Posted on 08/26/2007 1:21:27 PM PDT by blam
First World War tunnels to yield their secrets
By Jasper Copping, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:42am BST 26/08/2007
As battle raged across the fields of Flanders, British soldiers found brief respite from the horrors of the First World War in "underground towns" far below the mud and gore. Now, more than 90 years after the armies left and the extraordinary networks of tunnels were flooded, the task of finally revealing their secrets has begun.
The Tunnels
The prize, archaeologists and historians believe, is an unprecedented insight into the lives of British troops on the Western Front.
They believe that, because of the absence of light and oxygen in the flooded tunnels, possessions, such as beds, weapons, helmets, clothing and even newspapers, will have been preserved and will be found exactly as they were left in 1918.
After finding the entrances to dozens of miles of tunnels in the countryside near the Belgian town of Ypres, archaeologists and historians last week began extensive surveying work. Robots will then be sent into the tunnels before, eventually, experts from Britain and Belgium hope to pump out the water so that they can venture into the subterranean military towns.
Situated in the middle of the front line between the Germans and the Allied troops, the market town of Ypres was the scene of some of the worst carnage of the First World War. During four years of fighting, the town was almost entirely destroyed and 500,000 soldiers and civilians died in an area of just over nine square miles.
According to the original trench maps, drawn up by British engineers, hospitals, mess rooms, chapels, kitchens, workshops, blacksmiths, as well as rooms where exhausted soldiers could rest, were hewn from the soil, far beneath the water table. Dozens of "fighting tunnels", offshoots which were burrowed under German trenches before being exploded, were also built.
The rooms, connected by corridors measuring 6ft 6in high by 4ft wide, were fitted with water pumps but, when the troops left within weeks of the war ending, they were slowly submerged. Remarkably, during 1917 and 1918, more people lived underground in the Ypres area than reside above ground in the town today.
Peter Barton, a British historian who has been advising the research team, said: "These were basically underground villages and in some of the cases, small towns.
"They haven't been seen since September 1918 when the British attacked and swept the Germans back over this land. Things will be exactly as they were left. This is a unique opportunity. They will be perfectly preserved time capsules.
"The tunnels were left far, far in the rear [as the British soldiers advanced] and within weeks they would have been full of water. So when the Belgians returned, all they would have seen was a little door in a trench full of water."
In recent years, the extensive wartime tunnelling has been the cause of mounting problems for the authorities in Flanders as the timber planks, used to support the labyrinths, began to rot and cave in, causing subsidence.
Dr Tony Pollard, head of Glasgow University's Archaeological Research Division, said: "These are important archaeological sites but they are beginning to subside and collapse. They are becoming a danger to buildings and people so we need to find out more about where they are and how extensive they are."
Initially, experts are concentrating on three locations, and will use scanning equipment to find the main chambers. One network, near the village of Hooge, once housed 1,000 soldiers, while a second, Vampire Dugout, near Zonnebeke, was briefly captured and occupied by the Germans in their last-ditch Spring Offensive in 1918, before being retaken.
The third, Hill 60, which housed up to 3,000 troops, is near Zwarteleen, close to a railway line between Ypres and Menin.
Although some artefacts may eventually be removed from tunnels and handed to the local authorities and on to museums, those in charge of the project - the largest of its kind - intend to leave most in place.
I'm sorry FRiend, but I don't see that coming - I see America now dieing the death of a thousand cuts. Little by little you are being destroyed and you lack the courage to defend yourself. Eventually it will reach the point when you have given up so much of your culture and your freedom that when the final day does come you will have surrendered without a fight.
-snip-
"They haven't been seen since September 1918 when the British attacked and swept the Germans back over this land. Things will be exactly as they were left. This is a unique opportunity. They will be perfectly preserved time capsules.
-snip-
In recent years, the extensive wartime tunnelling has been the cause of mounting problems for the authorities in Flanders as the timber planks, used to support the labyrinths, began to rot and cave in, causing subsidence.
