Tour Three:

Going Further: Mons, Arras, Loos and Neuve Chapelle

An introduction to sites beyond Ypres and the Somme

The vast majority of visitors to the Western Front visit Ypres and the battlefields of the Somme; few venture beyond these areas. For me, some of the very best sites are to be found in other locations and, if one truly wants to get a grasp of how and where the war started, its ebbs and flows and ultimate end, then you have to go further afield.

This, much smaller, section is simply meant to fire your interest for further travel and acts as an introduction to Mons, Arras, Loos and Neuve Chapelle. It provides an outline itinerary for a one day visit encompassing all of these locations. If you choose to follow this exactly, then be prepared for a heavy and busy schedule! Covering the sites in one day is possible – I have done it with a group of forty people in tow – but if you have more time then you could spread these visits over several days by going to the extra visits, marked with an *.

I have also assumed that if you are reading this chapter, and considering going beyond the usual Western Front tourist routes of the previous chapters, then you are comfortably versed in the history of the war, or at least inspired to carry out wider reading beyond this short book. Therefore, rather than setting out this chapter in the paint-by-numbers style of the previous two, I have stripped it back to a simple paragraph of detail for each stop.

However you choose to use this next section, I hope it intrigues you enough to make the short journeys required to discover a whole new perspective on the Great War. The visits are ideal for both large parties and the individual visitor. Visits to Mons and Arras work particularly well with school parties.