134
THE YPRES TIMES
and fears of news of their menfolk who were reported Missing on some fateful
morning, the Menin Gate Memorial enshrines their memory in massive stone, and
witnesses to the untiring vigilance and devotion of those valiant soldiers who barred
the gate to Calais."
To the ex-Service men, returning to the scenes of their nightmare years of mud
and blood, what a strange contrast the new Ypres presentsThe young lovers
linger on the ramparts in the cool of the evening, where one formerly burrowed
like a mole in the catacombs beneath. The town band plays in the Grand' Place,
and young Belgians dance foxtrots to its strains, under the ruins of the Cloth Hall,
but yesterday a holocaust of incendiary and explosive shells. Birr Cross Roads
and Hell Fire Corner are safer to cross than the Strand, and as one proceeds along
the Menin Road, instead of a mud track between scores of shell holes, smiling
cornfields greet the eye on every hand.
Even Hooge Crater has vanished, and one experiences almost a sense of
disappointment at the disappearance of such well-known landmarks. But if one
probes deeper, sometimes an old pillbox, where one lived for weeks, may be
discovered amidst the blackberry brambles of Glencorse Wood, or the garden of a
new red-roofed farmhouse.
In 1917 one could
not have surmised that
a village or even a
chateau had ever exis
ted. Only a signboard
and a heap of rubble
marked the site of
Hooge, and a huge
crater yawned' at the
cross-roads. To-day, a
church has been built
on the site, and the
crater is now an orna
mental lake decked with flying pigs in hooge chateau garden,
water lilies. A new
chateau has risen Phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, and its owner has collected
in the garden a perfect armoury of war souvenirs. Flying pigs have been converted
into flower pots, and are a blaze of blue lobelia; peaceful bees swarm
in the beehives under an old elephant iron, and in the centre of the courtyard a
statue of the Madonna looks benignantly down on a scene of peace in which the
shell cases and Lewis guns seem strangely out-of-place
And the Baroness of Béthune has done a signal service in collecting in her
museum all the war relics discovered for miles around. Here may be seen the old
trench notices, "Hotel Cecil," etc., and one, riddled with shrapnel, which reads,
Do not expose yourself to the enemy; if you are not hit yourself, somebody else
will be." Here also German helmets, revolvers, rifles, hand grenades, bayonets
and trench mortars lie cheek by jowl with English rifles, Lewis guns, water bottles,
tin helmets, gas masks and shell cases. If these could speak, what tales they could
tell of sanguinary battles and all the long-drawn horrors of bombardment in water
logged trenches. Time and Nature have done their best to cover up the tracks of
this hideous Armageddon, when civilisation tottered to its foundations for four
years, and men reverted to the life of the beast. But may we hope that the signing
of the Peace Pact in Paris on August 27th, by the Allies and late enemies, will
mean the final outlawry of war? Then, and only then, will this stupendous
sacrifice of human life, of which Ypres so eloquently testifies, not have been made
in vain. A. W. W.
