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    Plan détaillé Texte intégral Pilgrimage under fire : 1914-1918Exploring the old front line : the early 1920sFrom battlefield to memorial : the later 1920s Notes de bas de page Auteur

    Tourisme et Grande Guerre

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    Battlefields and cemeteries : the changing face of First World War battlefield tourism 1914-1929

    Simon Gregor

    p. 283-296

    Texte intégral Pilgrimage under fire : 1914-1918Exploring the old front line : the early 1920sFrom battlefield to memorial : the later 1920s Notes de bas de page Auteur

    Texte intégral

    1Alexander Douglas Gillespie was a junior officer with the 2nd Battalion Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. Educated at Winchester College and at Oxford, he went to the Western Front in February 1915, by which time his younger brother Thomas Gillespie had already been killed in the fierce fighting of the previous year. Like many other public school boys of the time, Douglas (as he was known) kept in touch with his school and wrote, in June 1915, to his headmaster at Winchester1. In his letter, he reflected on the fighting that continued to rage over the area where his brother had been killed, and on the likelihood that his sibling must therefore lie in an unmarked grave. He went on to anticipate the war’s end, and outlined his own vision for commemoration, and for pilgrimage, in some detail :

    « I would make a fine broad road in the No Man’s Land between the lines, with paths for pilgrims on foot, and plant trees for shade, and fruit trees, so that the soil should not be altogether wasted. Some of the shattered farms and houses might be left as evidence, and the regiments might put up their records beside the trenches which they held all through the winter. »2

    2His vision clearly involves a degree of curation, with the planting of the trees and the creation of paths. But what is most striking is his wish that the environment of the battlefield should be part of the memorial, the line of the trenches itself forming the focus, with elements of the damage and detritus of war left as they were, and the individual unit memorials being attached to the preserved trenches in which they had served. Gillespie was very clear about the purpose of doing all this :

    « Then I would like to send every man, woman and child in Western Europe on pilgrimage along that Via Sacra, so that they might think and learn what war means from the silent witnesses on either side. »3

    3Gillespie offered a very early vision of post-war battlefield tourism – and he referred to it quite explicitly as pilgrimage. As for the pilgrims of old, this would be a hard journey through sacred ground and with a didactic purpose – through being exposed to the scale of the trench lines, the actual physical environment of battle, and the presence of the dead all around, the people of Europe would be encouraged to learn from the experience of the Great War4.

    4Gillespie himself was killed just three months later. His letter, originally published in his school magazine, was picked up by the national press, and subsequently became well-known as a vision of commemoration of the war and the importance of remembrance5. By the late 1930s, more than 20 years after his death, the business of commemorating the dead of the British Empire, then overseen by the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC), was largely complete. To mark its own 20th anniversary in 1937, the IWGC produced a report on its activities, written by its founder Fabian Ware6.

    5The book was introduced by the poet and war veteran Edmund Blunden. Reflecting on the significant achievements of the IWGC in its first 20 years, he cited Gillespie’s letter as an example of the vision which the Commission was trying to honour. But he went further, asserting that :

    « […] no one who has seen the cemeteries which are essentially the theme of the following pages can doubt that altogether they form a Via Sacra even more beautiful and more impressive than that of [Gillespie’s] waking dream in a dugout towards La Bassee just before an angry dawn. »7

    6Here Blunden appropriated Gillespie’s vision of a memorial, clearly implying that the call to remembrance articulated in the letter had been realised ; but he went further, arguing that that the IWGC had surpassed in its cemeteries anything Gillespie might have imagined. Setting aside the question of whether one is indeed « more beautiful and more impressive » than the other, what is more striking here is the change in emphasis on what pilgrimage should look like. For Gillespie in 1915, the Via Sacra of the pilgrimage was a route through no man’s land with trenches, war materiel, and the undulating environment of the Belgian and French countryside as its focus, and the silent witnesses of the dead to either side. For Blunden, the dead have been moved centre stage, for it is the cemeteries of the IWGC rather than the landscape of the battlefield which form the Via Sacra of 1937. Blunden, of course, was writing for the IWGC itself, and so it is unsurprising that he should focus on the cemeteries and memorials for which the Commission was responsible. But his statement reflects a wider change in the understanding of pilgrimage between the war years and the end of the ensuing decade, as the nature of the landscape, the nature of the pilgrims themselves, and the focus of the arranged tours and printed guidebooks changed. The IWGC is both driving and reflecting that change, and it is proposed in this chapter to examine the evolving conceptions of battlefield pilgrimage between 1914 and the late 1920s.

