In Belgian Flanders, the archaeology of the First World War has taken a different course than in France for many different reasons. Military actions in and around the Ypres Salient were of a different kind than those on the vast rolling chalklands of the Somme. The low-lying, waterlogged clays stretching from Steenstraete (10 kilometres north of Ypres) to Nieuwpoort on the coast made it impossible to dig trenches, and so sandbagged positions were built instead. The area south of Steenstraete (including the whole Ypres Salient) was silty loam, which did allow for trench digging, though the high water table caused endless problems even here. The geology of Belgian Flanders, therefore, presented severe difficulties for fighting soldiers at the time, and for archaeologists today (Doyle 1998). The geographical layout and geological structure of the Ypres Salient have created distinctive problems and opportunities for archaeology, as have the different cultural attitudes towards the physical remains of the war.
There exist, however, many similarities between these two important areas of the old Western Front. Whole battlefield landscapes survive just centimetres below the modern ground surface, with trenches, dugouts and subterranean galleries full of the detritus of war – and sometimes extremely well preserved because of the high water table in the region. As on the Somme, the soil of Belgian Flanders also contains thousands of ‘the missing’, their bodies, uniforms, weapons and equipment – sometimes even newspapers and blankets. Both regions also face the pressures of the modern age, as motorways and urban development threaten to disturb or destroy the battlefield heritage. As in France, so in Belgium, where the army is actively involved in clearing and disposing of unexploded and volatile Great War artillery shells. Yet, while many of the problems facing the developing field of Great War archaeology in France and Belgium are the same, there are also important differences that we shall explore here.
As we saw in Chapter 1, the local inhabitants of the Ypres area have engaged with the region’s Great War remains very proactively, with local collectors, groups of amateur archaeologists and military history enthusiasts all paving the way for the recent arrival of a modern scientific archaeology of the war. What has been distinctive about the Belgian response in this respect has been the activities of quasi-formal groups or associations which have been actively digging Great War sites around Ypres, over the last decade especially. The two main amateur groups, already briefly mentioned, are The Diggers, and the Association for Battlefield Archaeology in Flanders (ABAF), to which a brief mention of the Association for Battlefield Archaeology and Conservation (ABAC) should be added. ABAF underwent personnel changes in 2001 (see below), and some of the original members split away to form ABAC, which investigated tunnels beneath Nieuwpoort, though it was the reconfigured ABAF that remained the major force.
The activities of these avocational archaeologists have, until recently, been almost the only kind of Great War-related archaeological activity in Flanders. This has been mostly due to the fact that Belgium’s professional archaeologists have been concerned with the region’s rich prehistoric, Gallo-Roman and medieval remains, with little time or resources to spend on such comparatively recent material whose status as valuable archaeological heritage was neither evident nor acknowledged.
Amateur battlefield excavations emerged out of a long tradition of clearing and digging the landscapes of war after 1918 in order to restore farmland and gather war debris (usually iron and copper) for sale, and for reworking into souvenirs for interwar pilgrims and tourists, on which the postwar economy of Ypres depended to a considerable extent. Consequently, as professional archaeologists have observed, while such amateur diggings can only be termed archaeology in a very general sense, these activities have a long tradition in the Ypres region.
The excavations of amateur groups such as The Diggers and ABAF have revealed many kinds of (often startling) information that had not previously been valued or investigated. Their work is not only an integral part of the historical development of Great War archaeology in Belgian Flanders (and therefore important in its own right), but is also significant from the perspective of what they found and where, and how their discoveries contributed to our understanding of the war itself.
The Diggers are a group of Great War enthusiasts and amateur archaeologists with a shifting membership who were formed during the 1980s to investigate the old Ypres Salient battlefields. Their first digs were at Bayernwald (also called Croonaert Wood) near Wijtschate, and Polygon Wood between Hooge and Zonnebeke. During these early years, they also investigated a German bunker beneath the old Ypres–Roulers railway, where they uncovered the remains of six German soldiers.
Their largest and most famous dig began in 1992, near Boezinge, a small town just north of Ypres, in an area marked for an extension to the Yperlee industrial estate along the eastern bank of the Ypres canal. This area had been part of the battlefield that saw the first German gas attack on 22 April 1915, and had been left virtually untouched since 1918. The high water table in this area has led to remarkable preservation of all kinds of material culture, from whole systems of intact trenches to a tin packed with tobacco found on the body of a Royal Welch Fusilier.
One example of how The Diggers’ investigations have contributed to the region’s war heritage is Yorkshire Trench, part of the Boezinge site. The dugout was begun in early 1917 by the 173rd Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers, and it served as a headquarters for the 13th and 16th Royal Welch Fusiliers at the start of the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) later that same year.
The Diggers began their work in 1998, and soon revealed a zigzag line of trenches footed with duckboards beneath which were drainage channels. Investigations also uncovered two flights of steps leading down to a cluster of eleven subterranean rooms and connecting galleries. On the surface, they found a wealth of objects relating to the war, including the remains of a Decauville light railway, unexploded artillery shells, bayonets, cartridge belts, telephone cables, coils of barbed wire, rum jars, playing cards, pipes, iodine ampoules (for soldiers’ wounds), the remains of a stretcher, and even an English–French/ French–English dictionary. Although the area is now rebuilt with large warehouses, Yorkshire Trench was reconstructed, and opened as a tourist attraction in 2003, with new sandbag reinforcements and a visitors’ information board, along with an unusual display of British Livens projectors – a primitive form of trench mortar.
Most poignant of all were the human remains that The Diggers found. Between 1992 and 2000, they discovered 155 soldiers across the whole Boezinge site, most of whom were found in No Man’s Land, between the Allied and German trenches. These bodies belonged to the period of two great battles, Second Ypres (beginning on 22 April 1915) and Third Ypres/Passchendaele (starting on 31 July 1917). One was found with a miniature white porcelain crucifix, recalling soldiers’ intimate associations with these images of religious belief. While identification was sometimes difficult because of the incomplete nature of the remains, roughly half appear to have been British, a third German, and the rest French.
