1 - Familiarising the Western Front

Summary

This chapter charts soldiers’ journeys across the Western Front. Drawing on the concept of ‘place attachment’, it explains how men developed an emotional relationship with Belgium and France. Beginning with their arrival by boat, it narrates their experiences in ports, bases, and camps and from there through the countryside and towns to the frontlines. It follows this journey, investigating the processes by which English infantrymen explored and were exposed to the war zone. This allowed them to internalise and reconceptualise Belgium and France. Subtle psychological processes allowed men to familiarise the sights, sounds, and scents that they encountered. These were both conscious and unconscious products of both purposeful action and unconscious psychological mechanisms. Repeated exposure habituated soldiers to the sights, sounds, and scents that confronted them, even in the frontlines. Elsewhere, men made use of language to craft new narratives and to normalise the violence and death that surrounded them. They developed very personal relationships with landscapes, spaces, and places. The Western Front became the locus of important life experiences and memories and was littered with graves that represented personal and collective loss. The landscapes of Belgium and France became a metaphysical space as their features were increasingly associated with ideas of duty, German barbarity, and sacrifice.

The alien, repetitive, and shocking sights and sounds in Belgium and France contributed to infantrymen’s sense of chronic crisis. Shellfire scarred the world around them; human and natural history were destroyed, sometimes in front of their very eyes. Nevertheless, soldiers – even if appalled – were able to familiarise, normalise, and become attached to what confronted them.

The Dagger, a soldiers’ newspaper published by the 56th (London) Division, published an article in late 1918 playing on the often unconscious processes by which men internalised the war zone.¹ The author imagined that he had just arrived home on leave. As he alighted at Victoria Station, ‘he suddenly lost his memory, or rather that part of it which covered his pre-war experience. He remembered only the life and surroundings of the line’. He had disembarked in a ‘large town called London’ (a name he had had last heard in Arras) and surveyed his surroundings with a professional eye: ‘The trenches, strong points, dug-outs, wire and so on … are maintained and organised to a point of excellence’ and ‘discipline too becomes a reality here’.² The line began with a string of outposts along the river, which had ‘a breastwork of solid granite’ and were a ‘comfortable height to fire over’. Worryingly, the defenders seemed ‘idle’.³ As he moved towards the rear, he found himself in the support line. This weaved its way down ‘PICCADILLY TRENCH’, before turning onto ‘FLEET SUPPORT’. ‘OXFORD TRENCH and HOLBORN TRENCH’ formed the reserve line. Tube stations provided ‘admirably equipped … dug-outs’, while ‘lorry-jumping is here officially recognised’. Food of unusually high quality was available in ‘CARLTON in HAYMARKET Communication Trench’ and he found ‘plentiful’ water at a ‘gigantic’ water-point in ‘TRAFALGAR SQUARE’ and a smaller bronze one in ‘PICCADILLY CIRCUS’. Moving further back, he encountered ‘BRITISH MUSEUM’, which was one of largest of the salvage dumps he had ever seen. Apparently ‘scrounging parties are detailed to clear areas literally thousands of miles away’. Pleasantly surprised, he noted that ‘evidently the line here is very, very quiet’ yet suspected that this had ‘lulled the troops hereabouts into a false sense of security’. Consequently, he decided to ‘patrol rather a nasty wood called BATTERSEA PARK’.⁴

The Western Front had become so familiar that this officer’s mental map of the frontlines was transposed onto London with this satirical story pointing to the relationship that had developed between many men and their environment. This chapter describes how this came to be, and how these processes influenced soldiers’ morale and sensemaking. It focuses on three central features of men’s cognition: familiarisation, habituation, and attachment.

Their immediate physical surroundings dominated soldiers’ present. George Mosse believed that service encouraged ‘a heightened awareness of nature’ and that imagined landscapes masked ‘the reality of war’.⁵ Men’s experiences generally encouraged familiarisation with the world around them, which in turn cultivated meaning, created attachment, deflected crisis, and fostered endurance. This did not leave men ignorant of Belgium and France’s horrors, but it made them more bearable, something that was aided by psychological habituation and normalisation. Men even developed an attachment to the places they inhabited. They were not passive inhabitants of the war zone. Instead, they explored it as tourists; traversed it by foot, road, and rail; invested it with personal and collective memories; became habituated to its more menacing characteristics; and spent time considering what their physical environment meant.

The environment has formed an increasingly important part of studies of modern war.⁶ Even in twentieth-century conflicts, nature continued to play a central role and landscapes became actors of sorts. Tait Keller has revealed the ways in which the mountains conferred heroic stature onto soldiers serving in the Alps during the Great War.⁷ British soldiers also developed a relationship with the physical world.⁸ Combatants were revolted by the violation of the natural and human world, but trench warfare also saw the earth become a kind of home. Landscapes also provided a protective veil through which men interpreted the war.⁹ An intimacy emerged from men’s physical contact with their comrades and their surroundings.¹⁰ The systems, processes, and patterns of soldiers’ lives behind the lines helped men to develop relationships with the physical world and the civilians who shared these spaces.¹¹ Tommy’s sense of place within the landscapes of Belgium and France was a key aspect of his ‘endurance’ and helps to explain ‘why soldiers [chose to] fight’. By imbuing the Western Front with deep meaning, soldiers were able to adapt, accept, and find agency in their war experience. ‘It was’, Ross Wilson has argued, ‘through the association with the landscapes which had been created by war, and the weapons and equipment of the conflict, that individuals took on and largely accepted their role within the army’.¹²

As the war transformed the natural world, another, less visible, process was taking place. Belgium and France were reconceptualised as trench lines were dug, and the BEF became a semi-permanent presence. The Western Front was anglicised. As many as 10,500 new trench names emerged as the war took on the character of a siege. These helped men to internalise an alternative map of northern France and Belgium. It became at once familiar, evocative, ‘enchanted and mythical’.¹³ Historian Chris Ward believes that these were ‘a means by which immigrants asserted their presence’.¹⁴ While these men never saw themselves as migrants, the towns and countryside were re-cast by the BEF’s soldiers.¹⁵ This could also occur in subtler forms, such as through the cultivation of allotments.¹⁶ Tommy’s material culture offers further evidence of his agency and character.¹⁷

This chapter explores the relationships that formed between infantrymen’s morale and the Western Front. Individual and collective familiarisation took place. Men’s engagement with the world was fed by psychological processes such as attachment.¹⁸ Attachment theory explores the development of ‘emotional and functional connections between place and people’.¹⁹ The bond between infantrymen and their environment was central to his sensemaking and helped individuals to cope with an array of the chronic crises they encountered.

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Most English infantrymen adjusted to the Western Front. This was an organic process aided by predictable patterns of rotation in and out of the trenches as well as movement across Belgium and France. These changes of scene alleviated some of the pressures of service and allowed soldiers to begin familiarising their environment. This continued throughout the war, and many English infantrymen felt that they were occupying a recognisable world. Except in the most churned battlefields, they inhabited a landscape that was identifiable. The troops chose to explore, repurpose, and reconceptualise it.

Their lives were not limited to trenches. During the war, the 123 battalions that served in I through IV Division between 1914 and 1918 spent approximately 46 per cent of their time in the frontlines and 20 per cent of days fighting.²⁰ This does not mean that they were engaged in combat of the sort witnessed on the Somme or at Passchendaele so regularly. The remainder of their time was spent in camps and billets. Even at the front, units could expect to spend between a quarter and half of their time in reserve or rest billets several miles behind the trenches.²¹ Processes of rotation helped soldiers cope with the pressures of service and nurtured familiarisation. Servicemen often returned to the same places. They sometimes spent months in a particular area of Belgium or France, be it along the coastline stretching from Dunkirk to Le Havre, in Belgian and French Flanders, Artois, or Picardy.

Journeys on the Western Front: Familiarisation, Exposure, and Exploration

The British line was not unchanging. During the war, it grew and crept southwards from the channel ports. Battalions were tied to areas depending on that year’s military strategy, and each sector was known for its ‘nuances and specificities’.²² In 1914, after the war became static, the BEF’s line stretched only twenty-four miles from the north-east of Kemmel to east of Festubert – with French or Belgian troops plugging a few holes here and there. On the eve of the Battle of the Somme, it had grown to over eighty miles long and extended in a ‘continuous [line] from north to south’. It started at Boesinghe (just north of Ypres) and ended at Maricourt on the banks of the river Somme. By 20 March 1918, it was 123 miles long. Beginning at the south-west corner of Houthulst Forest in Belgium, it passed through Barisis in Picardy to the St. Gobain Railway on the Aisne. Following the spring offensives, the line contracted and expanded alongside patterns of retreat and advance.²³

Some parts of the line were renowned for being ‘quieter’ and less dangerous than others.²⁴ A few areas (such as the Ypres Salient) were occupied by the British for most of the war and bore a strong imprint of the BEF. Behind the frontlines, there was an ‘immense infrastructure’ comprising of ‘hospitals, barracks, training camps, ammunition dumps, artillery parks, and telephone networks, as well as military roads and canals, but pre-eminently it meant railways’.²⁵ Some men arrived in these places while they still retained traces of their original form. Witnessing their conversion into ‘industrial wastelands’ was a traumatic experience.²⁶ It is no surprise, then, that peace saw an international movement to ‘repair ruined lands’ and to ‘mask the death and destruction’ with ‘lush lands’ that represented ‘innocence, peace, and return to normalcy’.²⁷

While this was a relatively limited front (especially compared to the vast expanses in the East), local geography varied and influenced the character of the warfare. Landscapes and geology could also inform soldiers’ perceptions of the conflict more generally. The environments soldiers encountered sometimes acted as a foil for their emotions. In Flanders, for example, the water table necessitated the building of breastworks above the ground while, in the south, where the line extended through Picardy, men were forced to dig down into the soil itself. Loos’ old coal mines and slag heaps were evidence of an industry that, in peace, helped to feed the French economy but now offered defenders an excellent strong-point and made battle an even more unpleasant experience for the attacker.²⁸ Around Arras, historic quarrying provided soldiers with cavernous protection within the limestone itself. A subterranean life might have been safer, but it held its own traumas. In 1917, those units that were posted to the Yser Front served around Nieuport and spent much of their time staring out into the North Sea or surveying the river for an enemy crossing.²⁹ Some regions offered protection; others (particularly around Ypres) provided little to help servicemen survive. The red-brown mud found around the city also seemed to take on the quality of blood. In poor conditions, the heavily manured soil was also the perfect habitat for infectious organisms like Clostridium, which caused gas gangrene. Yet, mud was not omnipresent. Behind the lines (especially in better weather), there were opportunities to retreat into relatively unscarred countryside and settlements.