    Pilgrimage under fire : 1914-1918

    7To understand the evolution of pilgrimage fully, we need to look at its roots in the war years themselves. The Imperial War Graves Commission had its earliest beginnings in a Red Cross Unit run by Fabian Ware, which started work in 1914, before becoming absorbed into the army in 1915, forming the Graves Registration Unit and eventually (in 1917) the IWGC itself8. As early as 1914, before the long-term legacy of the Commission could be imagined, men working in the Red Cross Unit were undertaking what might be seen as a very early form of in-war pilgrimage. One Mr Broadley, working in the Unit in autumn 1914, described the patience, skill and hard work required to track down the buried bodies of war dead in remote locations. Having found the body, he then had to go back a day or two later to mark the grave, but felt « my modest efforts amply rewarded […] for I have the proud satisfaction of knowing that I have done some slight honour to one brave man who has died for his country ». Even in the midst of war itself, as he tramped across « some out of the way turnip field », Broadley articulated a clear desire to show respect and do honour to the fallen9. There is a danger of over-romanticising battlefield burials, and it would be quite erroneous to suggest that they offer any sort of direct parallel to the post-war pilgrimage experience. Two army chaplains, writing during the war, reflect on some of the contradictions involved in battlefield funerals :

    « Before they carried him away we gathered around the body, and I said a few words of prayer, for him and for those who loved him. There was a minute or two of hushed silence, and then the men went to their allotted posts. Five minutes later, I walked round with the company commander, and on our way we found a group of men with fixed bayonets gaily chasing rats behind the sandbags. »10

    8For many men, the opportunity to reflect at any considered level on the death of comrades was probably brief, and bookended at either side by the reality of life in a war zone. But as Pym and Gordon go on to argue, it is striking that, however curtailed and snatched such opportunities were, they were present nonetheless. « There was the rat-hunt ; but first there was the little time of hushed and solemn silence »11. Pilgrimage itself was not possible amongst the troops in the line, but some early signs of the respect, reflection and emotional connection which came to characterise it later were clearly emerging.

    9A few individuals did make journeys to the battlefields in the period between 1914 and

    101918, of a kind which can be more closely compared to that of post-war pilgrimage. One was Harry Lauder, a Scottish entertainer whose son, John, was killed towards the very end of 1916.

    11Harry, devastated by the loss of his only child, gained permission to travel to the Western Front and perform at the front lines. His journey becomes a pilgrimage of his own – partly in tribute to his son, partly to support the troops and the war effort, and partly to enable him to visit his son’s grave.

    12Lauder’s account of his journey is problematic as a historical source12. Written as it was by a performer, it is perhaps not surprising that it has the feeling of being a « constructed » account with a strong element of storytelling and tension. Lauder acknowledges his wartime role as a propagandist, particularly in trying to generate support for the Allies in the USA, and this further complicates his role as an observer. However, whilst his role as an impartial commentator on the facts and the course of the conflict cannot be assured, his account is a powerful source of information on his own pilgrimage to the Western Front, and of his emotional and intellectual responses to that journey.

    13Whilst, as we shall see, some of the later 1920s descriptions of pilgrimage tend to focus on issues of empathy, understanding and respect, Lauder’s responses are in some ways more complex and problematic. He made a trip to Vimy Ridge, itself a popular destination for postwar pilgrimages, and saw both the battlefield and graves. In 1917, though, this destination was still a battle zone. Lauder described feelings which were far from the reflective ones of the post-war pilgrim :

    « […] that day one overpowering emotion mastered every other. It was a desire for vengeance. Yon were the Huns, the men who had killed my boy. They were almost within my reach. And as I looked at them there in their lines, a savage desire possessed me… »13

    14Being wartime, Lauder was later able to act on his desire when he was given the opportunity to fire one of the artillery pieces, although he described his pleasure in doing so as being « childish »14. This complex interplay of emotions is perhaps explained by the fact that his feeling of vengeance had passed by the time he had reached the gun battery : « My madness was passed now, and a great sadness had taken its place. For here, where I was walking, men had stumbled up with bullets and shells raining upon them »15.

    15There is a rich layering to Lauder’s emotional experience here – those feelings of sadness and the consciousness of the trials of the men who fought would be familiar to some of the writers of the pilgrimage guides of the 1920s, or indeed to today’s 21st century school party. But for the pilgrim in wartime, the reality of the battlefield and indeed the opportunities it afforded provoke other, more aggressive reactions.

    16What we appear to get in the wartime pilgrimage of Lauder is the articulation of a much more complex and raw set of emotional responses. This was echoed in the passages where Lauder described the ultimate object of his pilgrimage, the visit to his son’s grave, in Ovillers, behind the lines but in a battle-scarred landscape, and surrounded by the graves of numerous other war dead.