In 2001, two more British soldiers were found, one of whom – designated Burial 124 – was carrying, among other things, a toothbrush, pocket knife, pencils and a small trench mirror, as well as (probably wearing) a gas mask. The second man had similar belongings, together with a spoon, an early form of hand grenade (called a Mills bomb), and a well-preserved purse, some of whose coins dated to 1917. The regimental badges associated with both men indicated they were Royal Welch Fusiliers. The evidence suggested that both men died between January and July 1917, when the regiment was stationed here, and that they had been found exactly where they had been killed.
It was one of these soldiers, Burial 124, who would become a virtual icon of Great War archaeology. This was due to his startlingly well-preserved remains – a complete skeleton wearing only his steel helmet and boots, and carrying his equipment – and the graphic position in which he was found, seemingly as he had fallen, on the very spot on which he had died. There were no obvious wounds on this man’s remains, which led to speculation that he may have died (as did so many others) not from high-explosive shrapnel, but rather the invisible effects of a dramatic change of pressure in the body caused by a nearby shell blast. This soldier was reburied in a military cemetery, but, as no identifying items were found, he remains one of those men described so often in the Great War’s cemeteries as ‘known unto God’. His body has been found, but his identity is still with ‘the missing’.
The Diggers have been criticised for their use of metal detectors, their lack of professional expertise, and their failure to publish technical reports of their work. Nevertheless, they did record and photograph the objects they recovered, held a local public exhibition of their finds, and donated the most significant items to the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, which itself held several temporary exhibitions of the Boezinge discoveries (Chielens 2001). Another small exhibition of The Diggers’ finds is on display at the Hooge Crater café-museum on the Menin road. The remains of the soldiers uncovered by The Diggers were reburied in nearby British, French and German war cemeteries.
While The Diggers, led by the indefatigable Patrick Van Wanzeele, never claimed to be professional archaeologists, there is little doubt that they added significantly to our knowledge of the area of the Yperlee industrial estate that would otherwise simply have been built over (The Diggers 2001). More widely, the publicity that surrounded their activities and discoveries, both good and bad, highlighted the interest of visitors in Great War archaeology, and the need for a change in official attitudes towards it. Throughout their work at Boezinge, the Diggers were licensed and to some extent monitored by the Institute for Archaeological Patrimony (IAP), now the Flemish Heritage Institute (VIOE).
ABAF, which had an earlier and a later formation, took a different approach to their investigations, though again, none of the earlier international team were professional archaeologists. They spent several years digging and filming at various locations in the Ypres Salient, though most of their work focused on subterranean features such as dugouts, tunnels and galleries – a particular interest of several group members. This was dangerous, painstaking and systematic work that owed a great deal to the technical skill and ingenuity of Johan Vandewalle, a native of nearby Zonnebeke, and a carpenter and civil-engineer tunneller by training. This practical expertise was complemented by Franky Bostyn, a young battlefield historian with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Ypres Salient. In the early days, ABAF also called on the expertise of the Peter Doyle, a British geologist with a special interest in the First World War, and Peter Barton, an independent film-maker.
In 1998, the original ABAF team began research on a mineshaft and bunkers at Bayernwald near Wijtschate, south of Ypres (Bostyn 1999; Doyle et al. 2001). The site was occupied by the Germans in 1914 – taking its name, Bayernwald (Bavarian Wood), from the Bavarian regiments stationed there – and was visited by Hitler in 1940, reportedly because he had served there in 1917. The area had been disturbed (in an archaeological sense) by battlefield clearance during the 1920s. This fact, combined with the damage wrought by tree growth, and the nature of the soil and water table meant that preservation of artefacts discovered during excavations was not as good as elsewhere.
Interestingly, from the perspective of Great War heritage, Bayernwald was a site that benefited from the 1960s upsurge of interest in visiting Great War battlefields. During the 1970s and 1980s, André Becquart, the landowner, ran a café-museum at the site, with trenches reconstructed, a mineshaft (used to tunnel beneath British lines) explored, and the museum building stacked full of the artefacts he had retrieved from his diggings – he even issued postcards of the private museum (Bostyn and Vancoillie 2000: 169–73). But Becquart’s initiative was an individual obsession, and, after he died in 1986, the museum became derelict, and the wood overgrown. It remained in this state until the early explorations of The Diggers, and then ABAF’s more systematic investigations.
ABAF underwent personnel changes in 2001, but under the direction of Bostyn, the work at Bayernwald continued and developed. Under the auspices of the European Union, and with the support of the Flemish government and local municipal authorities, as well as the Belgian Military Academy and the German Embassy in Brussels, the site was restored in 2003, and opened to the public a year later. The most startling feature of what is now a revamped (and more accurately reconstructed) Great War heritage site is the presence of wood panels that line the trenches, some 300,000 interwoven willow branches giving the site its distinctive appearance along a length of about 300 metres of restored German trench, which includes four restored German bunkers. It is a kind of living archaeology to see a photograph of two German soldiers in the summer of 1916, relaxing in their willow-panelled trench at Bayernwald, in an otherwise devastated landscape (Bostyn and Vancoillie 2000: 47), and to walk through the modern reconstructions today.
Bostyn’s appointment as curator for the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 (a total redesign of the old Streekmuseum), which opened in April 2004, enabled the new ABAF to conduct excavations and reconstructions at several other sites. In April 2005, a series of four bunkers – used as shelters and as a dressing station – was opened to the public at Letteburg, a hillside site near to Mount Kemmel, itself within sight of Bayernwald. On a more ambitious scale, a part of the old Ypres–Roulers railway running between Zonnebeke and Passchendaele (disused since 1952) was excavated in 2005, and has been reconstructed as a battlefield walk and cycle path between the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 and the new visitor centre at the Tyne Cot war cemetery, which was opened in September 2006.
Several German bunkers and the well-preserved remains of a Lancashire Fusilier were discovered during these investigations. The presence of a silver cigarette case and a wristwatch has suggested to some that this may be the remains of an officer. These activities were part of an ambitious programme of events across the Ypres Salient aimed at commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Third Battle of Ypres – or Passchendaele – in the summer of 2007, and clearly show how Great War archaeology in this region is now seen as an integral part of First World War history, local and international education and tourism, and more generally of the archaeological heritage of Belgian Flanders.
