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In August it will be 100 years since the start of the Great War. I recently visited a number of the battle fields around Ypres in Belgium and the Somme in France. It was a very sobering and moving experience. Seeing the beautiful countryside as it is today it is almost impossible to image the hell it was all those years ago. This image is just one of the many memorials and cemeteries that we visited over 5 days.

The Thiepval Monument is a monument to the missing. Inscribed on panels around it are the names of 72,000 United Kingdom and South Africans who were killed on the Somme before March 1918 and who have no known grave.
A700 SAL + 16-800 cz

Ossie

I'm not trying to start a flame war but the correct name in Flemish is Ieper. At the time of the First World War all Belgian official documentation was in French hence the battles in an around the town were referred to as Ypres.

Bruges the provincial capital in Flemish becomes Brugge. And so the British raid on St Georges Day 1918 at the German occupied port was on Zeebrugge.

Very nice shot and yet another reminder of the futility of the wars.
I wonder when if at all we learn.

Sury

More images from the area
Beautifully maintained and cared for. Sadly at the time of my visit not all visitors acted with respect to the thousands of men who lost their lives, climbing over some of the memorials.
A very different atmosphere at this German cemetery that contains the remains of over 17,000 soldiers most of whom are buried in mass graves. Interestingly this was the initial resting place of the "Red Baron" before his remains were removed to and reburied in Germany.
A memorial to the more than 5,000 casualties (Killed, injured or missing) during the battle for Mametz Wood.

Ossie