Peter Barton: Time to examine WW I trenches in Belgium is now
Today, with the spring sun trying to burn through an early morning Belgian mist, it is hard to imagine that this innocuous looking potato field was once the hellish moonscape of the front line.
By the end of World War I life on the surface had become untenable. Tons of steel fell from the sky in a near continuous bombardment.
The Germans retreated into thick concrete pillboxes. The British dug further and further underground.
Today we often picture the British Tommy taking a drag from a cigarette leaning against the wall of his trench. In reality, especially around the Belgian town of Ypres, tens of thousands were living up to 40ft beneath the ground.
That is how far they had to dig to be safe from the German shelling.
After the battle of Passchendaele in 1917, when a quarter of a million British and Commonwealth soldiers died as troops advanced the few miles to Passchendaele Ridge, a brigade headquarters was built here.
Within a week of its completion in 1918, the Germans swept through during their spring offensive and recaptured all the territory gained at such a cost a few months earlier.
They moved into the tunnels and extended them. As the war drew to a close they were finally abandoned as British troops advanced again in the autumn of 1918.
They were sealed and flooded and have remained buried and half forgotten ever since.
Race against time
Peter Barton, historian, author and expert in underground warfare, is hoping to be able to get back into the tunnels.
He said: "Those dugouts which we've explored before, everything was preserved, from the actual structure of the thing itself to blankets, to the wire on the bunks, to newspapers!"
But it is a race against time. Excavations in a nearby clay-pit mean the water that is preserving everything inside the tunnel system might be drained and the process of decay will begin....
Read entire article at BBC
By the end of World War I life on the surface had become untenable. Tons of steel fell from the sky in a near continuous bombardment.
The Germans retreated into thick concrete pillboxes. The British dug further and further underground.
Today we often picture the British Tommy taking a drag from a cigarette leaning against the wall of his trench. In reality, especially around the Belgian town of Ypres, tens of thousands were living up to 40ft beneath the ground.
That is how far they had to dig to be safe from the German shelling.
After the battle of Passchendaele in 1917, when a quarter of a million British and Commonwealth soldiers died as troops advanced the few miles to Passchendaele Ridge, a brigade headquarters was built here.
Within a week of its completion in 1918, the Germans swept through during their spring offensive and recaptured all the territory gained at such a cost a few months earlier.
They moved into the tunnels and extended them. As the war drew to a close they were finally abandoned as British troops advanced again in the autumn of 1918.
They were sealed and flooded and have remained buried and half forgotten ever since.
Race against time
Peter Barton, historian, author and expert in underground warfare, is hoping to be able to get back into the tunnels.
He said: "Those dugouts which we've explored before, everything was preserved, from the actual structure of the thing itself to blankets, to the wire on the bunks, to newspapers!"
But it is a race against time. Excavations in a nearby clay-pit mean the water that is preserving everything inside the tunnel system might be drained and the process of decay will begin....