Halloween and Hallowed Ground

Barbed Wire Fence looking out into Flemish Farmland

Trenches at Sanctuary Wood

Mennen Gate from outside the city looking in

Old Cloth Hall Rebuilt after WWI


Memorial to Christmas Truce


Saint Martin's Cathedral


Statue Commemorating Soldiers lost in WWI


Stefano, Francesco, Nick, Eva, Me, and Megan in the trenches


Cross outside the trench


Group walking around the trenches

Proof that I actually go to the places I write about

Vladslo Cemetery

Tyne Cot Cemetery

Tyne Cot Cemetery Tombstone

Vladslo Tomb Stone

Bonfire I created on Halloween

Belgians eating smores

Group of Halloween Participants

Martin, Matt, and I

Me and our Unit Pumpkin that I carved


I stumbled over a raised tree root and skidded in the mud as I lost my balance climbing out of the trenches at Sanctuary Wood. I was lucky – I had seen a kid earlier drenched in brown all up and down his back (that rhyme was unintended). The rain had subsided for the moment, but it didn’t make the current footing situation any better. Wet, thick, mud coated the ground – the bottoms of my sneakers and jeans were the same shade as the forest floor. Giant drops falling from the tree leaves - that were providing cover a moment ago - exploded erratically on the sleeves and shoulders of my sweat shirt.

The barbed wire on the fence at the end of the “outdoor museum” was about as high as my shoulder and rusted red. I walked up and rested my hand, holding my camera on the white cement post – coated in moss – that held the barbed wire up. I gazed out of the preserved WWI memorial, into the farmland that surrounded the site. Sweeping green hills and red barns and farm houses, dotted the scenery. That was when it hit me.

I sat there staring at the cows wandering across the open plains that were once a wretched warzone and I thought how ironic the use of barb wire was. It was created back in the States to restrain cattle in the Midwest plains. Then the animalistic twisted metal was brought to the battlefields of Europe to restrain human beings - essentially turning their lives into the cruel restricted lives of livestock. Now it was being used to keep cows out of the trenches. What an interesting twist of fate has lead to its purpose and usage.

Closing my eyes, I tried to envision what it must have been like nearly a hundred years before. I had seen the diagrams and the models, and the pictures, of the shattered tree stumps, the torn up dirt, the giant artillery divots, and the miles of trenched in lines – but I wanted to try and place the pictures to the landscape. It was hard to do, with the now roaming farmlands and greenery in front of me. The day we went, the trenches there was basically a giant puddle of mud water stretching from the first entranceway all the way to opposite end. I can’t imagine what the conditions must have been like for the soldier’s in a place where it rains 60% of the time, or during the bone chilling winter months.

The problem with WWI – and what led to the slaughter of some many men (8,538,315 killed – 21,219,452 wounded – 7,750,919 missing) was that it was a combination of old school techniques with new school technology. The development of trench warfare developed out of the need for soldiers to take cover because of the incessant machinegun fire. However, that same cause also had the effect of hundreds of thousands of soldiers being mowed down as a result of Generals trying to advance their armies based on will and might, and not on strategy and machinery. There are stories of 250,000 men dying on a day just to advance 25 meters. Countless lives were lost for meaningless gains of land.

This all sunk in when I was walking through the WWI museum in Ieper. On a wall, when you first walk into the recently renovated museum, is a quote by H.G. Wells, which sums up the effect of WWI on society: “Every intelligent person in the world knew that disaster was impending, and knew no way to avoid it.” In a way, this was a commentary on the political aspects of the impending conflict. However, if you look at the way the war was fought, it also a commentary on the direct effects of the physical battles. A drawn out stalemate, in which neither side was willing to concede, and as a result a disasterous amount of lives were lost in futile attempts to conquer “no man’s land.”

I always feel like WWI, the Great War, was also the forgotten war – at least to my generation. The horrors and atrocities and importance of WWII on Europe have always been more predominant than the events of WWI in every history class I’ve ever taken. I had learned of he political aspects that lead up to the war, and that there were trenches, and thats about it. It was almost as if the only thing important about WWI was how it set upt the field for WWII. But I think the numbers above with the amount of lives lost, if nothing else, speaks to the effect that WWI had on the world, on modern warfare, and on the lives (and loss of life) of young men around the world. The trenches at Sanctuary Wood (so named because it was where soldiers lost from there platoons would meet up, but became a largely inaccurate depiction of the events that occurred there from 1914-1918), were a commentary on those harrows.

