Nottingham Evening Post carried afront page story on battlefield visiting headlined ‘thoughtlesstourists’. The article went on to condemn the ‘thoughtlessbehaviour’ of some visitors who were pitching tents andpicnicking on ground containing graves in their desperationto see the sights of the battlefields. In reality, the nature ofthe newspaper coverage makes the distinctions appear farless solid. This can be detected in an otherwise sober andrespectful account in theBanbury Advertiser in 1921.After reverentiallydescribing the condition ofthe battlefields, it alsocontained the frisson ofexcitement at seeing suchthings as ‘the TankCemetery’ on the MeninRoad, where it waspossible to inspect the ruinsof 14 tanks at closequarters. Whilst atZeebrugge, the visitorcould see the wrecks of sunken ships and submarines, andat Koekelare and Nieupoort the remains of huge Germangun emplacements could be explored.

Banbury Advertiser, 13 October 1921Image: © British Library (newspaperarchive)www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.ukAll rights reserved.

Tourists visiting Paris, Brussels or the Belgian coast couldinclude an excursion to the battlefields as a part of theirholidays, which probably meant they approached theexperience as a thrill-seeking opportunity. In 1922 CountryLife carried an advert for ‘Ostend: the Queen of SeasideResorts’ that listed the wonders of the resort beforeconcluding: ‘Go to Ostend for Happiness, for Gaiety, forHealth, where all the pleasures of peace are to be foundand where may be seen near by the ravages of War andthe Battle Sites of some of the greatest and most gloriousengagements in British military history’. Fun, larks, and afew battlefields thrown in seems to be the message.A similar spirit can be detected in the Morpeth Herald’scoverage of the town’sannual battlefields visit.Instigated in 1928 by themayor and other influentialmembers of the town’selite, it rapidly became anexcuse for a jollyadventure. Providinginformation on the plansfor the 1938 tour, the newspaper stated that ‘undoubtedly,as the pioneer of the week-end Tours of the Battlefields,Alderman Sanderson stands alone, and those whojourneyed by train and boat have very vivid recollections ofthose very enjoyable Whitsuntide outings.’

For military units, such as the cadet companies attached toTerritorial units, visits to the battlefields were partly a funadventure for adolescent boys, partly educational, andwere usually associated with other goodwill gestures suchas exchanges with French equivalents. Here the reason forvisiting the battlefields was focused on a very differentapproach and outcome. Veterans groups were also regularvisitors and, unlike the bereaved, they could be much moreboisterous. Driven by a completely different set ofemotions, and determined to respect their dead comradesby remembering them as the great pals they once were,veterans saw no contradiction in combining moments ofsolemnity with levity, fun, and, of course, drinking. TheBerwick Advertiser described the departure of a contingentof former 7th Northumberland Fusiliers for the battlefieldsin light-hearted terms. ‘The party, all of whom have beensaving up for several months for the occasion, left Hull inthe best of spirits, all looking forward eagerly to aninteresting and enjoyable visit to Belgium’.

Visits often reflected a sense of local identity and pride inthe wartime achievements of that community. The BritishLeague of Help, a charity established to assist the recoveryof the devastated regions of France through adoption byBritish communities, gave many towns the opportunity ofcreating a living memorial at a place where its men hadfought and died. Bexhill-on-Sea adopted Bayencourt onthe Somme, and raised enough money for a new watertower to be installed in the village. The formal unveilingceremony of this new civic amenity took place in June1924 witnessed by an enthusiastic delegation from Bexhill.Local dignitaries expressed their deep gratitude, whichmust have caused the Mayor of Bexhill to swell with pride,for he told the Bexhill-on-Sea Observer that the town haddone a ‘real sound, pukka, job’.

Arguably, it was in Northern Ireland and the Irish FreeState where the cultural and political facets of identitywere most keenly expressed during battlefield visits.Deeply aware of the need to stress its credentials as anew and distinctive component united with the rest of theUK, Northern Ireland’s political elite erected the UlsterTower at Thiepval on the Somme with incredible rapidity,completing the project in 1921. For Nina Stephenson-Browne of Portstewart, exploring the Thiepval battlefieldsseemingly as a lone pilgrim, in September 1923, the feelingof communion with her home was very strong.Recounting the scene in an article for her local newspaper,she noted that: ‘It requiredno great stretch ofimagination to picture howthis scene looked on thatfirst of July day when theUlster Division stormedup to where I stood withtheir triumphant shout,“No surrender!”.

By contrast, the 1926pilgrimage to unveil the16th (Irish) Division crossesat Guillemont on theSomme and Wytschaetenear Ypres wereconsciously devised andreported as moments whenthe two Irelands could finda common meeting point. Dublin Evening Herald, 23 August

1926. Source: Irish NewspaperArchives www.irishnewsarchive.com

Morpeth Herald, 7 January 1938.Image: © British Library(newspaper archive)www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.ukAll rights reserved.

