Battle Of Ypres Research Articles

In Flanders Fields: John McCrae as Physician, Poet, Soldier.

John McCrae (1872-1918) was a Canadian physician, poet, and soldier who fought and died in the First World War. He penned perhaps his most memorable and lasting poem, "In Flanders Fields," shortly after the death of a comrade at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. The poem gained almost instant popularity, being used for recruiting efforts and victory bond sales throughout the remainder of the war, and solidified forever the symbol of the poppy as a memorial token for the service members who had perished. His death towards the end of the war, like that of so many others in the perilous years between 1914 and 1918, cut short the trajectory of what had already amounted to a brilliant career. As a close friend of such titans of medicine as William Osler and Harvey Cushing, as well as acquainted with the likes of Rudyard Kipling, it is not difficult to imagine the impact that his passing had upon the future of medicine and literature.

The year in between: 1917, Passchendaele, and the Queensland press

This article explores newspaper reports appearing in the Australian state of Queensland during the main Australian participation in the Third Battle of Ypres (31 July–10 November 1917). The manner in which the fighting at Ypres was mediated to Queenslanders through press reports offers an insight into the impact of war correspondence and censorship on a population with limited access to dissenting views or informed analysis. Although there was considerable domestic turmoil across Australia, Queensland was subject to a variety of heightened political and social pressures which makes it a fruitful area of study. The newspaper reports initially emphasized the battle’s potential to end the war and the central role being played by Australian troops. When the advance stalled, the press shifted its focus to the heroic endurance of the troops as they battled the Germans, the weather and the terrain. By then, the battle had been reimagined as a tactical move toward higher ground rather than the promised breakthrough. This shift in focus reflected the major alteration in the relationship between the army and the war correspondents, who were now a vital component of a complex system of propaganda, one that saw them increasingly acting as a mouthpiece for the British Army. By the final year of the war, Queensland was derided as being conspicuous among the Australian states for its disloyalty and anti-Empire and anti-Australian feeling. Nevertheless, the reports of the fighting at Ypres appearing in Queensland newspapers, which were numerous and detailed, are significant for their studied avoidance of anything other than the battlefield.

The archaeology of world war I tanks in the Ypres Salient (Belgium): A non‐invasive approach

AbstractIn the past decade, the research of archaeological remains from World War I has become mainstream. This article uses non‐destructive techniques to investigate the possible material remains of tank warfare in Belgium. During World War I, tanks were used for the first time as a ‘land battleship’ in order to break through the stalemate in the trenches. During the Battle of Messines and the Third Battle of Ypres (1917), tanks were used in Belgium to assist a large‐scale Allied offensive. The offensive was a complete failure and besides the terrible human cost, many of the tanks became derelict in so‐called ‘tank cemeteries’. This article combines historical information, contemporary historical aerial photographs and state‐of‐the‐art geophysical soil sensing to assess the distribution, density and possible material remains of the tank war. Aerial photo‐interpretation and geographic information system (GIS)‐mapping sheds new light on the location of 97 tank wrecks in the Ypres Salient. Two sites were selected for further geophysical research. By using electromagnetic induction, it was possible to identify the remains of five tanks as geophysical anomalies, which corresponds to a debris field spread. In this article, both non‐invasive and non‐destructive techniques will demonstrate the significant potential for investigating cases on a landscape scale without any intense interference of the highly disturbed topsoil.

Same old relics, same old story? Displaying the third battle of Ypres at the Australian War Memorial, past and present

When the Australian War Memorial, the Anzac legend’s primary physical incarnation, displayed its collections between 1922 and 1935 in Melbourne and Sydney, these initial exhibitions emphasised traditional values associated with combat. Nowadays, such romantic notions of war have become increasingly marginalised in public discourse. Comparing the interwar and present-day displays of third Ypres, this article argues that, in order to remain relevant, the Memorial has not remained strictly bound to the vision of its founders in its refurbished First World War galleries. Rather, it has developed an exhibition that clearly reflects the Australian popular memory of the war today.

