Happy New Year to you all. Coming off the back of a 56 hour, 5-day work set that included back-to-back night shifts I have had little time to read since the New Year so this article was one that needed a little thinking about.
January is typically a quiet month in terms of military history, although, there are two major anniversaries coming up later this month that I will write about when they come around. The first is the 1812 Siege of Cuidad Rodrigo, Wellesley’s audacious winter move against the Spanish boarder fortress, and the 1879 Battles of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift, in South Africa, thus making them summer rather than winter battles, stay tuned for my discussion with Darren coming later this month. As, this time of year is quiet, which gives me the opportunity to look back at my historical visits in 2023 and look forward to what I would like to do in 2024.
2023 saw me reengaging with my interest in the Great War. The Great War has always held a fascination with me ever since I first studied it at school all the way back in 1998. My usual areas of study, both academically and hobbyist, do not have the connectivity with the present like the Great War did. Well before I first studied the Great War, I was aware that I had a relative killed at the Somme and I was lucky enough to have known his sister until her death in 2006 at the grand old-age of 106. That year, I saw my first visit to the Western Front on a school trip with my favourite teacher, Mr Artlett, and I was hooked on it. Back in April, I travelled along with father to the battlefields of the Western Front on one of Leger Battlefield Tours ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ trips. The 5-day tour took us to some of the best-preserved sites of the various battlefields, spending a day each at the Somme, Loos, Aras and Vimy Ridge and finally the battlefields around the Belgian town of Ypres. It was a fantastic tour with a very knowledgeable guide, but for me, I sensed that I was just revisiting the same locations. After all, there are only so many places that you can park a large coach. With this in mind, I made the decision quite soon after returning that I would visit the Somme again later in the year to explore for myself.
Walk from La Bosisselle towards Dead Mans Rd, line of advance of the 13th Rifle Brigade including my Great Grandfather.
picture credit Mark Wheatcroft.
When I returned in October I was solely focused on the Somme and it was great to have the ability to stop off wherever I wanted to and not be bound to an itinerary, so much so that I made the decision that I would not stop at either the Lochnagar Crater or Newfoundland Park, its not that I don’t think they are worth the visit because they fundamental to understanding the battle but as I have seen them numerous times before I felt that my time would be better spent exploring other locations. Instead, being in my own car, I took a meandering route over two and bit days across the battlefield, stopping wherever I felt like. This flexibility was a godsend, enabling visits to the smaller hard to reach cemeteries or memorials, waiting at the Ulster Tower so that I was to be able to wait so that I could visit the recreated trenches in Thiepval Woods but most interestingly of all was to be able to dump the car put on my hiking boots and pack and walk the fields. Two of these walks were especially sentimental to me as it was over ground that my relatives fought. Lastly, it also allowed me to stay out until dusk so that I could experience the battlefield at twilight. This included my walk into Mametz Woods.
Mametz Wood Picture Credit Mark Wheatcroft.
Between my two visits , I purchased a book written by historian Paul Reed called ‘Walking the Somme’ and this book had a major influence on my trip. Walking a number of the routes in the book, I was able to understand the battle to a far greater extent than just driving from point to point. The Hathorn ridge Walk took me across the fields to the north of Newfoundland Park, skirted the Hawthorn Ridge crater. The walk then led up through the infamous sunken road and out onto the Redan Ridge. Whilst the Pals walk focused on the attacks of the famous northern Pals battalions against the defended village of Serre at the northern most point of the battlefield.
link to Book 👇
Compared to visiting the battlefields of the medieval and early modern periods, the 20th century battlefields are huge. Whilst at a medieval or early modern battlefield, an interpretive walk can be completed in less than an hour to conclusively walk the Somme battlefield would take days. In the UK, we have a number of interpretive battlefield walks, with the walks at Flodden and Towton being two that spring to mind add to these English Heritage audio interpretive walk at Hastings. These battlefield walks have one thing in common, and that is the compactness of the battlefields and the small number of men involved in the battle. This brings me on to the two additional battlefields I visited whilst in France, the great battlefields of the Hundred Years War of Crecy and Agincourt, both of those having good walks over the field of conflict.
Looking ahead to 2024 my aim is to visit more and more battlefield in my hiking boots, out on the field exploring its undulations, identifying the dead ground, if possible, in the company of like-minded historians so that we can really get to grips with what we are seeing. This year, instead of going to France, I instead intend to focus my intentions on the country that more than others can claim to be that foreign field that is forever England, Belgium.
Question: Which Battlefield are you aiming to have a boots on explore of this year?
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