Traces from the past

Traces from the past Discover traces from the past in Hauts-de-France and West Flanders — from bunkers and graveyards to memorials and battlefields.
(1)

Every place has a story waiting to be told. 🌿

🌿 Thélus Communal Cemetery lies among the houses of the village, a short distance from the vast military cemeteries of V...
12/09/2026

🌿 Thélus Communal Cemetery lies among the houses of the village, a short distance from the vast military cemeteries of Vimy Ridge.

The village was captured by the Canadian Corps on 9 April 1917 during the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Four French military crosses from the First World War can be found in the communal cemetery.

Three Commonwealth graves date from the German advance through northern France in May 1940. One belongs to Corporal Charles Edward Bowen of 5th Divisional Signals, Royal Corps of Signals, who died on 22 May 1940 at the age of thirty-seven. The two servicemen buried beside him remain unidentified. One is known only to have served with the Royal Artillery, while nothing more is known about the unit of the other.

The cemetery also contains the graves of two Belgian civilians who died during the evacuation through France. Rémy Honoré, a miner from Paturages, died from wounds on 15 May 1940. Louis Auguste Dubois, who had lived at Buvrinnes, died on 22 May.

Dubois and Bowen died on the same day. Their graves remain at Thélus beside the two unidentified British servicemen.

----------

Thélus Communal Cemetery
62580 Mairie de Thélus

Follow the page to discover more interesting places from World War history.

🌿 The Guillaume Apollinaire Memorial stands in the Bois des Buttes near La Ville-aux-Bois-lès-Pontavert, on the eastern ...
11/09/2026

🌿 The Guillaume Apollinaire Memorial stands in the Bois des Buttes near La Ville-aux-Bois-lès-Pontavert, on the eastern edge of the Chemin des Dames. It marks the area where the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire was seriously wounded during the First World War.

Born in Rome in 1880, Apollinaire was not yet a French citizen when the war began. He nevertheless volunteered for the French Army and joined the 38th Field Artillery Regiment in December 1914. After serving on the Champagne front, he requested a transfer to the infantry and joined the 96th Infantry Regiment. By March 1916, he was serving as a second lieutenant.

On 10 March, a German attack captured most of the Bois des Buttes and forced the French troops back towards the south-western part of the wood known as La Sapinière. Hundreds of French soldiers were taken prisoner. Apollinaire’s battalion arrived on the night of 14 March to strengthen the remaining French positions. Earlier that day, he had received confirmation that his long-awaited naturalisation as a French citizen had been granted.

The trenches were exposed and offered little protection. Apollinaire recorded heavy shelling throughout 16 March and again the following day. At about 16:00 on 17 March, he was reading an issue of the Mercure de France in the centre of his section when a 150 mm shell exploded around 20 metres away. A fragment pierced his helmet and entered his skull near the right temple.

He was taken first to the regimental aid post in the Bois de Beaumarais and then to a military ambulance at Romain. Further treatment followed at Château-Thierry and in Paris, where he underwent operations and a long convalescence.

His bandaged head soon became closely associated with his wartime story. Pablo Picasso, a close friend whose work Apollinaire had supported as an art critic, drew him in profile in 1916. The work, known as Apollinaire blessé, shows the bandage wrapped around the poet’s head following his injury. It was later reproduced as the frontispiece of Calligrammes. The same profile can be seen in the drawings placed around the memorial.

After his convalescence, Apollinaire remained in the army and was assigned to the military press-censorship service. He also received the Croix de guerre. In April 1918, he published Calligrammes, a collection containing poems written before and during the war. He died from influenza in Paris on 9 November 1918, two days before the Armistice.

The granite memorial was conceived and financed by the writer Yves Gibeau and unveiled on 24 March 1990. Beneath its dedication are lines from Apollinaire’s poem Rêverie, written in a letter to Lou during his earlier service with the artillery.

The memorial originally stood beside the road, within the part of the wood held by German troops after 10 March 1916. It was moved into the wood in October 2025, closer to the surviving French positions and the probable area of Apollinaire’s wounding. Its new location was officially inaugurated on 14 March 2026.

---------

The Guillaume Apollinaire Memorial
02160 La Ville-aux-Bois-lès-Pontavert

Follow the page to discover more interesting places from World War history.