Despite these well-organised activities, the sheer number of dead in the Ypres Salient means that discoveries of human remains will occur far into the future. In September 2006, during the laying of a gas pipeline, the remains of five soldiers were found near the Frezenberg Ridge in the middle of the salient. Rescue excavations by ‘Archeo 7’ (the recently founded archaeological unit managing the archaeological heritage of this area) and ABAF required the digging up of part of a road, where the bodies were found seemingly intentionally buried in a shell hole. Early identification suggests they may have belonged to the 4th Australian Division. Preservation varied between the remains, some of whom were interred in blankets, but one body was exceptionally well preserved, with fragments of corduroy still plainly visible.
Perhaps the best documented of ABAF’s digs, however, was carried out mainly by the original team at Beecham Farm, located at the foot of the Passchendaele Ridge near to Tyne Cot cemetery. The site was discovered in 1999, when a farmer’s wife fell into a hole that had suddenly opened up. Preliminary investigations showed that the farm had been built during the 1920s over the top of an underground structure that was later identified as a wartime dugout that had lain unsuspected since 1918.
ABAF carried out a thorough investigation of the site, stabilising the hole, surveying the dugout, plotting its artefacts, removing the whole wooden structure for later reassembling, and finally undertaking remedial work which saw compacted earth filling the yawning gap left by the dugout’s removal, and aimed at stabilising the farmhouse above. Hand in hand with the physical work went a comprehensive investigation of the area in military history archives, in order to better understand what the structure was, and who had built and used it (Barton et al. 2004: 279–88; Doyle et al. 2001). ABAF’s work at Beecham Farm was detailed and meticulous, with attention paid to the geology of the area, and a wealth of drawn plans and photographs, as well as a film record made of the excavations. An inventory of artefacts was created, and special attention given to the dugout’s architecture.
This research led to some interesting conclusions. As the depth of soil above the dugout was only about 2 metres, the structure itself was shallow and unsafe, and certainly not shell-proof. The shelter had originally had three entrances, and the lack of steel in its construction indicated a German origin, perhaps as early as 1915. Yet there was evidence of blankets being hung as protection from gas attacks, possibly put up by British Royal Engineers in the winter of 1917/18. Altogether, there were forty-two bunks inside the dugout, providing shelter for sixty-six men and three officers. While metal items such as buttons, belt buckles and an ammunition bandolier had, not surprisingly, survived well, preservation in the waterlogged conditions of other more fragile items was extraordinary. A greatcoat, a scarf, puttees and boots all looked as if they had been discarded only a few hours before. Even traces of black candle smoke could be seen on the walls.
ABAF’s researches in the archives led to an insightful reconstruction of the history of the Beecham dugout. It is possible that it had originally been built by the Germans as a shelter for one of their artillery units, sometime between 1915 and 1916, when this was a quiet area some 3 miles behind the German front lines. By October 1917, as part of the battle for Passchendaele, the area was captured by the British, who in turn used the old German artillery positions for their own gun batteries, and occupied German dugouts, refurbishing them for their own use. This changing nature of the Ypres Salient battlefield as the war progressed seems to explain the structure of Beecham dugout, and the change of ownership, from German to British, explains why so many British objects were found in a German-built structure. ABAF’s work at Beecham and its prompt publication was perhaps the best example of serious and in-depth research conducted by non-archaeologists, and has added greatly to our knowledge of the underground war in the old Ypres Salient.
Professional archaeology’s engagement with the First World War before 2001 was not entirely absent. In 1989, during an excavation of the remains of the medieval abbey at Zonnebeke in the centre of the old Ypres Salient battlefield, the Institute for Archaeological Heritage (IAP), as it then was, discovered and investigated a deeply buried Great War dugout that was identified by Aleks Deseyne of the Zonnebeke Museum as having been built by the Australian Tunnelling Company by the end of 1917 (Dewilde 1991: 380). Nearby, a second dugout, known as the Bremen Redoubt, which had been discovered in 1983 at Zonnebeke’s clay pits, was also investigated, photographed and drawn to scale by the IAP’s archaeologists at the request of the town’s municipal authorities. The German dugout at the Bremen Redoubt revealed remarkable preservation in its plank-lined galleries and double-plank beds, as well as miscellaneous items, from unexploded bombs to soldiers’ spades. Nevertheless, these two excavations were the exceptions, and the majority of digging around Ypres was carried out by amateurs during these early years.
In 2002, dramatic changes occurred, and Great War archaeology was incorporated for the first time into standard archaeological practice in Flanders. The impetus for this development was political, and occurred when the Belgian minister Paul van Grembergen requested that the IAP, which had recently been renamed the Flemish Heritage Institute (VIOE), undertake an archaeological survey along the line of a projected extension to the A19 motorway across the old Ypres Salient, in order to evaluate its impact on the archaeological heritage of the First World War (de Meyer and Pype 2004: 3). In some ways, this was a Belgian parallel to the investigations by Yves Desfossés and his DRAC colleagues along the route of the A29 on the Somme in 1997.
While this request focused on one area and one project, its true significance lay in the fact that the physical remains of an event less than a century old were acknowledged as an integral part of Belgium’s archaeological heritage – of equal worth to a Roman villa or a medieval abbey.
One consequence of the IAP’s investigations was that a year later, in November 2003, van Grembergen was in Ypres announcing the formation of a Department of Great War Archaeology to the Belgian and international media. The department was a part of the VIOE, and was supported by the ‘Flemish universities, the Belgian Army’s Service for the Disposal and Demolition of Explosives (DOVO) and a wide range of international collaborators’ (Dewilde et al. 2004). Later, some of the individuals concerned with the VIOE’s excavations formed the Association for World War Archaeology (AWA) to publish and seek financial resources for Great War archaeological excavations (de Meyer and Pype 2004: 45, 47–8; www.a-w-a.be). These linked developments were a turning point. After some eighty-five years of ad hoc amateur digging and land clearance – and in the space of just over twelve months – a modern scientific archaeology of the Great War in Flanders had arrived in a legally constituted and academically and politically acceptable form.
