Mont Kemmel Part One – Vierstraat: Kemmel Demarcation Stone No. 2

Mont Kemmel, or the Kemmelberg, photographed after the war from the road between Kemmel and La Clytte. 

The small dark blue dot on this composite map is the approximate point from which the photograph was taken, the summit of the Kemmelberg itself marked in yellow.  The coloured circles show the areas around Vierstraat (red), Kemmel village (blue), Loker (mauve) & Dranouter (green), all of which we shall be exploring this tour.  This map shows the German lines as they were in the summer of 1917, between the Battles of Messines and Passchendaele, in red on the far right, and also serves to show where we are in relationship to Ypres (Ieper), Poperinge, and the Ypres-Poperinge road, all at the top, around which many of last years Flanders’ posts were concentrated.  However, as it is the fighting in 1918 that features prominently, although not exclusively, in this tour,…

…here are the same five areas marked on a map from May 1918, with the approximate front line on the thirteenth of the month clearly marked by the blue line that winds its way across the map.  This first part of the tour will take in the cemeteries in the area marked by the red circle, wherein the only named landmark is Vierstraat, which is exactly as it says on the tin, only in foreign; translated, it literally means ‘four streets’, and it is nothing more today than a few large industrial buildings clustered around a crossroads on the N331, about three and a half miles south west of the Lille Gate, the southern entrance to Ypres.  From there we shall follow the blue arrow south towards the blue circle and Kemmel village and its environs, before visiting the Kemmelberg itself.

Aspects of the Battle of the Lys are covered in some detail in the French Flanders category (and elsewhere) on this website, but here’s a brief resumé.  Just days after Ludendorff had brought the first of his 1918 offensives, Operation Michael, to a close (despite capturing 1,200 square miles of territory, the Germans failed to achieve any of their strategic objectives on the Somme, and both Arras and Amiens remained in Allied hands), he launched Operation Georgette in Flanders, with the aim of finally taking Ypres and the Channel ports beyond.  The battle would last for three weeks, and the above map shows German progress over that time.  The German advance swept all before them during the first few days (up to the dotted yellow line), their progress only slowed as the Allies shortened their lines in the Ypres Salient, giving up the hard-won gains of Third Ypres the previous year in order to move men south to reinforce the troops fighting the battle, fresh reinforcements arriving too, British, French and, to the south of the attack, the 1st Australian Division, who took up positions in the Forest of Nieppe (see map again), where they effectively halted the German advance towards the key Allied railway junction of Hazebrouck.  It was at this point that the Germans turned their attention to the north of the offensive, attacking towards Mont Kemmel, and it is the actions of those final days of April that mainly concern us during this tour.

Here’s a view looking towards the humpback of the Scherpenberg, just under three miles away, to the right of the lone tree, and Mont Noir (the Zwarteberg) beyond to its left,…

…and here’s the earlier map again, now with a few additions.  Our current position is marked by the dark blue dot within the red circle, looking across at the Scherpenberg (small & orange) and the Zwarteberg (smaller & light green).  Along with the Kemmelberg (still in yellow) and the Mont des Cats, further to the west across the French border, capturing these hills represented the Germans’ final chance of some sort of victory; if they could be taken and held, then the British would surely be forced to abandon Ypres and retreat towards the Channel coast, in so doing losing contact with the French Army to the south, and perhaps even forcing the Allies to sue for peace.

And as the maps show, they would indeed take the Kemmelberg, over the two days of 25th & 26th April 1918. and even capture the Scherpenberg, if only for a few hours, on 29th April, attacking roughly from left to right across this landscape, although they would advance no further west, and indeed would retreat some three-quarters of a mile by day’s end, their advance in Flanders finally over.  The Cross of Sacrifice in this shot rises from Suffolk Cemetery, the subject of our second post, but if we were to turn to our left, just a few yards from this junction,…

…stands the first of four Demarcation Stones we shall encounter on this tour.

As you know by now, nineteen of these Demarcation Stones survive in Belgium, considerably more in France, and they mark, ostensibly, and depending on your viewpoint, either the extent of the German 1918 offensive which, elsewhere, would continue for another three months until late July,…

…or the point of departure from which the Allies launched their final, successful, onslaught against the Germans in August.  Take yer pick.  The Germans attacked, officially, for 121 days in 1918, and the fact that we now know that they achieved nothing of any consequence in all that time – despite territorial gains that included all of the territory lost in 1916 & 1917, their new won gains included little of strategic value and simply extended both front and communication lines to little eventual purpose – perhaps makes us somewhat blasé in hindsight.  But these continuous German attacks, using the new stormtrooper tactics, must have made it, for a while, a very worrying time, not only for the army, but just as much for those hearing the news back at home.  And here’s a reminder of how serious – the word used is ‘critical’ – the situation actually was,…

…in the form of Douglas Haig’s Special Order of the Day from 11th April 1918.  No punches pulled here.

Back to the stone.  Referred to as Kemmel Demarcation Stone No.2,…

…meaning we shall find another Kemmel stone later in our tour,…

…and with Kemmel inscribed on the French helmet, although you might have to take my word for it,…

…this stone also has an inscription on the base that ends with the words ‘Ypres League’.  The Ypres League was a British veterans society, formed in 1920 and open to those who had fought in the Salient during the war.  Its aims were to remember those who died and provide help for those wishing to visit the Flanders’ battlefields and cemeteries, and in time, it would be responsible for the construction of St. George’s Memorial Church in Ypres, as well as funding six (or was it seven) of the nineteen Demarcation Stones that would be erected in Belgium.  And this, quite clearly, is one of them, and also shows that the Ypres League did not just pay for stones featuring British helmets.

Actually, this particular stone has a somewhat chequered recent history.

Fifteen years ago, drunk and homeless, it was residing in a roadside ditch.

After its recovery it was placed next to the American Memorial further south down the N331, which, if better than a ditch, was an entirely incorrect position in which to place it, and now it’s been moved here, which is much, much better.  Note the water bottle and exploding grenades.

So, some might say a low-key start to a long series of posts.  As mentioned earlier, and briefly seen at the start of this post, we shall be visiting the nearby Suffolk Cemetery next.

I tell you what, though.  Before we move on, if we were brave, or foolish, enough to strap on our parachutes and get in our tethered balloon and take a trip a couple of thousand feet above the battlefield to take a few snapshots looking away to the east, before the German scouts – the term ‘fighter’ for a single-seater combat aircraft is a 1920s term and has no place in any Great War discourse – came a’visiting, past the Vierstraat crossroads in the background of this shot at the end of the road,…

…this is the view that would have awaited us.  At least it would have been on 23rd April 1917 (a couple of months before the Battle of Messines, and almost a year before the final German assault on Mont Kemmel), when the photo was taken.  We are looking down on the British front line, in the foreground, with the German front line beyond the dark strip of No Man’s Land.  The map has been rotated to match the photograph, with the same part of the large wood known as the Grand Bois marked in dark green on both.  The road leads from Vierstraat to Wytschaete, off both photo & map to the top right, and the map has been extended to show not only Vierstraat, but also our current position at the Demarcation Stone (red dot), and our next stop, Suffolk Cemetery (light green dot).  Which is where we are going, by clicking the link, now.