Landscape Photography near Ypres

[Olham]

Although these are photographies of today, you may sense the ghost of the Great War in them.

 

http://www.landscape...schendaele.html

 

http://www.landscapephotographycourses.com/2006/04/verdun.html

 

 

Edited May 1, 2011 by Olham

[Lewie]

Thanks Olham for posting this. You know that the Messine craters forming those lakes were from those huge underground explosive mine caches the Canadian and New Zealander "diggers" dug tunnels for? I would almost be certain that with some diving gear and some luck you would find the old mine shafts, that these explosives were delivered through are still extant.

[Olham]

Yes, I read an indirect description by Arthur Gould Lee, who heard a tremendous rumbling, roaring thunder

northeast of his field at La Gorgue. They were about 25 kilometers away, but they could feel it in the ground.

It must have been very terrifying. I wonder how many German soldiers were instantly killed on the ridge; and

how many may have been buried alive.

[Dej]

Very apropos point, Olham. I was just discussing with the other half that one of the tragedies of WW1 was the confrontation of the destructive capability of industrialistation with the socio-economic hierachy that had given it birth (watching Andrew Lloyd-Webber's PRB thing on BBC)....the old 'World Order' was totally overwhelmed.

 

Instantaneous death and destruction on the scale you allude to just had not happened before.

[Shiloh]

These are fantastic Olham - thanks for posting. What a challenge to make artistically beautiful photos from places that were "hell on earth" not so long ago. It's amazing how well nature adapts and recovers from such devastation. Kinda' reminds us of why guys wanted to be up in the sky out of the mud and toil those poor foot soldiers endured.

Edited May 1, 2011 by Shiloh

[Olham]

....the old 'World Order' was totally overwhelmed.

The 'world order' (as made by humans) keeps changing again and again, as we can see in history.

The ancient Rome lasted really long as a Super-Power, but in the end it fell, due to many reasons,

which lay more within Rome than outside; and which we can still find in every modern system.

 

Instantaneous death and destruction on the scale you allude to just had not happened before.

The effectiveness of mass destruction had reached another industrial level - and not the highest one, as we later saw in Hiroshima.

In this context, I really like the signature of one of our forum members; a sentence said by a Roman high ranking military chief for

development of new weapons - he did not believe, that there was any more progress possible.

Would make me smile, if it wasn't so sad.

[Hasse Wind]

Beautiful photos. I really must go to France and Belgium one day and tour those battlefields. Verdun is probably the best preserved, thans to its importance to France.

[DukeIronHand]

I am always somewhat surprised by how flat and open the terrain is. I have been all over the world but never France.

 

Trees come and go of course but hills not so much - least in 100 years.

 

Kind of shows why the MG was such a killer - with artillery helping mightily of course - and why, based on then military hardware and tactical thinking, the concept of trench warfare developed.

[Olham]

The northern marshlands of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany are mostly flat as a plate, Duke.