The war was a journey, and this fed an organic process of familiarisation. Most men’s perceptions of Belgium and France were filtered through personal experience. It was what they saw, heard, and smelt that mattered as they built a picture of the Western Front. Their first trip across the Channel was dominated by anticipation and imagination; for those returning from leave or recuperation, it was tainted by trepidation. For many, this was their first international journey, but even the well-travelled sensed that this was a new passage in their lives.³⁰ Regular soldiers were accustomed to overseas service, but the cross-Channel voyage was a symbol of change.³¹ Men glimpsed their sister service as Royal Navy destroyers accompanied traffic and were made aware that they were entering another nation’s territory as their ships were inspected by French vessels, which provided them with their first opportunity to cheer their allies.³²

Charles Dwyer spent several days at sea. When his boat hove to off Saint Nazaire, he and his comrades spent time staring at the novel building frontages.³³ Their first sight of land was met with ‘a thrill of genuine excitement’.³⁴ Other men had less comfortable crossings and complained about the lack of refreshment or food. Many became nervous in bad weather.³⁵ Frederick William Child’s trip from Southampton to Le Havre was a prolonged affair. The rough seas were compounded by embarkation delays in England and a long wait before being allowed to alight in France.³⁶ Child became very seasick in the cramped hold of the transport ship. However, when the opportunity arose, he walked and ‘watched the ships go by + the hills + fires in the distance … The scenery was lovely’.³⁷

Soldiers’ first steps on French soil were often in one of the ports facing the English Channel. The cobbled streets offered an uneven surface on which to regain their ‘land legs’, but this was a relatively peaceful introduction to the war. These bases maintained a near-constant British presence throughout the conflict – though sites such as Le Havre were briefly evacuated during the German advances of 1914. Familiarity was bred by the strong imprint Britain left on these places, some of which almost became BEF settlements. Some individuals felt they were remarkably ‘English’.³⁸ However, in August 1914, the crowds of civilians welcoming the soldiers also underlined the ‘foreignness’ of the country.³⁹ Nevertheless, even in 1914, the majority of people that R.D. Sheffield encountered were from England.⁴⁰ One soldier had already come to consider Calais in the same breath as England and ‘Hyde Park’.⁴¹ A near-constant flow of soldiers passed through Boulogne, Calais, Le Havre and Rouen.⁴² They quickly became semi-permanent centres of army logistics, and thousands of soldiers were based and billeted there.⁴³ So well-trodden were these routes that Lt. Frederic Anstruther formulated a code through which he could inform his father in which of these ports he had arrived.⁴⁴ In Le Havre, the British Army became a central feature of civic life. 1st Base HQ was established at Quai Transatlantique, while other headquarters, directorships, services, and supply depots requisitioned other buildings throughout the town. It became hard to believe that one was not in the United Kingdom. The same was true elsewhere. A post-war soldiers’ travel guide noted that:

During the war Boulogne became practically an English city; that is to say, a very large proportion of its inhabitants were British. There were huge rest camps for troops going on leave and returning from leave, situated near the harbour; hospitals sprang up in every direction, and were perpetually full of wounded soldiers; thousands of officers and clerks were employed upon the duties connected with a huge base.⁴⁵

In 1916, R.E.P. Stevens reported that ‘[one] cannot realise we have arrived in another country everything seems so English’. Stevens found that he was ‘only reminded the place was a French port by the names on the shops’. The surrounding countryside even looked like England.⁴⁶ These were pleasant places to pass some time while not on duty. M.F. Gower reported,

Havre is quite a decent town with its gay shops and cafes, shady avenues of trees, gardens and squares and is quite lively especially after 6 p.m. when the cafes are open to British troops. It is very pleasant sitting in the latter sipping harmless beer, the only drawback are the number of beggars who come in and sing horrible songs thro’ their noses.⁴⁷

Men also consumed less ‘harmless’ alcohol and embraced the opportunity to satiate their carnal desires.⁴⁸

Parts of the coast were within easy reach and offered the chance for a brief holiday. Paris Plage was particularly popular. R.E.P. Stevens noted that it was ‘picturesque and brought to my mind a picture I once saw of the Pied Piper of Hamelin’.⁴⁹ It was in these Channel Ports that soldiers also felt closest to home as they stared across the breaking surf towards Blighty and consumed up-to-date newspapers from England.⁵⁰ By 1918, these hives of activity also reflected the war’s international character. The sight of a large contingent of ‘Chinese and Black men’ in Le Havre (alongside the cafés) reminded H.T. Madders that he was no longer in England.⁵¹

The towns also became familiar through repeated exposure and activity. Soldiers spent long periods of time resting, training, or recuperating from injuries in these places.⁵² In fact, their suburbs and surrounding countryside were transformed by the war. Sprawling networks of British rest and depot camps, hospitals, prisons, Prisoner of War (POW) camps, and administrative offices grew outside many of these settlements. Between them were allotment gardens built and maintained by soldiers.⁵³ There were church tents and a wide array of different trades – carpenters, tailors, shipwrights, coopers, and bakers, and an array of other ‘support troops’.⁵⁴ Peculiarly British cultural pursuits also took place here. Sports and theatrical activities were common to nearly every part of the rear zone.⁵⁵ Nevertheless, the units posted to these bases permanently were blessed with theatre and music hall troupes that had more time to practice and buildings permanently set aside as theatres. The Royal Garrison Artillery Base Depot at Le Havre even maintained a complement of talented professional footballers.⁵⁶ More uniquely, in 1917 and 1918, the depot commander of Le Havre sought to improve yields in the soldiers’ allotments by holding a vegetable competition and show in the city’s Jardin St. Roche.⁵⁷

Familiarity was not necessarily always positive. Training camps were rarely the location of soldiers’ happiest memories. The most famous of these was the ‘Bull Ring’ at Étaples, where men were confined to a site on the outskirts of the town.⁵⁸ It began life in 1914 when new drafts were billeted there for the final stage of their training.⁵⁹ By 1916, it had grown exponentially with some 3,000 men training there each day.⁶⁰ ‘Bull-ring’ drill was strenuous but also became more specialised as the war went on.⁶¹ The facilities diversified: there were shooting ranges, mock trenches and battlefields, live-fire exercises, gas simulations, and lectures that sought to teach men ‘how to behave and what to avoid in France [and, presumably, Belgium]’.⁶² It might have offered a first taste of warfare, but this experience fuelled common grievances. P.R. Hall recalled that the instructors were particularly hostile; the treatment of the men was a ‘disgrace to the army and to GHQ’. Hall was left with the impression of a ‘dirty and uncared for’ place.⁶³ R.E.P. Stevens felt that the training indicated that ‘they [GHQ] don’t know what to do with us’.⁶⁴ It is unsurprising this was the location of the BEF’s worst wartime mutiny in September 1917.⁶⁵ Despite this, though, in 1918 young conscripts were still arriving at Étaples and other camps for ‘toughening up’ that men reported was ‘general fooling’ that ‘nearly broke our hearts’.⁶⁶

However, Étaples was not universally despised. 2nd Lt. W.J. Lidsey had a better experience in November 1916. Detailed for specialist training alongside the Royal Flying Corps, he stayed in billets that were much better than those of the infantry. The experience was improved further by a happy carriage ride to training alongside a young French woman.⁶⁷ It was not only one long drilling exercise. The camp, like others in Belgium and France, also catered for other pastimes. There were ‘hospitals – stores – main roads constructed cobbled – goods station – recreation huts in large numbers, YMCA, Scottish churches, church army & huts by private people – canteens Cinema – concerts in YMCA & Other huts’.⁶⁸ Despite these diversions, conversation was often directed towards ‘events … “up the line”’.⁶⁹ Unpleasant though they may have been, these experiences were a tentative introduction to the Western Front and kick-started an institutionally driven process of familiarisation and normalisation.⁷⁰

Men moved up the line from these camps. Much of the movement necessitated route marches, which offered offered a tiring but intimate introduction to Belgium and France. Some men enjoyed the exercise, and others found the experience of ‘passing through so many villages and towns’ diverting. The sights (materiel, places, and people) helped them to make sense of the war’s progress beyond their unit.⁷¹ The experience of marching could also help to solidify esprit de corps. Men sang as they marched and used the lyrics to express a common identity and to ‘grouse’.

However, journeys were often arduous. In 1914, nearly all travel was done on foot. This could prove problematic for morale. The 4th Bn. Royal Fusiliers reported that during a ‘freezing’ night march on 20 November, the men’s discipline had been ‘very bad’.⁷² They faced a similar problem on 30 November when many men fell out during a march to Westoure.⁷³ Between 24 August and 5 September 1914, the 2nd Bn. Ox and Bucks marched 178 miles with only one day’s rest.⁷⁴ By 1916, units were still spending between eleven and twelve days on the move between October and December.⁷⁵ Marching remained a central feature of the infantrymen’s experience. In 1917, a unit shifting from Neuve Chapelle to Arras could still expect several days of tiring travel. Furthermore, during the chaos of the British retreat after 21 March 1918, battalions spent over a week retreating (and fighting) on foot.⁷⁶ Nevertheless, marching helped soldiers to become personally acquainted with the Western Front.

