The destroyed city on the picture is Ypres (or Ieper as we Flemish say), where a mediaeval city hall was destroyed. After the war, the English wanted to leave the city in ruins to commemorate all of the bloody battles there. But the people of Ypres wanted to rebuild the city after the war. Nowadays, it's an interactive WWI-museum.
Ypres also features a Vauban wall structure (French military defensive structure from the era of Louis XIV), and then there also is the Menin gate, built after WWI in style colonial Indian style. Within engraved are the names of 30,000 English and Commonwealth soldiers that died there. Every evening (since 1920 or so) at 8 pm a delegation of the local firebrigade plays the "Last Post" for them.
I visited Ypres plenty of times, because I grew up two villages away: Ypres was a protruding part in the English frontline, while my hometown was the first one in the German frontline. Every square meter got hit during the war by an average of 3 bombs/grenades, to give you an impression of the impact of the war on the landscape there...
It records the wonders and horrors of battle experienced by Lieutenant Kenneth Wootton.
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ReplyDeletehmm. Are we sure those illustrations are his? some of them look like magazine illustrations or illustrations done for magazines..
ReplyDeleteside note:
http://www.allworldwars.com/World%20War%20II%20Sketches%20By%20Hans%20Liska.html
James, how do you find all this stuff? Do you have a methodical approach to your information gathering?
ReplyDeleteStephen, a lot of times, blog readers send me links. This one was from K-tron.
ReplyDeleteThe destroyed city on the picture is Ypres (or Ieper as we Flemish say), where a mediaeval city hall was destroyed.
ReplyDeleteAfter the war, the English wanted to leave the city in ruins to commemorate all of the bloody battles there.
But the people of Ypres wanted to rebuild the city after the war. Nowadays, it's an interactive WWI-museum.
Current situation: see here.
Ypres also features a Vauban wall structure (French military defensive structure from the era of Louis XIV), and then there also is the Menin gate, built after WWI in style colonial Indian style. Within engraved are the names of 30,000 English and Commonwealth soldiers that died there. Every evening (since 1920 or so) at 8 pm a delegation of the local firebrigade plays the "Last Post" for them.
I visited Ypres plenty of times, because I grew up two villages away: Ypres was a protruding part in the English frontline, while my hometown was the first one in the German frontline. Every square meter got hit during the war by an average of 3 bombs/grenades, to give you an impression of the impact of the war on the landscape there...