    17At first glance, his experience seems to be very similar to what would later be described by post-war pilgrims sharing in grief, when « [his] own grief was altered by the vision of grief which had come to so many others »16. But in the subtle details of Lauder’s account there are elements which set it apart from what would be possible in the post-war world. For example, in talking about his visit to the grave, he reflected on how many others might wish to come and :

    « cast themselves down, as I had done, upon some brown mound, sacred in their thoughts ? How many were praying for the day to come when they might gaze upon a white cross, as I had done, and from the brown mound out of which it rose gather a few crumbs of that brown earth […] ? »17

    18The vision of the visit to the cemetery which Lauder created was of a man embracing the 18mound of earth which stands in for the body of his son, beneath a rough-wood cross, and scraping up a tribute of the soil with his fingers. It was a raw and visceral response which would not be possible in the beautiful but carefully manicured cemeteries of the IWGC in the late 1920s, where the mounds of earth had been flattened to a smooth and turfed greensward.

    19Another man who made his own wartime pilgrimage to the battlefields was the writer, and later Poet Laureate, John Masefield. The British government, struck by the success of Masefield’s book on Gallipoli in 1915, asked him to visit and write about the old front line of the Somme in 1916 as an official war writer. Given this context, one might expect another work shot through with elements of propaganda; in the event, Masefield’s work The Old Front Line focuses almost entirely on the landscape of the battlefields. « It is hoped, he wrote, that this description of the front line will be followed by an account of our people’s share in the battle »1⁸, but in the event he never wrote that companion work. As a result, Masefield’s work has a curiously elegiac feel, almost a form of dark pastoral writing as he observes the once beautiful landscape of the Somme region twisted and distorted by the combat. His attitude to the landscape is conflicted, as he stated in his opening paragraphs :

    « All wars end; even this war will some day end, and the ruins will be rebuilt and the field full of death will grow food, and all this frontier of trouble will be forgotten. »19

    20There is a tension in his description here. On the one hand, there was an optimism that the war would end, and the world would return to something like normality. At the same time, there was a sense that in the process something might be lost or forgotten, and his own work is to some extent positioned as insurance against that, a means of recording and documenting the brutalised landscape which will one day be healed. Towards the end of the work, he returned to the same theme :

    « Such was our old front line at the beginning of the battle, and so the travellers of our race will strive to picture it when they see the ground under the crops of coming Julys. »20

    21In looking ahead to those pilgrims of the future, visiting after the horrors of war have passed, the sense was of a pilgrimage which was diminished in the richness of its experience. Whilst the end of the war was clearly to be hoped for, the passing years and the growth of crops would gradually cover up the brutality of the war as it was experienced. Travellers would strive to see what it was like, but Masefield’s work was far from optimistic that they would succeed.

    22In these descriptions of wartime remembrance and travel, we see some of the themes which will later come to characterise pilgrimage taking shape. A commitment to a physically and emotionally demanding journey ; a desire to try to understand the battlefield ; a wish to share something emotionally with those who fought and with those who are bereaved : all these are beginning to take shape. But alongside this are factors quite distinct and particular to the 1914-1918 experience. On the one hand, there is a very clear sense of the reality of war tempering those emotions. On the other, and for the non-combatant pilgrim in particular, there is a raw and visceral quality to the emotional response and indeed the physical experience of the battlefield, which Masefield in particular seems to suspect will not survive the war. As analysis of the 1920s will show, he was largely correct.

    Exploring the old front line : the early 1920s

    23Even before the war had ended, practical battlefield guidebooks were being developed. The Michelin company worked on a range of such guides even whilst the war was in progress, and a number of other publishers also brought out books in 1919 and the early 1920s.

    24Whereas by the late 1920s there was a clear focus on the bereaved-on pilgrimages, such as those organised by the Salvation Army, the Royal British Legion or St Barnabas21, there was a quite different emphasis in some of these earlier guides. One such guide, published in 1920, concluded :

    « The little crosses on the hillside mark the rest billets of our comrades of the trenches. They haven’t really left us; they are only on ahead, like scouts, finding out the way. »22

    25The focus here is clearly on veterans as the comrades of the dead, and there is a palpable sense of camaraderie here which notably excludes the experience of the bereaved non-combatant. This is perhaps not surprising, as the work is written by an ex-battalion commander, but the fact that such an approach found a publisher says something about the perceived receptiveness of the reading audience to such an approach.

