Battlefield Tours - France

July 1997
The 'Last Post' is played in Ypres at 8pm every evening to honour soldiers who gave their lives in Flanders during the First World War. In Belgium and France a new industry is increasingly gaining popularity - war graves' tours. Muriel Nottall, on a four day battlefield and grave tour from England, lays a poppy at a grave of an unknown soldier 'because they are often neglected'. Tony Webb has brought his 83 year old father on the tour in order to show him his father's grave. Soldiers from all over the world died a usually unheroic death in the muddy trenches of these battlefields. A small ceremony is held by tour organiser, Joe Street, to commemorate the most unheroic soldiers of all; those 'shot at dawn' for desertion. They are remembered now mostly with pity. As the battlefield tour moves on to France, more commemorations are held for the Canadians who joined the allied attack at the Somme, where over 1 million lives were lost in just four and a half months.

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[5872steve]

Butcher Haig, Never could understand why we have a statue of the murdering Bastard in the uk.

[THthefirst]

@PATRICKEIRE that's why britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, years ahead of anyone else, why they developed limits to the king's power and the common law to protect the freedom of individuals?

[TheGary1882]

@lukebccb Really, 14 yr olds, french fighting for france in ww1, bravest of men. Last of the fighting stock, how many can you put in the field today ? Any ? Would you send them here to defend our soil ? Not likely.

[MrPUNK3D]

I liked this video because of the Assassin's Creed trailer at the beginning

[Greenhornet270]

Beautiful....God Bless the Fallen...I am a Vietnam Veteran; wars do NOT work....

[legomyeggo713]

@lukebccb i respect all soldiers french german english american i dont care if the soldier is a coward ahem (french) they still have more balls than the average man

[lukebccb]

There are the too many Americans with the intellectual development of a 14 year-old adolescent boy that is constantly frothing about the "surrender monkey French" and I always tell those little cretins why don't they say that to the surviving descendents of the 1,400,000 French soldiers that died fighting to keep the Germans off French soil.

[Litterboxer529]

My great-grandpa's brother, Arthur Rosenberg, died in the woods at Ypres. He died because of Poison Gas.

Lest we Forget

[baragentledragon]

@jonwvin the illuminati started and always start every war! elites,rothschilds,solvay,bron­fmanns,rockerfellers,prescott bush,georges grandad funded adolf hitler! they always invest their money in wars and make a fortune out of it! at the expense of young mens lives,in the flower of youth! we dont go to war,they create them first,then send us to kill maim and drop bombs on women and kids,and thats ok? thou shalt not kill?out the window when it suits! you kill, jail,in god we trust? which god?

[baragentledragon]

@jonwvin the illuminati started and always start every war! elites,rothschilds,solvay,bron­fmanns,rockerfellers,prescott bush,georges grandad funded adolf hitler! they always invest their money in wars and make a fortune out of it! at the expense of young mens lives,in the flower of youth! we dont go to war,they create them first,then send us to kill maim and drop bombs on women and kids,and thats ok? thou shalt not kill?out the window when it suits!you kill,jail,in god we trust? which god?

[edgedeva]

haig wasnt a butcher he did what he knew and knew as much as anyone else in that war.it was all new then.the only thing i would fault him for ,and it would have gone against what was accepted then,would be that he could have had more control over his generals who went against his better judgement, i.e. he wanted to rush the trenches on the somme at the start of the battle but his general on the spot didnt think the new army could run like old soldiers and made them walk .

[jakebarnes28]

I asked this question before - but here goes again: were there any officers who understood the new dynamic of static lines and industrial war-machines thus devising strategy and tactics that would mitigate or vitiate the need for the tactics used? As the saying goes hindsight is 20/20. For decency to flourish is charity and empathy not necessary? The only thing I can be sure of is that I have no idea how I would've reacted - desertion is surely a possibility. The terror and fear...