Behind the scenes, professional archaeologists and other interested parties were engaging in a vigorous debate concerning the issues facing a modern archaeology of the Great War. Key questions were being asked, such as, are the remains of the First World War truly a part of Belgian national archaeological heritage? Are these remains old enough to be archaeologically important and valuable? How old does an object need to be in order to be considered appropriate for archaeological investigation? Should the archaeological record of the Great War be considered as equal to other, more traditional, kinds of archaeology? Is there an obligation to make an inventory of the remaining vestiges of the First World War and legally protect certain sites and their landscapes, as is the case with earlier archaeological remains?
Also, since there is a wealth of documentary evidence available for the First World War in general, and the Ypres Salient in particular (e.g. maps, aerial photographs, letters, civilian and military memoirs, and regimental histories), can archaeological survey and excavation, with its focus on three-dimensional material culture, add anything new and meaningful to our understanding of the conflict in Belgian Flanders? In other words, can archaeology cover the same ground as military history but bring distinctive new perspectives by virtue of testing the ground rather than simply relying on the printed word? Further, to what extent might acknowledging the war’s archaeological heritage expand the scope and social impact of archaeology more generally in Flanders, in terms of the region’s museums, tourism industry, and local attitudes to what had been evident but overlooked for decades?
These are important questions that had been waiting in the wings for generations, but that only now could be openly asked by professional archaeologists with any hope of a meaningful response. All these questions, and the issues they raised, were crystallised by the A19 project, albeit preceded and given momentum by the rising profile of amateur Great War archaeology that had occurred during the 1990s with the activities of The Diggers, ABAF and others.
The Ypres Salient has a rich and complex military history, and the A19 area especially played a prominent role during the Battle of Second Ypres, between April and May 1915, and again in the Battle of Third Ypres (Passchendaele), which began on 31 July 1917. Nearby, the first use of gas occurred on 22 April 1915, when the Germans unleashed this new weapon against the Allied trenches. This was a significant technological and military development, whose invention and use influenced many later twentieth-century conflicts, and whose material traces from 1915 were found during the IAP’s investigations of the area.
The reconnaissance of the route of the projected A19 motorway extension investigated the area from Wieltje, near Ypres, to Steenstraete at Langemark-Poelkapelle, a distance of some 7 kilometres across the old Ypres Salient battlefield. Several locations were identified for trial excavations to assess the potential impact on the war’s archaeological heritage.
The investigations were designed to answer several important questions. What is the extent and state of preservation of the First World War’s archaeological heritage in this area? How widespread is the presence of human remains on the battlefield? What damage would be caused to the material and human remains of the area’s wartime archaeological record if the motorway was built along the projected route (Dewilde et al. 2004)?
Faced with an official request to conduct a professional archaeological investigation, the VIOE’s archaeologists drew on their expertise of surveying and excavating the region’s rich medieval heritage. At the time, there was no methodology specially tailored to investigating Great War sites, despite the extensive digging already carried out by The Diggers and ABAF. These groups were not trained archaeologists, and were motivated by enthusiasm and knowledge of Great War military history. Although ABAF published many of its results, overall these groups were not in any position to develop a scientific methodology for battlezone archaeology. The VIOE’s approach was to undertake substantial preliminary research in order to narrow down the area to be investigated in depth. It was here that the distinctive newness of Great War archaeology became apparent.
There was a wealth of different kinds of documentary material that could be consulted, each providing a different view of the same area, and often overlapping in highly insightful ways. Regimental archives produced official views of the military actions of their regiments, war diaries provided personal and anecdotal accounts of individual actions, trench maps revealed how soldiers on the ground carried out the orders from above, how they were organised, and the sheer extent of the transformation of the landscape in the Ypres Salient. Further, contemporary and modern aerial photographs yielded extraordinary bird’s-eye views of the changing battlefields that could be correlated with trench maps, and that gave detailed assessments of the effects of artillery barrages, advances and retreats. Traditional fieldwalking added further insights, especially in locating concentrations of metal scrap, concrete (from pillboxes), and traces of the Decauville narrow-gauge military railways that ferried men and supplies around the battlefield. All of these were powerful tools that enabled the VIOE to identify potentially valuable sites for excavation (de Meyer and Pype 2004: 9–18).
A significant innovation in this preliminary assessment, and an indication of the inescapably anthropological nature of Great War archaeology, was the creation of a ‘battlefield ethnography’, where contacts were made and interviews held with local residents (often landowners and farmers) to discover what they knew (or remembered) about Great War remains on their property. The VIOE saw this ethnographic approach as supplementing their archaeological prospecting, by helping them to identify vestiges of the war’s physical remains.
In fact, this mainstream anthropological technique also had a wider application in terms of gathering information not just about actual places and events, but about changing local attitudes towards the battlefields, and concerning myths and stories about the war that sometimes owed more to imagination than to history. It also served to stimulate sometimes long-buried personal and family memories of experiences of the war and its interwar aftermath. This approach to Great War landscapes stood on its own as a powerful way of investigating the period 1914 to the present, quite apart from its value in locating the physical remnants of the war itself.
On the basis of the initial reconnaissance, several sites, known as ‘Turco’ and ‘High Command Redoubt’, were chosen for preliminary excavations. Investigations near Hindenburg Farm on the Mauser Ridge – an important observation post on the German front line – revealed traces of shell craters, rectangular wooden structures, a dump of abandoned German stick grenades, the concrete rubble from now-destroyed pillboxes, the remains of what may have been a gun emplacement, and also of typically German panels of interwoven branches that lined the German trenches. Despite their small scale, these test results showed plainly that archaeology could uncover significant traces of both British and German positions.
More significant, and on a larger scale, was the open-area excavation of the site known as ‘Cross Roads’, which was virtually in the shadow of the incomplete flyover section of the A19 motorway, and adjacent to the small CWGC war cemetery known as Track X.
