Carrefour

Posted on by CBF Students - Étudiants FCCB

Today we visited the Regina trench cemetery located in a remote area in Northern France. Because of it’s location, it is not visited as much as other WW1 cemeteries in France. Despite that however, the site was still being maintained by the Commonwealth Graves Commission. This was significant for me because it demonstrates that the First World War is still important to Europeans even after a century. Maintaining even the smaller memorial sites and cemeteries shows that they do not want people to forget the major loss of life that the war caused in hopes that another major conflict does not reoccur. Another example is the French Honour Guard at the Notre Dame de Lorette who have to dedicate a day (not sure if it’s every month or every year) to supervise the site and talk to visitors thus demonstrating the importance of remembering.

The highlight of the day for me was going into the tunnels at Vimy Ridge. Getting a sense of what the underground conditions were like for the soldiers and their importance in the war was interesting since I have not studied the tunnels of the First World War. I was also able to face my claustrophobia with the help of the other students who took the tour with me. I could not imagine how the soldiers who were claustrophobic, dealt with it while in the middle of a war.

On that note of facing things, we had some difficulty with our GPS system(s) (still do) when trying to find a grocery store. Apparently, there is a grocery chain in France named Carrefour which in English translates to crossroads. Because of this, the GPS took us to a literal crossroad which we came back to again, and again thanks to technology. Even the locals started giving  us looks. Thats why Carrefour is the title of this blog. Despite this minor inconvenience we were able to push through and find a grocery store while simultaneously preventing a mutiny caused by hungry students.

 

Ryan d’Eon

 

 

 

Vimy Ridge: Memory and Construction

Posted on by CBF Students - Étudiants FCCB

Vimy Ridge is arguably the most famous Canadian war memorial and it’s meaning has been built up and modified generation after generation, circling around this idea of Canadian identity. Initially it existed as a site for Canadians seeking out proof that their sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers were not sent to die in the First World War for nothing. Now the memorial seems to have evolved to serve as a Canadian creation myth from which current generations of can idealize it as a key event integral to the inception of a Canadian nation.

This narrative never bothered me growing up, as it was a story of victory and supremacy; victory over the enemy and supremacy over our allies who could not take the ridge for the two years prior to our actions in the Battle of Arras. What has been dawning on me recently, especially in my last few years of study and as I converse more on the topic of memory, is the fact that memory is malleable, subjective, and can be created to serve a purpose. There are multiple memories for every event and unless these are all addressed an event can never truly completely be understood.  With respect to Vimy Ridge, the stories of the British and the French are just as important as those of the Canadians but their efforts are less known to Canadians because it does not serve to focus on other countries when shaping a national identity.  They made possible the advance from Vimy by securing neighbouring sites and pushing the front line to Vimy in the first place and the French, specifically Moroccan French, troops even made it to the top of the hill prior to the Canadians. However, this was before accurate artillery and other such wartime advancements and thus the Germans forced the French to retreat. By ignoring the extensive past and analyzing only microcosmic aspects of an event, we skew memory.  Being aware of the fact that my memory has been shaped by nationalist intentions is irksome, but the discovery that I can be so easily manipulated to follow an imposed doctrine is fascinating.

Memory is not history as Geoff Hayes has been explaining to us throughout this trip. The Vimy Ridge Monument initially showed Canadians that they had accomplished something as a country and given the sheer size, elegance, and myth surrounding the memorial it is able to continuously evolve and become whatever the contemporary Canadian generation is lacking from their national identity. Memory therefore clearly establishes itself in our narratives not because it is true, but because it is what we need it to be.

Brigette Farrell

Sounds of War and Memory

Posted on by CBF Students - Étudiants FCCB

As I reflect on the day, one of the elements that stands out for me is the way that the locations we visited appealed to our different senses, especially sound. My ongoing research examines music during the First World War so I think that I am especially attuned to what we are hearing, in addition to what we see and touch throughout the tour. A consideration of the sounds of war and memory offers a unique lens through which we can view the different locations we visited today.

Our first stop was Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, the largest hospital cemetery of the Flanders region in Belgium. Inside the visitor’s centre a blank red “listening” wall encloses an exhibit about the cemetery. Along the wall are symbols of an ear which, when pressed, play short audio recordings of letters and war diaries to detail the experiences of the individual soldier. In order to hear the recording you must place your ear quite close to the wall, creating an intimate sense of being directly spoken to by the soldiers. I thought this interactive part of the exhibit was unique as it allowed you to focus solely on hearing the voices in the wall, without reading any accompanying write-ups or examining photographs. The individual experience was at the forefront of this aspect of the exhibit.