    26One very early guidebook to hit the bookstands was Captain Atherton Fleming’s How to See the Battlefields, published in 1919. Like other works of its period, what is striking is how often it simply directed the visitor to places where the visible legacy of war was still abundantly present – there was little need for detailed interpretation, as the visitor had merely to get to the right place and look about them to see the very visible legacy of war. Ypres is a case in point, where « […] the Belgian Government has decided not to rebuild the town. I for one do not see what else it could do »23. The reason, Fleming explained, that the Belgians had no alternative was the fact of the complete destruction of the town, which the visitors could presumably verify for themselves as they stood in the Grote Markt.

    27In the majority of the locations on Fleming’s itinerary, the basic approach was the same – get the visitor to an area where there was fighting, or camps, or other military facilities, and then allow them to soak up the self-evident aftermath of war. In Arras, the visitor was told simply to explore all of the back area around the town, « if only to show the uninitiated what a tremendously huge organisation modern warfare demands »24. The slightly pointed reference to the uninitiated was amplified further in the text, when the reader was urged to « ponder well what it must have meant to stay in that town for four years of war, and thank God for your island home and the Navy that protected it »25. Here again, the experience of the veteran and the battlefront was central, and the role of the pilgrim was to try, however incompletely and inadequately, to understand that.

    28Even as he privileged the role of the veteran, Fleming recognised that times were changing, and seemed resigned in his introductory comments to « the inevitable “conducted tour” » of the battlefields which he could see coming26. At the caverns on the Aisne, he foresees the arrival of tourists and the French peasants cashing in on that – « Nor would I grudge them a franc or two »27. But for all that, his comments feel slightly grudging, and at best his attitude to the commercialisation of the battlefields can be seen as one of resignation.

    29At the same time, he saw in reality what Masefield foresaw in imagination – the tidying up of the battlefields :

    « […] parts of the front will look quite as if a really comfortable sort of war could be carried on with a minimum amount of trouble and inconvenience. If any of you get this idea in your heads when you are in these places just take a visit to the nearest big cemetery and see the names of the men who belonged to some of the finest fighting stock in the world. »28

    30Two things are striking here. First, that as early as 1919 and even amidst so much detritus of war, the battlefield landscape is already beginning to disappear. Second, it is to the cemeteries which this veteran turned when he wanted to communicate the reality and brutality of the war when other options had started to disappear – thus perhaps foreshadowing Blunden’s comments about the IWGC in 1937.

    31Another guide, published a year later in 1920 by the veteran Lt Col Lowe, was visually striking when compared to others of the period29. Its front cover had an appearance something like a boy’s adventure comic book, and cartoons inside gave graphic depictions suggestive of the realities of war, including artillery in operation and German soldiers being bayoneted. As with Fleming, there was a clear privileging of the physical experience of the fighting man, and a sense of pride in victory.

    32Like Fleming, and Masefield before him, Lowe reflected with a degree of tension on the passage of time. « Nature is hard at work on the battlefields, nursing them back to health and peace. She has it all her own way now. Already many of the scars of war have softened down… »30 In this context of the war landscape fading, Lowe’s conception of his own work was clear. For, « in addition to being a guide to places of interest, [it] will also help the tourist to recast some of the stirring scenes of the battlefields, and to realize what war meant to the man in the front line… »31. Again, there was little room here for the emotional catharsis of the bereaved non-combatant. Instead, the emphasis was on trying to overcome the softening of the battlefield’s hard edges by nature, with the objective being to recreate as far as possible the experience of the fighting man. Indeed, the credentials of the book were presumably to be enhanced when the writer assured us he will draw only on his own lived experience, by limiting himself to the parts of the line where he served32.

    33Cemeteries featured in Lowe’s work as they did in Fleming’s, though they are still adorned with the rough white crosses of wood. « The progress of the fighting, and a large number of the units engaged, can be traced by a study of the roadside cemeteries »33. It was not that Lowe dismissed the need to mourn the dead – indeed, we have already seen his reference to the crosses marking the rest billets of fallen comrades. But it is striking that he chose to use the cemeteries in addition as a marker of the progress of the fighting and the units involved, and so as another means of helping to recreate that vivid impression of the battlefield for which he was striving. Through the early 1920s, therefore, we see battlefield pilgrimage in flux. The visceral experience of war was still there, both in the guiding voice of veterans themselves and in the landscape. The experience of the fighting man was still a central motif in battlefield pilgrimage, with written guides focusing on trying to recreate that experience using whatever means possible ; and there was still sufficient physical legacy of war on the battlefields to help writers bring the war experience to the uninitiated. At the same time, Masefield’s presentiment that time would erode the reality of war on the battlefields was starting to come to fruition, and writers betrayed in various ways their anxieties about that, using tools such as illustrations, personal testament and cemeteries to mark out the passage of conflict.