Excavations at Cross Roads revealed sections of trenches, shelters, ammunition depots and gun emplacements (de Meyer and Pype 2004: 19–28). Importantly, these investigations shed light on the evolution of trench building in an area where the Allied front line had become stable between 1915 and 1917. Original straight-line trenches had developed into a zigzag system in order to protect the soldiers from shell blasts, and to provide shelter from direct rifle fire by any enemy who broke into the trenches. The changing methods of trench construction were also evident, with the introduction of different kinds of structures and materials, such as A-frames, corrugated iron, explosion-proof metal and sandbags – all of which gave soldiers greater safety and comfort.
Archaeology also revealed a clear distinction between British and German constructions, with German structures being more solidly built with thick beams, in contrast to the flimsy planks used by the British. The German preference for revetting trenches with wattlework rather than the corrugated iron or explosion-proof metal used by the British also proved to be much more stable, as well as archaeologically identifiable. Unlike the British and their allies, for whom trenches were temporary staging posts for the next attack, the defending Germans had the time and opportunity to choose and massively reinforce strategic positions that were built to last. They often protected their wooden shelters with concrete walls, whereas the British did not. Military history and contemporary photographs had long pointed out the different attitudes towards, and building techniques of, trenches by the German army – but here was first-hand archaeological verification.
Unlike the written sources of military history, archaeology adds often highly emotive texture to the everyday life of soldiers in the trenches by uncovering the military and personal items they carried with them. The A19 excavations uncovered numerous examples of such portable objects, including cap badges, buttons and boots, as well as weapons, ammunition, tools, rum jars, razors, wristwatches, combs and even the fragmentary remains of an early gas mask in the form of its mica eyepieces (de Meyer and Pype 2004: 28–42). The preservation of these items brought a personal element to the investigations in ways not usually experienced in more traditional kinds of archaeology, where such items either do not survive, or, if they do, they cannot produce the uncanny feelings that such implements could have belonged to the excavator’s own relatives.
The regimental badges that were recovered indicated the presence of soldiers from the Royal King’s Rifle Corps and the Dorsetshire Regiment, among others, and a standard-issue spoon engraved with a soldier’s service number was tantalising evidence of the personalisation of belongings. Soldiers’ habits of carving their names or identifying numbers onto their equipment connects the excavator to the person rather than simply to the object, and may also allow later research to track down the individual in question. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that the item itself belonged to the individual with whose remains it was found. ‘Souveneering’, as we have seen, was a way of life during the war.
War, however, is fundamentally about the killing and wounding of soldiers, and, unlike most archaeologists, those who excavate Great War sites are almost certain to discover human remains. Moreover, these remains are often just scattered fragments of human beings who were killed by high explosive. While many were terribly mutilated, with their bodies blown across the landscape and into shell craters, others were virtually atomised into nothingness, and their remains little more than small pieces of bone. How to treat (and identify) such poignant remains is an ongoing challenge to Great War archaeologists.
The A19 excavations uncovered the remains of five British, five French, and three German soldiers. At one location at the Cross Roads site, three soldiers were found piled one on top of the other, suggesting to the excavators that they may have died during an attack. A Webley handgun, rather than the more usual Lee Enfield rifle, suggested that one individual may have been a machine-gunner (de Meyer and Pype 2004: 38). As the VIOE’s archaeologists recovered these remains, there was a sense that with each discovery another personal history came into view, and the opportunity arose of identifying and reclaiming a soldier from the lists of ‘the missing’ engraved on the Menin Gate and Tyne Cot cemetery. There was a very anthropological dimension to what appeared to be a strictly archaeological investigation.
The excavations of the A19 Project clearly showed that the First World War possessed significant archaeological traces, and that this war’s physical remains should be regarded as an important part of Belgian Flanders’ cultural heritage. Equally significant, and a demonstration of the political dimension of archaeology, was the fact that on the basis of the VIOE’s discoveries (as well as international media coverage of the investigations), the Flemish government announced in August 2005 that it would not to go through with the original plan for the A19 extension. Instead, the motorway would be diverted along a new course that avoided the front lines and the battlefields.
This was a victory for the fledgling archaeology of the Great War, and a public (and political) acknowledgement of the importance of Great War heritage in Flanders. It brought Great War archaeology centre stage, and showed that modern scientific investigations of the war’s physical remains could provide new information for discussions about and evaluations of such developments as motorway construction, and the building of industrial estates and housing. Now, the traces of the First World War had to be regarded on the same basis as Belgium’s better-known prehistoric and medieval heritage, and damage assessments would have to be made in advance of any urban renewal projects.
The breathtaking speed of Great War archaeology’s development in Belgian Flanders does not disguise the fact that this new kind of archaeology possesses many unique and distinctive features that are only now beginning to be addressed. Not least of these is ensuring the safety of excavators in a landscape still saturated with volatile unexploded munitions. Constant contact has to be maintained with the bomb disposal team of the Belgian army based at Houthulst near Langemark, whose expertise in recognising and assessing the origin, type and stability of explosives provides archaeologists with important information as well as personal protection. Never far from the minds of Great War archaeologists in Belgium (and France) is the fact that what they are engaged in is, fundamentally, the ‘archaeology of lethal behaviour’.
The A19 Project also contributed significantly to the development of methodologies for this new kind of archaeology, particularly in the recognition of features and artefacts not normally encountered in Flemish archaeology’s more usual kinds of work. While the VIOE’s archaeologists were used to excavating prehistoric and medieval sites, with distinctive and well-documented pottery, burials and structures, they were now confronted with largely unfamiliar Great War landscapes and material culture. Artillery-shell craters, evolving trench systems and gun emplacements were now archaeological features, and bombs, bullets, grenades, rifles and uniforms were archaeological finds. And interspersed with all these were the remains of men appearing like images from a horror movie – skeletons wearing steel helmets and boots, or pieces of the body blown apart by high explosive. All human remains had to be carefully and sensitively treated, but what, for example, constituted a ‘body’? Did a leg bone represent a body? An arm? A head? And what happened if no identity tag was found?
