Visiting the front line

WE CAN barely imagine the sheer suffering of those who fought in the trenches during the First World War.

Young men in their prime became machine gun fodder and were slain by the thousand.

This all took place nearly a century ago - the guns are long silenced and the trenches swathed in grass.

But there are still many who wish to visit the battlefields that once ran with blood spilt by youngsters cut down on the brink of becoming men.

Because, to this day, France, Germany and Britain still feel their battle losses deeply.

For the British, thousands of those who died in the two World Wars are buried near where they fell in France.

Visitors to the battle sites and cemeteries have a host of motives.

Some want to pay tribute to fallen comrades or family members, while others want to learn about what happened - so society never forgets the price that was paid by so many.

Numerous travel companies offer tours to some of the most infamous scenes of bloodshed.

One well-established operator - Leger Holidays - focuses on sites in France, which include the locations of the Battle of the Somme, Passchendaele, and the D-Day landings.

The Battle of the Somme was one of the very worst examples of military incompetence, where there were 60,000 British casualties on the first day alone.

Before the assault was launched there was a massive week-long barrage of shells along an 18-mile length of the front, designed to cripple German resistance.

Then, early on the morning of July 1, 1916, two huge bombs were exploded, meant to hit any enemy who remained.

But they had dug deep and hidden in concrete bunkers for the duration of the artillery pounding.

So when the British went over the top, walking confidently in close formation, their legs became tangled in barbed wire before machine gun bullets slashed their way through their ranks.

And that's the way it continued throughout the day.

Their commander, Sir Henry Rawlinson, considered withdrawal.

However Lt Gen Sir Douglas Haig - who masterminded the offensive - wasn't backing down.

It was slaughter. On a massive scale.

By the time Sir Douglas Haig finally admitted it was a truly hopeless situation several months later there were 650,000 German casualties, 400,000 British and 200,000 French.

And all to gain around 100 square miles of land.

Just over the border into Belgium is Passchendaele, the location of another horrific battle which possessed horrors all its own.

Designed as the British part of an allied three-pronged attack to break the trench stalemate, it turned into a long drawn out battle of attrition which gained five miles at the cost of over 250,000 casualties.

The combination of heavy rains on low-lying land and bombing of drainage systems during the first main advance on July 3, 1917 turned the battlefield into a huge sea of mud in which men and horses simply drowned.

For two weeks downpour followed downpour and shell holes filled to the brim with water.

The British advanced two miles then became bogged down.

The resulting battle went on for months - until a halt was called in November.

West Country poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote: "I died in hell - they called it Passchendaele."

France saw fierce fighting during the Second World War too.

The beaches where Allied troops came ashore during the D-Day landings still bear the scars of the hard-fought battle that was the inspiration for the Hollywood blockbuster Saving Private Ryan.

D-Day was when the allied forces thrust their way back into land occupied by Hitler's Germany.

Early in the morning of June 6, 1944, a huge armada of landing craft and ships deposited troops on the Normandy beaches - given now-famous codenames such as Gold, Juno, Sword and Omaha - while airborne divisions were also parachuted in.

A manmade harbour - codenamed Mulberry - was in place by July and parts of it exist to this day and can be seen off Arromanches.

The Allied offensive fought its way off the beaches, through Normandy and eventually made it to Berlin - and victory.

But it took years to rebuild the widespread destruction the battles left behind.

Now, however, northern France is flourishing.

Her economy is strong and her residents proud of the role they played repelling the German occupiers at the end of the war.

By joining tours organised by the likes of Leger Holidays, those wanting to learn more - or simply remember what's gone before - can walk across the sites of some of the most horrific and pivotal battles of recent times.

In Normandy they can visit the cemeteries, where 9,000 American and 2,000 British soldiers who fell in action are now laid to rest.

The Pegasus Bridge, Mulberry Harbour and Bayeux Memorial museums all give authoritative accounts of what occurred.

And there's an excursion to the Merville Battery, built to fire shells directly on to Sword, which was heroically disarmed by the 9th Battalion of the parachute regiment in the early hours of June 6, 1944.

But one of the most moving sites must be the First World War cemeteries.

This is where line upon line of graves bear witness to the fact that most of the British men who died at the Battle of the Somme were aged between 18 and 22.

They lie side by side.

A lost generation.

* Leger Holidays can be contacted by calling 0845 130 7007.