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The Ypres Times.
ALL SOULS' DAY AT YPRES, 1921.
By THE HON. ALICE DOUGLAS PENNANT.
THIS YEAR I was able to fulfil a long-made resolve to spend All Saints' and
All Souls' Days at Ypres, and it was indeed wonderful to be there in that
region ever consecrated for all who belong to the British Empire, not only
by the glorious heroism of their living agonies, endurance and victories,
but still more by the memory of the 220,000 British dead who lie around
that sacred ground.
Lest we forget is our motto, and it is well to keep it before the unremembering
crowd, but to many the name of Ypres entered as iron into their souls since the early days
of November, 1914, when we first heard there had been tremendous fighting near Ypres,
that heavy drafts were to go out, and then the names of one's own people who were
missing in that terrible struggle when the Kaiser hoped to destroy the little mighty
British force which dared to stand in the way of his triumphal march to Calais and the
seaboard towns.
My first visit to Ypres was in September, 1919, when I found the grave of one of my
brothers near Reutel on ground which, since October 29th, 1914, had been in German
hands. Driving back to Ostend (for at that time there was nowhere one could stay in
Ypres), filled with the emotion of having accomplished what I faintly hoped ever since
the Berlin Red Cross, in 1916, sent the number of his grave in the German 27th Reserve
Korps Cemetery, the impression one received of the thousands and tens of thousands,
the cloud of witnesses hovering around was so vivid it felt overwhelming. The level
light of a beautiful autumn evening made the down of the masses of thistles which covered
the devastated country shine like silver sheen, whilst the thistledown, floating away on
some imperceptible zephyr, looked like souls updrawn from the earth, composed of their
hallowed dust. It was as if wandering, they whispered, Do you remember us Do
you remember like? an insistent cry in one's ears.
What can we do to show them we remember And then, like a beam of light, as
if it,were a message from otherwhere that slid into my heart, came the thought We
must build a belfry that will point to heaven, and that will sound out to all around to
say, Yes, boys, we remember,' and the rising moon was witness to my resolution that
I should do what I could to get this idea realized.
On September 28th, 1920, at the meeting which started the Ypres League in response
to Lord French's and Lord Plumer's appeal, the proposal to build a Belfry as the Memorial
to our 200,000 dead in the Salient was brought forward and found general approval,
and it has since met with almost unanimous sympathy. Indeed, it seems that there could
be no more beautiful and completely satisfying memorial.
Belgium is the native land of belfries that level country calls for high objects,
and the tower would afford a much-needed view-point whence to survey the surrounding
scene of transcendent interest. A belfry is the only memorial that can appeal to both
ear and eye. The clock chimes could play favourite British airs (would not Abide
with me" at evening touch every heart with associations?), and the great bell should
boom out at sunrise and set, and a light at the summit shine forth at night, so that all
around would see and hear and the peasants, centuries hence, will say, That is the
British belfry at Ypres." The Roll of the Glorious Dead which the League is engaged
in compiling, as well as that of the survivors, could be preserved in the building, whose
ground-floor should be a shrine emblazoning with beautiful colours the undying memory
of the men of Britain and Overseas.
It is said that the Government will eventually erect a Triumphal Arch to the glory
of British arms, but that sentiment which, of course, equally deserves commemoration
(and would be paid for by the taxpayer) is quite different from a Memorial to the Dead
