In This Place, but in Another Time

The Place: Mỹ Sơn, Quảng Nam Province, Central Vietnam
The Time: 04-Apr-2012
Another Time: 1965-73 The Vietnam or American War, depending on perspective

In this place, but in another time,

Jungle paths, My Son

A callow youth I could have been

(But for an accidental of place of birth),

Armed to the teeth with guns and fear,

Might have peered, myopic before his time,

Into the dark tangle of alien thorns

And wondered if death was being dealt that day.

I photographed a butterfly and moved away.

The Knight butterfly, Lebadea Martha (I think)

The Place: Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina
The Time: 25-May-2012
The Other Time: 1992-5 Bosnian War

In this place, but in another time

The former front line, Mostar

The baleful rat of nationalism was freed to run.

Former friends and neighbours set to killing with a will,

And once this sixfold harvester of souls had turned

Mosques, churches and cathedrals into rubble,

They shelled the link that had bound them all.

Then, knowing they had gone too far, they stopped, the rat was fed.

I photographed the rebuilt bridge and shook my head

The Old Bridge, Mostar (2012)

The Place: Auschwitz II-Birkenau, Poland
The Time: July 2002
Another Time: 1942-45 The Holocaust, World War II

In this place, but in another time

Just part of the Birkenau camp

Men and women, counting themselves civilized,

Denied the humanity of others, not so different from themselves,

(A difference found and magnified simplifies this trick).

The tourist throng I stood among,

Well-fed and wearing bright-coloured, comfortable, casual clothes,

Shifted from foot to foot and made no sound,

I photographed the railhead then stared at the ground.

The Railhead, Birkenau
The half destroyed gas chambers and crematoria are just to the right

The Place: The Choeung Ek Killing Field, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
The Time: 17-Feb-2014
Another Time:1975-9 The Cambodian Genocide

In this place, but in another time

Human Bones in the path, Choeung Ek

To recreate a nation’s Golden Age

‘New People’, City dwellers, teachers, wearers of glasses, intellectuals all,

Found incapable of change, had to be removed.

Brutalised child soldiers brought them to this field,

Hacked adults to death, bashed out their children’s brains upon a tree.

Now every rain unearths a crop of bleached bone,

I photographed a grave, men, women, children, all unknown.

Mass grave, Choeung Ek killing field

The Place: Somme Department, France
The Time: 06-July-2009
Another Time: 07-July-1916, The Welsh Division Attack on Mametz Wood, Battle of the Somme, World War I

In this place, but in another time

The Welsh Division Memorial and Mametz Wood

An army of young men I could have marched among,

(But for an accidental date of birth),

Strode down the open slope where now our Dragon stands

To storm the hill of mud and stumps beyond.

Machine guns spat their welcome.

The Dragon tore at the cruel wire, but death must have its say.

I photographed a poppy and slunk away

Poppies, Mametz Wood

All text and photographs © David Williams. No reproduction without permission

Heartfelt thanks to Lucinda Wingard, for giving me the title (in a comment on the Mỹ Sơn post) and for subsequent encouragement.

The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month, 1918-2018

And so the centenary of the Great War, the War to End All Wars comes to its conclusion. This is a companion to my earlier posts, Ypres, Tyne Cot and the Menin Gate marking the start of hostilities in August 2014 and The Somme, One Hundred Years Ago Today on the 1st of July 2016.

This blog is primarily about our travels. Lynne and I have seen great religious monuments, like Angkor Wat and the Shwedagon Pagoda, monuments to power, like the palaces of Rajasthan, and monuments to love like the Taj Mahal. But we have also seen grimmer monuments and visited places that make you stop and think; the bombed-out streets of Mostar, the Killing Fields of Cambodia and the industrialised horror of Auschwitz all ask terrible questions about the nature of humanity. So does the cemetery strewn countryside of northern France.

And the Great War, the one that did not quite end all wars, has its monuments, too.

Canadian Memorial, Vimy Ridge

But the great monuments are not as moving as the graveyards which often lie beside them.

Canadian graveyard, Vimy Ridge

Throughout Britain and France and across the world there are memorials to those who died. The memorial in Harrogate is typical for a town of its modest size. It bears 721 names from the Great War….

War memorial, Harrogate

…and there is even one in São Brás de Alportel in the Algarve...

Memorial plaque on the council office, Sao Bras

...bearing the names of six Portuguese soldiers, five of whom died on the Western Front. Portugal sent 50,000 troops to France after declaring war on Germany in 1916.