It was clear that creating innovative methodologies for Great War archaeology required philosophical and theoretical issues to be raised, as well as new practical techniques developed, and knowledge gained. For example, archaeologists need to consider that in their initial archaeological reconnaissance their finds would vary, not least because after 1918 the Ypres Salient had seen unequal levels of battlefield clearance. The reasons for this remain unclear, although they could be linked to individual landowners’ decisions about such activity. So the density of remains today will not necessarily reflect the battlefields during the war, the battles fought on them, or even the situation in 1919. As with all archaeological investigations, post-depositional factors have been at work.
There is also the issue of that most basic kind of archaeological prospection – fieldwalking. Is fieldwalking and tracing concentrations of mostly metal scrap the best way of locating sites for excavation, especially in landscapes that have been officially cleared of battlefield debris during the interwar years? And, in uncleared or partially cleared areas, what should be the role of metal detecting in an archaeological landscape defined by its metallic nature? What, in such conditions, are the possibilities for geophysical research? How can we recognise and best excavate bomb craters, and can we identify telltale signs indicating the presence of human remains among the debris of industrialised war?
Although these are difficult methodological issues, the discovery of human remains is not a new phenomenon. Ever since refugees had returned to the battlefields of the Ypres Salient in 1919, soldiers’ remains had been found on a yearly basis (although they were not investigated by archaeologists). While the VIOE’s archaeologists have professional issues to consider, the treatment of human remains follows a well-established practice. The bodies are recorded in the normal way – by drawing, photography and initial on-site examination by physical/forensic anthropologists. The local police then take possession of the bones and the items associated with them, such as buttons, badges, miscellaneous military equipment and personal belongings. Where time permits, a more detailed forensic examination may be made. The remains are then given to the war graves authorities of the appropriate country, each of which follows its own procedures that culminate in the formal reburial of the remains.
The identification (where possible) and reburial process is another distinguishing feature of Great War archaeology, where human remains are placed back in the ground, rather than shelved in storage boxes in a university or museum. In this way, Great War archaeology shares a moral as well as a methodological set of concerns with those kinds of archaeology that deal with indigenous peoples across the world, and who themselves seek to identify, repatriate and rebury their dead (see Hubert 1989; Zimmerman 1989). Learning to ‘read’ and interpret this new kind of archaeological evidence remains a challenge for all who specialise in the archaeology of war.
Modern archaeology is not only concerned with the theoretical and practical investigations at ground level, but has over the past two decades increasingly taken advantage of new technological developments – some of which can be traced back to the First World War. One of these developments became an integral part of the A19 Project, and has since broadened its remit to include the interpretation of aerial photographs, and analysis and manipulation of these images using powerful computer imaging software. While the potential of aerial photography in archaeological investigations is well established, in Great War archaeology it can be combined with different kinds of information, such as that offered by trench maps and detailed documentary records. The photographs themselves belong to different eras – wartime, the interwar period and today. It is only recently that this wealth of aerial images has been modified and interpreted by integrating them with Geographical Information System (GIS) computer programs.
Recent work by Birger Stichelbaut included digitising over a thousand aerial photographs from the First World War in Belgian Flanders, and entering them into a GIS program at the University of Ghent (Stichelbaut 2006). The exact locations of 1,039 out of a total of 1,128 images were identified, overcoming, for the main part, such problems as correlating the wartime names of landscape features with modern ones, and the expansion of some villages since 1918. As wartime aerial photography became more sophisticated, armies on both sides learned to camouflage the telltale appearance of their bunkers and artillery emplacements, although stereoscopic pictures often overcame these efforts. Digital stereoscopic images called anaglyphs have proved equally successful at revealing such hidden features some ninety years later. The identified sites were then inventoried, with information concerning size, coordinates, nationality and date.
While this project was developed for studying the First World War, its results also proved useful for more traditional kinds of archaeology. The information yielded not only revealed information on Great War sites, but also on environmental features and the presence of prehistoric and medieval sites, some of which were destroyed during the course of the war and were hitherto unknown. The majority of features did, however, belong to the war, and, despite local differences in geology and topography, it was possible to distinguish between gun emplacements, infantry locations and a variety of structures behind the front line, as well as to discern otherwise invisible features such as deep dugouts and mines.
So sensitive was this computer-aided technique that it was also possible to identify dummy trenches (originally dug to mislead aerial photographers during the war) by observing the absence of shadows due to their shallow construction. Barbed wire could also be identified because of the geometrical arrangement of the wooden stakes that held it in place, bunkers housing German Minenwerfer (trench mortars) revealed themselves by a rectangular roof opening, narrow-gauge Decauville railways could be seen because of their curving lines, and even listening posts showed up as small round spots on the landscape. Artillery emplacements were often set in horseshoe-shaped embankments, easily seen from above, and ammunition dumps have paths leading to them. One of the most spectacular images is of German war cemeteries near to the front-line trenches and contemporary with the war. These were often laid out as huge decorative figures in the landscape, such as the cross-shaped one nearby Bixschote north of Ypres (which also has an identifiable German artillery battery adjacent to it).
The remarkable detail revealed in these digitised images, their accompanying information, and the ability of computerised cartography to produce time-sensitive layers that can be removed or added at will to show the changing nature of the front line, represents a significant advance for Great War archaeology. Equally important in this respect was the work of Mathieu de Meyer, who made an inventory of First World War features in the Ypres Salient using aerial photographs on behalf of the VIOE and the In Flanders Fields Museum.
This research was directly tied to public education and to changing public perceptions of the war, when it was used by the In Flanders Fields Museum in the ambitious exhibition on war landscapes, The Last Witness, in 2006. This research into the potential of aerial photography in Great War archaeology (and beyond) by a new generation of scholars means that today we have the potential for a far greater appreciation of the war than was available during the conflict itself (de Meyer 2005; Stichelbaut 2005, 2006, 2009, Stichelbaut et al. 2009) – a fact reflected in a groundbreaking, international conference on this topic held in Ypres in October 2006 (and sponsored jointly by the European Union, Ghent University and the In Flanders Fields Museum).