    34As time moved on into the later 1920s, the battlefields were increasingly cleared. Isolated graves were gathered together into larger cemeteries ; and those cemeteries became more accessible, ordered, and better-known, and consequently came to play a greater part in the battlefield pilgrim’s itinerary. In addition, perspectives other than those of the veteran started to come to the fore – many commentators have observed how the bereaved came to dominate the discourse of remembrance more than the veterans, for example34. Taken together, these trends changed battlefield pilgrimage in a manner which has in many ways endured into the 21st century.

    From battlefield to memorial : the later 1920s

    35We have already seen Edmund Blunden’s confident assertion that the cemeteries of the IWGC had, by 1927, fashioned the desired « via sacra » of Great War remembrance. Not everyone associated with the Commission was so confident, however. Sir Arthur Hill was the Director of the Botanic Gardens at Kew, and was brought in as an adviser to the Commission on cemetery planting schemes35.

    36Hill toured the Somme in the summer of 1917 and gave a lecture about his experience to the Royal Horticultural Society in February 1919. Notwithstanding his role with the IWGC, he suggested that no design he could come up with would match the natural impact of the battlefields which he saw in 1917 :

    « In no cemetery, large or small, however beautiful or impressive it may be, can the same sentiment be evoked or feelings be so deeply stirred. Nowhere, I imagine, could the magnitude of the struggle be better appreciated than in that peaceful, poppy-covered battlefield, hallowed by its many scattered crosses. »36

    37In contrast to Blunden, Hill was saying that the business of clearing the battlefields and forming the cemeteries, however beautifully and impressively it might be done, represented a loss in the experience of the pilgrim visitor. He was not alone. Sir Edwin Lutyens, one of the Commission’s lead architects, also visited the battlefields before the war’s end. Looking, like Hill, at the improvised cemeteries and their wildflowers, he reflected that « one thinks for a moment that no other monument is needed »37.

    38So, for all the focus on cemeteries and memorialisation, there was a real concern of something being lost as the battlefield was « tidied up » into an ordered structure of cemeteries and memorials. Notwithstanding that, the cemeteries and memorials became an important part of battlefield pilgrimage by the 1920s, and not just on the Western Front. Gallipoli was a site of pilgrimage too. St Barnabas Pilgrimages organised a trip to Gallipoli and Salonika in 1928, for which the publicity leaflet stated :

    « The Cruise has been specially organized to enable relatives, and ex-Service men and their friends, to visit the War Cemeteries and Battlefields of Gallipoli and Salonika. »38

    39It is striking that the frame of reference had been expanded compared to the earlier 1920s – relatives, veterans and friends were all included, though this was done to make it commercially viable. The emphasis was on cemeteries in their own right, as much, if not more than, battlefields. The leaflet went on to further emphasise the importance of graves, offering photos of graves and cemeteries for those unable to join the pilgrimage, and the facility for wreaths to be laid on specified graves by advance arrangement39.

    40Lord Stopford went on this pilgrimage, and provided a first-hand account of it. In it, he comments on the composition of the touring party. There were about 242 passengers, of whom just four were « assisted pilgrims », those for whom the charity was paying. Many others were going to visit graves, some to return to the theatre they served in, and others purely for pleasure. In relation to pilgrimage, his language is telling :

    « It had been intended that this should be entirely a pilgrimage, but as it was impossible to fill the ship with people visiting graves, it was opened to anyone who was prepared to take a ticket. »40

    41The real pilgrims, in Stopford’s estimation, were not the veterans per se (unless they happen to be visiting graves), but the bereaved. Grave visitation was now the centre of pilgrimage, and even this was being diluted further by the pleasure trippers. Nonetheless, veteran guidebooks continued to appear later in the 1920s – one example would be Lt-Gen Sir William Pulteney’s guide for pilgrims to Ypres, published in 192541. Earl Haig provided the introduction, which reflected on the purpose of the book :

    « Although primarily intended to serve as a guide book for pilgrims visiting the graves of their relatives, the book has been expanded to meet many requirements. »42

    42Intriguingly, Haig does not elaborate on what the « many requirements » are, but the direction of travel was clear : pilgrimage had become more diverse than previously, and the visiting of graves by the bereaved was now its lynch-pin.