Memorial plaque, Sao Bras

But perhaps this is a day for a traveller to be at home. Swynnerton in Staffordshire is today a one pub, two churches, one post office village (and we are lucky to still have our pub and post office) [2023 Update: No longer. The Post Office went a couple of years ago. I am happy yo say the pub still thrives] It has some 750 residents, most of whom (myself included) live on the 1970s housing estate, or the recent additions adjacent to it. In 1918 Swynnerton was far smaller, barely more than a hamlet, but it was an important hamlet as it contained Swynnerton Hall, home to Francis Fitzherbert, the 12th Baron Stafford (and now home to Francis Fitzherbert, the 15th Baron Stafford - economising on names helps when you have a big house to run). It had the same pub and churches but rather more businesses than the present village.

It also has a war memorial, on a patch of grass outside the parish church of St Mary.

Swynnerton war memorial

Thirteen names are inscribed on the pedestal. A couple of years ago Lynne did some research on these names for a presentation on ‘Swynnerton through the Wars.’ Thanks to that research we can zoom in on two of the names.

Charles Wood

Captain Charles Wood on the Swynnerton War Memorial

Charles Wood was the younger son of Mr. and Mrs. E. J. W. Wood of Meece House, a mile outside Swynnerton. His father Edward John Wood was a successful pottery manufacturer and a distant relative of Josiah Wedgwood.

Charles had been a territorial officer since 1909 and was sent to France in 1914 with the First Battalion, Royal Welch (sic) Fusiliers. He was soon mentioned in dispatches and his battalion spent January and February 1915 dug in on the Ypres sector. They then moved just across the French border to participate in General Haig’s spring offensive. The offensive started on the 10th of March with an attack on the French village of Neuve Chappelle.

Although intelligence reports suggested Neuve Chapelle was thinly defended, taking the village required three days and cost 17,000 lives. Captain Wood died on the second day.

The attack gained less than a square mile of territory, but was hailed by banner headlines at home proclaimed it a great step on the road to victory.

Wood and his older brother had been brought up in Meece House. His father had all the trappings of commercial success; a household of loyal servants, tenant farmers on his land and a chauffeur-driven Sunbeam. The car was a familiar sight at St Mary’s where he was churchwarden. He presumably expected Charles to inherit both his pottery and his position in local and county society but any plans they had ended at Neuve Chapelle. Charles’ older brother John, who had always been in poor health, died 8 months later in November 1915.

Their grief-stricken father Edward did not survive much longer, but before he died, he and their mother placed a memorial on the road outside Meece Hall.

Wood memorial outside Swynnerton Training Camp

Charles’ name is not mentioned; it is a memorial to all who gave their lives…

Inscription on the memorial outside Swynnerton Training Camp

…but they also placed a memorial window to both brothers in St Mary’s church.

Wood Memorial, St Mary's Swynnerton

In the Second World War, Swynnerton became host to a huge munitions factory. The ‘Swynnerton Roses’, the 30,000 women who worked there, are commemorated in the small rose garden in front of the memorial. For a time Meece Hall, the home of a young man who died in the War to End All Wars was occupied by executives of the armaments factory as they sought ever more efficient and deadly ways to win another war just a generation later. In peacetime, the abandoned house became dilapidated and was demolished in the 1990s.

Swynnerton Roses garden and Wood memorial

George Bennett

George Bennett on the Swynnerton war memorial

George Bennett was born in Swynnerton in the spring of 1889, two doors away from the Fitzherbert Arms.

George Bennett's birthplace, Swynnerton

His family had worked on the land for generations but his father had become the local wheelwright. When George was born his mother already had by two young children, Elizabeth and John. Like many old Swynnerton families (including the aristocratic Fitzherberts) the Bennetts were Catholics and worshipped at Our Lady of the Assumption

Catholic Church, Swynnerton which also faces the war memorial
Swynnerton Hall is in the background

George trained as a wheelwright with his father…

Swynnerton's old smithy and wheelwright's shop just across the road from the Bennett's cottage.
Idle for many years they are waiting for someone to find a use for them.

… and became engaged to Beatrice Gosling, eldest daughter of the landlord of the Fitzherbert Arms.

The Fitzherbert Arms, Swynnerton
The extention may have come after Gerorge's time, the large windows are a very recent addition 

When war came, he joined up and served first with the Royal Horse Artillery and then with the Ammunition Column of the Royal Field Artillery. They were engaged in battles across France, but in 1917 were stationed at Poperinge in Belgium, seven miles from Ypres.