In later years, soldiers benefited from the BEF’s more sophisticated logistical apparatus. Lorries, boats, and trains transported servicemen and offered them a different vision of Belgium and France. Some men journeyed on ‘enormous barges’ along the canals that connected towns and camps.⁷⁷ Travel in the ubiquitous ‘cattle trucks’ was less enjoyable. These train journeys, which sometimes lasted all night, left men tired, hungry, and thirsty. Some soldiers feared that they were more vulnerable to shellfire in these slow-moving locomotives.⁷⁸ There was also a ‘sinister suggestion of equivalence’ in the painted legend ‘Hommes 40; Chevaux 8’.⁷⁹ However, W. Vernon concluded that while ‘we don’t have a very pleasant ride on the train [it is …] still it is better than marching with a full pack’.⁸⁰ Many individuals focused on the scenery that passed them by (if travelling in daylight hours). Squatting on the floor of the cramped carriages, men peered through ‘the [carriage’s] grill’.⁸¹ The slow pace of movement allowed them to observe the landscapes passing by, which sometimes provided views of unscarred countryside – a welcome vision of peace for men returning from the trenches.⁸²

The patterns of rotation meant that divisional or brigade rest camps became familiar waypoints. Yet, rest was rare amidst the fatigues, working parties, and training programmes that took place in such places. When given the opportunity, though, soldiers would walk to explore and unwind. The chance to wander upright in comparative safety was a welcome one.⁸³ In 1914, even the area surrounding Ypres retained traces of the pre-war world. Houses, civilians, and evidence of once peaceful communities remained, and Charles Dwyer visited a café barely a hundred metres behind the frontline.⁸⁴ Capt. Maurice Asprey was able to purchase fresh meat, eggs, and sweets from the farms around his rest camp.⁸⁵ Postcards collected and produced during this time show that towns still retained much of their original form.⁸⁶

The extension of the line in 1916 offered men a new opportunity to explore Picardy. It was still relatively unscarred by the war, which improved men’s morale.

The neighbourhood of Amiens, prior to the great attack of July 1st [was] a very delightful country [… with] beautiful woods, full of shady trees; cold rivers, pleasant to bathe in; happy, smiling villages, inhabited by simple and hospitable villagers; and, last, but not least, the lovely city of Amiens, with its open-air cafes and tempting shop-windows brim full of life and interest.⁸⁷

Yet, the Somme region fell victim to the conflict, becoming a ‘dreary … joke’.⁸⁸ However, orchards and valleys in rear areas continued to offer some distractions. Even in late 1917 and early 1918, it was still possible to find entertainment in a few locations close to the line.⁸⁹ A.E. Haywood spent many evenings drinking in the towns near his camp. On 11 November he ‘went into the village … and got pretty well oiled up on Vin Rouge and Benedictine and Vin Blanc with beer for a change’.⁹⁰ Conversing with locals in stuttering pidgin French was absorbing, and combatants embraced any opportunity to speak to somebody not wearing khaki.⁹¹ Even in 1918, J. Grimston still enjoyed Arras (despite the intense fighting that had taken place there in 1917) for its limited shopping and theatre.⁹² However, such diversions were often inaccessible to poorer men in the rank and file who frequently complained about the cost of living and price of entertainment.⁹³

The relative comfort of rear zones encouraged a more constructive relationship with the environment. The BEF Times characterised ‘Pop’ [Poperinghe] as ‘our holiday resort … horrible … as it was … It provided a break of sorts from the eternal mud and shells’, though it had ‘somehow fallen into disrepute’. It was vulnerable to shellfire but remained a relative haven compared to nearby Ypres. These places were prized for their comparative security. Another man recalled that ‘Pop’:

stood for everything that meant civilization to the British Army. The road from Poperinghe to Ypres was known to every soldier: to march eastwards on this road meant work, trenches, mud – everything unpleasant; to march westwards meant rest, a ‘comfy’ dinner in the town, and possibly an evening at the club.⁹⁴

Soldiers explored Belgium and France as soldier-tourists when they could, seeking out novel sights and experiences.⁹⁵ An article in one soldiers’ journal, written after the Germans had been driven away from Arras, produced a short history of the city so that soldiers could recognise places of significance (where shellfire had not reduced them to rubble).⁹⁶ It was, perhaps, such an interest that led S.R. Hudson to collect spoons as mementoes of his time there as well as in Amiens, Boulogne-sur-Mer, and Doullens.⁹⁷ Men developed more intimate memories and diversified their routines; they saw new things and met new people.⁹⁸ Activities ranged from the mundane to the intimate. While ‘cleaning equipment’ behind the lines, soldiers were ‘unofficially’ ‘frying eggs, drinking café-au-lait – the more fortunate ones, café-au something else, or teaching English to some ambitious demoselle [sic]’.⁹⁹ Henry Lawson only wished that he had a camera to ‘show [his mother that] we are happy and do have amusing times’.¹⁰⁰ These places and regions were a tonic for the frontlines’ destruction.¹⁰¹ As such, F.L. Clark wrote to Lt. J.H. Johnson on 12 December 1916: ‘Plugstreet must seem even as the abode of the blessed to you’ after ‘the hell’s delight of the Somme’.¹⁰²

Familiarising and Coping with the Frontlines

It was harder (and more dangerous) to familiarise the firing line. The destruction could be overwhelming, and soldiers sometimes felt that this was a world bereft of life.¹⁰³ The frontlines also contained constant reminders of combatants own mortality. In late 1914, shellfire had already shattered the landscape. J.E. Mawer explained that ‘it is a sight to see the Villages we go through with most of the houses blown down by the shell[s]’.¹⁰⁴

By 1915, Ypres was a ‘dead city’, ‘its glories … gone for ever’.¹⁰⁵ A soldier walking through its ruins was confronted by ‘the broken walls of the Cloth Hall overshadowed by a fantastic fragment of the great church of St Martin, the crumbling belfry sliced by a gigantic shell’.¹⁰⁶ It created an ‘impression of sadness and utter desolation’ and left some soldiers ‘overwhelmed by the tragedy of it all’.¹⁰⁷ However, it was still possible to interact with the city’s rich history. Many buildings surrounding the marketplace were ‘ruins’, but a roofless café remained on Rue Jules Capron. On Rue d’Elverdinghe, there were also some ‘modest shops and cafés’ with flagstaffs ‘tilted over the freshly swept roadway’. These became a symbol of resistance. Gardens, still bright with flowers, could also be explored even if the houses behind them had been reduced to a ‘single red brick wall’.¹⁰⁸ ‘Picturesque Ypres still stood, though torn and maimed, a shadow of her former self.’¹⁰⁹ The cellars, which also operated as shelters (and occasionally tombs), were places of discovery.¹¹⁰ St Martin’s sacristy had escaped the worst of the destruction and works ‘by old Flemish masters still hung on the wall’. By 1916, though, there was little left except ruins, ‘gigantic holes’, and ‘the rugged spikes of the ruined cathedral’.¹¹¹ Even so, Ypres’ piles of ancient masonry, ‘mighty rampart caverns’, and the ‘many cellars of her mansions’ became a sort of ‘home’ for the British soldier and retained a strange beauty.¹¹²

Figure 1.1 Ruins of the Cloth Hall in the City of Ypres, 1914.

Source: Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.

The destruction became more pronounced as the years passed. Along the line, there was ‘the same complete annihilation of the treasures of centuries’.¹¹³ As he made his way to the trenches, Pte. F.G. Senyard felt that he was leaving any trace of ‘civilisation’ behind him.¹¹⁴ Dilapidated villages and inanimate trench lines made the journey a ‘horror’.¹¹⁵ Forward zones felt ‘unearthly’.¹¹⁶ The ‘terrible sights’ of ‘trees like stumps and every inch of the hill sides churned up with shell fire’ resembled ‘hell’.¹¹⁷ It was the evidence of personal loss that was most depressing. Lt. W.B. Medlicott noted that artillery fire had ‘scattered all the belongings right and left – there is nothing more depressing. School books etc. … all in a sodden mush on the floor’.¹¹⁸ By the winter of 1916, Picardy was also a ‘beastly’ vista.¹¹⁹ It had become a landscape of ‘desolated villages’ in which ‘no trace remains to mark the site of the many peaceful homes … Save for a few shattered trees, and the countless wooden crosses’. It resembled ‘a South African veldt’.¹²⁰ The battlefield had been reduced to little more than shapeless forms of rubble and mud.¹²¹ In 1917 and 1918, much of the fighting occurred in areas that had already been the scene of combat. This sometimes imbued the fighting with the aura of futility. Men were shocked by the ‘hideous’ panoramas produced by both Third Ypres and the Spring Offensives.¹²² Lt. J.H. Johnson was confronted by ‘debris, graves and [the] loneliness of desolation’.¹²³ By April 1918, 2nd Lt D. Henrick Jones was desperate to escape this ‘beastly country’.¹²⁴

Figure 1.2 Battle of Menin Road Ridge. German prisoners being marched through the Cathedral Square, Ypres, 20 September 1917.

Source: Lt. Ernest Brooks/Imperial War Museums via Getty Images.