🌿 Quesnoy-sur-Deûle German Military Cemetery lies north of Lille, close to the Belgian border. Much of its original layo...
10/09/2026

🌿 Quesnoy-sur-Deûle German Military Cemetery lies north of Lille, close to the Belgian border. Much of its original layout survives, making it a rare example of a German divisional cemetery that was not completely reorganised after the war.

The 40th Saxon Infantry Division reached this sector in October 1914 and held the front between Frelinghien and St Yves until August 1916. Its long presence is reflected in the cemetery, where most of the soldiers are Saxons.

Field Hospital 2 of the Saxon XIX Army Corps opened in Quesnoy-sur-Deûle on 22 October 1914. Soldiers who died there were initially buried in part of the communal cemetery. Around 250 German soldiers had been laid to rest there by the end of November.

As the front settled into trench warfare, a larger burial ground became necessary. A neighbouring field was taken over, and the first burials took place there in late January 1915. In October, the new cemetery became the central burial ground of the 40th Infantry Division.

A further extension in April 1916 brought its wartime area to more than 6,200 square metres. Around 1,040 soldiers were buried here during the war, while more than 530 others were brought in from smaller burial grounds behind the division’s front.

The cemetery also received 44 British soldiers. Most had been captured after being wounded and later died in German field hospitals. After the war, most of their remains were transferred to British cemeteries. A metal cross nevertheless commemorates six unknown British soldiers believed to remain somewhere within Quesnoy-sur-Deûle.

Further changes followed during the 1920s. German soldiers who still lay in the communal cemetery were moved in 1920, either to the adjoining military cemetery or to other German cemeteries in the region.

The largest transfer took place in 1925, when a Bavarian field cemetery at Comines was closed. The remains of 308 soldiers were brought to Quesnoy-sur-Deûle and reburied in a Kameradengrab along the edge of the cemetery.

Today the cemetery contains 1,964 German soldiers of the First World War. Of the 1,656 men buried in the main grave plots, 28 remain unidentified. The Kameradengrab contains another 308 soldiers, of whom one remains unidentified. Near the centre still stands the original stone monument erected by the 40th Infantry Division during the war.

-----------

Quesnoy-sur-Deûle German Military Cemetery
59890 Quesnoy-sur-Deûle

This post was written with the help of German historian Jürgen Schmieschek. If anyone has any additional information about this cemetery, please feel free to send it to Jürgen. He would be very grateful for it.

Follow the page to discover more interesting places from World War history.

🌿 The 15th Battalion C.E.F. ‘Vimy Cross’ Memorial stands in a small Zanpark at Écurie, north of Arras. Its granite cross...
09/09/2026

🌿 The 15th Battalion C.E.F. ‘Vimy Cross’ Memorial stands in a small Zanpark at Écurie, north of Arras. Its granite cross is a full-size replica of the wooden memorial erected by the battalion in the days after its attack at Vimy Ridge on 9 April 1917.

The 15th Battalion, associated with the 48th Highlanders of Canada, formed part of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade, 1st Canadian Division. Before the attack, its men trained on replicas of the German defences and moved through the Maison Blanche tunnel system towards their starting positions.

At 5.30 a.m. on 9 April 1917, the battalion advanced behind the artillery barrage on the southern part of the Canadian Corps front. It crossed the Arras to Lens road, captured the German position marked as the Black Line, paused while the barrage moved forward, and then continued towards the Red Line. Both objectives were secured, allowing battalions of the 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade to pass through and continue the advance towards Vimy Ridge.

Between 9 and 12 April, the 15th Battalion recorded 90 men killed and 175 wounded. Many of the dead were buried in two temporary burial grounds identified as CA 35 and CA 39. CA 35 contained 23 men of the battalion, while 39 of its soldiers were buried at CA 39.

In the days after the attack, the battalion carpenter made a large Celtic cross and painted upon it the names of officers and men who had died. Later research identified the carpenter as Private Thomas Edward Pollitt. Additional names were added as further deaths became known, although the inscription never became a complete list of the battalion’s casualties.

The cross is believed to have stood at CA 35, although the regimental history placed it at CA 39. CA 35 survived the war intact, while CA 39 was badly damaged by later shelling. After the Armistice, the graves that could be recovered were transferred to Nine Elms Military Cemetery. Most of the men whose graves were lost at CA 39 are now commemorated by the Arras Road Memorial at the front of Nine Elms Military Cemetery. The wooden cross was also moved to Nine Elms.

