Zonnebeke Chateau
In Briefing Room No. 7, we re-join Stuart Curry as he travels through the Ypres salient. Previously Briefing Room No. 3 focussed on the Battle of Menin Road on 20-21 September 1917, Briefing Room No. 4 focussed on the Battle of Polygon Wood, 26-28 September and Briefing Room No. 5 focussed on the Battle of Broodseinde Ridge, 4-5 October, 1917 and the Battle of Passchendaele, 9-12 October, 1917 as part of the battles that Australians were involved in to drive the Germans off the Passchendaele – Messines Ridge. This week in Briefing Room Stuart tells of his extraordinary day at the Passchendaele Museum.
When I was at Bullecourt, I was told about a big day at Zonnebeke involving over one hundred re-enactment soldiers from around the world. I was not sure exactly where the event was, but as I was driving from Ypres to Zonnebeke early one morning I noticed a green sign post with Polygon Wood, 5th Divisional Memorial on it. I drove to Polygon Wood, parked the car and as I walked up to the Butte I heard a bagpipe playing in the woods. I walked up to a man and asked if he knew anything about the reenactment day at Zonnebeke. He said, “yes, it is at the Passchendaele Museum right next to Zonnebeke Church you can’t miss it”. I thanked him and went on my way.
I found the Memorial Museum Passchendaele quite easily and as I was walking through the front gates of the former Zonnebeke Chateau, it was like going back in time. Reenactment soldiers from all around were dressed up in World War I uniforms for the annual Living History event. With all the props and equipment from Machine Guns, Rifles to the tents soldiers billeted in, it was a great experience to get the feeling of what it would have been like for the Australians to walk into this world conflict.
There were English, French, German, Russian, Belgium, American, Italian and Dutch soldiers just to name a few, and all of them talking different languages. I was the only Australian in uniform that day and felt very proud to be a part of it.
I could not recognize the uniform of the first soldiers I came upon. They had a barbwire fence set up behind them and a checkpoint gate to enter the grounds. I asked one of them what army they represented. He replied “we are Dutch”. I said I did not realize that the Dutch were in World War One. He said “yes we had to use electrical fences on our borders to stop the Belgium’s from escaping into our country, otherwise the Germans would have classed it as an act of war.
The soldier then showed me a device called a wooden window. It could be folded up and put into a pocket for concealment and when you came up to the electrical fence you can open it up place it carefully between the wires and pass through without being zapped.
He also talked about a German Soldier being careless one day during the early part of the war. It is claimed that he lent over too far and the spike on his helmet (Pickelhaube) touched the electrical fence and killed him. It’s a good story, but if it actually happened, he would have to be one of the unluckiest soldiers during the war.
The Museum itself was very well presented with a range of military weapons, equipment and dioramas. There were videos showing real footage of the war and at the very bottom of the museum there were the dugouts. Walking through mine tunnels with timber beams supporting everything, you get a good idea of what the underground living conditions would have been like for soldiers. The only way you could survive these relentless artillery bombardments during the war was to live like a rat underground in these Dugouts. I didn’t realise there were thousands of them connected by subway tunnels which adds a third dimension to the war: the aerial war above, the ground-level war and the under-ground war.
Story and photographs by FFFAIF member Stuart Curry
To take a closer look at the Memorial Museum Passchendaele, click here.
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The Families and Friends of the First AIF thanks the Australian, UK and French governments for affording Australian and British soldiers – presently buried in mass graves at Pheasant Wood – dignified individual reburials in a new CWGC cemetery at Fromelles, and applauds Minister Snowdon and his British counterpart, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence and Minister for Veterans, Kevan Jones MP, for their joint decision to DNA test the remains at exhumation and use every reasonable method to attempt identification of each soldier.