Despite inducing such reactions, the frontlines did have their own character. David Isaac Griffiths thought the trenches around the Scarpe River resembled ‘a “prehistoric home”’.¹²⁵ The landscape was transformed at dawn and dusk.¹²⁶ Paul Nash explained that nightfall saw ‘the monstrous lands take on a changing aspect [and the] landscape is so distorted from its own gentle forms’. The ‘works of men’ and light meant that ‘nothing seems to bear the imprint of God’s hand’. It could have been ‘a terrific creation of some malign fiend working a crooked will on the innocent countryside’.¹²⁷ In such circumstances, the natural world could become an antagonist. The scarred slope facing Siegfried Sassoon in his poem Attack was ‘menacing’ and the sun ‘glow’ring’.¹²⁸ G.A. Stevens found that he preferred the line around St Quentin (battered as it was) to ‘beastly old Flanders which one hates now’.¹²⁹

No Man’s Land created its own anxieties. It was a space that eventually needed to be crossed and contained all kinds of horrors. There was always the chance that an enemy raiding party might emerge from the darkness without warning. Scouting parties forced men to confront their fears. These patrols, which left during the night, risked contact with the enemy and oblivion. The impenetrable darkness and the featureless landscapes meant it was easy to get lost and men sometimes vanished. On 21 November 1916, for example, a lance corporal of the 9th Royal Fusiliers disappeared without a trace after being left injured in a shell hole.¹³⁰

Many felt that the frontlines were ‘dead’.¹³¹ Lt. J.H. Johnson described Arras as a ‘city of ruins’ and the area between there and Bapaume was a ‘land of desolation – ruined and dead’.¹³² Spiritually minded soldiers suspected these spaces were haunted or contained some paranormal force. Several individuals reported seeing crosses in the sky, being visited by angels, or witnessing heavenly signs.¹³³ On 27 December 1916, Charles Carrington recorded ‘ghosts – ghost stories’ in his diary.¹³⁴ The lack of context makes this entry difficult to unpick, but the dead appear to have been playing on his mind. The landscape’s emptiness certainly created a ghostly visage. Those who had seen these places before they were disfigured by shellfire were able to layer what confronted them with memories of a more peaceful time. Possibly reflecting this, Cecil White believed that the Somme had become a place of ‘phantom’ woods.¹³⁵ After the fighting at Cambrai in November 1917, J. Grimston noted that while ‘not so smashed as Arras’ it was now ‘a city of the dead’. ‘Not a soul [was] to be seen’ along the ‘rotten bumpy road’ leading through its ruins.¹³⁶

Figure 1.3 The destruction of 1916. British troops at the Battle of Morval (Somme), September 1916. During the Somme battles, Picardy’s once-attractive countryside became a lunar landscape pockmarked by shell holes, while villages were reduced to rubble. Note the chalky soil.

Source: Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Image.

However, the frontlines could be fascinating, and some men were drawn to the destruction. They were a muse for Capt. G.K. Rose in his drawings of the Western Front. His pictures charted the sights he encountered: quaint and peaceful villages, barbed-wired trench lines, and the devastation. His drawings of the Baroque town square in Arras were reminiscent of the sketches of an amateur artist on his Grand Tour.¹³⁷ The ruination seemed senseless, but sites (at least where there were still discernible features) remained interesting. Lt. J.H. Johnson believed that ‘many people’ would be drawn to the ‘waste land … long after Death passed over it’. Yet, there would be ‘worlds of difference’ compared to ‘those who saw it killed and just after’.¹³⁸

Mutilated landscapes could also be familiarised. Veterans returning to Belgium and France after 1918 were sometimes angered by the battle zone’s restoration.¹³⁹ During the war, when the frontlines had shifted (such as after the German withdrawals in early 1917), some men grasped the opportunity to explore the old frontlines. J.M. Humphries enjoyed the ‘novelty’ of searching for souvenirs.¹⁴⁰ John Masefield found that the old Somme battlefield evoked pathos but also believed that they were symbolic of the BEF’s advance to victory.¹⁴¹ The destruction could similarly be normalised. Stylised images of trenches were used on dinner menus, conference programmes, and Christmas cards produced by units. These included depictions of scarred frontline landscapes littered with barbed wire, shattered tree stumps, and shell-damaged towns.¹⁴²

There was some strange beauty in destruction.¹⁴³ Paul Nash believed that any artist would find their muse amidst the devastation. He became obsessed with ‘those wonderful trenches at … dawn and sundown’ and the ‘wide …, flat and scantly wooded’ landscapes ‘pitted’ with shell holes and littered with the ‘refuge of war’.¹⁴⁴ V.G. Bell was not so skilful an artist as Nash, but he was also struck by the resilience of nature. His drawings depicted ‘hooded crows’, owls, or the stray dogs that he encountered in the trenches.¹⁴⁵ He made sense of the sights through his art and recorded nearly everything: landscapes, animals, military activities, the trenches, and his billets. The rubbish, the shell holes, the destruction, and the rats were catalogued and internalised.¹⁴⁶

Even if soldiers failed to see this beauty, the experience of the frontlines could inculcate a sense of authority, confidence, and power. This was revealed in the common phrase ‘Before You Come Up’, which was sometimes sometimes rephrased as ‘before your (regimental) number was dry’, ‘before you was breeched’, ‘before you nipped’ or ‘before your ballocks [sic] dropped’. These were ‘crushing retort[s]’ that meant:

I was in the front line before you arrived from the base, I know more than you are capable of knowing, I’ve suffered more than you, I’ve done more than you, I’m a better solider than you and a better man. And I refuse to believe a word you say.¹⁴⁷

Habituation helps to explain how combatants endured the war’s chronic crises and the horrors of the frontlines. In her study of the Italian Army, Vanda Wilcox argued that ‘a process of habituation, and a greater tolerance of the familiar, meant that passive acceptance often increased with exposure to life in the trenches’.¹⁴⁸ It can mitigate even the most bewildering of experiences and was a multifaceted process, exemplified in men’s relationship with the novel smells and sounds in the frontlines. Olfactory and auditory habituation occur organically outside more conventional and purposeful forms of habituation training.¹⁴⁹

Figure 1.4 The destruction of 1917. Soldiers in the trenches during the Battle of Passchendaele on November 1, 1917. By 1917, there were few discernible features left. Note the evidence of the high water table and much darker soil.

Source: Fotosearch/Getty Images.

The Trenches’ Stenches

The experience of the frontlines was multisensory, and the smells that met men in the trenches were sometimes shocking. The frontlines were littered with rubbish, shell fragments, barbed wire and ‘everywhere the dead. / Only the dead were always present – present / As a vile sickly smell of rottenness’.¹⁵⁰ In some sectors the smell of corpses was ubiquitous; it was ‘infecting the earth’.¹⁵¹

Awful smells coalesced to produce a particular aroma in the frontlines. 2nd Lt. Guy Chapman described it as ‘a sickly stench. The mixed smell of exploded … gas, blood, putrefying corpses and broken bricks’.¹⁵² This smell-scape re-emphasised war’s capacity for carnage. In active sectors, the scent of the dead was omnipresent. After combat, the smell of decomposing flesh was common to trenches or shell holes, which seemed to preserve the flavour of death.¹⁵³ The stench of corpses wafted across No Man’s Land and the unsanitary conditions contributed to the undertone of faecal matter.¹⁵⁴ When possible, the dead were removed for burial, though shellfire – or trench work – sometimes disinterred rotten remains of old comrades and enemies. H.T. Madders had to live with the smell of some ‘poor old transport horses’. Having ‘rolled them’ into a hole they continued to attract ‘flies like bees’ and to ‘stink for days’.¹⁵⁵ Elsewhere, ‘the nauseating smell of high explosive’ struck men forcefully. It reminded troops approaching the frontlines of the dangers that awaited them there. One man noted that it left ‘our hands … numb’.¹⁵⁶ Pte. E.A. Cannon practised verse in the back pages of his diary. His unsophisticated poems reflected his visceral reaction to the smells he encountered: ‘The stench here t’was / simply vile’, so much so that he ‘wondered if again I / should ever smile’.¹⁵⁷

‘Stench’ and ‘trench’ were frequently rhymed in soldiers’ newspapers.¹⁵⁸ The dead’s presence was evident in the air as a constant reminder of the war’s toll. This put a huge strain on frontline servicemen.¹⁵⁹ Other scents, such as that of an open wound, were also shocking. ‘Rotten iron’ produced its own aroma as rusting wire overwhelmed natural odours.¹⁶⁰ The poor sanitation led some men to report that the smell of ‘shit’ was ‘the smell of Passchendaele [and] of the [Ypres] Salient’.¹⁶¹ Rain had its own perfume, and some found that the hum of unwashed bodies was too much in the cramped conditions.¹⁶² The reek of other men left some soldiers ‘sad’.¹⁶³ The war had specific sensory facets, many of which reappeared in later memory processes. Smell can induce memory recall and Pte. Bert Fearns explained that ‘smells are one of the big things’. ‘I can often still smell gas today, and that manly dampness of men and mud at Yeepree [sic]’.¹⁶⁴ Sudden recollections, even of smell, are indicative of the place of traumatic memories within post-traumatic stress, both chronic and temporary.¹⁶⁵ However, they can also be positive. The whiff of ‘HP Sauce’ or ‘hot tea outside on a cold day’ took Fearns back to happier moments.¹⁶⁶

Processes of habituation helped men to cope. The fact that they did not constantly bemoan the smell-scape suggests that they were able to ignore or adjust to it. A satirical sketch in The B.E.F. Times pointed to this process. On entering a frontline dugout, a senior officer exclaimed: ‘Gawd! How this filthy place stinks.’ He asked the men: ‘what’s this dreadful stench?’ The frontline officer replied: ‘It’s no good worrying about that, it’s peculiar to the tunnel.’¹⁶⁷ Soldiers grew familiar to scents and could become accustomed to the unpleasant sensory features of the frontlines. In fact, the smell held ‘a grim fascination’ for some men.¹⁶⁸

The Sounds of War

The Western Front’s soundscape was immersive. It too could be overcome, internalised, and normalised through habituation. For instance, many men were confident that they could predict the fall of shells by analysing the sound they made.¹⁶⁹ Charles Quinnell remembered that this was one of the first lessons a soldier learned in the trenches. ‘You could tell by sound if a shell was going over you or was meant for you … And if that shell was coming for [you,] you would lie right down, and believe you me, a man lying down takes a lot of hitting.’¹⁷⁰ Familiarity with the sounds of war contributed to morale and even helped men respond to acute crises such as bombardments.

