Poperinghe, Bailleul, Wytschaete, Gheluvelt, Ploegsteert, Messines, Zonnebeke, Passchendaele. The other week I grandiosely claimed that I have been reading about the first world war, on and off, all my life. What I ought to have added was ‘with little or no understanding’. Because it wasn’t until a fortnight ago, when I bought a 1916 Ordnance Survey map of Belgium (Hazebrouck 5A), and consulted it while reading Anthony Farrar-Hockley’s account of the First Battle of Ypres, that I began to fix these blood-soaked villages in my mind.
The Second and Third Battles of Ypres were disputed over a few square miles. Stated objectives might be a slight promontory or a smashed village. Advances and retreats were measured in yards. Narrative accounts of these battles can therefore be followed with comparative ease. But First Ypres was a wide-ranging battle of movement by the old British army and its cavalry. Frustrated by the pitiful maps included in General Sir Anthony Heritage Farrar-Hockley’s soldierly account, I searched eBay for a better one.
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