    43But the changes were not just down to the visitors and the cemeteries, for there were also changes in the wider landscape of pilgrimage. Pulteney himself summed up this change by reflecting on the shock of the pilgrim visiting Ypres and seeing the town of the mid 1920s :

    « To travel along and explore the battlefields soon after the Armistice was to bring sudden and vivid realisation of all that had been imagined during the war. To visit them now [in 1925] is to feel balked and bewildered. »43One of the most famous pilgrimages of the late 1920s was that organised by the Royal British Legion to France and Belgium in August 1928. Edith Annie Smith went on that pilgrimage, and left a personal account of her experience44. Handwritten in the autumn of 1928 in what appears to be a school exercise book, the account seems to be the basis for a presentation, as it contains occasional speaking notes in parentheses. She travelled on the pilgrimage with her husband, and as far as it is possible to tell from her account she was visiting as an interested traveller rather than as someone with a particular grave to visit or unit to follow.

    44Given that it appears to be intended for an audience – perhaps schoolchildren, as Smith was a teacher – the account has some of the sense of being a constructed story, rather like Lauder’s. Nonetheless, the details which Smith noticed and her reactions to them form a valuable record of one person’s pilgrimage, and amplify some of the themes which we have seen emerging elsewhere in the mid-late 1920s pilgrimages.

    45It is perhaps at Beaumont Hamel and the developing Newfoundland Memorial Park, that the changes wrought to pilgrimage by time are most clear. Smith’s group visited the site on the third day, and the area still had some of the evidence of war left. But there was also a clear sense of the site being managed, with information being provided on the plans that the government of Newfoundland had for it, and a small Canadian log hut erected near the entrance, « exactly as one sees at the cinema »45.

    46Smith paused on the veranda of the log hut and tried to imagine the view during the Somme battle of 1916. Initially she struggled to overlay this on the sunlit scene, with the bright greenery and the lightly attired pilgrims strolling and chatting. But finally she was able to call up an imagined picture in her mind :

    « A stretch of land where sunshine seemed unknown, a pitiless rain driving in sheets as it would do on that ridge, a vast expanse of mud, & shell holes which would have been filled with water, & men fighting for their lives in this seething morass, amidst the fury of the guns, gas, barbed wire & every other fiendish invention. »46

    47Standing amidst an increasingly managed environment, and with no personal experience of the location in battle, Smith overlaid an entirely imagined landscape of battle onto the sunlit scene of 1928, presumably drawing on reports she has read or heard during or after the battle. For this pilgrim, the journey has allowed her to co-locate herself with a scene of battle which, though significantly changed since 1916, nonetheless provides the backdrop for an intensely personal, but imagined, act of commemoration.

    48But it is what happens next which is most intriguing. Smith was interrupted from her reverie by a group of male veterans, with their own perspective on the scene, and who were « discussing the position ». For these pilgrims, there is a very different outcome :

    « The scene had so changed from deadly dull grey to brilliant colours, that although they had taken part in this engagement of [1916], they couldn’t seem to place the position at all… »47

    49So changed is the landscape and the context, that those very men who fought over the space in 1916 are unable to locate their memories within it. As Masefield foresaw, the old front line has faded so far, that it is only really in the imagination that the pilgrim seems able to visualise it. Paradoxically perhaps, that seems an easier undertaking for a pilgrim with no prior experience of the battlefield, than for a group of veterans who just a decade before had fought across it.

    50In less than 15 years, between 1914 and 1928, there was a rapid and radical evolution in the nature of battlefield pilgrimage. Wartime writers looked forward to the ending of the conflict, but at the same time feared that its finish would lead to a fading of the landscape and the memories enshrined there. In the early 1920s, some of the first battlefield guidebooks show that this fear is being realised as the detritus of war is removed and battlefield burials are ordered and tidied. By the mid-late 1920s it is graves and memorials which have come centre stage rather than the wider battlefield. Veterans themselves struggle to locate their memories within a radically changed landscape.

    Notes de bas de page

    1 From the Winchester College at War website, www.winchestercollegeatwar.com/archive/thomas-cunningham-gillespie [accessed 1 June 2015].

    2 Cited in WARE, Fabian, The Immortal Heritage: An Account of the Work and Policy of The Imperial War Graves Commission during twenty years 19171937, Cambridge, CUP, 1937, p. 20-21.

    3 Ibid., p. 20-21.

    4 For a useful analysis of some of the factors characterising notions of pilgrimage over time, see READER, Ian and WALTER, Tony (eds), Pilgrimage in Popular Culture, London, Macmillan, 1993.

    5 From the Winchester College at War website, www.winchestercollegeatwar.com/archive/thomas-cunningham-gillespie [accessed 1 June 2015]

    6 WARE, Fabian, op. cit.

    7 Ibid., p. 20-21.

    8 See CRANE, David, Empires of the Dead: How One Man’s Vision Led to the Creation of WWI’s War Graves, London, William Collins, 2013.

