dedicated to the great battlefield sites of Europe

Furnes Lock Gate, the one opened to

flood the polder in 1914

The ‘Sluizenc

Complex Ganzenpoot’ (Goose Foot) is key to the labyrinth of waterways that criss-cross the polders between the coastal dunes and the Flanders hills. Three shipping canals and three drainage canal linking Nieuport to Ostend, Brugge, Ypres and Dunkirk converge here. The canals once played an important role in the region’s economic welfare but now lie mostly dormant.

The Ganzenpoot was crucial in haltingthe German advance through Flanders in 1914. The Battle of the Yser began on 18th October when the German Fourth Army attacked between Nieuport and Diksmuide. For several days, remote rural communities such as Keiem, Beerst, Esen and Vladslo were at the centre of furious combat.

British Memorial to the Missing

On the outskirts of town is the most northerly CWGC Cemetery on the Western Front: Ramskapelle Road British Cemetery which contains over 800 burials. A few kilometres south of Nieupoort lies the front-line village of Ramskapelle; amid the rising flood water fighting culminated here on 31st October. Testament to the by the Belgian Army as a front line observation post and destruction of Ramskapelle are the ruins of the old railway station, used today preserved as a memorial to the devastation of 1914. The crumbling walls are in stark contrast to the rest of the modern, landscaped village.

Ruins of the old railway station, Ramskapelle

Many of the Belgian soldiers who died are buried in the Ramskapelle Belgian Military Cemetery, situated on the outskirts of the village on the road to Nieuport. The headstones are given a splash of colour by incorporating the Belgian tricolour into the design. Several concrete bunkers can be seen in the fields around the village, these being the most northerly fortifications on the Western Front.

              

Belgian Military Cemetery, Ramskapelle

To the south of Ramskapelle, the polder landscape unfolds into a flat expanse of soggy fields and marshland punctuated by a few clumps of forlorn looking trees, the occasional regimental memorial, a farmhouse or two and distant church spires.

The peaceful hamlet of Tervaete lies on a pronounced bend of the river about midway between Ramskapelle and Diksmuide. Next to the roadside, a diamond marker pinpoints the 'Tervaete Brug' where German troops crossed the river on 22nd October and established a bridgehead on the left bank. A hundred yards or so downriver the Monument of the Grenadiers is a simple tribute to several hundred Belgian troops who lost their lives here. Many of these soldiers now rest among the 628 burials at the Belgian Military Cemetery at Keiem, on the opposite bank of the canal.

Monument of the Grenadiers,

Tervaete

Between Tervaete and Stuivekenskerke lies the bleak but enchanting Viconia Kleiputten (Clay Pits) Nature Reserve – a wilderness of reeds and marsh plants from which the old Nieuport brickworks once extracted its clay. It is home to a variety of water birds including reed-warblers, bitterns and herons. The hamlet of Oud-Stuivenskerke was an exposed Belgian outpost facing the German-occupied left-bank.

The position was commanded by Captain Lekeuk, a Franciscan father, and is now the setting for the little Memorial Chapel ‘Notre Dame of Victory’. Next to the chapel are the remains of the original church tower used as an artillery observation post. A demarcation stone still bears the original Flemish inscription ‘here the invader was stopped.’

Belgian Memorial in front of the 'Death Passage'

The most notorious location on the Yser was the aptly-christened Trench of Death or ‘Death Passage’. This narrow strip of concrete fortifications – a pivotal part of the Belgian front line – extended for several hundred yards along the canal-side.

The position came under incessant fire from artillery and mortar as the opposing forces confronted each other across the polluted water, less than fifty yards apart. Most units of the Belgian Army saw service here, but three days was as much as could be endured before soldiers had to be withdrawn.

View from the Death Passage, looking towards Diksmuide

Neglected for many years, the Death Passage was excavated in the 1970’s and is still the subject of a restoration programme under the administration of the Belgian Military. With a new visitors’ centre fronting the site, this is a peaceful spot now - a far cry from the hell hole of 1914/15. In summer, barges glide by on their way to and from the nearby marina at Diksmuide while, poignantly, little patches of poppies sometimes grow along the canal embankments.