In 1923, the 48th Highlanders obtained the cross and brought it to Toronto. It was unveiled at the regiment’s University Avenue Armoury on 30 October 1925 and is now preserved in the 48th Highlanders Museum at St Andrew’s Church. It returned temporarily to France for the centenary of the battle in 2017.

The present granite cross does not mark the precise position of CA 35 or CA 39. When the proposed location near Nine Elms could not be used, the municipality of Écurie provided land for the memorial. The two-ton replica was dedicated on 22 September 2018 and reproduces the form and inscriptions of the wooden cross made for the battalion in April 1917.

---------

The 15th Battalion C.E.F. ‘Vimy Cross’ Memorial
62223 Écurie

Follow the page to discover more interesting places from World War history.

🌿 Pozières British Cemetery lies just outside Pozières, beside the road from Albert to Bapaume. Most of the men resting ...
08/09/2026

🌿 Pozières British Cemetery lies just outside Pozières, beside the road from Albert to Bapaume. Most of the men resting here died during the later stages of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, while the surrounding colonnades form a memorial to servicemen missing from the fighting of 1918.

The attack on Pozières began before dawn on 23 July 1916. The 1st Australian Division advanced against the village while troops of the British 48th (South Midland) Division attacked to the west. Australian troops entered the village during the opening attack and gradually secured the ruined positions. The fighting then continued along the ridge and later moved northwards towards Mouquet Farm. Pozières, already badly damaged by the preliminary bombardment, was subjected to relentless German artillery fire.

The 1st, 2nd and 4th Australian Divisions were committed to the fighting around Pozières and Mouquet Farm. Over 42 days they made as many as nineteen attacks and suffered about 23,000 casualties, including 6,800 men who were killed or died of wounds. This made Pozières one of the costliest battles fought by the Australian Imperial Force on the Western Front.

Plot II contains the original wartime burials made by fighting units and field ambulances during 1916, 1917 and 1918. The cemetery was greatly enlarged after the Armistice, when graves were brought in from the surrounding battlefield and several smaller burial grounds. Most of these men had died during the autumn of 1916, although a smaller number were killed during the renewed fighting in August 1918.

The colonnades around the cemetery form the Pozières Memorial. It commemorates servicemen of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died on the Somme between 21 March and 7 August 1918 and have no known grave. This period began with the German spring offensive, when the British Fifth Army was forced back across the former Somme battlefield, and ended one day before the Allied Advance to Victory began on 8 August. Australian servicemen missing in France are commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial.

Pozières British Cemetery now contains 2,760 Commonwealth burials and commemorations, of which 1,382 are unidentified. Twenty three Special Memorials commemorate men believed to be resting among the unidentified graves. The cemetery also contains the grave of one German serviceman, while the surrounding Pozières Memorial records more than 14,000 servicemen who have no known grave.

--------------

Pozières British Cemetery and Memorial
80300 Ovillers-la-Boisselle

Follow the page to discover more interesting places from World War history.

🌿 Motor Car Corner Cemetery lies near Le Bizet, south of Ploegsteert. Its name came from the point beyond which military...
07/09/2026

🌿 Motor Car Corner Cemetery lies near Le Bizet, south of Ploegsteert. Its name came from the point beyond which military cars were not allowed to continue towards the front. Men and supplies travelled onwards on foot or by the trench railway that ran beside the site.

The cemetery was opened in June 1917, at the beginning of the Battle of Messines, and remained in use until the end of March 1918. It was originally sheltered by an avenue of trees.

Among those buried here are brothers Allan Holz and Ernest John Julius Holz (A.15 and A.16) of the 3rd Battalion, Wellington Regiment. Their father, Julius, had emigrated from Germany to New Zealand and was naturalised in 1884. Allan, Ernest and their brother William enlisted together in October 1916. They reached France in late May 1917 and remained together after joining their battalion.

At around 1.30 a.m. on 13 June 1917, a German shell struck the room in Pont-de-Nieppe where the three brothers were sleeping. Allan, aged 25, and Ernest, aged 37, were killed. William suffered severe wounds to his abdomen, wrist, hip and foot. His injuries ended his military service, and he returned to New Zealand aboard the hospital ship Marama. Allan and Ernest were buried beside each other at Motor Car Corner.