The Memory of St Julien: Configuring Gas Warfare in Mary Riter Hamilton's Battlefield Art

This essay takes the commemorative work of the Canadian painter Mary Riter Hamilton (1867–1954) as a case study to explore representations of what is often remembered as a key moment of Canadian nation-building: the Second Battle of Ypres and the German chlorine gas attack at St Julien. The essay argues that Hamilton treated the subject of St Julien differently from the official Canadian war artists. By adopting a retrospective, immersive and modernist focus and emphasizing poison gas and concrete, weapons, and materials used for the first time in the ‘Great War’, Hamilton presented a dual depiction of the location and the war more generally, drawing attention to the destructive power of modern warfare even as she offered a humanist and nationalist work of remembrance. As scholarly and cultural discourses reconsider the First World War with the inclusion of women's perspectives [e.g., Palmer, K. 2012. Women War Artists. Imperial War Museum: Tate Publishing; Speck, C. 2004. Painting Ghosts: Australian Women Artists in Wartime. Melbourne: Thames and Hudson], Hamilton's work presents a woman's battlefield perspective that was excised by the war art establishment in Canada. Hamilton would eventually create an extraordinary collection of over 300 war paintings, the largest Canadian First World War art collection from a single painter, in spite of extensive official opposition. Ironically, by adopting a hardline position regarding the presence of female painters on the battlefields, officials of the Canadian War Memorials Fund inadvertently enabled an art practice that operated beyond their control, drawing attention to the forgotten stories and perspectives of war.

Bean, the Third Battle of Ypres and the Australian Narrative of the First World War

In 1917 the Australian Imperial Force suffered thirty-eight thousand casualties in Flanders, far outstripping those endured at Gallipoli. Despite this, the AIF's campaign in Belgium has received relatively little attention from historians or the public. As Australia's official war correspondent and historian, C.E.W. Bean has long been recognised as one of the principal Anzac mythmakers. Scrutinising his correspondence, diaries and Official History, this article argues that Bean struggled to integrate the third Ypres offensive into his vision of the Anzac legend and this may have helped marginalise Belgium's place in the Australian memory of the war.

HE INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGY ON THE COURSE AND OUTCOME OF THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES (FLANDERS, WW1)

Geological structure of the terrain as a ground for a battlefield could be a significant factor for the success or failure of a military operation. The geology of the Belgian town of Ypres was an important, maybe even crucial factor, of the failure of the WWI Allied Powers offensive military operations against German Axis forces in 1917. The Early Eocene clays found at the ground surface at Ypres, coupled with excess precipitation, turned out to be utterly inappropriate for the fortification, movement, fighting and manoeuvring of all military units, especially the armoured units that were directed towards hardly passable routes. With selecting the unsuitable and hardly passable terrain, that is the direction of the attack, the British army had losses of the available combat potential and armoured forces were ineffective during the battle. The total number of Allied casualties was 448,000 dead, wounded, imprisoned and missing. This paper offers other possible solutions that would, from a military geographic and military geological viewpoint, have made a better solution for achieving the strategic goal required by the Allies on the eve of the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917.

Air Filters For The Face

One hundred years ago last month, Allied forces stood their ground in Ypres, preventing the larger and better-equipped German army from taking control of that strategic town in western Belgium. The following spring, Germany attacked again in the Second Battle of Ypres, gassing thousands of French colonial troops with chlorine. That infamous event, which marked the first major use of poison gas as a weapon, introduced the world to the devastating effects of modern chemical warfare. The attack also sent scientists and manufacturers scrambling to develop protective gas masks. A century later, scientists and engineers continue to improve gas masks and gas mask filters. They are drawing on advances in materials and engineering to design masks that are more effective and functional than ever before. And to ensure that the overall gas mask package provides the highest level of respiratory protection, they are studying new types of filtration media, particularly ...