Nonetheless, artillery fire was shocking. One soldier felt that ‘modern warfare seems to me to be a series of stupendous efforts on the part of each opponent to outclass the other in creating an appalling noise or a ghastly mess’.¹⁷¹ The sound of a bombardment could be stressful (even if it fell on enemy trenches). The Manchester Weekly Times described one attack as ‘a confusion of lights of various colours … and a tornado of sound, in which machine guns and trench mortars played their part’.¹⁷² The orchestra of battle could be overwhelming. Even outside of combat, an incoming barrage was terrifying. On one occasion, H.T. Madders was suddenly woken up ‘by the sound of his [Jerry’s] shell coming towards us, [we] could only nestle closer to mother earth, it seemed as if he was going to blow us to smithereens, at last it dropped about 40 yds up the trench’.¹⁷³ His sudden awakening left him unable to gauge the shell’s direction, and his sense of helplessness bred panic. Such incidences exposed men’s vulnerabilities.

It could feel as if shells surrounded the men as batteries fired from their front and rear.¹⁷⁴ The ‘roar’ of their own shells passing overhead made ‘a far more terrifying noise … than the German shells bursting’.¹⁷⁵ Not only this, but when following a creeping barrage (or when in one’s own trenches) a misplaced British shell was just a deadly as those of the ‘Boche’. The cacophony was an enemy of sleep and anybody within earshot of active frontline areas would find their nights interrupted – if not ruined – by ‘deafening’ artillery fire. Tiredness left men depressed and anxious.¹⁷⁶ Even the quietest zones were interspersed with gunfire. Men sometimes sat ‘at ease and think it fine’ amongst ‘a peaceful evening scene’ when a ‘Crump!’ signalled the ‘burst of a 5.9 / In your best fly-proof latrine’.¹⁷⁷ Sudden gunfire or explosions could induce greater shock than regular artillery fire and provided an unwanted reminder of reality.

Other men found that the clamour of munitions could break the tedium of trench life. It reminded them where they were.¹⁷⁸ The strike of a bullet could drag daydreaming soldiers violently back into the present: ‘Smack that one buried itself in the back wall of the trench. I start instinctively with the guilty feeling that my man has fired and I have forgotten to signal the shock.’¹⁷⁹ The familiar sound of the ‘occasional whizzbang which passes one’s ear of a night lends colour to the probability that such a person [as the enemy] exists’.¹⁸⁰

Some men became accustomed to the constant noise of guns and perceived periods of silence unnerving; it seemed unnatural, and lulls were met with suspicion. These played upon their imagination, particularly at night. Christmas 1914 was eerie because of the stillness in the frontlines. K.M. Gaunt reported that ‘not a sound could be heard anywhere’.¹⁸¹ W. Tapp claimed that he missed ‘the sound of the shots flying over it is like a clock which has stopped ticking’.¹⁸² The soldiers’ time horizons became inextricably intertwined with the noises of modern warfare. A.L. Collis felt a similar unease in March 1918. There was an uncommon ‘quietness’ in the frontlines on the eve of the German offensive, which left his unit fearful.¹⁸³ Silence could be a precursor to greater violence and seemed less predictable.

Sound was a source of information, which helped soldiers gauge events beyond their immediate line of vision. For instance, 10 October 1914 was memorable for Maj. J.S. Knyvett as ‘our first day within the sound of firing’.¹⁸⁴ The percussion and reverberations of distant artillery offered insights into events elsewhere.¹⁸⁵ More experienced soldiers found that the ‘rumble’ of the guns was a reminder of what waited up the line. The near-constant background noise could create an atmosphere of foreboding. This was true for those support troops moving up to bolster the British defences during the German offensives after 21 March 1918.¹⁸⁶

Men tended not to sing en route to the trenches; it was against orders Yet, when returning from a tour of duty and as the noise of the frontlines faded away, they began to sing marching songs anew. The changing soundscape confirmed that they had left the killing zone.¹⁸⁷ Songs were a mechanism to combat fear and historian Emma Hanna has suggested that singing also helped to bolster identities (both civil and military), vocalise patriotism, poke fun at the military, and reject victimhood.¹⁸⁸

Camps had their own, more pleasant, soundscape. The ‘noisy rattling’ of guy ropes and tent flaps straining against the wind were accompanied, in later years, by the mechanical noises of trucks and engines alongside the sharp ‘warning blast[s]’ of slow-moving trains’ whistles. The shouted orders of non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and officers, the ‘rush’ of mess tins, and the ‘clamours of men’ all contributed to a more peaceful auditory experience.¹⁸⁹ There were echoes of the civilian world: music, football and rugby crowds, theatre, and laughter. These provided an imperfect but comforting reminder of home.¹⁹⁰ Sometimes these noises induced feelings of nostalgia, but this was not necessarily a bad thing.¹⁹¹ The sounds of comrades enjoying themselves helped A.P. Burke to relax. One evening he reported that ‘noise that’s going on in the different huts’ was like a ‘carnival night’. It was ‘lovely’ and made the sight and sound of a distant German ‘straffing [sic]’ less oppressive.¹⁹²

Familiarity with the sounds of war could become a coping mechanism. Self-deception helped many soldiers to diminish the danger by reconceptualising weaponry. An article in The Wipers Times was entitled ‘to Minnie’ and dedicated to the ‘P.B.I [poor bloody infantry]’. In it, the author personified enemy weaponry. The German Minenwerfer’s ‘voice’ was heard ‘with dread’. It was a ‘fickle jade’ and ‘traitorous minx’. The mortar had a ‘raucous screech’, which was particularly unpleasant when she ‘force[d]’ her ‘blatant presence’ and intruded ‘uninvited’. His gendering of this weapon was taken further: ‘once most loved of all your sex’ Minnie was ‘now hated with a loathing’. This feminisation became an aggressive psychological tool and the piece ended with the lines: ‘when next my harassed soul you vex / You’ll get some back at any rate’.¹⁹³ Whether this resentment of women was a product of personal slight (or bitterness at men’s lot) is unclear. Weapons and military paraphernalia were often offered female form. It made retribution easier to imagine and may have been a reassertion of power.

Elsewhere, machine sounded like typewriters, while gas could be identified by its tell-tale ‘flutter, flutter, crump’. This contrasted with the ‘Whoo-Whoo-Whoo-WHOO-CRASH’ of high-velocity shells.¹⁹⁴ Another soldier was able to distinguish between the noises of various ‘High Explosives’. Mining caused ‘a satisfying amount of noise and debris’. Upon detonation ‘the earth rocks and rumbles with the concussion’ causing ‘a huge lump of the hitherto inoffensive landscape’ to become ‘violently aggressive’. In these moments the landscape became a weapon.¹⁹⁵ The experience of a mine’s detonation was relatively rare and too unpredictable to be normalised. Other tools in the German arsenal were more familiar. Some frontline combatants learned to prepare for the ‘concussion’ of a high explosive shell, which felt like being ‘hit … over the head with something about as heavy as a cheese’. Of course, the effect was far more destructive and traumatic near the impact zone, especially if men were buried by a collapsing trench wall. The ‘light shell or whizz bang’ had ‘a loud noise’ but ‘its destructive qualities’ were ‘small’. Shrapnel shells on the other hand had ‘a weird sound, a loud explosion, and a tremendous clatter of falling pieces of … shrapnel’. This sounded something like ‘a Ford’ whose owner had ‘“let her go all out”’. The ‘hand bomb and the rifle grenade’ were apparently about as effective as the ‘whizz-bang’.¹⁹⁶

Vanda Wilcox has argued that allusions to the sounds of conflict in Italian soldiers’ songs allowed for the ‘traumatic and alien soundscape of the war’ to be ‘rhetorically controlled’.¹⁹⁷ Refrains in the BEF such as Hush! Here Comes a Whizz-Bang, The Bells of Hell, or We Are the Boys Who Fear No Noise suggest that song played a similar role amongsts British troops.¹⁹⁸ It is not clear to what extent familiarity genuinely offered protection, but even placebos can bolster resilience. This heightened awareness also helped men to infuse the environment with meaning and to combat their own fear.

The ‘alien’ smell and soundscapes of the Western Front reveal how men’s immediate environment became the focus of their attention. By diminishing and controlling their reactions, soldiers were able to overcome the chronic (and sometimes acute) crises accompanying service in the frontlines. Habituation and familiarisation were conscious and unconscious processes and stemmed from soldiers’ familiarity with the world around them. Yet, any re-conceptualisation of their surroundings required that they controlled their fear and revulsion.

