Steps to sacrifice

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Steps to sacrifice

Supporting troops of the 1st Australian Division walking on a duckboard track near Hooge, in the Ypres Sector.

Supporting troops of the 1st Australian Division walking on a duckboard track near Hooge, in the Ypres Sector.Credit: Getty Images

As the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War approaches, Antony Mason reports on what anyone planning a trip to Ypres, Passchendaele, the Somme or Arras can expect to discover.

The statistics are numbing. Nearly 12,000 Commonwealth soldiers lie buried at Tyne Cot cemetery near Ypres, with a further 35,000 listed there as missing.

More than 250 tons of unexploded munitions are still found every year along the Western Front, the residue of 1.45 billion shells which the Germans and the Allies hurled at each other during four years of war.

On the face of it, this hardly seems the stuff of tourism. But World War I is a story that can be told and retold on so many levels - military, social, family - that it exerts a powerful fascination still, and for all generations.

First World War tourism may now sustain Ypres, and many towns and cities along the snaking path of the Western Front prosper from it. But few of those tourists return unaffected by what they see and learn when they get there. And now that the centenary of the outbreak of hostilities, which began in August 1914, is approaching, those towns and sights are anticipating a new surge of interest in the war. New museums are opening, older ones being renovated, and many events are planned.

THE WESTERN FRONT

IN BELGIUM

Belgian Flanders is a well-worn stamping ground for First World War battlefield tours, following the front line that bulged to the east of Ypres - the Ypres Salient. Several of its better museums have been busily upgrading ahead of 2014.

In Flanders Field Museum, Ypres Revamped and reopened in 2012, this museum in the Cloth Halls of Ypres, destroyed during the war and renovated afterwards, presents the story of the First World War along the West Flanders front and sets the gold standard for all the Western Front museums. (inflandersfields.be.)

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Also in Ypres, at the Menin Gate memorial to British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient and whose graves are unknown, the Last Post ceremony continues to take place every evening at 8pm. (lastpost.be.)

The Memorial Museum of Passchendaele 1917, Zonnebeke

The museum recently opened a new extension and outdoor trench reconstructions. From August 15 next year to December 28 it will mount a special exhibition devoted to the "Old Contemptibles", members of the British Expeditionary Force who fought in the First Battle of Ypres in October and November 1914. (passchendaele.be.)

Ijzertoren (Yser Tower) Diksmuide

This extraordinary monument, in the shape of a giant cross, commemorates the sacrifices of the Flemish in World War I. It contains an interesting museum that is now being renovated and upgraded and is due to reopen (as the Museum of War, Peaceand Flemish Emancipation) in February 2014. (visitflanders.co.uk.)

"Plugstreet" Christmas football match

A little to the south of Ypres is Ploegsteert, known to the ever-irreverent British army as "Plugstreet". It is best known as one of the sites of the informal "Christmas Truce" of 1914 when British and German troops left their trenches to fraternise in no-man's-land, and supposedly played a game of football - much to the disgust of the British High Command, who suppressed all information about it before resuming hostilities a week or so later. There are plans to hold a commemorative football match here to mark the centenary in 2014, bringing in big-name stars of professional football, present and past. Meanwhile the story of this sector is told through film and interactive displays at a new "Plugstreet 14-18 Experience", close to the Ploegsteert cemetery.

THE WESTERN FRONT

IN FRANCE

The Western Front ran virtually due south of Ypres to Arras, then curved eastward past Reims and Verdun to the Swiss border with France - some 724 kilometres. Here is where World War I was fought in earnest and this stretch of France is peppered with cemeteries and monuments.

Historial de La Grande Guerre, Peronne

Housed in a mediaeval castle in a town south of Arras, this is the best French museum of the First World War. Each year of the centenary, the collections and exhibitions will be updated. Commemorations will start next year with an exhibition of the "Music, sounds and silences" of war. Also, as part of the Australian memorial trail, a path will be created on and around Mont St Quentin (near Peronne) in memory of the Australian intervention. (historial.org.)

The Carriere Wellington (Wellington Quarry), Arras

An unusual and enterprising visitor attraction, the Carriere Wellington is formed of old underground limestone quarries that were massively extended by New Zealand miners (hence the name) during the war to create both a 700-bed hospital and temporary shelter for some 24,000 troops before they went into action on the front line. Walkways lead through the labyrinth to a series of stations relating this extraordinary story. (explorearras.com.)

Great War battlefields remembrance centre Souchez, Pas-de-Calais

This new venue, planned to open in November 2014, will provide historical information on the events of the Great War in four languages; seven themed spaces will recall the main phases of the conflict. A memorial consultation area will enable visitors to follow the route of the soldiers of all nationalities who died in the region. (remembrancetrails-northernfrance.com.)

The trenches

The abiding image of the horrors of 1914-18 is trench warfare. But despite the vast quantities of earthworks, shifted by millions of solders, little of the original network survives and most of what does has been heavily sanitised.

A better reconstruction can be found at the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917.

The Sanctuary Wood Museum (Hill 62), east of Ypres, is a jumble of mementos and salvage but has some original bare, muddy trenches in the woods.(ypres-1917.com/hill62.html.)

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