The Purpose and Prescience of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation

I was delighted to be asked to speak at the Royal Irish Academy. My thanks to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the School of History at University College Cork and the Japanese embassy, and to all of you in the audience for being here. As a physicist I feel so honoured and excited to be speaking at the home of Nobel Prize-winner Ernest Walton, who actually began the branch of nuclear physics I trained in, and of course Erwin Schrodinger, the great Austrian-Irish Nobel Prize-winning physicist—who may have left his cat in a box behind, which could be still alive today, but who would know? I want to address the purpose and the prescience of achievements in disarmament and non-proliferation. If we look back now nearly 100 years, in 1915, people caught up in the Second Battle of Ypres were subject to the horrific effects of the first overwhelming, massive use of chemical weapons. By 1918 the use of poison gases had become widespread, particularly on the Western Front. Approximately 100,000 tons of gas were used by the end of the war, resulting in over 1 million casualties from the use of gas in World War I and 100,000 deaths, with survivors left severely disabled and incapacitated for the rest of their lives. As a result of the horror felt at the carnage by the end of the First WorldWar, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany from ‘the use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases and all analogous liquids, materials or devices being prohibited, their manufacture and importation’, and by 1925, the Geneva Protocol prohibited the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases. Few issues are more appropriate subjects of humanitarian concern and international humanitarian law than the choice, possession, use and misuse of weapons. Indeed, concern over arms, their development, their possession, their use and their misuse goes right back to the roots of the foundation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Kriegsbeute-Ausstellung Posen 1917. Propagandowa wystawa dla szerokiej publiczności

W zbiorach ikonograficznych Biblioteki Uniwersyteckiej w Poznaniu znajduje się seria widokówek dokumentujących zorganizowaną w 1917 roku Wystawę Zdobyczy Wojennych (Kriegsbeute-Ausstellung Posen 1917), jedną z serii propagandowych ekspozycji prezentujących sukcesy armii niemieckich na wszystkich frontach wielkiej wojny. W czasie trwania wystawy w pobliżu belgijskiego Passchendaele toczyła się jedna z najkrwawszych bitew, a w Poznaniu – codzienne życie w wojennej rzeczywistości.

The Origins of Chemical Warfare in the French Army

Following the Germans’ first use of chlorine gas during the second battle of Ypres, the Entente had to develop means of protection from future poison gas attacks as well as systems for retaliation. This article, through the analysis of heretofore unexamined archival sources, considers early French attempts at engaging in chemical warfare. Contrary to the existing historiography, the French army aggressively adapted to, and engaged in, chemical warfare. Indeed, the French army would be the first to fire asphyxiating gas shells from field guns and, by June 1915, would pioneer the use of gas as a neutralization weapon to be used in counter-battery fire, as opposed to unleashing gas via canisters to engage enemy infantry. Such innovation invites a rethinking not only of French gas efforts but also of the role and evolution of the French army as a whole on the Western Front, a topic which the Anglophone world is in great need of examining further.

Book Review: Hell in Flanders Fields: Canadians at the Second Battle of Ypres by George H. Cassar

Book Review: <i>Hell in Flanders Fields: Canadians at the Second Battle of Ypres</i> by George H. Cassar

“Private Sorrow Becomes Public Property”: Canadian Anglican Sermons and the Second Battle of Ypres, May 1915

“Private Sorrow Becomes Public Property”: Canadian Anglican Sermons and the Second Battle of Ypres, May 1915

Shoestring Soldiers: The 1st Canadian Division at War, 1914 - 1915 (review)