Familiarising the Western Front

Other tools helped soldiers to see beyond ‘the great sameness’ of the frontlines.¹⁹⁹ Places and settlements had forms and names long after they were reduced to rubble.²⁰⁰ Maps (alongside signs recording the name of trenches, villages, and towns) encouraged men to recognise places as ‘familiar’ and to imagine that even the most shell-damaged parts of the Western Front were more orderly.²⁰¹

Soldiers renamed the places they encountered. In 1914, official communiqués asked units to avoid using local names to avoid revealing troop movements and unit locations.²⁰² This catalysed a reimagining of Belgium and France. In September 1914, the Illustrated London News published images of hand-made signs from the Ypres sector, including Somerset House, Hotel de Lockhart, and Plugstreet Hall. According to this article, these revealed the soldiers ‘love of home and his capacity for making himself comfortable in the most adverse circumstances’.²⁰³ This rechristening continued throughout the war. Many places became infamous: Devil’s Wood, Lousy Woods, and Wipers (or Ips). Frequently, this was a bottom-up process. Some names were references to precise geographical features; others were linguistic efforts to control a hostile environment or evidence of humour and irony. Many were nostalgic references to home or the product of personal, regimental, or group associations (including the commemoration of lost comrades).²⁰⁴ The power of local identity also revealed itself. Units from London named areas around Ploegsteert Wood after places in the United Kingdom’s capital.²⁰⁵ Elsewhere, at Foncquevillers, a battalion of Brummies used the names of Birmingham’s streets to christen their trenches.²⁰⁶

This fulfilled secondary cultural and psychological functions. It allowed men to document ‘precise locations’ in the morass and played a role in ‘evoking events, memories, and associations. All this is a kind of referencing. The name becomes the key to open the databank, the password to enter the archive’.²⁰⁷ Peter Chasseaud has drawn a parallel between this and émigrés’ use of familiar names when settling in new countries, concluding: ‘the process undoubtedly staked a claim, but also established continuity with the past, and a sense of familiarity and security’.²⁰⁸

Many men embraced service on the Western Front as an opportunity for travel and discovery.²⁰⁹ English–French dictionaries and stand-alone translation texts suggest men hoped to engage with their new environment and its population.²¹⁰ The sights and sounds were things of interest, while the destruction was something to be experienced and recorded. Maj. G.H. Greenwell wrote home: ‘Should I ever have seen Arras and Ypres, Albert and Péronne under such interesting conditions if there had been no war?’²¹¹ There were historic sites to visit. Lt. D. Henrick Jones hoped to see Rouen’s ‘cathedral and other famous places’.²¹²

After cameras were banned in 1914, a few intrepid men continued to photograph the frontlines. Charting their experiences, they focused on the destruction.²¹³ Postcards also played an important role in recording the sights that soldiers encountered.²¹⁴ H.O. Hendry wrote on one such card: ‘This is another building close by the church dear, I think it has been a school.’²¹⁵ He wanted to share what he saw. Yet, he was disappointed and ‘could not get any decent cards love, this is a poor village, I wanted to get some ruins.’²¹⁶ Sydney Gill sent his wife a similar postcard of a ‘typical country road + village, such as can be seen all over France’.²¹⁷ Men were sometimes granted on leave outside the zone of military operations. W. Vernon described one such trip ‘we went through Paris, when we went up there I saw the big Tower called Eiffel Tower. It is a fine country all round there. I didn’t think there was such nice scenery in France’.²¹⁸ Paris was always appreciated as a real escape. On one trip, Sgt. Henry Selly visited the Museé du Luxembourg and collected pictures of the sculptures he saw there.²¹⁹

Soldiers’ familiarity with the Western Front worked its way into their lingua franca.²²⁰ French ‘borrow words’ entered their lexicon. ‘Alleyman’, ‘Boche’ and ‘Pomme Fritz’ became synonyms for the Germans.²²¹ Other words hinted at their relationships with civilians. Most terms suggest these were quite basic interactions: verbs, nouns, and adjectives that facilitated understanding were most common. ‘Alley’ was used in place of ‘run away’, ‘avec’ indicated that the soldier desired spirits with his beverage, while ‘bon’, ‘pas bon’ or ‘no bon’ all indicated quality. Many phrases were bastardisations of their original form: comme ça was anglicised to ‘comsah’; fâché became ‘fashy’ (anger); pain transformed into ‘Japan’ (bread); manger was converted to ‘Mongey’ (food); while ‘bongo boosh’ meant ‘tasty morsel’ and bore only a passing resemblance to bonne bouche.²²² The term ‘Napoo’ – meaning ‘finished; empty; gone; non-existent’ – was ‘corrupted from the French Il n’y en a plus’.²²³ Flemish (and Flanders’ landscape) also crept into daily usage. ‘Bund’ described the region’s many banks and dams.²²⁴ Some terms were used exclusively by officers – such as ‘embusqué’ for shirker.

Soldiers’ slang extended beyond Franglais. Towns and settlements were renamed. ‘Bert’ became Albert’s nom de guerre.²²⁵ Euphemisms humanised and diminished the dreadfulness. Death was known colloquially as ‘hanging on the old barbed wire’.²²⁶ Heavy guns were known as ‘big boys’ or ‘Billy Wells’ (a famous boxer of the period), while high-calibre shells were referred to as ‘Black Marias’ or, after 1916, ‘Coal Boxes’.²²⁷ Trench Mortars were simply ‘footballs’.²²⁸ Shelling was referred to as ‘hate’ or more comically as ‘bonking’.²²⁹ Reality only crept into the mundane: an empty bottle of beer was known as a ‘dead soldier’.²³⁰

Men’s repeated exposure to the Western Front fuelled familiarisation. Men reinterpreted the environment and the war. Far from passive observers, they were able to see the Western Front as more than just the canvas for their suffering; it became a place of personal significance. As Yi-Fu Tuan has argued, perceptions of landscapes are ‘fleeting unless one’s eyes are kept to it for some other reason, either the recall of historical events that hallowed the scene or the recall of its underlying reality in geology and structure’.²³¹ Tellingly, each part of the Western Front could be viewed with a familiar eye. Even the trenches could be ‘traversed until its every feature was imprinted on the memory’, while ‘every part of the landscape’ and ‘almost every hole was intensely familiar’.²³²

Personalising the Western Front

Familiarity allowed soldiers to internalise the environment.²³³ Landscapes were imbued with meaning and resonated with soldiers. The battlefields, frontlines, and rear areas were layered with memories, both personal and collective. These formed around specific experiences and moments, fusing with the physical world and making the Western Front a patchwork of sites of memory. Pierre Nora describes a ‘lieu de mémoire’ as ‘any significant entity, whether material or non-material in nature which … has become a symbolic element of the memorial heritage of any community’.²³⁴ Belgium and France became a symbolic space for both units and individuals and provided conceptual reference points that helped combatants make sense of the war.

The histories conjured by these sites did not have to be positive; even unhappy events were meaningful. Different sectors were characterised by commonly held impressions. One article in the BEF Times described the different characteristics of the line stretching from ‘Wipers’ to ‘Vilecholle’.²³⁵ Ypres was at once unpleasant and poignant. It was hard to ‘cultivate a love for the salient’ but it had come to embody ‘Kultur and its effect’.²³⁶ Tellingly, the author had actively ‘cut out’ memories of Passchendaele. Saying that, the Somme had been ‘anything but an enjoyable experience, and we were all heartily glad when our turn came to go out to “rest”’. Shattered landscapes were still significant. ‘War ruins’ symbolised the desecration of France and the enemy’s barbarity.²³⁷ Albert’s church steeple and Ypres’ cloth hall were particularly popular symbols amongst the troops of the BEF. Smaller towns such as Arras, Bailleul, or Doullens also resonated strongly with servicemen.²³⁸ S. Smith collected postcards depicting the damaged basilica of Albert. These showed the old building in ruins with its famous ‘Leaning Virgin’ hanging precariously from its roof.²³⁹ As a religious site, it became a striking indication of Germanic brutality. In such ways, the environment could symbolise the justice of the Allies’ cause.

Memories of happier times played a pivotal role in helping individuals to personalise the Western Front. The BEF Times’ author fondly remembered the ‘comparative peace and comfort’ of Neuve Eglise and Hill 63 during a quieter period of the war.²⁴⁰ Yet, enemy advances during spring 1918 meant that ‘the Hun inhabits, for the moment, all our old haunts’. As a consequence, this soldier was bitter and wanted vengeance.²⁴¹ Cheerful memories of football matches and dinner parties motivated him to protect what remained of the sector.²⁴² Another recalled Loos, not for the fighting that took place there in 1915 but for the camaraderie during an ‘enjoyable Xmas day’. A church service under ‘Tower Bridge’ had included a heartfelt rendition of God Save the King ‘within 300 yards of the Hun Lines’. This was followed by a lavish dinner ‘in the old brewery cellars’.²⁴³Amiens had been ‘one of the most comfortable sectors that we have ever struck’ as a consequence of to its functioning canteens and dances. ‘The whole back area soon rivalled London’s night clubs’ with the ‘exception [of …] the rustle of petticoats’.²⁴⁴ Significant, the city’s buildings escaped relatively unscathed until the Germans approached the town in April 1918 so it provided many men with their first sight ‘houses and civilians’ for many weeks.²⁴⁵ There were shops and markets and soldiers were able to visit the theatre or cinema.²⁴⁶ For others, Amiens’ heritage and history provided a welcome distraction.²⁴⁷ G.A. Stevens felt that ‘nothing can hide the beauty’ of the city.²⁴⁸ Those men with enough disposable income could withdraw money here to cover a nice lunch or purchase luxuries otherwise difficult to obtain such as Martini cocktails, lobster, fresh chicken, or other ‘extras’ needed to supplement dinners in the Officers’ Mess.²⁴⁹