Diksmuide fell into German hands on 10th November and was not recovered until the Allied Flanders Offensive of September 1918. After the war, it was rebuilt in its original Flemish style. The Ijzertoren, an 84 metre-high tower looms over the town, a symbol of Flemish nationhood and a commemoration of the 40,000 Flemings who died on the Yser Front.

The Ijsertoren, Diksmuide

The initials AVV-VVK (standing for ‘All for Flanders – Flanders for Christ’) which emblazon the top of the tower echo the slogan that emerged from the trenches among Flemish troops who believed themselves to be the victims of widespread discrimination at the hands of their French-speaking officers.

A few kilometres north-east of Dixmude lies Vladslo German Military Cemetery, setting for the famous ‘Mourning Parents’, a remarkable sculpture by the German artist Kathe Kollwitz. Born of one tragedy but encapsulating the tragedy of thousands more, the figurines were carved out of solid granite over a period of eighteen years in remembrance of the artist’s eighteen year old son, Peter, killed in October 1914.

The 'Mourning Parents', Vladslo

The facial expressions are of disbelief, incredulity and utter despondency; they tell simply and movingly of the slaughter that ensued in those first few weeks of warfare and the unbearable price that was paid by the Kaiser’s Iron Youth. The utterly subdued atmosphere to be found here is only added to by the grim clusters of Teutonic crosses set across the lawns and the mass of overhanging trees and foliage that can bring darkness early over this sad place.

To the South of Vladslo, the polder begins to give way to firmer, wooded ground and gentle hills around Klerken and Houthulst. Once part of a single community, these neighbouring villages thrived in the latter part of the 19th century through but fell into ruin during the Yser fighting. They lie in the slightly foreboding shadow of the mighty Houthulst Forest. The woodland was a key German artillery position from which the Allied lines around Diksmuide and Ypres were relentlessly bombarded. Notoriously, it was from here that the poison gas unleashed on the Allied lines north of Ypres was unleashed in April 1915.

              Houthulst Forest Belgian Military Cemetery

Sheltered on the edge of the forest, next to the roadside lies the 'Militair Kerkhof van Houthulst', the largest of over fifty Belgian war cemeteries in Flanders. There are around 1,800 graves including some belonging to French soldiers and to Italians who died during captivity in German labour
camps in the area. The arcs of Belgian graves before the forest's dark canopy  makes for a sombre scene. Most graves here correspond to the Allied Flanders Offensive of 1918, though some date from October 1914 when Houthulst fell to the invaders.

The forest is still used by the Belgian Army to dispose of the haul of unexploded munitions that continue to surface in the area. The ground is more or less pure clay with little or no topsoil and water is unable to drain away. During the war, this turned the ground to a porridge-like mush which spread its putrid slime across the polluted landscape, mingling with the gas vapours and corpses to give off a terrible, nauseating stench. You can still see the inundations of shell holes and the shallow contours of trench lines ghosting between the densely packed trees.

The tail end of the Yser Front is in the vicinity of Steenstraat and Boezinge; it was here that the French - and later the British - took over the line. Several monuments are found in the area, surrounded by rugged, rather cheerless farmland. They include a monument to the Belgian 3rd Division near Hoekske and another at Lizerne to the Belgian Grenadiers who held the position during the Second Battle of Ypres. There is a memorial to two brothers, Frans and Edward van Raemdonck, both killed at Steenstraat on 26th March 1917 and now buried in the crypt of the Ijzertoren.

Steenstraat Cross

One hard-to-miss addition to the landscape is the huge aluminium Cross of Conciliation & Peace, one of three memorials to the victims of the gas attack. The base is inscribed with details of the attack which originally made reference to the Germans as ‘barbarians’, resulting in the removal of the original during the Second World War. From Steenstraat, the main road continues to follow the bend of the Yser as far as Boezinge from where the tall, grey spires of Ypres come into view…