Reviewed by: Shoestring Soldiers: The 1st Canadian Division at War, 1914 - 1915 Patrick Brennan (bio) Andrew Iarocci . Shoestring Soldiers: The 1st Canadian Division at War, 1914 - 1915. University of Toronto Press 2008. 384. $52.00 Recent writing on Canada's military role in the Great War has effectively exploited the learning-curve paradigm popularized by British historians [End Page 298] whereby enthusiastic but largely unskilled amateurs, drawing on the hard lessons of their combat experience, successfully made the transition to battle-hardened professionals. A key buttress of this interpretation of experience-based progress has been the long-held view that the Canadian Expeditionary Force initially showed much courage and keenness but little in the way of command or administrative ability. This was a comforting assumption and one to which the book's title makes pointed reference, because it highlighted the ultimate transformation from the potential of 1914, 1915, and 1916 to the virtuoso performances of 1917 and 1918. Breaking the learning-curve's grip on Canadian Great War historiography has proven difficult, but in Shoestring Soldiers Andrew Iarocci has certainly struck a welcome blow. In ten chapters, Iarocci deals successively with the marshalling and training of the 1st Division (1-4), its bloody introduction to combat at the Second Battle of Ypres (5-8), and finally its ensuing engagements during the remaining months of 1915 (9-10). It is the first eight chapters of Shoestring Soldiers that make the most valuable contribution. Nowhere is Iarocci's thorough archival research more in evidence than when he assesses the division's training during its first winter in England. In contrast to the usual account of precious time frittered away on the sodden Salisbury Plain, he outlines a rigorous, remarkably sophisticated, and certainly well-organized training regimen that left the 1st Division as well prepared - if not as well equipped or supported - to fight a modern war as the German reservists with whom they would soon grapple. With a chapter devoted to each day, the 1st Division's baptism of fire in Flanders in April 1915 is covered in rich - and at times, numbing - detail. To reconstruct this chaotic engagement, the author relied chiefly on surviving message logs, as well as a keen eye for the operational and tactical implications of the terrain over which the soldiers fought. After reading chapters 5 through 8, it is hard to believe that we have very much more to learn about the battle's hour-by-hour developments. Iarocci aptly characterizes the Canadian side of the battle as a fluid, disorganized, and ferocious defensive struggle, indeed as fierce an engagement as any of the Canadian division would participate in during the war. Persuasively, he argues that the forces shaping Second Ypres were not 'raw courage, frontier grit and . . . a deficit of good sense' but 'skill, experience, cohesion, leadership and exhaustion.' In his treatment of the central controversy Canadian historians have obsessed over for decades - manifest weaknesses in high command - he is especially fair, reminding armchair and academic strategists that in this instance the fog of war was particularly opaque, leaving Generals Alderson, Turner, and Currie in near-impossible situations. While Currie's reputation once again survives, Iarocci deserves credit for at least questioning the future corps commander's decision to abandon his command post [End Page 299] during the heat of the action. For their part, Turner and Alderson receive a long-overdue rehabilitation. As for the final two chapters, they are interesting but anticlimactic, the author having already made his most significant points. Thoroughly researched from Canadian and British (as well as some useful German) documents, Shoestring Soldiers offers both insightful and balanced analysis. The author's conclusions are important, starting with his revisionist assessment that the 1st Division was a capable fighting formation from the outset, and because of that, 'the foundations of the learning curve paradigm are increasingly uncertain.' Indeed, this solid and generally well-written account has brought the idea of a continuous learning curve into question, suggesting a more sophisticated version of the traditional paradigm, one where tactical and operational improvements were made in a series of discontinuous steps, clearly not all of them worthy of being characterized as progress. Patrick...