For many, it was the relationships that they built with locals (often when billeted in their homes or farms) that were most consequential.²⁵⁰ Despite warnings from the authorities, in many areas locals remained ‘willing to take all risks’. Even in 1917, one soldiers’ newspaper noted that ‘[m]any still continue to till their shell-stricken fields. Others seek to obtain a livelihood by catering for the wants of the most fastidious individual – the British “Tommy”’. Their small canteens and estaminets were places where soldiers could briefly forget the war (even if they felt that the food was overpriced).²⁵¹ For J.L. Hampson, these human connections fused with the environment. His diaries were filled with the names and postal addresses of people he met, both soldiers and civilians.²⁵² Sgt. Harry Hopwood remembered the kindnesses of the locals he encountered.²⁵³ It made the sight of ruined villages and towns all the more dispiriting and one man noted that ‘we never knew how much they meant until we lost them. “Pop” [Poperinghe] became a skeleton of its former self, from which the inhabitants were forced to flee; Bailleul is now a heap of ruins; Béthune is unrecognizable; Doullens and Amiens are sadly changed’.²⁵⁴ Individuals relationship with the people, places, and spaces of Belgium and France nurtured a determination to defend it. Furthermore, the destruction convinced many soldiers that they must ensure it could ‘never happen again’.²⁵⁵

Men’s comradeship was also transposed onto the physical world. Capt. W.S. Ferrie, Pte. William Harrop, and Pte. H.S. Innes kept photographic postcards frozen in location and time. They were mementoes of friendships and locations.²⁵⁶ Ferrie included biographical details in the photographic postcards he sent home: his captain was ‘good’, however one NCO was ‘a Cambridge Mathematical Scholar and was proving to be a very poor sergeant’.²⁵⁷ Another soldier, J.L. Hampson, had companions sign the back of their photographs.²⁵⁸ For similar reasons, Pte. A. Joy’s autograph book became a relic of sorts; it contained notes from family members but also the signatures of comrades and the locations where they met. These were often accompanied by words of encouragement, cartoons, or bawdy poems.²⁵⁹ In his notebook, Guy Chapman recorded each of his men’s military identification number, rank, name, height/size, religion, the outcome of his service (wounded, hospital, promotions), and previous occupation.²⁶⁰ Some NCOs followed a similar practice. C.H. Insom kept a list of his comrades and details about their lives.²⁶¹ These were a physical manifestation of the ‘bond’ between individuals that served in the frontlines.²⁶²

The interweaving of memory, human connection, and the environment was evident in the pilgrimage texts written by veterans after 1918.²⁶³ The roads were a central feature of H. Williamson’s post-war journey across France and Flanders. The highway ‘from Poperinghe to Ypres’ was familiar to hundreds of thousands of men. Its straight roadway, crumbling houses, scarred elms, grassy edges, surrounding cropland, unmarked graves, heavy traffic, and the feel of the paved road underfoot were seared into Williamson’s memory.²⁶⁴ Lt. Col. T.A. Lowe’s 1920 guide for the Western Front was written to enable old soldiers to rediscover such places. He hoped his reader ‘will find himself able to roam at will over the ground and visit the spots which for various reasons may be sacred to him’. Such sites might have been the location of ‘working parties and reliefs’ or ‘the scene of some patrol incident … or the attack on a wood or village’.²⁶⁵ These all formed a part of men’s mental maps, which both supplanted and incorporated the destruction.

Death and Commemoration

The commemoration of the dead played a pivotal role in the process of familiarisation. The network of graves and monuments charted the war’s ebb and flow.²⁶⁶ An important feature of the physical world, they provided both concrete and conceptual reference points. These memorials ensured that even the newest arrivals were aware of the sacrifices of their forebears. Individuals were encouraged to acknowledge their place in a community of soldiers – living and fallen – and ensured that esprit de corps extended beyond the living. Collective memories (and sacrifice) were embedded in the environment, offering a further justification for soldiers’ continued suffering.

Infantrymen were unable to ignore the dead.²⁶⁷ In a spare moment, V.G. Bell sketched a picture of another soldier sitting on a fire-step staring at a cross reading: ‘Pte. A. Jones XII Middlesex. TP E JT. RIP’.²⁶⁸ Bell described the scene: ‘in a British first line trench. One of many who have died at their posts, now buried below the actual fire-step.’²⁶⁹ This grim reality could be hugely detrimental to morale and resilience. On the night of 9/10 July 1916, the 11th Bn. Border Regiment occupied trenches that were plagued by death. Officers were unable to collect more than twenty men to undertake a bombing mission. Many others reported sick. The medical officer informed a court of enquiry that these infantrymen had been ‘digging out the dead in the trenches and carrying them down as well as living in the atmosphere of decomposed bodies’. The impact of heavy casualties on 1 July, physical exhaustion, sorting through deceased comrades’ kits, incessant shellfire, and exposure in an open trench undermined their endurance. Kirkwood concluded that ‘few, if any, are not suffering from some degree of shell shock’.²⁷⁰ Chronic crises – namely the omnipresence of death and destruction – became harder to endure amidst the acute crises of combat or a bombardment. In fact, they undermined soldiers’ ability to respond to these.

Men’s letters offered glimpses of this horror. A few soldiers acknowledged the existence of German dead and even revelled in their presence as evidence of success.²⁷¹ Yet, descriptions of deceased comrades tended to be fragmentary.²⁷² One letter reported ‘of course we came across one or two poor Tommies but the boys have buried them’.²⁷³ The loss of friends was a shock, but the events were generally left undescribed.²⁷⁴ However, there was no lack of detail in the correspondence of Reginald Neville. He was remarkably honest with his father, perhaps because he was a veteran of the Boer War. In one graphic account, he explained how ‘one poor devil [… was] coughing and spitting his very soul out’ and a sergeant had his ‘leg blown off’ by a shell.²⁷⁵ On another occasion, he described how another shell had killed several members of his unit. ‘As soon as it got dark we collected some bits of men, put them in a sandbag, carried out the recognisable bodies over the top and dumped them in a shell hole’.²⁷⁶ Such incidents were not rare. Three privates in the 16th Bn. Manchester Regiment went missing during a bombardment on the night of 14/16 June 1917. When a rescue party reached their trench all they could find were ‘the remains of 3 bodies … but no identification was obtainable’.²⁷⁷ Archaeological evidence points to the damage that artillery wrought on the human body. Skeletal remains reveal that multiple fractures, lost limbs, gaping wounds, and fractured skulls were common.²⁷⁸ Sometimes the dead were left unburied.²⁷⁹ Bodies littered battlefields and during warmer weather they were infested with flies, while rigor mortis meant that their limbs were often outstretched at odd and unnatural angles.²⁸⁰

Men had to cope with this. Practical strategies such as quick burials, disinfection, and the cleaning of trenches accompanied a variety of psychological mechanisms. Alexander Watson suggests soldiers sought to diminish the impact of death. Self-deception helped to combat their sense of mortality. Frontline soldiers also learned to normalise the dead and, as already described, mocked the enemy’s instruments of destruction. Positive illusions (such as Charles Quinnell’s confidence that he could trace a shell’s trajectory) and a religious belief in the afterlife were also important.²⁸¹ Capt. A.J. Lord tried to ignore the bodies. He told his father that ‘the dead, no matter in what shape or form, no longer cause the slightest concern’, although he continued to find the groans of the wounded haunting.²⁸²

The internment of comrades and friends was never pleasant.²⁸³ Yet, it offered the opportunity for a last display of intimacy and burial could prove cathartic. Where possible, soldiers spent time burying their dead and marking the locations with crosses, shell fragments, or rifle butts.²⁸⁴ Significantly, memorial rites emphasised resurrection and life after death.²⁸⁵ Where time allowed, soldiers would hold a brief service and even hasty internments were completed ‘reverently’.²⁸⁶ The very act of commemoration could provide some solace. Charles Dwyer felt that he generated some agency as he carved crosses for the graves of deceased comrades.²⁸⁷

Heavy casualties created a network of cemeteries and isolated white crosses.²⁸⁸ The presence of so many graves on the battlefield is evidenced in the numbers that were damaged by shellfire.²⁸⁹ These were locations invested with meaning and reminders of the survivors’ cause: to fight on in memory of the dead.²⁹⁰ The landscape was littered with temporary crosses or bottles containing the details of a casualty and charted previous years’ fighting.²⁹¹ One soldier retraced his steps across the battlefields after 1918 and found that ‘[t]he sight that touches me up most is the number of little crosses, denoting the graves of our lads who were killed in the advance’.²⁹² In 1914, civilians often shared the same dangers as combatants and the death of a soldier could become part of the fabric of local memory.²⁹³ In an interview with a member of the Graves Registration Unit (GRU), one French civilian recounted how two British soldiers had been killed around his home. One had been shot through the brain as he picked an apple from his orchard, while the other knelt on his doorstep and returned fire until he too had been shot dead by the enemy.²⁹⁴ Of course, this was more common in the war’s early days when civilians occupied the battle zone in greater numbers.

Figure 1.5 A burial party on the Western Front c. 1917.

Source: Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images.

Bonds of comradeship existed between the living and dead. Burials were moments for collective remembrance that acknowledged the dead’s sacrifice. Men even attended other units’ services (especially if there was music), perhaps because the ceremony offered some comfort.²⁹⁵ Illustratively, on a cold day in December 1914, a GRU officer was struggling to erect a cross over the grave of a soldier ‘in some out of the way turnip field’. Some passing soldiers noticed and ‘obtained leave to fall out and help’. After burying the body, ‘without a word they all sprang as one man to attention and solemnly saluted the grave of their dead comrade-in-arms. It was a most impressive and touching sight’.²⁹⁶ This spontaneous reaction reflected the connection many felt with those killed in service. Furthermore, it mirrored the Edwardian culture of reverence and respect for the dead. Funeral practices were therapeutic and drew on values of respectability.²⁹⁷ New Army servicemen displayed similar intimacy. After 1 July 1916, survivors in the 8th and 9th Bns. Devonshire Regiment buried thirteen officers and 148 comrades in two trenches in the old frontline at Mansel Copse. Filling in the trenches, they levelled the ground and then enclosed them with barbed wire and subverted its martial purpose. They were ‘anxious that grass seed should be sown this year and specially Devonshire plants’.²⁹⁸ The 8th and 9th Devons attempted to re-nationalise the frontlines and used Devon as their muse. Such measures could boost morale and esprit de corps. The flora of south-west England were a proud regimental symbol and reminder of home; they honoured the dead and comforted the living by helping men inhabiting a line otherwise bereft of life.

