The Events of Friday, June 10, 2011

                I love being in charge. I get to choose the day’s agenda: where we go, how we get there, what we see, how much time we spend. I love it. Today’s itinerary featured a look at an event that really shaped Belgium (and Europe’s history)—World War I. To reach the museum in Ieper, we took a long drive from coastal Oostende through the flat countryside of Belgium. Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg make up the trio known as the “Low Countries”. The landscape is aptly named; we didn’t change our elevation in the entire hour drive. Since some roads were closed on route, due to construction, the detours made for a scenic and interesting tour of Belgium’s back roads. The vast fields were filled with grain, vegetables, or cows. Strangely, the cows were a bit smaller than those we’ve seen, especially those of Spain and Scotland. And most of them are completely white.

                Soon, we were in Ieper and found the main square or the “Grote Markt” in Flemish. As we circled the square, we located the WWI museum and found a parking spot nearby. We climbed out of the car, walked around a building, turned the corner, ascended two flights of stairs, and arrived in the In Flanders Field Museum.

                This museum took us through the entire story of WWI, from the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand to the Treaty of Versailles. It focused on the town of Ieper and the way it coped with the surrounding war. As I wandered, it was clear that Ieper was just one of hundreds of little market villages on the Western Front. Peaceful and prosperous, they were almost oblivious to the war until it enveloped them. The Allied soldiers met the Germans here, on the Western front. It was a strip of no-man’s land, stretching from the North Sea to Switzerland.

                Both sides dug in and built trenches, hoping to outlast their enemies. Disease, rain, and death permeated the ranks. Every day, hundreds of young men leaped out of the trenches, fighting through barbed wire and mined fields, to gain a few feet of land. Most of them died. What ground they gained was soon taken back. One such story was Passchendaele. For a hundred days, thousands of men ran into a rain of shells and machine-gun fire. They gradually took the town of Passchendaele. Soon after the conquest, the Germans went on an offensive and took back all that land, now littered with bodies—in only three days.

                We took a brief lunch break in a nearby park, and then came back into the museum. Three elements of the museum really put us in the experience of the war. The first was, in my opinion, the most powerful exhibit, entitled “No Man’s Land”. It depicted the struggle to fight across the open fields. With the sound of exploding shells, machine-guns rattling, men screaming and dying, and flashes of light, it put us in the agony of an offensive. It was enough to make me never want to fight or witness war.

                The second element of the museum told us personal stories of those who witnessed and fought in the War to End All Wars. Each of us received a card, which we scanned at each of three stations. Our cards held the stories of a mixture of soldiers, nurses, doctors, and witnesses. Sadly, of the six people we had chosen, only two survived the war.

                The final element was the quotations. All over the exhibits, we got personal, gloomy, gory, and depressing views of the war. I’ll include some:

 

I caught sight of a German the day before yesterday. he was building fortifications 50 metres away from me. I had to kill him, didn’t I? I took a rifle, quite calmly I took aim, and he fell. And yet I can see the features of that man with perfect clarity. I think it’s very much like a murder. Horrible!

- Maurice Laurentin

 

The front is a cage in which men have to wait for the outcome of event with nerves on edge. With shells flying above our heads, we live in the tension of uncertainty. Chance hovers above us. When there is firing, I can stoop down, that is all. I can neither know exactly, nor influence, the direction of that fire.

- Erich Maria Remarque

 

Then the German behind put his head up again. He was laughing and talking. I saw his teeth glistening against my rifle sight and I pulled the trigger very slowly. He just grunted and crumpled up.

- Julian Grenfell

 

We could not believe that we were expected to attack in such appalling conditions. I never prayed so hard in all my life. I got down on my knees in the mud and I prayed to God to bring me through. My whole life went before me and I couldn’t see any future. I really prayed, believe me.

- Pat Burns

 

                Sobered by these words and the tragedies we had experienced, we headed home. Appropriately, the skies were gray and rain pattered on our windshield. After two quick grocery stops, we were home in our apartment in Oostende. While dinner cooked, we read and relaxed. Dinner, consisting of lasagna and a cheesy Greek vegetable dish, was absolutely delicious. To top it off, we enjoyed some pudding.

                After the meal and a couple showers, we settled down on the couches for a movie. The selection tonight was Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. It was the only DVD in English that was remotely appropriate for us to watch. It was very biased and opinionated, but caused some questions to arise. Especially after all we learned about World War I. War just doesn’t seem to be the answer to the world’s problems. With these provocative thoughts in our minds, we headed to bed.