George’s job was to take ammunition to the front line, a difficult enough task without the rains that forced heavily-laden horse-drawn carts to sink to their axles.

On the 8th July 1917 George wrote to his fiancée Beatrice,

My dear lover,

I know you will be looking forward to hearing from me, hoping you are all well enjoying the best of health. Well Darling, the weather is broken here now having a fair amount of rain, & a fine very heavy thunder storme.

Well Darling, I’m wondering how you are getting on with the harvest, I do hope you will have good weather, & be able to get a little assistance. The crops behind the firing line lines are looking well, the heavy storme have battered the corn down badly. The crops are much the same as in Blighty not so much grazing land, a good few hops being grown here, also a little chicory which the French People use for the coffee, they don’t drink much tea, you don’t see the fireplaces like ours they have stoves, which stand out nearly in the centre of the room.

We are well behind the firing line here, but Mr Fritz sends us a few souvenirs over pretty often with his long rangers, however I am have thankful to say, he has not got the right range, I expect I shall be going up with Ammn to night, it is indeed the worst Battle Front that I have had since I been out here, however I live in hope that the one above will guide us safely through.

Well Dear, I wonder what you are doing at this present moment, you are absent in body angel, but never absent in mind, how I am longing to be with you, & to comfort to love and to cherish you, no matter how long we have to be apart, you will always have a good true lover, & God does not grant us, to be united in this world, may we be united in the next.

I could tell you a great deal, but us you know I have not the privilege, however amidst all things, I am, thankful to say I am in good health & spirits, & living in hope of returning to you. Well Darling, I am looking forward to hear from you, & to know that you are all well, also please forward me your dear Brother’s address I have not heard from him again. I don’t think he is very far away from here.

Cigs are cheaper here than in Blighty. I should have written you a few days ago only I have been waiting to get one of these envelops, we are only allowed one once a fortnight, you see dear our business is not so exposed in one of these. I am just going to write my dear Father and Mother a few lines, hoping they are well, & not worrying about me.

Well angel cheer up, I am alright, and having a good life & considering the facilities, when I hope we may all meet together again & live in happy days. In conclusion I desire you to give my kind regards to all at home, & hope to hear from you soon.

Au-soir & God bless you darling

Pray for me

Your Ever loving boy

George x x x x

With Heaps of hugs and kisses
Somewhere in France but near the border of ( )
There are fore of us in the house
One Catholic besides my self
The other are harness cleaning. It does not seem like a Sabbath day.

George was killed the following day. He was 28 years old

During her research Lynne made contact with Gabrielle, who now lives in Buckinghamshire but is the grand-daughter of Beatrice Gosling and her husband John Bennett, George’s elder brother whom she married in 1922. Gabrielle showed Lynne a copy of the letter and kindly allowed it to be used in 'Swynnerton through the Wars' and has agreed to its use here. The typescript reproduces the spelling, punctuation and little slips of George’s handwritten original.

On the 9th of July 1924, Beatrice Bennett, née Gosling. gave birth to a son – Gabrielle’s father - whom they named George. Sadly, John Bennett died of head injuries in 1926 after a bicycle accident. Beatrice never remarried but she brought up her son, enjoyed her grandchildren and attended mass regularly. She died in 1990 aged 99.

War is not about politicians, generals and armies, it is about people. Without fear or favour it kills the rich and well-connected as easily as the humble wheelwright - and it destroys families.

The Great War killed 10 million soldiers on all sides and 8 million civilians. Each one deserves to be remembered like Charles Wood and George Bennett.

Would it have been worth it had it been the War to End All War? Perhaps, but it wasn’t.

Never Again

One final thought: it is easy to blame politicians for wars, but when war was declared in 1914 people across Europe were out on the streets cheering. The nationalism that caused the wars of 1914 and 1939 is on the rise again, in Russia and the USA, in Hungary, Italy, Germany and other European countries, including here, at home. Never again is up to us, all of us.

WW1 Centenary Posts

Ypres, Tyne Cot and the Menin Gate(1914/2014)
The Somme, One Hundred Years Ago Today (1916/2016)
The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month(1918/2018)

The Somme, One Hundred Years Ago Today

Posted on the 100th Anniversary of the Start of the Battle of the Somme

Almost two years ago, on the centenary of the outbreak of WWI, I posted Ypres, Tyne Cot and the Menin Gate. I always intended to produce another post for today’s centenary of the start of the Battle of the Somme, but I had no idea that I would be writing about the saddest day in British military history a week after the saddest day in British democratic history.