In the ‘sameness’ of shattered landscapes, cemeteries became oases for reflection. One Horticultural Department report evaluated the ‘value’ of sowing annuals in these cemeteries. It noted that the plants helped ‘to brighten places often very barren and desolate’. While annuals need to be replanted each spring, they are bright and vibrant, tend to bloom all season long, are cheaper, and require less attention. The authorities believed that ‘they cheer our men’.²⁹⁹ Soldiers were ‘constant visitors to our cemeteries’ and ‘frequently pass … when on the march’. Cemeteries offered ‘relief and interest’ for servicemen who would ‘adorn’ graves with ‘plants and shrubs found in derelict gardens’.³⁰⁰ In fact, the maintenance of cemeteries apparently became a ‘point of pride’ for men billeted nearby.³⁰¹ These sites were a testimony to the Edwardian love of gardening and became a means of resistance against the war’s destruction.³⁰²

Men’s connection with the dead was also maintained through institutional and regimental memory. Histories of the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission have demonstrated that the preservation of British (and British Empire) graves was driven by an ethos of ‘uniformity regardless of rank, race or creed’. The locations, size, and structure of cemeteries were informed by common standards.³⁰³ However, large-scale grave concentration only took place after hostilities ended. During the war, memorials to sacrifices and exploits emerged from personal or unit-directed memorialisation.³⁰⁴ In fact, the Directorate of Graves Registration and Directories was sometimes willing to establish memorials at the behest of individual battalions.³⁰⁵ Many of these were in areas that were of special significance to the units. By 1918, there were approximately ninety-five ‘battle exploit’ memorials on the Western Front, while the number of unit and personal memorials was incalculable.³⁰⁶

At Dantzig Alley, a five-foot cross was erected in memory of the officers and men of the 20th Bn. Manchester Regiment and placed next to that of fifty-seven British soldiers of an unidentified unit.³⁰⁷ Memorials were sometimes crafted from local stone and maintained by the local populace.³⁰⁸ At Verneuil Chateau, one had been carved from local limestone and inscribed in French: ‘R.I.P. Compagne 1914.15.16.17 Le 57e Rmt. d’Infie Francais aux Camarades Anglais tombés au champ d’honneur dans le Secteur de Verneuil.’ It was a monument to shared loss and ‘honour’.³⁰⁹ Regiments celebrated past exploits and built bridges between new drafts and their predecessors. Having served in Belgium and France since August 1914, the 2nd Bn. Ox and Bucks Light Infantry had several memorials preserving the unit’s collective memory of loss and heroism. In October 1917, the battalion unveiled a memorial near Langemarck and Gheluvelt. The service was led by the battalion’s old commanding officer and dedicated to the ‘memory of 5 officers and 70 NCOs and Men, 52nd Light Infantry, killed in action 21–23 Oct 1914 some of whom are buried near this spot’.³¹⁰ Static war meant that these were often part of the battlefield. Passing soldiers would have been aware that they were traversing or relinquishing hallowed ground, which explains why one report on morale claimed that this ‘loss of ground [… had] acted as a powerful tonic on the moral [sic] of the army’ after March 1918.³¹¹

Memorialisation nurtured a sense of ownership.³¹² Ypres became a ‘sacred monument’ for the British.³¹³ Historian Mark Connelly has argued that a ‘consensus around the meaning of Ypres was constructed’ producing an ‘imagined landscape’ that ‘linked veterans, the bereaved, and the town’s native inhabitants’.³¹⁴ This process began during the conflict.³¹⁵ The city was a kind of tomb.³¹⁶ Graves and battle-scarred landscapes were physical reminders of a debt owed to the fallen. One Scottish trench journal explained that the BEF’s survivors ‘lived to mourn’ the fallen, who would ‘never fade from our memories’. Their ‘sacrifice will be as an incentive to others’.³¹⁷ This sentiment was evident on monuments’ dedications, which often included phrases lifted from the bible such as ‘BETTER [usually worded greater] LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS – THAT A MAN LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS.’ Elsewhere, they included descriptions of ‘GALLANT DEFENCE’ or simple pleas to remember the dead.³¹⁸

National history nurtured other connections between the landscape and the dead of other wars. History held broad appeal (across all classes) during this period.³¹⁹ One man found himself thinking about Napoleon.³²⁰ Others were confident that the battles of 1914–1918 would take their rightful place in this historical record.³²¹ Moments from English, British, and regimental history had taken place in northern France and Belgium. Calais was England’s last possession on the continent, while Agincourt, Crécy, and Waterloo were sites of historical significance. J.W. Fortescue (the British Army’s official historian) published The British Soldier’s Guide to Northern France and Flanders. In this affordable pamphlet, Fortescue explained that ‘the Low Countries and Northern France are the oldest and most familiar of the British Army’s campaigning grounds … This … is an attempt to enable Regiments to form some idea of the time and circumstances of their former visits to this area’.³²² Connections were drawn to the campaigns of William III and the Duke of Wellington. Each regiment’s exploits were described, as were the historic battles and events that had occurred throughout the British zone of operations.³²³ Even further back in history ‘Englishmen [had] fought and died for Merrie England’ during the campaigns of Edward III and Henry V.³²⁴ One popular song’s lyrics were ‘literally true’. It went ‘[h]ere we are, here we are, here we are again!’ In this regard, the Great War represented continuity. Nonetheless, Fortescue concluded: ‘in every case France was the enemy, and the general front of the British was towards the West and South. Now, with that most gallant nation for our friend, we face in the opposite direction’.³²⁵

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Ross Wilson has observed that ‘whereas the battlefields were the scenes of destruction and death, ruined buildings and scenes of brutality, the ways in which soldiers responded to these conditions acted to alter and shift the meanings of the landscape’.³²⁶ This provided ‘a different context in which to consider their lives at the front’.³²⁷ English infantrymen developed an attachment to the physical world. They familiarised the Western Front through exposure and exploration, which helped them to normalise and overcome what confronted them. It was possible for soldiers to become habituated to the Western Front’s more distressing sights, sounds, and scents. They also nurtured meaning and developed deep bonds with their surroundings. Geographer D.W. Meinig has argued that landscapes are ‘defined by our vision and interpreted by our minds’ and are ‘composed not of what lies before our eyes but what lies within our heads’.³²⁸ France and Flanders became a meaningful space, but it never threatened to become home. Men remained keen to escape, and individuals from other parts of the world had very different responses to the Englishmen studied here.

‘Place attachment’ (a concept borrowed from environmental psychology and sociology) helps to explain this. It does not necessitate a preferential perception of a landscape but rests on a person’s experiential relationship with their surroundings. Psychologists Leila Scannell and Robert Gifford have described this process as ‘the bonding that occurs between individuals and their meaningful environments’. ‘Attachment is an effective, proximity-maintaining bond that can be expressed without an underlying purpose of control.’³²⁹ Though frequently an individual phenomenon, it can also take place collectively. Personal connections are built upon memories, connections, and feelings of growth, whereas shared attachment stems from symbolic cultural meanings or communal historical experiences, values, and symbols. Personal memories of places, people, and events; the collective memorialisation of dead comrades; and institutional and historical memory helped to cultivate a connection with the Western Front.

Various processes feed place attachment. It can be driven by affect and some researchers point to topophilia (a very positive perception of an environment).³³⁰ Others suggest that attachment stems from an emotional investment in, or pride about, a space. Significance can be bred by fear, hatred, or ambivalence. Yet, it is generally more positive emotions that are most significant. Displays of human kindness, feelings of comradeship, or moments of relaxation and discovery nurtured soldiers’ relationships with particular locations. Cognition is also influential as ‘memories, beliefs, meaning and knowledge’ can become fused with places and spaces.³³¹

Familiarity is a central pillar of cognitive place attachment. The Western Front was intensely familiar. Exposure and exploration allowed men to acquire beliefs tied to their experiences in Belgium and France, to seek meaning in the world around them, and to develop knowledge particular to the landscapes there. This became intertwined with soldiers’ self-perception: their sense of duty, their role as combatants, and their membership of a community were all informed by this physical frame. Attachment was demonstrated behaviourally.³³² Soldiers renamed the frontlines, incorporated French into their vernacular, collected images of the sights they encountered, and eventually returned on pilgrimages after the war. Religious pilgrimage and reconstruction (physical or conceptual) are indicators of place attachment.³³³

This also served psychological functions. Place attachment provides actors with the perception of security and wellbeing.³³⁴ It also gave meaning and structure to the conflict, which was invaluable to morale. Place attachment nurtures feelings of continuity. Memories are projected onto the physical environment, which can become part of personal histories and shared cultural events.³³⁵ The Western Front became the stage for the pursuit of victorious peace and bonds are sometimes produced by the expectation or success of goal pursuit.³³⁶ Scannell and Gifford have argued that this can ‘lead to place dependence, a type of attachment in which individuals value a place for the specific activities that it supports or facilitates’.³³⁷

Men’s relationship with the Western Front helped to combat chronic crisis and deflect acute crisis. By layering memories upon the environment, infantrymen were able to see beyond the destruction. Their attachment to Belgium and France offered a sense of security, the perception of order, and familiarity in a world that was frequently confusing. Yet, as the next chapter will show, the environment still sapped their energy and resilience.