Day Two Itinerary
Approximate start time of 0830 and finish between 1200-1400. When designing this day’s itinerary I have in mind it being your final day of the tour. Therefore, I have made it a half day, assuming that you would be departing for onward transport back to the UK at some point in the afternoon. It is also a less intense day, in general, than Day One in Ypres. If you just did the four main visits then you would probably be finished by 1200. If you did all of the additional ones then you can add two hours. It would be relatively straight forward to add another couple of visits (see suggested extra Ypres visits at the end of this itinerary) to make it a full day, if required.
2a. Pool of Peace
2b. Bayernwald Trench System
2c. Hill 60
1. Messines Church
20 minutes
Messines (Mesen) can be easily reached by taking the N366/N365 south out of Ypres. After approximately 10km you will reach the smallest city in Belgium. You can park in the central square. From there, you will be able to see the church spire – walk to the church.
Context
Good views of the battlefield from this German strongpoint and a link to future men of high importance!
Orientation
As you look at the entrance to the church, there is a grassed area to the right. You will see a semi-circular orientation table. This is a good place to gather and from here you are looking from the German position, prior to Third Ypres in 1917, towards the British lines. The contrast in tactical placement is stark! This is a good place to talk before heading into the Church.
Spiel
Then:
This church was wiped from the map by the end of the war but was rebuilt in 1928 to a smaller scale. It was very much in safe German territory, on the strongpoint of the Messines Ridge. One part of the church remains original however: the crypt.26 This was a particularly good place for German soldiers to shelter during a heavy bombardment or to receive medical treatment. One German corporal speaks of the inner turmoil of a soldier and of the fighting endured in Flanders:
‘The time came when everyone had to fight between the instinct of self-preservation and the admonition of duty. I, too, was not spared this inner struggle. Whenever death was on the hunt, an undefinable something tried to revolt, tried to present itself to the weak body in the form of reason […] but the more this voice tried to warn me […] the sharper was my resistance.’
And, during combat:
‘suddenly an iron salute came whizzing over our heads towards us and with a sharp report the small bullets struck between our rows, whipping up the wet earth; but before the small cloud had dispersed, out of two hundred throats the first hurrah roared a welcome to the first messenger of death. But then it began to crackle and roar, to sing and howl […] the fight of man against man. But from the distance the sounds of a song […] Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles.’27