Another aspect of the unique nature of Great War archaeology also became apparent during the VIOE’s A19 Project. It was clear that in order to document and interpret the vast quantities of largely unfamiliar Great War materials, the VIOE required the cooperation of many different kinds of specialist, amateur and professional, in Belgium and internationally. Fortunately, the First World War has inspired many such individuals, who focus almost entirely on one or two specific kinds of feature, whether military maps, regimental badges, firearms, artillery shells, uniforms, memorabilia, or the various techniques of trench construction (e.g. Chasseaud 1999; Williamson 2003). As Marc Dewilde, the VIOE’s chief archaeologist, observed, ‘a unique feature of the First World War is that, in addition to military historians, it attracts a large and wide-ranging number of specialist groups. Together, they form a rich repository of specialised knowledge …’ (Dewilde et al. 2004).
This knowledge was necessary if Great War archaeologists were going to be able to identify British, Belgian French, and German bullets, to discern the difference between shrapnel and gas artillery shells, to identify a German bunker, to distinguish between a French and British trench, or identify the fragmentary remains of a rifle or mortar. Not only could the VIOE call on this wealth of outside expertise in its analysis of excavated materials, but, at the same time, it became a legal and professional focus for the networks of dedicated experts across the world.
A further challenge to the A19 excavators, and an issue that has (and will continue to have) a profound impact on the ways in which future generations will view Great War archaeology, was the amount of media attention the project received, and the effect of this on the public. Newspapers from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the United States and even Japan regarded this new kind of archaeology as newsworthy. This, in turn, and together with word of mouth, stimulated the interest of considerable numbers of the public, many of whom visited the excavations – far more than would come to see the excavation of a Bronze Age burial or a Roman fort.
Schoolchildren (from Belgium, France and the United Kingdom), visitors on a battlefield package tour, knowledgeable Great War enthusiasts, and the simply curious all turned up on site, visiting the place where, some may have believed, a relative could have fought or died. Such were the numbers of visitors that on occasion the VIOE’s excavation team was overwhelmed. Faxes, e-mails and letters expressing appreciation, giving information and offering help flowed into the offices of the VIOE and to the team on site.
The presence of many different kinds of visitors emphasises the anthropological dimension of Great War archaeology, and highlights the problems and potential of excavating such recent and sensitive layers of history. More than just an archaeological dig, the A19 Project (and similar excavations on the Somme) connected to the cultural memory of the war, and was underlined by the emotional resonances that link generations by tying people to places, either by historical fact or imagined associations. At one point during the excavations at Cross Roads, the remains of a Northumberland Fusilier soldier were found, and visitors covered the ground with poppies and remembrance crosses, objects more usually associated with larger-scale and meticulously orchestrated 11 November Armistice commemorations.
The investigations at the Cross Roads site were designed to test the potential of archaeology to identify and document the area’s Great War heritage, but had another, equally significant, result. Archaeological activity was seen to be visibly extending the landscapes of remembrance, and connecting the public with wider notions of commemoration that hitherto had been focused almost solely on official war grave cemeteries and monuments to the missing, such as the Menin Gate and Tyne Cot cemetery. In other words, archaeology was actively contributing to a more nuanced and personal understanding of the First World War by temporarily creating places (the archaeological excavation itself) where the public could stand on a battlefield and observe the retrieval of a long-dead soldier. Arguably more than any other kind of archaeology, the excavation of Great War sites was producing an intimate relationship with the general public.
A more problematic development, as we have already seen, was the advent of a television archaeology of the war. As with excavations in France, 2003 and 2004 saw Canadian television companies actively financing a series of programmes according to a commercial rather than a strictly academic research agenda, albeit with the involvement of professional archaeologists. The series of programmes that were produced ranged over Great War sites in France and Belgium, providing opportunities to investigate hitherto untouched battlefield locations, and making significant discoveries.
Most recently, in the Ypres region, television excavations have taken place at Bixschote, and at the Great War locations known as ‘Forward Cottage’ and ‘Caesar’s Nose’. Here, as in France, the results of these excavations have not yet been published at the time of writing, and those who were involved cannot yet comment on them. The issue of publication is, of course, something which future television archaeology – with its central role of promoting and financing, rather than just recording other people’s investigations – will have to address. This is particularly the case in Belgium, where there is currently no equivalent to the popular publications that the French regional archaeological services (DRAC) publish concerning their investigations. This fact also accounts for the comparative lack of detailed archaeological information available concerning Great War excavations as compared to the situation in France.
While television archaeology of the kind described here has many advantages for professional archaeologists investigating the First World War, its influence on such a new kind of archaeology, which is still formulating its own methodologies, is a double-edged sword.
Recent advances in the recognition and practice of a modern scientific archaeology of the First World War in Belgian Flanders have been rapid and dramatic, although this new discipline is still in its infancy. Most importantly, there has been a sea change in attitudes. There is now no doubt that professional investigation of the material culture of the First World War is a scientifically and culturally worthwhile endeavour. Indeed, Great War archaeology is a prime example of what has recently been called ‘the archaeologies of the contemporary past’ (Buchli and Lucas 2001), and is therefore firmly situated in the vanguard of new kinds of archaeological investigations.
Equally important is the fact that the change in professional attitudes towards Great War archaeology has been accompanied by official recognition that the physical traces of the conflict must be fully integrated into Flanders’ overall archaeological heritage. In other words, the Flemish government’s 1993 decree that dealt with the management, research and protection of the region’s archaeological heritage is now extended to the First World War, and can be legally enforced. Great War sites and finds now have to be reported to the authorities, and the granting of excavation permits and use of metal detectors are strictly controlled, just as they would be with prehistoric and medieval remains. The application of the act to First World War remains thus regulates and minimises damage to sites by construction activities, and by those who engage in illicit digging. As everywhere else around the world, however, the existence of legislation is one matter; having the time and financial resources available to enforce it is quite another.
