Guest 767- Registered: 30 Aug 2012
- Posts: 458
last year I visited the Somme with a group of like minded friends, the photos from the trip are now on my web-site, the link is below,es ever I am pleased to recieve your comments!
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
Yes Mr Cooper and myself and wifes went last year to, we went in his car,and it is not till you have visted there that you can see and know what happen, very very sad.And to live and fight and die like that.there are no words you can say to match what went on.
Guest 658- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 660
You are right Vic only by going can you even begin to comprehend what went on. I go every 6 months for a long weekend with a good group of lads and lasses, luckily we have the services of a very good guide in March for our next trip we will be staying at Longueville right in the heart of the Somme.
beer the food of the gods
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
i have down the front line from niewport belgium to verdun,quite an experiance it was to.
Guest 658- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 660
Verdun does tend to take some understanding the death toll was horrendous.
beer the food of the gods
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Somme and Verdun were chessboard campaigns: the pawns moved forwards and fell, kings and queens stayed at the back and never moved.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
correct guzzler,it all so brings tears to ones eyes it dose.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Well some of the kings and queens did fall, as the end-game approached: Germany's went into exile, Russia's were put to the wall. All awful, really.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
well not kings and queens alex,more like princes,vicounts and a few barons.but no kings and queens not in the real world any way.
Guest 767- Registered: 30 Aug 2012
- Posts: 458
I am pleased that this thread has provoked some respectful comment, for my part I act as an occasional guide to the battle fields, cemitaries and memorials of the Ypres Salient and more recently the Somme. I am now looking to do smaller, more concentrated tours of such places as Mametz Wood, Delville Wood and Serre. I always include a German cemitary wherever possible, so if I go to Tynecot then I move to Langemarck. I feel, as you do, that we must remember them, all of them, from whatever nation, after all, whatever the uniform they were all some Mother's son.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
vladstow is an unusall german cemertary phil.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Brian, yes, you're right, a prince did fall, which is what gave start to WW I.
In Sarajevo. The Black Hand moved and felled the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
The Austro-Hungarian royal pieces also went into exile at the end of the war.
The saying goes, that in the trenches of the Somme and Verdun, neither Brit, German nor Frenchman could remember what started the war. There was an occasion when Scots soldiers and German soldiers ran over to each other and celebrated Christmas together. That story really does bring tears to my eyes. God bless their souls!
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
alex,you have gone off tangent yet again,yes the crown prince ferdenan was shot and later died.but he did not and i repeat he did not die in the presueing war.there is a number of uk blue bloods buried about the war zone,a prince [cant rember his name] who is queen victorias grandson buried at lieper communial cemmertry [flanders] the queen mothers brother boyes-lyon down on the somme he is listed as having no known grave.but the list does go on.allso at lieper communial cemertry are a number of mp's,barons,vicounts etc.along baden powels son and asquiths son ie allso buried there.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
for phil,and alex to take note of.
battenburg,prince maurice victor donald.lieutenant.buried in ypres town cemartry row 1b.queen victorias grandson whos name i forgot.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
the queens mothers brother is on loos memorial panel for missing at loos france.
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
There are so many sad facts that arise from the senseless slaughter in France and Belgium during WW1, and I go as often as I can to the battlefields to pay my respects. Last year's trip with Vic was the only chance I got in 2012 and I'm hoping to go a couple more times this year. I've even discovered some family graves - a Great Uncle buried at Rouen who died from wounds sustained at The Somme in 1917 and a distant relative from Stoke On Trent who is buried in the same CWGC cemetery as Herbert Asquith's son.
As Vic, Brian and Tom have all said, it isn't until you get there and see the scale of the slaughter that it comes home to you; it's very powerful and extremely moving no matter what age you might be - a friend took his (now sadly dead) Uncle to the Menin Gate a few years back, and even in his 80s it moved him to tears for most of the day. It was his first visit to Ypres and proved just too much for him.
Wherever Michelle and I go on holiday, whether in the UK or abroad, we always look to see if there is a CWGC cemetery there or nearby and, if we can, always go to pay our respects. We've been to a few far-flung places as a result! My favourite has to be Cantara (Al Qantara) which is located on the East Bank of the Suez Canal in Egypt; it's so remote, and so difficult to get to (it's in a very sensitive part of what used to be called the Canal Zone and armed checkpoints along most of the way do tend to unnerve the innocent tourist) that it's all the more rewarding when you get there. There were a few men from Dover at rest in that cemetery and it was an honour to pay our respects to them - I doubt they'd had too many visits over the years!
True friends stab you in the front.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
Both my wife and myself was very moved with what we saw,and hope along with Andy we go again to see other ones,it is very upseting just to see how the many 1000s died,and only afew feet away from each other.And the bombs must have killed many on both sides when they landed they were that close to each other.