The Dublin Evening Herald underlined this elementstrongly in its coverage: ‘The largest pilgrimage thatprobably ever left Ireland for the battlefields of foreigncountries arrived in Ypres on Saturday night. The pilgrimsnumbered close on 200, and each province in Ireland wasrepresented.’ The piece went on to make another explicitreminder that harmony was the leitmotif of the visit:‘Catholic and Protestant chaplains intermingled in friendlyconverse (sic) and exchanged reminiscences of stirringdays in the battlefields of France and Flanders. Men of allranks from famous Irish regiments wore their medals anddecorations, and in some cases the widows and sisters ofthe fallen displayed ribbons and medals won by theirdead.’ Sites in Belgium and France could therefore becelebrated as common ground. War remembrance wasobviously made much easier when taken away from theisland of Ireland altogether.

How was the landscapeinterpreted and experiencedby visitors?Huge changes overtook the battlefields very quicklyas the work of both nature and man began to restorethe landscape. Reporting on the visit of a British Red Crossdelegate to the battlefields of France and Belgium inNovember 1919, the Hastings and St. Leonard’s Observertold its readers of the ‘indescribable mass of abandoned warmaterial [sic], and incomprehensible chaos’. But by 1930,when the Belfast News-Letter published the experiencesof a returning veteran, the situation was transformed.

‘To go back now, elevenyears after, and revisit thebattlefields is only to bedisillusioned. Many ex-soldiers have made thepilgrimage, but a greaternumber have not. To thosewho haven’t I would say –Keep your memories.’ Forthis particular veteran thetransformation was almosttraumatically disturbing.At Armentières ‘everythingwas changed – thebuildings and the people’so much so that he foundhimself ‘wanderingdisconsolate’ around thetown. For others, nature’shealing of the wounds wastherapeutic and cathartic.In August 1922, the HullDaily Mail published thereflections of a veteranwho had recently returnedfrom a cycling tour of thebattlefields. The groundover which the ThirdBattle of Ypres was foughtis described as ‘rich withgolden crops and isunbroken save for a fewscars’, while on the Sommehe found ‘a much restoredand cultivated land’.

The cemeteries andmemorials were, ofcourse, the focal point ofthe landscape for visitorsfrom Britain and Ireland.Seeing the maturing work of the Imperial War GravesCommission usually evoked a deep sense of gratitude,reverence and peace. The journalist and writer, HenryBenson, produced a widely-syndicated series of articlesabout his visits to the Western Front, and reassured thosewho could not make the trip of the serenity andperfection of the cemeteries. Each grave had been‘treated with consummate care and forethought.

Dublin Evening Herald, 23 August 1926. Source: Irish Newspaper Archiveswww.irishnewsarchive.com

Hull Daily Mail, 25 August 1922.Source: Mirrorpix / Hull Daily Mail

Belfast News-Letter, 4 August 1930.Source: Irish Newspaper Archiveswww.irishnewsarchive.com

In front of every plot, shrubs and seasonal flowers… waftfragrantly in the breeze’. A veteran returning to thebattlefields in 1926 for the first time since 1919 wrote tothe Berwickshire News and Advertiser stating that his wholeparty was ‘gratified to see the care taken. There areregular rows of headstones, all the same size and shape,each one with inscription, either name and regiment,some regiment only, and others unknown and round thecemeteries beautiful flowers are set.’

Visitors also interacted with the people they met living andworking across the former Western Front. Sometimes thatcould lead to surprises. In 1919, the Driffield Timesrepublished a piece that originally appeared in the DailyMail, which noted the flourishing souvenir trade run bymen of the Chinese Labour Corps working on battlefieldclearance operations. For veterans returning to thebattlefields the experience could mean reverting to oldhabits whilst among thelocal people. A Dissveteran told readers of hislocal paper that at themany estaminets and cafes‘one may still obtain fromMadam a café or “deuxoeufs and chips”.’ He alsonoted the extreme carewith which the localfarmers were digging overtheir land due to the largeamounts of unexplodedammunition in the ground.

In the summer of 1926Raymond Ridgewayreflected on the nature ofthe Somme battlefields ina series of articles carriedin Yorkshire newspapers.He noted the large numberof labourers drawn toAlbert, the nodal point of the Somme battlefields, throughthe abundance of reconstruction work, and also the scaleof the British colony associated with the work of theImperial War Graves Commission and battlefield tourism.Further, he realised that this influx was now creating aFranco-British community. ‘One encounters numerous ex-servicemen, who, having married French girls, havesettled down to civilian occupation.’