Fighting Against the Invisible: The new weapons against chemical warfare

Fighting Against the Invisible: WAR TECH SPRING WAR TECH Chemical agents serve as the great “unknown vari- ables” on the battlefield. With the technology of chemical warfare becoming more prevalent, soldiers are experienc- ing an increase in vulnerability to these difficult to detect dangers that often escape the five senses. The increase in security against terrorism has intensified the need for new detection devices that can quickly identify hazardous com- pounds. Therefore, scientists are developing new technolo- gies to improve soldiers’ safety. To be useful on the battle- field, though, these tools must meet certain guidelines for mobility and accessibility. The operating mechanisms of these instruments can range from simple applications on special analysis paper to radiation devices, but develop- ments that allow for the detection of specific compounds require more complex methods. Enzymatic systems The new weapons against chemical warfare by Leana Nguyen anywhere, anytime in a large area and must give repro- ducible readings. That is, the device must display the same results even in different environments. The repro- ducibility of detection allows scientists to confirm or reject results and to find out more about the substance in question in order to develop better detection machinery or to efficiently develop an antidote. Chemical weaponry has been used since the dawn of war itself. Dated methods include tainted arrows and bullets as well as edible poisons. In an article on the use of poisonous gases (New York Times, April 22, 1915), Will Irwin states that modern chemical warfare began in World War I when the Germans dropped asphyxiating bombs in the second battle of Ypres in Belgium. The toxin did not prove extremely deadly, but it often ren- dered its victims injured and unable to participate in com- bat. This effective tactic sparked the race to develop chemical warfare agents. Countries such as Germany, England, and France employed such popular agents as: phosgene, mustard gas, and chlorine gas that decrease pH in the respiratory system and cause skin blistering. Today chemical warfare has come a long way with new com- pounds like osmium tetroxide which cause skin, respirato- ry, and eye burning (National Library of Medicine 2007). According to the Federation of American Scientists, a chemical agent is a substance intended for use in military operations to kill, seriously injure, or inca- pacitate its victims (American Federation of Scientists 2006). These substances must quickly proliferate to cover a large area and must be reproducible in order for the weapon to be effective. To detect these substances, the technology must respond quickly to minute sample sizes M8/M9 is a special, inexpensive paper that enables users to quickly identify concentrations and possible com- pounds present. Its name comes from its “model number” (Astrella 2004). This lightweight and highly sensitive tool tests liquid and aerosol agents that cause blistering and nerve damage. This lightweight and highly sensitive tool tests liquid and aerosol agents that cause blistering and nerve damage. The paper contains two dyes and a pH indicator that reacts with a harmful substance to produce a change in color on the paper. This will indicate the type of sub- stance and the degree of contamination. M8/M9 efficiently gives results in thirty seconds. Users sim- ply remove the paper from its packaging and A booklet of chemical detection allow the paper to come paper showing types of agent: nerve or blister into contact with the potentially contaminated surface. Soldiers put these sheets into windows or on their uniforms to recognize potential threats when entering unfamiliar environments. However, the high sensitivity of the paper reduces its pre- dictive power because it can sense non-hazardous sub- stances as well, preventing certain analysis of the haz- ardous chemical. These low cost sheets of paper can range from around $13 for 12 twelve sheets to up to a lit- tle over $3,000 for large kits, depending on the specificity and the amount of paper. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/army/fm /3-4/Fig1-14.gif

Baptism of Fire: The Second Battle of Ypres and the Forging of Canada, April 1915 (review)