Poppies, near Mametz Wood

The First World War, and indeed the second, were the result of nationalism and divisions in Europe. Dormant since 1945 that nationalism is on the rise again and the European Union is our best hope of containing this poison. Senior Brexit campaigners have said openly that they hope Britain will be the first of several countries to quit the EU leading eventually to the collapse of the whole organisation. Why, I wonder in bewilderment, do they think it a good idea to return to the days of warring tribes? How is it wise to reboot a system that laid waste to our continent twice in the last hundred years?

Etaples Cemetery, a reminder and warning from history.
The small fishing port of Etaples was the embarkation and disembarkation point for British soldiers arriving in or leaving France. Most of those buried here died of their wounds while waiting to be shipped home.

To return to the Somme; the offensive was conceived in a strategy meeting in 1915 as a French attack with British support. After the French became embroiled in the Battle of Verdun, another bloodbath of epic proportions we often overlook in our insularity, the Somme became a British attack with French support.

The barrage started on 25th of June and went on day and night for a week. It was so devastating that the high command believed that few would be left alive in the German trenches and all the British had to do was mop up and take control. This battle plan had been used before and if madness is repeatedly doing the same thing while expecting a different outcome then this was madness.

The attack started in the early morning of July 1st. It had been meticulously planned and months of tunnelling had set mines beneath strategic points. One of the biggest, near the small village of La Boiselle, went off at 7.28, two minutes before the scheduled advance. The resulting ‘Lochnagar Crater’ (tunnelling had begun from a trench known as Lochnagar Street) has been preserved. It is a huge hole, and anybody can stop by the roadside walk over and take a look. Today, a service of commemoration will be held here, as it is every year.

The Lochnagar Crater, La Boiselle, Somme

The barrage was supposed to creep forward as the troops advanced. A special operation required the early halting of the barrage over a small part of the front but a failure in communications led to it stopping everywhere at 7.26. Contrary to the plan there were plenty of Germans still alive in their trenches and when the barrage stopped early they had four minutes to emerge from their bunkers and man their machine guns. As the attackers bunched up at the prepared gaps in their own wire they were mown down in their thousands. On the first day of the battle British casualties were almost 60,000 making it by far the worst day in British military history. To their right a smaller French force did not make the same error with the barrage and lost 1,500 men.

On the 7th of July the 38th (Welsh) Division were tasked with taking Mametz Wood. This involved walking down the open hillside past where their memorial now stands and up the hill on the far side. The wood, then more a collection of tree stumps, sheltered a well dug-in enemy with a superb view of the battlefield. Unsurprisingly the attack failed.

Mametz Wood as it is now with the Welsh Division Memorial in the foreground

Field Marshall Douglas Haig blamed the Welsh Division for their ‘lack of push’. There had been some poor leadership, but the main reason for their failure is that too many of the soldiers were just too dead to reach the wood, never mind take it. He sacked the C.O. and passed the division to Major-General Herbert Watts with the instruction to ‘use it as he saw fit.’ He used them to take the wood 'at any cost' which they did between the 10th and 12th of July. Some battalions had 70% casualty rates and the division lost 4,000 men, effectively destroying it.

The Welsh Division Memorial, the Red Dragon tearing at the barbed wire.
The memorial was erected, somewhat belatedly, in 1987 at the request of survivors, who felt they had been shabbily treated,

But it did not stop there. By the time the battle ended in November 1916 the French and British had advanced less than 10km and 1.3 million men (800,000 British*, 250,000 French, 250,000 German) had been killed or injured. Douglas Haig liked to think of himself as the ‘Master of the Field’, others called him the ‘Butcher of the Somme.’

In Somme, Lyn Macdonald’s unflinchingly evocative account of the battle, she writes: 'There was hardly a household in the land, there was no trade, occupation, profession or community, which was not represented in the thousands of innocent enthusiasts who made up the ranks of Kitchener's Army before the Battle of the Somme.'

The battle, indeed the war, was an equal opportunity slaughter. It killed factory workers and farm hands and with the same zeal harvested the sons of the professional classes and elites. Edward Asquith, son of Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, was killed on the Somme in September 1916 while W.N. Hodgson perished in the debacle of the first day. In 1914, Hodgson, an Oxford scholar and the son of a bishop, wrote the jingoistic England to her Children which I quoted in Ypres, Tyne Cot and the Menin Gate. Before Action, written two days before his death at Mametz, suggests he might have become a sadder and a wiser man (if still too much of a traditionalist for my taste) in the intervening two years.