One consequence of this new professional approach has been efforts to identify and define areas that require legal recognition as heritage locations. In 2004, in the framework of the Central Archaeological Inventory, a new project began with the aim of documenting all Great War archaeological sites in Western Flanders. Once completed, this inventory allows for sites to be evaluated and for some to be listed for protection as designated war landscapes, and perhaps, eventually, to be investigated. By registering and classifying war-related sites, the public are also drawn in by a heightened awareness of the heritage value of these locations, and can sometimes be organised in support for their protection. A sympathetic local population can be crucial to monitoring the sites, and when considered altogether, these developments should make illicit digs far more difficult.
Apart from these official developments, the professional excavations along the old Ypres Salient have highlighted the true value of a modern archaeology of the war. They have shown that information retrieved by professional archaeologists is more accurate, detailed and nuanced than that which can be gained only by looking at trench maps and aerial photographs in a more traditional military history approach. Archaeological fieldwork can identify sudden changes in the conditions of war, such as trench repairs made after heavy shelling, and the presence of soldiers in a particular spot for a short period. Excavation can reveal unexpected structures, such as the entrance to a deep dugout or an ammunition depot, and the extent to which it may have changed hands between Allied and German forces. A more detailed understanding of the evolution of trench construction can also be gained, where, for example, the dimension of duckboards may indicate a date for their construction and for the trench within which they are found. Excavation also uncovers the terrible effects of industrialised war on the human bodies, and the emotive artefacts belonging to or made by individuals.
Such fine-grained details, uncovered by archaeologists, and interpreted with the help of the many specialists referred to above, can add new insights into the conduct and human cost of particular battles at specific locations, and clarify ambiguities that are beyond the abilities of other kinds of investigation to resolve. Archaeology can test the assumptions and interpretations of military history, offer a soldier’s-eye view of a skirmish or battle, and bring an intimacy to the experiences of soldiers through the objects they left behind.
As in France, arguably the most significant and sensitive contributions of Belgium’s new approach to the war’s archaeology is in the locating, documenting and recovering of the dead. Archaeologists always take painstaking care when uncovering human remains, but in the archaeology of the First World War there is a unique and overriding imperative at work. These are not Bronze Age warriors, Roman legionaries or medieval peasants, forever divorced in time and space from the archaeologists who excavate them and from those who come to visit. The soldiers of the Great War are, essentially, our own and very recent ancestors, to whom we still feel intimately connected.
As many soldiers who fought in the battles around Ypres have no known grave, not even the smallest fragment of battlefield evidence can be neglected because it may contribute to the identification of an individual. In other words, archaeology can bring back those who are lost to us, either by complete identification or partially, as was the case with Private George Herbert Parker from Barnsley in Yorkshire, who had served with the 5th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment, and was killed in action aged 23 on Sunday 11 July 1915 at Boezinge. Along with those of thirty other men from his battalion who died in No Man’s Land during the attack, Parker’s remains have never been identified, and his name is engraved on panel 55 at the Menin Gate memorial to the missing at Ypres.
Parker’s case, like that of the German soldiers Jakob Hönes and Albert Thielicke at Serre, in France, shows the power and poignancy of Great War objects in a heart-rending way. In August 2000, during excavations by The Diggers at Boezinge, an old-fashioned ‘cut-throat’ razor was found with Parker’s service number, 716, scratched onto it. When Aurel Sercu, one of the team members at the time, published an article in the Barnsley Chronicle, hoping to find relatives, he was contacted by Mr John Hutchinson, the widower of George Parker’s granddaughter – and unsuspectingly opened a Pandora’s box of tangled emotions and memories.
Instead of asking for the razor to be sent back to England, Hutchinson sent Sercu a package that contained a photograph of the young soldier George Parker and his war service medal. George Parker’s widow Beatrice had kept these two items from her tragically short first marriage, and they had been retained by the family. It was explained to Sercu that the photograph and medal of George Parker should not only be reunited with the razor, but that all three objects belonged more to those who had found a trace of him on an almost forgotten Flanders battlefield than to himself. Perhaps it was felt that sending the two items to Belgium would have been Beatrice’s last wish (Aurel Sercu, pers. comm.).
Here was a transference of what might be called an ‘orphan memory’, a way of making sure that a young soldier of the First World War was never forgotten despite the circumstances of his death. Ironically, The Diggers, and perhaps Aurel Sercu most of all, despite being total strangers to George and Beatrice Parker, had become almost a substitute family, the sole inheritors and keepers of a young man’s life. The medal, photograph and razor were donated by Sercu and The Diggers to the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, where they rest alongside so many other items returned to the museum by the descendants of Great War soldiers (Dendooven 2007). After almost ninety years, a single object – the inscribed razor – had reclaimed the identity, appearance and memory of a missing soldier.
Great War archaeology, as this example shows, has the potential to reclaim some of ‘the missing’, to identify, perhaps name individuals, on occasion permitting a formal reburial in a war cemetery, and bringing closure to the descendants, whether Allied or German, after almost a century. In this sense, Great War archaeology (in Belgium, France, Italy, Greece and beyond) connects the past directly to the present, and in the most emotive and personal way.
One of the most important advantages of excavating Great War sites is that it changes our perspective by redirecting attention away from the grand strategies of military history towards the everyday realities and experiences of the ordinary soldier. Furthermore, it has the power to associate particular events with a specific topography, linking the physical experience of landscape – a sense of changing heights and the textures and smells of different terrains – to details of a battle or skirmish known hitherto only from documentary evidence.
As Great War archaeology begins to mature in Belgian Flanders, excavations such as the A19 Project play a crucial role in shaping a highly focused methodology for this new kind of archaeological investigation, where landscapes themselves are seen as artefacts that not only preserve the past, but also define and redefine people through time. Beyond the theoretical considerations and technical developments, the existence and practice of a professional archaeology of the war also attracts a wider particpation in, and a deeper understanding of, the complex relationships between excavation, commemoration, heritage and tourism. As in France, Great War archaeology in Belgium must become a truly interdisciplinary endeavour, calling on all kinds of expertise if it is to fulfil its ethical as well as its scientific and historical responsibilities and potential.