Short Films

To convey something of the feeling of exploring the Western Front by bike, and of visiting the many fascinating memorials and places that tell the story of the Great War in Western Europe, I am working on a set of short video films. My plans for these are still evolving, and while things may change the following notes outline how I currently intend to approach this project. Comments and suggestions welcomed:

Part 1

As a prelude, I travel to Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, England, where two vast training camps, each with  a capacity for 20,000 officers and men, prepared recruits for what was for many a one-way journey to France. There is a surprising amount dating from the period of the Great War still to be seen at Cannock Chase, and in this film, I will take you on a bike tour of the most important sites  by way of preparation for heading to Flanders Fields in Belgium.

Part 2: Flanders and the Somme

Once across the channel, we'll start close to the Belgian Coast picking up the first traces of the Western Front near Nieuwpoort, then head southeast through Ypres and the major battlefields of Flanders, including Langemark, Passchendaele, and Messines, then through the former coal mining communities of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Region and up to the necropolis of Notre Dame de Lorette, the largest French military cemetery in the world that remembers those lost in the battles of Artois, and nearby, the remarkable Ring of Remembrance where the names of almost 600,000 soldiers  who died in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais are listed in alphabetical order irrespective of country, rank of religion. This will be followed by exploring Vimy Ridge among the craters, sheep and unexploded ordnance, in the shadow of Walter Allward's stunning Canadian National Vimy Memorial. In Arras, we will admire the historic squares with their wonderfully restored mediaeval buildings, and then go underground at the Carrière Wellington to learn about the daring break-out by a large allied force  that signalled the start of the Battle of Arras in April 1917. Leaving the city, we'll soon be in the northern battlefields of the Somme, and explore some of memorials and special sites that tell the story of that infamous battle that lasted from July to November 1916, claiming a total of around 160,000 young lives on all sides, plus many more terribly injured.

Part 3: Aisne, Champagne and the Argonne Forest

While fighting and skirmishes took place along the full length of the Western Front the next really major battlefield heading east is the Chemin des Dames, a long limestone ridge to the north of the Aisne Valley. It was here that French General Robert Nivelle made an ill-fated attempt at a decisive push that sought to cut supply lines to the German forces further west, but it largely failed and the terrible casualties led to mutiny in the French army. Another underground foray at the Cavberne du Dragon, an old limestone quarry thta was occupied by German and french forces will illustrate the appalling conditions suffered by tehse soldiers. The Champagne may be the source of our favourite drink now, but in 1915 the Western Front in this area was mired in back-and-forth battles that killed many and achieved little. To the east, the rarely visited wooded hills of the Argonne Forest were being fought over in many brutal encounters, including the use of vast mines on strategic hilltops such as the Butte de Vauquois where the old village that once stood there has been entirely destroyed. 

Part 4: Verdun, Lorraine and The Vosges Mountains

Verdun is the site of the longest and probably most destructive battle on the Western Front, with around 163,000 French and 143,000 German soldiers killed in operations that lasted around 9 months from 21 February to 18 December 1916. Here, on the old battlefields, we’ll explore one or both of Douaumont and Vaux, the vast post Franco-Prussian War fortresses where in the damp tunnels and accommodation areas you can discover the horrific stories of a siege with close-quarter fighting, terrible fires and shell explosions within the confines of these concrete monsters that brought unimaginable suffering and death. Probably little known to most, the Western Front in Lorraine and Alsace saw fighting reaching all the way to the Swiss border. Although much of this took place relatively early in the war, there is plenty to see and learn about, especially in the high mountain battlefields of Le Linge and Hartmannswillerkopf where French and German forces were not only fighting fierce battles but balso contending with the snow and ice of harsh winters conditions. Dropping down from the mountains through the gentle Sundgau region of Alsace, our journey will end at the aptly named Kilometre Zero, the last few defensive positions on the Western Front and the surreal reality that by a small stream in the woods marking the border with neutral Switzerland, all of the killing stopped.