The cemetery fell into German hands on 10 April 1918 and was not recaptured until 29 September. The cemetery fell into German hands on 10 April 1918 and was not recaptured until 29 September. During the occupation, it was extended northwards for German burials.

Captain William Allan Forsyth (C.28), a 23-year-old pilot with 79 Squadron RAF, was flying Sopwith Dolphin C3806 when he was shot down near Armentières on 27 June 1918. Forsyth was wounded and died later that day. He was buried here while the cemetery was under German control.

The only German grave that remains is that of Vizefeldwebel Otto Gaertner (C.29), who died on 26 June 1918, one day before Forsyth. The two men are buried beside one another. The other German graves were removed after the war.

Today, Motor Car Corner Cemetery contains 132 burials from the First World War. Most are New Zealanders, with smaller numbers from the United Kingdom and Australia. Five of the burials are unidentified.

-------------

Motor Car Corner Cemetery
7783 Comines-Warneton

Follow the page to discover more interesting places from World War history.

🌿 The “Mechanised Warfare” gallery at Bastogne Barracks shows how mechanisation transformed warfare between 1915 and 194...
06/09/2026

🌿 The “Mechanised Warfare” gallery at Bastogne Barracks shows how mechanisation transformed warfare between 1915 and 1945. By bringing together vehicles and weapons used by several nations, the exhibition follows the development from the first armoured vehicles to the increasingly mechanised armies of the Second World War.

Among the smallest vehicles on display is the French Renault UE, originally developed to carry ammunition and equipment towards the front. Its two crew members sat on either side of the engine beneath separate armoured covers. Around 3,000 Renault UE and UE2 vehicles were captured by German forces in 1940 and reused in several roles. Among the Renault UEs displayed at Bastogne Barracks is a rare example converted by German forces into an armoured machine gun carrier. It was used in the defence of Evere airfield near Brussels and still carries its Luftwaffe markings.

The French B1 bis represents a very different approach to armoured warfare. Protected by up to 60 mm of armour, it carried a 75 mm gun in its hull and a 47 mm gun in its turret. Its firepower and protection allowed it to take on the German tanks deployed in 1940, although many examples were lost through mechanical failure as well as fighting.

Other tanks show how designs continued to evolve during the war. The British Matilda II combined heavy armour with a relatively low speed, while the tall M3 Grant carried its main 75 mm gun in the hull. The Soviet T34/85 represented a later stage in this development, combining sloped armour and good mobility with a more powerful 85 mm gun.

Germany entered the war with a considerable advantage in radio communication. Its armoured units were equipped with large numbers of powerful two way radios, allowing them to coordinate their movements and react more quickly to changing situations. The Opel Blitz radio truck shows how these communications could accompany troops in the field.

The collection extends far beyond tanks. Humber armoured vehicles were used for reconnaissance, while the artillery on display shows how armies tried to counter the growing threat posed by tanks and aircraft. The French 25 mm and 47 mm antitank guns were among the weapons available during the fighting of 1940. They are displayed alongside the German 2 cm Flak 38 and the Soviet 76.2 mm ZiS 3, a widely used field gun that could also be employed against tanks.

Several other vehicles reveal the importance of transport and supply. The amphibious DUKW carried equipment from ships that could not enter a port directly to the shore and played an important role during the Normandy landings. The powerful Diamond T981 and its trailer could transport vehicles and other loads weighing up to 52 tonnes.

Another unusual exhibit is a Belgian armoured shelter developed before the war. These small steel structures protected workers who had to remain beside railway switches, gas storage tanks or other essential equipment during air raids.

Two earlier posts have already shown other parts of Bastogne Barracks. I took so many pictures in the “Mechanised Warfare” gallery that I reached Facebook’s limit for a single post. The remaining pictures will follow next week in the fourth and final post of the series.

-------

Bastogne Barracks
6600 Bastogne

Follow the page to discover more interesting places from World War history.

Adresse

Nieuwkerke

Site Web

Notifications

Soyez le premier à savoir et laissez-nous vous envoyer un courriel lorsque Traces from the past publie des nouvelles et des promotions. Votre adresse e-mail ne sera pas utilisée à d'autres fins, et vous pouvez vous désabonner à tout moment.

Raccourcis

Partager

Type