Our final stop of the morning was at Essex Farm Cemetery where we saw a monument commemorating the composition of the poem “In Flanders Fields” by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. The recitation of this poem has become a significant part of Remembrance Day ceremonies across Canada, and is also a well known war poem outside of our country. In many ways, McCrae’s words and the messages he expressed shape how we commemorate the war today, particularly through the symbol of the red poppy to honour the memory of soldiers. Although we did not read this poem aloud today, I found that for the rest of the day I had the melody for the song “In Flanders Field” replaying in my head. I thought more about this song adaptation and how it demonstrates the popularity of McCrae’s poem at the time the song was composed in 1917, particularly with the home front audience at which it was directed.

Following lunch, we toured the In Flanders Fields museum located in the Cloth Hall in Ypres. Our group discussed the distinct message of the museum that emphasized the destruction of war at the hands of imperialists. The dark walls, jagged exhibit dividers, and the projection of coloured lights in shades of red and green all contributed to an ominous feeling throughout. However, it was not just the visuals that allowed the museum to portray its messages but the sounds also had a role to play. There was a continuous recording of an organ playing throughout the exhibit. The constant, drawn out notes became so much a part of the overall experience for me that I almost forgot about the music after awhile, until it stopped suddenly. That was when I realized how important the sounds were to setting the mood within the museum.

The highlight of the day for me, and perhaps the most aural experience, was attending the ceremony at the Menin Gate. Music has continued to play a significant role in commemorative ceremonies over the years – from pipe and brass bands to buglers. There are certain constants with the music, for example the playing of the Last Post (as we heard tonight) contributing to a sense of unity and conformity across many of the nations that fought in the war. Music evokes the emotions, and that was certainly the case for me as I listened to the buglers and band play while viewing the thousands of names of those killed during the war inscribed on the walls.

As we continue along the tour I will continue to reflect upon the sounds presented to us in different forms, and how they contribute towards the constructed memory of the war.

Sara Karn

 

Memory and Mourning in Ypres

Posted on by CBF Students - Étudiants FCCB

I started researching my family’s history when I was twelve. Three out of my four grandparents had lost an uncle in the Great War. For all but one, we barely knew their names. However, my grandmother had been raised on the stories of her mother’s brothers who had left Edmonton to serve in Europe, particularly Uncle Alec, who had died while serving with the PPCLI. She passed these stories onto her children, and my father passed the story of Uncle Alec on to me. Today, we spent the morning at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, where Alec was buried after his death. Alec remains the present past for my family, reflecting the enduring loss felt by my great-grandmother, Helen, and his extended family.

The facts are simple. Alexander Robertson McQueen was born on January 24th, 1893 in Edmonton, the second son of seven children. He enlisted on May 4th, 1915. At the time of enlistment, he was a student at the University of Alberta. He had blue eyes and light brown hair. He was 6’. From accounts sent to the family after his death, he was courageous, dutiful, and had a keen sense of humour. And, on June 4th, 1916, he died of wounds sustained during the Battle of Mont Sorrel, aged just twenty-three.

 

Alec, in an image colourized after his death. caption: “Pro Patria Mori / Ypres, 4th June 1916”

 

It felt almost ridiculous to approach a single loss amid the 10,794 graves that form Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery. The larger CWGC cemeteries and memorials approach death on a massive scale, making individual losses almost impossible to comprehend. One death is a tragedy, while the more than 54,000 names on the Menin Gate are somehow a backdrop for screaming British schoolchildren to practice the Macarena. I decided to approach Alec from a personal perspective, emphasizing a life outside of the war and a loss that extended far beyond the immediate McQueen family. Each grave in these cemeteries should be understood as a loss with lasting repercussions, rather than sheer statistics.

When I first began researching Alec, I found records from the 3rd Canadian Casualty Clearing Station that confirmed he had died of wounds sustained two days earlier, rather than the instantaneous death told to his family. We visited the Hill 62 Memorial this afternoon, and saw the battlefield where Alec had fought. The constructed memory of Alec preserved by my great-grandmother is not necessarily in direct accordance with the brute facts of the Great War, but cannot be discarded. Aged only twelve when Alec died, my great-grandmother saw her brother with something that approached hero worship. She was profoundly affected by his death. A decade later, she made her own pilgrimage to Alec’s grave, the same age as Alec was upon his death.

 

Helen, visiting Alec’s grave.

 

This isn’t to say that she remained in perpetual mourning. She travelled, married, had children, and lived a long, fulfilling life an ocean and half a continent away from these battlefields. She was, however, determined to keep the memory of her brother alive.

Through my great-grandmother’s determination to keep the memory of Alec alive, this site remains a present, painful loss. (full disclosure: I cried during my presentation.) Memories of her beloved older brother became intertwined with the narratives of sacrificial loss that shape our conception of the First World War. These individual soldier presentations embody the meaning of the CBF Study Tour. These individual stories emphasize the deeply personal nature of each loss, and reflect the enduring legacy of the world wars.

Alexandra McKinnon