Reviewed by: Baptism of Fire: The Second Battle of Ypres and the Forging of Canada, April 1915 Jeff Keshen Baptism of Fire: The Second Battle of Ypres and the Forging of Canada, April 1915. Nathan M. Greenfield. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2007. Pp. 400, $34.95 Canadians today invariably point to the capture of Vimy Ridge, in April 1917, as the nation's most significant accomplishment during the First World War. Although typically knowing few of its details, or debates as to its relative importance to the Allied cause, the belief remains widespread among Canadians (though with good reason) that the victory at Vimy was a magnificent feat of arms and a milestone in the country's coming of age. The second Battle of Ypres, fought two years earlier, had also long held such iconic status. Reflecting that spirit, in Baptism of Fire historian Nathan Greenfield conveys how green Canadian troops, refusing to yield to more numerous enemies and the first use of poison gas during the war, 'saved the day' by preventing a major German breakthrough that could have changed the course of the Great War. Greenfield's goal is to provide a straightforward and comprehensive account of this momentous clash. To do so, he mined battalion and personal war diaries, orders and plans, letters and newspapers, and secondary literature touching upon this battle. Although the themes he advances are well known to historians and his approach harks back to a traditional 'shot and shell' genre, he accomplishes a remarkable feat of historical reconstruction by detailing – often hour by hour – five days of intense fighting that involved scores of battalions. Much of that story is presented from the worm's eye perspective, as Greenfield wants readers to understand the hardships, sacrifices, and many – but now typically long forgotten – acts of heroism by Canadians on the battlefield. Although the details he presents can overwhelm at points, readers are rewarded with a deep understanding of why events unfolded as they did and the enormity of what untested Canadian troops accomplished. Greenfield shows how even the most carefully constructed plans were frequently swept aside by the sheer chaos of battle, that revamped tactics were often based upon incomplete information as communications regularly broke down, and that those in the thick of things – in the fog of war – knew virtually nothing beyond their immediate surroundings. He deftly dispels many shibboleths that still resonate about the First World War, such as by showing that commanders, though making mistakes, were by no means all bumbling Colonel Blimps; that even at this early stage of the conflict, men did not always slowly advance in linear, close, and suicidal formations; and that battle [End Page 423] exhaustion, or shell shock, while certainly evident, incapacitated only a minority of men. A gifted storyteller, he often provides poignant vignettes, like that of a woman carrying the headless corpse of her baby to symbolize the utter sorrow and desperation among refugees fleeing from Ypres. The photographs he includes enrich the story, such as that juxtaposing pre- and post-battle Ypres, and maps that he uses to preface most chapters help the reader better understand the course of battle. While succeeding in piecing together myriad details to produce a compelling story, Greenfield commits a couple of noteworthy factual errors, such as presenting 28 August 1914 as the beginning of the war, and 66,000 casualties as Canada's total losses in the First World War. Greenfield's strong focus on the human costs the conflict – like the devastation of several units and the grisly manner in which many men met their death – arguably glosses over the fact that two-thirds of the Canadians who participated in this clash did not become casualties. More attention could have been devoted to the home front than the brief discussion in the book's last ten pages on the national pride generated by Canada's role in halting this German advance. Greenfield provides only scant information and assessment of critically important supporting military roles, such as the ability of ordinance services to adequately supply troops at Ypres and the medical services in coping with thousands of casualties, including many suffering from the gruesome and often deadly effects...

Political Decisions and Britain’s Chemical Warfare Challenge in World War I: Descend to Atrocities?

The Germans introduced poison gas to the world at the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium on 22 April 1915, and Britain responded with outrage. 1 The enemy had started a form of warfare that the Army...

The Battles of the British Expeditionary Forces, 1914-1915: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography (review)