    9 CWGC, MU1, « Account written by Mr Broadley », 6 Dec. 1914.

    10 PYM, T. W., and GORDON, G., Papers from Picardy by two chaplains, London, Constable and Company Ltd, 1917, Thirteenth Paper.

    11 Ibid.

    12 LAUDER, Harry, A Minstrel in France, London, Andrew Melrose, 1918.

    13 Ibid., p. 168.

    14 Ibid., p. 201.

    15 Ibid., p. 169.

    16 Ibid., p. 290-291.

    17 Ibid. p. 291.

    18 MASEFIELD, John, The Old Front Line, or The Beginning of the Battle of the Somme, London, William Heinemann, 1917, p. 12.

    19 Ibid., p. 11.

    20 Ibid., p. 112.

    21 CWGC, CON 149, see for example Pilgrimages of Remembrance; and the pamphlet « 1928 Mediterranean Cruise: Pilgrimage to Gallipoli and Salonika » published by St Barnabas Pilgrimages.

    22 LOWE, Lieut.-Col. T A, DSO, MC, The Western Battlefields : A Guide to the British Line, Short Account of the Trenches and Positions, London, Gale & Polden Ltd, 1920, p. 61.

    23 FLEMING, Capt. Atherton, How to See the Battlefields, London, Cassell and Company Ltd, 1919, p. 7.

    24 Ibid., p. 33.

    25 Ibid., p. 31.

    26 Ibid., p. 3.

    27 Ibid., p. 88.

    28 Ibid., p. 41.

    29 LOWE, Lieut.-Col. T A, DSO, MC, op. cit.

    30 Ibid., p. ix-x.

    31 Ibid., p. ix-x.

    32 Ibid., p. ix-x.

    33 Ibid., p. 20.

    34 See in particular GREGORY, Adrian, The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day, 1919-1946, Berg, Oxford, 1994.

    35 For more detail on the involvement of Hill and others in the formation of the IWGC vision, see in particular CRANE, David, op. cit., and LONGWORTH, P., The Unending Vigil: The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, London, Constable, 1967.

    36 CWGC, Add 3/1/3, Hill, AW, « Our Soldiers’ Graves », Lecture to Royal Horticultural Society, 25 February 1919.

    37 PERCY, C., and RIDLEY, J. (eds), The Letters of Edwin Lutyens to his Wife Emily, London, Collins, 1985, p. 350.

    38 CWGC, CON 149, « 1928 Mediterranean Cruise: Pilgrimage to Gallipoli and Salonika», published by St Barnabas Pilgrimages, p. 1.

    39 Ibid., p. 7.

    40 CWGC, CON 149, « St Barnabas Pilgrimage to Salonika and Gallipoli 1928 » by Lord Stopford, 18 Sept. 1928, p. 1 (emphasis added).

    41 PULTENEY, Sir William and BRICE, Beatrix, The Immortal Salient: An Historical Record and Complete Guide for Pilgrims to Ypres, London, Ypres League, 1925.

    42 Ibid., p. 5.

    43 Ibid., p. 20.

    44 Archives of the Somerset Heritage Centre, DD/X/SIM 4, « Personal account of Mrs Edith Annie Smith’s attendance at the Battlefields Pilgrimage », 1928.

    45 Ibid., p. 19.

    46 Ibid., p. 19-20.

    47 Ibid., p. 20.

    Auteur

    • Simon Gregor

      Doctorant à l’Université de Wolverhampton. Ses travaux portent actuellement sur l’évolution paysagère des champs de bataille de la Première Guerre mondiale. Membre de la Guild of Battlefield Guides, il opère également comme guide sur les champs de bataille en France, en Belgique et en Allemagne.

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    1 From the Winchester College at War website, www.winchestercollegeatwar.com/archive/thomas-cunningham-gillespie [accessed 1 June 2015].

    2 Cited in WARE, Fabian, The Immortal Heritage: An Account of the Work and Policy of The Imperial War Graves Commission during twenty years 19171937, Cambridge, CUP, 1937, p. 20-21.

    3 Ibid., p. 20-21.

    4 For a useful analysis of some of the factors characterising notions of pilgrimage over time, see READER, Ian and WALTER, Tony (eds), Pilgrimage in Popular Culture, London, Macmillan, 1993.

    5 From the Winchester College at War website, www.winchestercollegeatwar.com/archive/thomas-cunningham-gillespie [accessed 1 June 2015]

    6 WARE, Fabian, op. cit.

    7 Ibid., p. 20-21.

    8 See CRANE, David, Empires of the Dead: How One Man’s Vision Led to the Creation of WWI’s War Graves, London, William Collins, 2013.

