Southeastern Belgium has seen some serious conflict — Waterloo and Ypres for starters.

History just keeps coming at us on this trip and I will try to be faithful to the guides and readings and such — in other words as little made believe as possible. This farmland just south of Waterloo, Belgium is the field over which Marshal Ney (one of Napoleon's commanders) of the French Army made his ill fated and much dramatized calvary charges against the English squares on June 18, 1815. Huge armies of the French, English and Prussians fought here "deciding the fate of empires".

The Lion of Waterloo, The Duke of Wellington is commemorated, lionized, literally and figuratively, by the massive lion atop a manmade hill in the middle of these flats farm fields. In addition to the "Lion" there is a most impressive museum and cyclorama.

and the lion atop the Menin Gate on the west entrance to Ypres /Ieper or other names here represents the British Empire - as it does most everywhere else it is used (unless it is outside a Chinese bank).  The various spellings of the town confuse everyone says our guide. They confused the armies back in 1914-1918, they confused armies, pilgrims, tourists before and since. Multiple invaders, conquerors, languages, recorders, have left numerous names for lots of places. They still exist, on the interstate and other roads, exits have signs for towns with two names. French, Dutch, German, Flemish, English names and so on were used. So pick one. I will use several I suppose.

The Menin Gate commemorates the approximately 100,000 unrecovered and unidentified dead of the British Commonwealth army that died here. I have not yet learned how many were killed who were identified and were buried in graves with identified headstones. The large number is due to several factors including the huge numbers involved in the battles here, the terrain — soft mud that was churned up (many men drowned in the trenches), trenches collapsing, exchange of territory, charges across no man's land, large artillery fire on the trenches.

The main part of town is beyond the gate, and the tower seen in the background is the clock tower on what was the Cloth Hall, now In Flanders Fields Museum. Both the Cloth Hall and St. Marten's church, along with the entire town, were completely destroyed by the war and rebuilt in the 1920s.

This field was once part of no man's land between the English lines - where the farm house is and the German lines behind us. A famous American who had joined the Canadian Army early in the war in the first year, 1915, used the farm houses as a base from which he was a highly acclaimed sniper.

And these are the remnants of a German bunker built to protect from shelling and a reconstructed trench. The bunkers were reinforced concrete blocks that were interlocking somewhat like legos, much heavier and more sturdy, of course, but similar concept with steel and concrete but very stable and well engineered.

The first Christmas of the war, December 1914, the front line troops spontaneously stopped fighting and met on Christmas Eve and for the next few days. The war started in August of 1914 and by December had reached the basic stalemate and status that would last for the rest of the war.  German soldiers started the signals for a truce - the Christmas Truce as it is called.

We saw a field —just a regular looking field that was one of the documented places where the troops met. Further south in France there were a few places where the troops played soccer against one another in games that became well documented. The high commands of both armies quickly stopped this type of fraternization and took aggressive steps on future holidays to ensure it did not happen again.

In the little village of Mesen, also spelled Messine, a few miles outside of Ypres/Ieper, there is St Nicholas Church - rebuilt of course — and not until 1938 - just two years before the Germans again came into Belgium.

In the crypt in the basement there was and reportedly still is a remnant, in a crypt, of the mother-in-law of William the Conqueror.  During the early part of the battles here — they went on from 1914-1918 and prior to the church being turned to complete rubble, the basement was used as a hospital for German wounded.

Among those who were treated here was a young German private named Adolph Hitler. Apparently he had been wounded in some very heavy fighting in which he had distinguished himself and most of his comrades had been killed. His performance in combat had been such that he earned the Iron Cross Second Class.  In 1940 Hitler returned to the rebuilt church to parade around again to identify himself as again as a soldier.

That stone marker is for William's mother-in-law, not Adolf.

Throughout the entire region there are numerous grave yards (some 150 in all)  that are maintained by the British Graves Commission.  This one also has a monument to the 16th Irish Division, - Catholics who fought alongside the 36th Irish from Ulster - Protestants — Of course before and again later they would fight one another back home in Ireland.

And in the Irish lookout tower style, the national monument to commemorate the Irish soldiers who died at the battle at Ypres, this monument looks over a field in which an especially large number of Irish soldiers died. At this site there is a series of poems and inscriptions on large granite blocks by Irish soldiers who fought here.  Very poignant.

And another German bunker looking over a field to the right over which New Zealanders charged.  Out to the left were English trench lines.

Here in this area the New Zealanders and the German trench lines were less than 500 yards apart.  This area along the Messine Ridge is one in which New Zealanders in particular had a large number of casualties.