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Well, this week, or should I say last week, I finally hit my first batch of writers block. I sat at my computer numerous times over the past week and a half with the little blog icon on the bottom of my screen, trying to just produce coherent sentences, and alas, it took me an extra week to produce a blog. So picking up where I left off: Welcome to week 10 of Andy’s adventures in Europe! Though I’m late (again for the second week in a row, I would apologize, but then I realized, it’s my blog and I’ll write it whenever I damn well please ; ) <-- that was a smiley not the end of my parenthesis, this is the end of my parenthesis.--> ) I will relay to you the event of two weekends ago, and hopefully in the next day or two will get back on track with the rest of my endeavors.

Two weekends ago, the Loyola crew headed out on a WWI adventure through Belgium. We headed out to four major historical landmarks for the Flemish fighters in WWI – Ieper, Sanctuary Wood, Tyne Cot British Cemetery, and Vladslo German Cemetery. These four sites, when compiled over the course of 7 hours, are a moving testament to the sacrifices made nearly a hundred years ago on the battlefields of Europe.

Our first stop was at the city of Ieper in the eastern Flanders region of Belgium. Ieper was a key city during WWI as it was just a few kilometers from the famous Flanders Fields trench lines. As a result, Ieper became a safe haven for British soldiers during the war. In turn, the city was bombed to oblivion by the Germans. Some of the most famous images of the German brutality have come from pictures of the decimated city center of Ieper, in particular the decimated city Belfry surrounded by rubble. However, because British soldiers were so fond of the city, it was quickly rebuilt after the war with some of the first batch of reparation funds, to look like its original 1600’s setting. Therefore, though the city has history dating back to the medieval ages, most of the buildings are no more than a hundred years old.

On our visit to Ieper, the first stop we made was at the Flanders Fields Museum. This museum, located in the old cloth hall (Ieper having been famous like most Belgian cities for its medieval textiles), was a two story testament to the trials and tribulations of the small city’s three separate battles. During the war, the entire cloth hall was destroyed, and then restored to look like just as its original settings.

The museum told in depth stories about WWI. A lot of them were first hand accounts of the residents of the city interacting with the soldiers fresh off the front lines. Though it appears that in history WWI was almost the forgotten war, but the people of Ypres never forget the sacrifices the young soldiers made to defend their city. Though the museum was small, it was very interactive. Each person that pays for a ticket, also gets his/her own card with name of a soldier and a barcode on it. Then, periodically through the museum, there are kiosks in which you can follow the progression of your soldier throughout the war – even going as far to find out if they live or die at the end.

Though the museum was compact, it wasn’t too crowded, and I strolled my way through it, stopping at almost every informational docket and soaking in the reality of a war which I realized I knew little about. Occasionally, the lights would flicker, and loud booming would come on over the loudspeakers – catching you off guard the first time – to signify what it was like during the time the city was shelled.

I was astonished by a number of things as I worked my way through the museum. From the ferocity with which the Belgians defended their country and city, to the reality of the war’s trenched in fronts, to the number of countries (60) that were involved in the conflict throughout the course of the war. However, there were two major memories that I take away from the museum itself. The first being the dramatic readings and depictions of two poems – In Flanders Fields and Dulce In Decorum Est (mentioned in my earlier blog about Normandy). The poems were read slowly while graphic depictions of the reality of biological warfare were played in the background. Shortly after that section of the museum, was another, full of loud bangs and large flashing lights, as well as disturbing pictures of no man’s land (the place between the two trench lines where thousands of men died). Both of these depictions were enough to send a chill up my spine and goosebumps down my back.

However, my favorite section of the museum, was the part commemorating the famous Christmas Truce of December 24, 1914. As the story goes, the first Christmas night in the trenches began with holiday songs being sung by the German army. In return, both sides of the lines broke out in their own native songs. Then Christmas trees adorned in lights and candles started popping up on the German end of the trenches. Finally, men began to slowly wander over the top of the trench, offering cigars, cigarettes, and homemade delicacies to one another. That evening, though no ceasefire was ordered, and no treaty signed, the men of the two sides were able to come together in a moment of peace to celebrate. Afterward, they were allowed to bury their dead, and rebuilt the trenches, and then it was over.