The timbers that support the tunnels are rotting but the contents of the tunnels will be in pristine condition? What's wrong with this picture?
"British soldiers huddle in the snow just outside of Ypres - in the top left hand corner. The treeless background summarises the bombardment the region suffered from and the conditions the soldiers lived in".
I agree. The parasites are draining the strength from the patriots.
I've always been wondered how the Jews in WW2 could have walked out of their homes and then allow themselves to be directed to a forest where they were shot in cold blood - I wondered why they never fought back.
America doesn’t have a broken leg or a cold. We are infected with worms and parasites or every size and shape. They each have immunities differring from the other. Federalism, globalism, disinformation, censorship, misdirected education, homosexuals, perverts, foreign religions, lack of morality, lack of integrity, lack of desire to win, appeasement, disruption of culture, racism, greed, lack of unity, lack of common goals, corruption, you name it and we are infected by it.
The cure for most of these is national pride, yeah simple patriotism. Yet as group, we refuse to stand up for our country, our city, our children, heck we won’t even stand up and fight for ourselves.
There’s the odd one of us who is noticed, perhaps even considered as a patriot by our neighbors, but we are considered to be oddballs, yup nutcases who are fighting a war that can’t be won.
Until your neighbors on each side of you are willing to stand with you in your fight, you are just a nuisance. You don’t constitute a serious threat to anyone. I know my neighbors won’t stand with me. Why not, you say.
Well, they are just too friggin comfortable. They haven’t missed a meal their whole life. Sure some of them served in the war and know what down and dirty is all about, but now their membership at the country club up the street is too valuable to be risked.
America is still the best country in the world. Everyone wants to come here. So, imagine what it’s like where they’re coming from. The trouble is that these immigrants have no desire to assimilate, no desire for American citizenship, they love their dual citizenship. They know that they can go back to where they came from and be one of the local elites if they save a few bucks.
I think we need to stop all these social programs. Make it more difficult to be an American. Make people fight to be an American. Make people really want to live here and be willing to fight for what they have here. Get rid of this idea that people can look to Washington for help. I want it to be where Washington has to look to us for help. I know I’m dreaming.
If all the people were proud to be Americans and willing to fight for citizenship, we wouldn’t have 30 million illegals in the country, the NEA wouldn’t be teaching perverted sexual desires in public schools, Muslims would be afraid to step off the plane onto our soil for fear of being arrested for terrorism, it wouldn’t take 18 years to execute murderers whose crime is recorded on film, our young men would be eager to join the military as soon as they got out of school, there wouldn’t be gang warfare in the streets, politicians would be obeying their Oath of Office to the letter, etc.
Most men and nations lie down to die. Today most Americans are willing to die quietly, willing to lay down and go peacefully. The same fate is waiting for America.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Very poignant, and to think our founders had somewhere to go.
I’m sure some of them did fight and fought hard but I have always viewed that as the difference between city folks and country folks.
City folks call the fire department or the police when trouble arises. Country folks know that a call to the fire department or the police won’t do them any good because they are too far away. The barn will be burnt to the ground by the time the trucks arrive so don’t waste time on a phone call, get the hoses turned on first.
They learn how to take care of matters themselves without help from city hall. Put a gun in the hands of your average city person today and most of them turn pale, a country born person will check to see if it’s loaded. If it’s empty, s/he’ll load it.
City folks do what the rest of the crowd is doing, country folks don’t like crowds.
Ping.
ping
FWIW, the etymology of ‘mine warfare’ as used today in speaking about landmines and how they are deployed, originated in ‘mine warfare, which was a study devoted to the operational art of digging mines beneath enemy entrenchments and then blowing them up. On tactic was countermine warfare, when one would dig a mine beneath an enemy mine to blow the up before they could blow up their mine.
You speak with much wisdom, Honorable Freeper!
You are absolutely right.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.