Three hundred yards north of the Cross of Reconciliation, the main road we have followed so far this tour (with detours, of course – where would we be without detours) along the western bank of the Ypres Canal from Essex Farm, turns in a wide sweeping curve to the north east, crossing the canal on its way to Diksmuide. Continue reading
Happy New Year folks. Time to return to our tour of Boesinghe. Fifty feet high and made of aluminium, the Cross of Reconciliation stands where once upon a time a French memorial remembered the first French victims of the German gas attacks. Continue reading
Between 1916 & 1918 the Germans produced three types of steel helmet, the M16, M18, and the M18 Cut-Out (the latter was introduced only in 1918, had a wavy rim, and most examples you see today are fakes, only 100,000 being produced for field trials). There was no M17. Continue reading
Well folks, another Christmas, the eighth that this website has seen, and this year, for your delectation, a selection of Christmas cards from the collection, all written one hundred years ago. This first one is the official London Regiment card for 1917. Continue reading
So here’s the grenade that replaced the Model 1913. Continue reading
Today we begin a series of posts on German hand grenades of the Great War, and the posts will do exactly what it says on the tin. Until we get to Austro-Hungarian grenades. Which we shall, never fear. Continue reading
Hot on the heels of our brief stop in Lizerne, here we are a little under half a mile north of the village, and this is the memorial to the Belgian Grenadiers who died during the first German gas attacks at the start of the Second Battle of Ypres. Continue reading