I had heard that tale before, but never really realized its implications untill I visited the museum. One of the first hand accounts of the French generals was, "They came out of their trenches and walked unarmed, with boxes ofcigars and seasonalbe remarks. What were our men to do? Shoot? You could not shoot unarmed men!" It is perhaps one of the largest symbols of human hope that I had ever heard of. Soldiers coming together, almost despite their own countries, with arms wide open. There are tales afterward, that soldiers had to be transferred to new parts of the lines because they refused to shoot at the men they had just spend Christmas with and shared songs and food with. What a commentary on the reality of war, and perhaps its futility. But more so the hope of intelligent men to come together and recognize it.

After the Museum, I wandered out to the famous Mennen Gate at the east end of the city. The gate is a giant arch which commemorates where the soldiers marched out to the battlefield. Dug into the marble stone of the gate are lines and lines of the names of soldiers. The giant archway of the city stands out with its white stone among the rest of the small modern buildings around it.

From Ieper, the Loyola crew headed out to Sanctuary Woods (mentioned in the opening of my blog). These old woods began the war as a place where soldiers, separated from their units, would meet up with new patrols and continue to fight the war. However, in 1914, its name quickly became an ironic slogan, as the battlefields of Europe moved their front lines into the woods and farmland of the Belgian countryside. Today, the area around Sanctuary wood is where the best preserved batches of trenches from the war are located.

The trenches, muddy from the rainfall, are still held together with the same old barbed wire and metal from the war. Overhead the trees provide cover from the falling rain. However, back during the war, it was no man’s land of burnt out wooded areas, tree stumps, churned up earth and divots from shelling. For the men of the front line, the trench became a way of life, they were dug in for months at a time, began to stop firing during dinner time, or have treuces to bury dead and repair walls. The whole time, hoping to never be called to try and take the opposing line.

From the trenches at Sanctuary Wood, we headed out to the result of those trenches – the two cemeteries of Tyne Cot and Vladlso. The Tyne Cot Cemetery was a British cemetery that has been maintained since the beginning of the Great War. As you approach the cemetery, a monotone English voice reads over the loudspeaker, name after name of soldiers lost during the war – each time, a new name, with a new home country and a new date of death. At the Tyne Cot Cemetery, there are rows upon rows of white headstones for each of the soldiers dead or even recorded to be lost. Even in cases where the identity of the soldier was unknown, there was still a tomb stone dedicated to “A Solider of the Great War.”

In sharp contrast to the giant celebration of the sacrifices made by the British soldiers during the war, was the Vladslo Cemetery. Vladslo Cemetery was a German cemetery after WWI. However, as a part of the post war agreements, the Germans were given very strict restrictions on how to bury their soldiers. They weren’t allowed to celebrate their dead. They weren’t even allowed to use white headstones – only black. Each stone had to contain 20 names of soldiers. And after each name, there could only be a date of death. As a result, their cemetery was much smaller and more somber. The black stones lay flat on the ground with gold writing engraved into them.

Many years after the end of both World Wars, two statues were dedicated to Vladslo cemetery as a way to show the anguish felt by German parents who had lost their sons at war. They were created and dedicated by a mother of a soldier in WWI, and are known as the “Mourning Parents.” The statues represent the grief felt by parents unable to celebrate the life or death of their sons. I thought in my head, we never hear about how they treated the Germans after WWI, because before we could feel bad, they already had another war brewing. However, this cemetery was an interesting commentary on the treatment of Germany after WWI and perhaps even more sobering on the actual cause of WWII.

Finally, I will conclude this week (I know it’s been a long blog) with the stories about the Halloween Party. On Wednesday, October 29, the Loyola Nachbahr celebrated Halloween a couple of days early with our international Halloween party - largely because a large group was headed out to Dublin for Halloween for the weekend. The Americans in the group, as it is a largely American concept to celebrate Halloween, brought the festivities to 80 Schapenstraat. Our night included Halloween themed music, a bonfire (where we introduced the Europeans to smores for the first time), and a variety of party games, candies, and cuisines. In case you’re admiring my pictures in confusion, I bought a partially naked man apron, and wore shorts underneath, then put a nametag on that said “Buck”, and participated in the festivities as “Buck Naked.”

I hope you enjoyed the blog from this week, I know it took a while to get posted, and that it was longer than usual, but hopefully you enjoyed it nonetheless. I will have a new post up about the past weekend shortly! Talk to you all soon!