Before Action by WN Hodgson

William Noel Hodgson in 1915
Langfier Studio, borrowed from Wikipedia

By all the glories of the day
And the cool evening's benison
By that last sunset touch that lay
Upon the hills when day was done,
By beauty lavishly outpoured
And blessings carelessly received,
By all the days that I have lived
Make me a soldier, O Lord.

By all of all man's hopes and fears
And all the wonders poets sing,
The laughter of unclouded years,
And every sad and lovely thing;
By the romantic ages stored
With high endeavour that was his,
By all his mad catastrophes
Make me a man, O Lord.

I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good-bye to all of this; –
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.

Commonwealth War Graves lie thick on the ground from the Belgian coast to beyond the Somme battlefields. Stump Road is one of the smaller cemeteries and not the easiest to find. From the little D151 south towards Thiepval, about 1km beyond the village of Grandcourt, a single track sunken road heads left up the hillside. Some 500m along this, shortly before it peters out in a field, is the last resting place of 263 soldiers, 24 of them Canadian, the rest British. It is a peaceful place, at least it is now, though it was less so in 1916. Beyond the cemetery fields of wheat and brassicas cover the low, rolling hills and the summer air is filled with birdsong.

Stump Road Cemetery, near Grandcourt, Somme

Among the graves is that of Private WE (Will) Collard of the South Lancashire Regiment. A twenty-year- old Cardiff bus conductor, he had joined the Welsh Regiment in March 1916 and only arrived in France in July. He was wounded almost immediately but recovered and returned to the front in September, though now in the the South Lancashires; perhaps he had been in the Welsh Division, all but destroyed at Mametz Wood. On the 21st of October, in a trench near Stump Road, an exploding shell removed his head, an event witnessed by his brother-in-law, Sidney Leader. Sid and Annie Leader (Wills’s sister) were Lynne's great grandparents.

Lynne by the grave of her great-great-uncle, Stump Road, Grandcourt

Thiepval ridge to the south of Stump Road was a major feature of the battle, but looking at it in peaceful times it hardly stands out enough to be thought of as a ridge.

Thiepval Ridge from the tank memorial at Pozières
The Somme was the first battle in which tanks were used. They struggled on the muddy, shell cratered ground and were not the game changers that had been hoped.

Thiepval was chosen as the site of the Anglo-French memorial to the fallen. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens (also responsible for the Cenotaph and New Delhi) it was unveiled in 1932. Around it cluster the graves of men who are, in the British phrase 'soldiers of the Great War, known unto God' or in the more uncompromising (and, perhaps, honest) French phrase 'Inconnu'.

French graves marked 'Inconnu', Thiepval Memorial

On the walls are the names of the 72,000 men who make up the Inconnus. My family was lucky in WWI. My maternal grandfather was a miner in the Rhondda, and coal was so important to the war effort he was not called up. It was one of the few times in history when coal mining has been the safer option. He did eventually put on khaki and although it is unclear if he arrived in France before the shooting stopped he was certainly in Germany in the army of occupation in 1919. My paternal grandfather joined up earlier, but as far as I have been able to ascertain he was never sent anywhere more dangerous than Shrewsbury. Somewhere on the right hand side of the monument, almost, but not quite too high to read from the ground is the name of Private Edgar Morgan King, a cousin of my paternal grandmother.

Lynne at the Thiepval Memorial, Somme

The first day of the Battle, 100 years ago today, was an unmitigated disaster. After that it improved to merely awful. The performance of the British army in WWI had often been described as that of lions led by donkeys (an observation first made during the Crimean War). As Siegfried Sassoon, who served so valiantly in a war that so disillusioned him, put it

'Good morning; good morning!' the general said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,
And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
'He's a cheery old card,' grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
~
But he did for them both with his plan of attack

One century ago they were lions led by donkeys. One week ago half of my compatriots chose to be donkeys led by liars.

* 'British' in this context refers to the 'British Empire and Dominions'. The casualty list included Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, Newfoundlanders (Newfoundland had not then joined Canada), Bermudans, Indians, South Africans and Rhodesians. (and Wikipedia's list may not be exhaustive).

WW1 Centenary Posts

Ypres, Tyne Cot and the Menin Gate (1914/2014)
The Somme, One Hundred Years Ago Today (1916/2016)
The Eleventh hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month (1918/2018)

Commemorating the Dead: Tsunami, Earthquake and War

Local Memorials to Major Tradgedies

Following Favourite Gravestones I am progressing from memorials for one person or family to memorials for a community.