Reviewed by Nikolas Gardner University of Salford Salford, England, United Kingdom The Battles of the British Expeditionary Forces, 1914–1915: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography. By Fred R. van Hartesveldt. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005. ISBN 0-313-30625-7. Bibliography. Index. Pp. vii, 195. $84.95. With the centenary of the First World War fast approaching, the vast literature examining the role of the British Army in the conflict continues to grow. If anything, the flow of publications has increased in the past decade as historians have seized on the notion of a "learning curve" on the Western Front and sought to plot its trajectory within the British Expeditionary Force. Given this continuing accumulation of scholarship, any attempt to catalogue and critique existing work is to be welcomed. Fred van Hartesveldt has contributed significantly in this respect, previously publishing annotated bibliographies of the Somme and Dardanelles campaigns. His most recent volume assesses the literature on British operations in France and Belgium in 1914 and 1915. Although subsequent Anglo-French initiatives dwarfed these early battles, van Hartesveldt points out that "an understanding of the future difficulties of the forces on the Western Front must be rooted in an examination of the beginning" (p. 2). To facilitate such an examination, van Hartesveldt prefaces the bibliography with three short historiographical chapters. The first two offer a brief overview of British operations on the Western Front in 1914 and 1915 respectively, identifying key events that have sparked debate in the literature. The third chapter considers the question of "Generalship," focusing in particular on Sir Douglas Haig and his ill-fated patron, Sir John French. Inevitably, given the brevity of these chapters, certain events and issues receive short shrift. Van Hartesveldt summarizes the "Race to the Sea" and the First Battle of Ypres in a single paragraph. He does not discuss the role of the Indian Corps on the Western Front. The major contribution of this volume, however, is the annotated bibliography comprising 1,018 entries, each accompanied by a brief, occasionally critical, description. It includes biographies and memoirs of senior commanders and ordinary soldiers, regimental and divisional histories of British and Canadian units, French and German histories of 1914–15, as well as modern scholarship pertinent to the early months of the war. The bibliography is particularly rich in little known sources published during the conflict and in the interwar period. It also includes numerous journal articles from a wide range of publications. The volume is less effective, however, as a guide to contemporary scholarship. This is a reflection of the frenetic pace of activity in the field. The past two years alone have seen the publication of important studies of the First Battle of Ypres by Ian Beckett and the Battle of Loos by Nick Lloyd. Keith Jeffrey has published a new biography of Henry Wilson, the notorious "Sub-Chief" of Staff at General Headquarters in 1914. Gary Sheffield and John Bourne have weighed in on many of the controversies of 1914 and 1915 in their recent edition of the Haig Diaries. The fact that all of these studies have appeared too late to be included in this volume is hardly the fault of its compiler, who clearly has a strong grasp of the literature. Nevertheless, [End Page 243] it suggests that a relatively expensive hardcover is not the best means of capturing the current state of the field. Despite this limitation, any serious scholar commencing a study of British or Canadian experiences on the Western Front in 1914-1915 will find this volume to be a gold mine of useful and often obscure sources.

The battlefields of the First World War: the unseen panoramas of the Western Front

This is the first publication of a unique, unseen collection of over 500 panoramic photographs of the Western Front. Here are the great battlegrounds of the First World War as you have never seen them before, from the First Battle of Ypres where gallant men on horseback find things do not go to plan to the closing horror of the mud at Passchendaele. The book showcases the most eye-opening panoramas, along with poignant personal photographs and the recollections of the soldiers caught in action in the battles shown. These panoramic photographs were the nearest thing to satellite mapping in their day, taken by the British Royal Engineers for intelligence purposes throughout the war. The photographers had to spend tens of minutes with their head above the parapet - a view normally seen by the troops only through a trench periscope. Many of the images give a field of view of up to 160 degrees, and so sharp that individual figures - a soldier picking lice on his shirt, a sniper lying in wait - can be made out. The images cover the whole of the Western Front, end to end. For the general buyer they have an impact unlike anything seen before. For the specialist, they document a lost world, putting other forms of archive into temporal, topographical and geographical context. What they reveal challenges existing perceptions of the First World War. As well as tortured landscapes of featureless mud, they also show fields of flowers, beaches, churches still standing. There are desperate scenes for sure, but an important lesson is that much of the war was fought in a real, recognizable landscape.

"The Wood Beyond": Reflections on Academic Freedom, Past and Present

The title of my address and the form it has taken are serendipitous. While in Victoria last March, I dropped into Munro's Bookstore for a novel to read on the flight back to Toronto. I had just finished On Beulah Height, a superb Dalziel and Pascoe mystery by Reginald Hill that my wife had given me to read on the way out to the Coast, and so I .chose the book that preceded it. The Wood Beyond, like all Dalziel-Pascoe novels, is set in Yorkshire, but a key subplot is Peter Pascoe's discovery that his great-grandfather was unjustly executed for cowardice during the third battle of Ypres, better known as the battle of Passchendaele. And the name of that battle rang a bell. Passchendaele is the name of a village in the Ypres salient finally captured by Canadian units in early November 1917. The battle ranks among the most disastrous engagements of the 1914-1918 war. In the course of 103 days of fighting, from July 31 to November 10, the forces commanded by Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig moved a twelveki lometre f ront line about five muddy kilometres eastward, at the appalling cost of 70,000 English, Scottish, Canadian, Australian, and