Broodseinde – The 7th Division Memorial

Just to the east of Zonnebeke, and a few hundred yards south of the hamlet of Broodseinde, alongside the main N303 that connects the village of Passendale, as Passchendaele is now called, two miles to the north, and Wervik, way down south on the River Lys, stands this roadside memorial to the 7th Division.

Positioned where the division first went into action in October 1914,…

…the front panel lists its component battalions between 1914 & 1915,…

…whilst the four sides of the column,…

…list the division’s battle honours.

The 7th Division, created in September 1914 entirely of garrison troops from across the globe returned home on the outbreak of war, fought in many of the major battles on the Western Front, including the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the Battle of Aubers Ridge, the Battle of Festubert, the Battle of Loos, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Bullecourt, and the Battle of Passchendaele.

The rear tablet…

…lists the reorganized division’s composition in 1917, after the Battle of the Somme.

The division had landed at Zeebrugge on 6th October 1914, ostensibly to support the Belgian defence of Antwerp, but was soon retreating towards Ypres where, despite suffering heavy losses, they were instrumental in preventing a German breakthrough during First Ypres.  After the battles in French Flanders in 1915, the division moved down to the Somme in February 1916, taking over the trenches in front of Mametz & Fricourt, fighting through the battle before pursuing of the Germans to the Hindenburg Line in the spring of 1917 and participating in the Battle of Bullecourt in May, before returning to Flanders in September where Third Ypres (Passchendaele) was in full swing.

Relieved on 29th October 1917, after fearful losses at Gheluvelt a few days previously, the division would soon entrain for Italy, where they would remain for the remainder of the war.

Buglers sound the Last Post in front of the memorial in 1924.  The book from which this photograph was taken was published in the late 1930s, and the accompanying text states ‘Another memorial to the Division, at Mametz, in the Somme country, commemorates those who fell when the 7th Division captured Mametz on July 1st, 1916, and also during the previous and subsequent fighting in the neighbourhood.’  Now, I’ve visited Mametz a couple of times, and I’ve never spotted a 7th Division memorial on my travels, nor can I find any reference to one in more modern books, nor online.  But a memorial down on the Somme might explain why there is no ‘1916’ panel on this memorial.

Although another memorial to the division, pictured here, on the banks of the River Piave, erected in 1923 and commemorating the division’s exploits in Italy in 1918,…

…and featuring a single panel on the front with the division’s composition (inset) in 1917 & 1918, most certainly does still stand.  The column itself bears the division’s battle honours, just as the Flanders memorial does.

The somewhat bizarre sight of fascist salutes at a British memorial.  Late 1930s shot of the 7th Division memorial on the Piave.

I have a suspicion that the memorial on the Somme may not have been to the taste of the local German occupiers in World War II, and that they destroyed it, but if anyone knows for certain, do tell.

Between October 1914 and November 1918, the 7th Division suffered some 68,000 killed, wounded, or missing in action.  And gained fourteen Victoria Crosses.