This is not about national memorials - most countries have their cenotaph or eternal flame (flames in Moscow, Sarajevo and Baku feature in this blog) - but about more localised memorials. The first we have come across by accident, the second we were shown by a local guide, the third we sought out.

Boxing Day Tsunami, Tharamgambadi (formerly Tranquebar) Tamil Nadu, India

On the 20th of February 2009 we drove from Pondicherry, down the coast of Tamil Nadu to Tranquebar.

The Danish Admiral Ove Gjedde had been there before us (in 1620) and he built Fort Dansborg.

Fort Daneborg, Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu

Tranquebar remained in Danish hands until 1845 when it was sold to the British along with all other Danish possessions in India (hands up those who knew there were any).

In the afternoon we strolled through the small town...

Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu

....and came across this obelisk.

Tsunami Memorial, Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu

At first we did not realise what it was. There is much writing around the base, gold against the black stone, but Tamil is one of the many languages we do not speak - and it is written in one of the many alphabets we cannot read. It appeared to be a list of names, some 250 we estimated, such as you might see on a war memorial, but we could think of no war that could have wreaked such devastation on this small town. Then we noticed the one thing we could read. It was a date, 26/12/2004, the date of the Boxing Day Tsunami. We should have realised straight away, but somehow it had not entered our heads.

Our hotel, The Bungalow on the Beach, had once been the residence of the Governor of Danish India. Many years later, and after two years of extensive restoration it opened as a hotel on Christmas Day 2004 - not an auspicious day to open a hotel on that particular beach.

The Bugalow on the Beach, Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu

Hotels can be repaired, and it opened again three months later. It is important to remember those whose lives could not be so easily repaired after the events of Sunday the 26th of December 2004.

The Spitak Earthquake Khachkar, Vanadzor, Armenia

On December the 7th 1988 a major earthquake struck northern Armenia, then part of the Soviet Union. Its epicentre was near the small town of Spitak. Between 25 and 50,000 people died in Spitak and the larger cities on either side, Leninakan (now called Gyumri) and Kirovakan (now Vanadzor).

The break up of the Soviet Union had a dire effect on both the Armenian economy and the earthquake rebuilding programme. When we visited in 2003 it was still easy to find earthquake damage in Gyumri.

Earthquake damage, Gyumri

Khachkars (literally 'Cross Stones') are rectangular stones carved with crosses and other floral and decorative motifs. Carving khachkars is a peculiarly Armenian craft and they have been doing it since the 9th century, at least. Every church and monastery has its collection of medieval khachkars and Armenian independence has brought about a resurgence in the craft.

It was appropriate to commemorate the victims of the earthquake with a khachkar. This simple, understated but very effective memorial sits in the churchyard in Vanadzor where many of the victims are buried.

Earthquake Memorial Khachkar, Vanadzor Church

38th (Welsh Division) Memorial, Mametz Wood, France

Tsunamis and earthquakes are beyond human control; wars are not. We should be able to avoid them, but apparently that is beyond the wit of humankind. Perhaps one disincentive to starting new wars is to remember the horror of those that have gone before.

No war killed and wounded more British and Commonwealth servicemen than the First World War. It is hardly surprising that there are memorials the whole length of the Western front. The major memorials on the British sector, The Menin Gate in Ypres, the soaring Canadian Memorial on Vimy Ridge and the huge Anglo-French Memorial on the Somme at Thiepval are well known (and now feature elsewhere in this blog). Less well known, and a little harder to find, is the memorial to the Welsh Division at Mametz Wood.

The Memorial can be reached by driving a couple of kilometres down a single track road off the Mametz-Contalmaison road, hardly a major highway itself. It stands beside a small quarry where the metalled road gives out.

38th (Welsh Division) Memorial, Mametz Wood

Between in the 7th and 12th of July 1916, as a part of the Battle of the Somme, the Welsh Division attacked across the open ground in front of the dragon and took the wood beyond against fierce opposition. The division lost 5,000 men killed or wounded. The 14th Battalion started with almost 700 men and finished with 276, others fared little better.

38th (Welsh Division) Memorial, Mametz Wood

There has been a memorial in Mametz church since the 1920s, but this memorial, the work of Welsh sculptor David Petersen, was erected only in the late 1980s at the request of the last surviving veterans.

Beside the narrow road poppies grow among the brassicas.

Poppies, Mametz Wood

For more about the destruction of the Welsh Division at Mamtez Wood see The Somme: One Hundred Years Ago Today

See also Three Favourite Gravestones