The peaks and troughsof battlefield visitingJudging by the articlescarried in British and Irishregional newspapers,battlefield visiting was at itsheight in the period 1920-1924, there was then aslight lull, followed byanother peak in 1928,largely associated with thehuge British Legionpilgrimage. Visiting certainlytailed off in the earlythirties, but it never diedout completely, andseemed to undergosomething of a revival inthe second half of thethirties. It is possible that asthe international situationworsened people activelysought some kind ofenhanced understanding ofthe nature of the GreatWar. Indeed, such was theinterest that some groupswere almost caught out inAugust and September1939. On 2 September1939, the Aberdeen People’sJournal carried the storyof a local woman who hadat last visited her husband’sgrave near Ypres. Althoughthe party to which she belonged had no difficultycompleting its itinerary, ‘in the last stages of the tour theysaw great signs of military preparedness’. Within a few daysa new British Expeditionary Force had arrived in France,and, as the papers tell us, some of these men promptlymade battlefield tours of their own. Battlefield visiting was,indeed, deeply embedded in British culture during the1920s and 1930s.

Aberdeen People’s Journal,2 September 1939. Image: © BritishLibrary (newspaper archive)www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.ukAll rights reserved.

Thetford and Watton Times andPeople’s Weekly Journal, 25 August1928. Image: © British Library(newspaper archive)www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.ukAll rights reserved.

NotesQuotations were taken from the followingnewspapers:Aberdeen People’s Journal, 2 September 1939Aberdeen Press and Journal, 1 July 1924Banbury Advertiser, 13 October 1921Belfast News-Letter, 22 April 1924; 4 August 1930Berwick Advertiser, 14 July 1927Berwickshire News and Advertiser, 21 November 1922;19 August 1926

Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 7 June 1924Burnley News, 22 May 1920Country Life, 22 July 1922Dover Express, 10 August 1928Driffield Times, 6 September 1919Dundee Courier, 16 February 1920Evening Herald (Dublin), 23 August 1926Falkirk Herald, 11 August 1928Hastings and St. Leonard’s Observer, 29 November 1919Hull Daily Mail, 25 August 1922Kirkintilloch Gazette, 29 July 1927Lancashire Daily Post, 15 July 1920Leeds Mercury, 29 June 1926Morpeth Advertiser, 7 January 1938Northern Constitution, 3 November 1923Nottingham Evening Post, 4 November 1920Thetford and Watton Times, 25 August 1928Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 27 May 1920

The project: team members and methods

Funded by Gateways to the First World War through theArts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Visitingand Revisiting the Battlefields, is a crowd-sourcing projectdevised by Professor Mark Connelly. The method forexploring the phenomenon of battlefield visiting was to searchfor stories in two digital collections: the British NewspaperArchive and Irish Newspaper Archives. Nineteen peoplevolunteered to take part in the project, and the first step wasa group session allowing the team to meet each other, hearmore details about the aims and objectives of the project,and familiarise themselves with the research methods andprocesses. The volunteers were given the option of workingat home through a subscription to the British NewspaperArchive or joining Mark Connelly for a research week at theBritish Library where they accessed digitised newspapersthrough the terminals in the Newsroom. Connelly deviseda reporting sheet divided into chronological sections with aseries of key-word themes for investigation. One volunteerwas based in Australia and undertook to follow the projectoutline through the National Library of Australia digitisednewspaper collection, Trove. The results of the researchwere discussed at a group meeting in which Mark Connellyundertook to write a text drawing together the conclusionscreating two booklets, one exploring the position in theBritish Isles, and the other in Australia.

The research team consisted of:Peter Alhadeff, Mark Allen, Hazel Basford, James and SusanBrazier, Mark Connelly, Steve Dale, Charles Davis (Australia),Malcolm Doolin, Valerie Ellis, Tim Godden, Simon Gregor,Jan and Richard Johnson, Andrew Johnston, Gill and RogerJoye, Pat O’Brien, Stephen Miles, Jon Palmer, Julie Seales,Jonathan Vernon.

Newspaper images reproduced from:British Newspaper Archive (images reproduced with kindpermission of The British Newspaper Archivewww.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk)

Extracts: Aberdeen People’s Journal, 2 September 1939;Banbury Advertiser, 13 October 1921; Hull Daily Mail,25 August 1922 (Mirrorpix / Hull Daily Mail); LancashireDaily Post, 15 July 1920; Morpeth Advertiser, 7 January 1938;Thetford and Watton Times, 25 August 1928.

Irish Newspaper Archives (www.irishnewsarchive.com)

Extracts: Belfast News-Letter, 4 August 1930; Evening Herald(Dublin), 23 August 1926.Im

age: George Godden

Visitors at the Queen Victoria Rifles memorial, Hill 60. This memorial was destroyed in the fighting in 1940 and replacedwith a monument of a different design after the Second World War.

Image: Philip Woets