13. Fraternising with the enemy

German War Cemetery of Langemark

Discovered one of the showers has an extractor - joy.

Mid morning the air was filled with the gentle hum of modern farm machinery.  The maze field adjacent to us was harvested with remarkable speed and efficiency.  Proved nice to have our horizons lowered.

Our bakery order was delivered also so it was pain du chocolats for the non celiacs.  Fresh baguettes for lunch with local brie and tomatoes - fantastic.

First stop of the day was the staggering German War Cemetery.

Plaques yet to be installed.  Laminated info sheets taped to the concrete

Outside a beautiful new peace memorial has been added, all very politically correct, modern and beautiful but, in my opinion, it does detract from the start beauty of the previously infrequently visited cemetery.  I will add the information as a comment below.

It is my third visit and the German Cemetery stuns the senses; three thousand schoolboys desperately pressed into service take only a small area.  Disappointingly the mass grave (thirty thousand in the area less than a tennis court) has been altered, the end walled off and the Four Mourners have been moved.  Hard to reason why?  I asked a tour guide that was there and he didn't know why but agreed that it diminishes the impact.

We ended up staying a long time and it was great to be able to do so.

Each grave may have up to 20 names / bodies

On the way home we called in at the beautiful Canadian Memorial on the site of the first gas attack where so many died horribly at St Julian.

The Brooding Soldier is facing the German lines from where the gas came.