    9 CWGC, MU1, « Account written by Mr Broadley », 6 Dec. 1914.

    10 PYM, T. W., and GORDON, G., Papers from Picardy by two chaplains, London, Constable and Company Ltd, 1917, Thirteenth Paper.

    11 Ibid.

    12 LAUDER, Harry, A Minstrel in France, London, Andrew Melrose, 1918.

    13 Ibid., p. 168.

    14 Ibid., p. 201.

    15 Ibid., p. 169.

    16 Ibid., p. 290-291.

    17 Ibid. p. 291.

    18 MASEFIELD, John, The Old Front Line, or The Beginning of the Battle of the Somme, London, William Heinemann, 1917, p. 12.

    19 Ibid., p. 11.

    20 Ibid., p. 112.

    21 CWGC, CON 149, see for example Pilgrimages of Remembrance; and the pamphlet « 1928 Mediterranean Cruise: Pilgrimage to Gallipoli and Salonika » published by St Barnabas Pilgrimages.

    22 LOWE, Lieut.-Col. T A, DSO, MC, The Western Battlefields : A Guide to the British Line, Short Account of the Trenches and Positions, London, Gale & Polden Ltd, 1920, p. 61.

    23 FLEMING, Capt. Atherton, How to See the Battlefields, London, Cassell and Company Ltd, 1919, p. 7.

    24 Ibid., p. 33.

    25 Ibid., p. 31.

    26 Ibid., p. 3.

    27 Ibid., p. 88.

    28 Ibid., p. 41.

    29 LOWE, Lieut.-Col. T A, DSO, MC, op. cit.

    30 Ibid., p. ix-x.

    31 Ibid., p. ix-x.

    32 Ibid., p. ix-x.

    33 Ibid., p. 20.

    34 See in particular GREGORY, Adrian, The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day, 1919-1946, Berg, Oxford, 1994.

    35 For more detail on the involvement of Hill and others in the formation of the IWGC vision, see in particular CRANE, David, op. cit., and LONGWORTH, P., The Unending Vigil: The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, London, Constable, 1967.

    36 CWGC, Add 3/1/3, Hill, AW, « Our Soldiers’ Graves », Lecture to Royal Horticultural Society, 25 February 1919.

    37 PERCY, C., and RIDLEY, J. (eds), The Letters of Edwin Lutyens to his Wife Emily, London, Collins, 1985, p. 350.

    38 CWGC, CON 149, « 1928 Mediterranean Cruise: Pilgrimage to Gallipoli and Salonika», published by St Barnabas Pilgrimages, p. 1.

    39 Ibid., p. 7.

    40 CWGC, CON 149, « St Barnabas Pilgrimage to Salonika and Gallipoli 1928 » by Lord Stopford, 18 Sept. 1928, p. 1 (emphasis added).

    41 PULTENEY, Sir William and BRICE, Beatrix, The Immortal Salient: An Historical Record and Complete Guide for Pilgrims to Ypres, London, Ypres League, 1925.

    42 Ibid., p. 5.

    43 Ibid., p. 20.

    44 Archives of the Somerset Heritage Centre, DD/X/SIM 4, « Personal account of Mrs Edith Annie Smith’s attendance at the Battlefields Pilgrimage », 1928.

    45 Ibid., p. 19.

    46 Ibid., p. 19-20.

    47 Ibid., p. 20.

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    Gregor, S. (2019). Battlefields and cemeteries : the changing face of First World War battlefield tourism 1914-1929. In Y.-M. Evanno & J. Vincent (éds.), Tourisme et Grande Guerre. Ploemeur: Éditions Codex. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.codex.1680
    Gregor, Simon. « Battlefields and cemeteries : The Changing Face of First World War Battlefield Tourism 1914-1929 ». In Tourisme Et Grande Guerre, édité par Yves-Marie Evanno et Johan Vincent. Ploemeur: Éditions Codex, 2019. doi:10.4000/books.codex.1680.
    Gregor, Simon. « Battlefields and cemeteries : The Changing Face of First World War Battlefield Tourism 1914-1929 ». Tourisme Et Grande Guerre, édité par Yves-Marie Evanno et Johan Vincent, Éditions Codex, 2019, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.codex.1680.

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    Evanno, Y.-M., & Vincent, J. (éds.). (2019). Tourisme et Grande Guerre. Ploemeur: Éditions Codex. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.codex.1084
    Evanno, Yves-Marie, et Johan Vincent, éd. Tourisme et Grande Guerre. Ploemeur: Éditions Codex, 2019. doi:10.4000/books.codex.1084.
    Evanno, Yves-Marie, et Johan Vincent, éditeurs. Tourisme et Grande Guerre. Éditions Codex, 2019, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.codex.1084.
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