Dear ——
"At present we are staying at a farm. . ."
Another constant theme throughout the grim humour of this period was the utter destruction of the landscape. After the start of trench warfare, the lines hardly changed at all for the next three years. This lead to a level of destruction within that narrow band of Europe utterly unlike anything that had ever gone before, or since. Many towns simply ceased to exist. The 'town' of Passchendaele, the objective of the first day of the 1917 British Summer offensive, was nothing but a few remaining foundations when the Canadians finally took it in October. To this day, there are still 'red zones' in France that are off limits to all people, and the towns and farms within those zones are blasted and faded from all memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment