Tours of WW1: Belgian "Trench of Death"
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2024
- This kilometer long network of revetments, saps and dug-outs was one of the most dangerous Belgian positions on the Western Front, situated just 50 meters from a German bunker. As a result, the trench was subjected to almost constant fire from the Germans.
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Two Ians for the price of one.
MJY I was thinking the same thing lol
An accurate representation of the chaos that was The Great War...
Run its the attack of Ian's doppelganger
Its just amazing how close those trenches are together.
One wouldn't have even needed mortars or artillery to reach the enemy, grenade slings, rifle granades, or anything of the sort would have sufficed. It's just crazy to think about.
Yeah it's insane I wonder if soldiers life span was any shorter being that close to frontline's.
The width of no-man's-land varied greatly. At its closest, only a few meters divided the two sides (like at Gallipoli). In other sectors, there was much more space. I believe some trench lines were as much as a kilometer apart, but I would have to go track down a source.
IT al started with a didge from the direction of Diksmuide in the ijzerdijk.
Dug towards the petrol tanks a little further Than the german bunker. A german watchout was there.
The belgians wantend that positie but failed. After a fes attacks from both sides the dijk betweetster both position was blogs, but the fight want over.
@Austin T. yeah I saw that a while ago the older officer or NCO had a great line "they don't like getting shot at this early, and we don't like getting shot at this early so we shoot at each other at mutual time arrangements to keep the higher ups happy"
This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them!
lol, oops. You forgot to mute the footage at the point where you are talking about teh memorial thingy. Ah well, there's worse things than two Ians taking over each other.
And again at 9:50 or so.
lol
Makes the video unwatchable for me. Too confusing and annoying.
Andrew Ahern I feel sorry for you.
Andrew Ahern. Your loss.
nice! my great-grand uncle was in the Belgian militairy and he reportedly got shot in the famous weakspot of the French helmets in the Trench of Death. I went there many years ago looking for his gravestone.
My greatgrandfather fought at the battle of the yser at dixmude. He served for two years before the war. The entire war in the trenches and two years after while occupying the Rhineland. The guy had to serve 8 years in the army when his service was supposed to be 2 years. He sacrificed the best years of his life for his country.
My great grandfather is from Staden, spent most of the war near his home as a medic in what was left of the Belgian army. Seems people forget nowadays that our country was almost completely destroyed during the war.
The reason the trenches and bunkers are filled in to the extend they are is drainage. During the war they were almost constantly flooded, which is not a good thing for a museum/tourist attraction.
Water table in that area is at best only a couple of meters. The flooding of the area, by the local lock keeper litterally hours before the German's advanced is a story in itself.
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
between the crosses, row on row
that mark our place, and in the sky
the larks still bravely singing fly
scares heard amid the guns below.....
Written about 15 miles from were Ian was at the Essex Farm ADS just out side Iperes on the the canal that leads up to Neiuport. By a Canadian John Mc Crae. Point of intrest the Poppy was used as a symbol of Remeberance in US and Canada before it came to Britian in 1921. In Europe the blue Cornflower serves the same purpose. You can often se eclumps of the two palnted together.
I would suspect that one of the reasons that Poppys were preferred, at least in some locations, is because of its red color, reminding people of the blood spilled.
David Briggs No they just grow as weeds on disturbed ground. Mc Crae would just have seen them a sthe only spot of coclour in the landscape. The Cornflower however has a ;longer history in the Language of Flowers meaning loss of innocence,
David the poppy is just a field flower.
Almast every country has its OWN remembrance flower all are field flower.
Daisy for the belgians.
Cornflower french
Poppy commonwelth
Forgrt me not sometimes for Canada. And germany
I do not kwow everkind of flower,..’
Kind regards
I'm surprised about the concrete sand bags, they actually look pretty cool
It was a technique used at the time. You can hardly set up a conrete mixer or wheel in a 16 ton Redy mix lorry whilst the oposition is banging off at you. The bags were filled with dry sand concrete mix in the relative saftey of the support lines, then hand carried up and dumped in place. Not so much on the front line though, if a shell hit concrete the fragments blown off were lethal. Most re-constructions use concrete though for durabilty. Close examination of pill boxes, as they were more commonly called by the Allies at the time shows some were constructed in such a manner. Pile em up over a wood frame and let rain and nature take its course. The concrete bears the mark of the hessian where it has rotted away.
@@51WCDodge Lol. This was done after the war to preserve the site though.
Thanks Ian, I was in Europe many times and many places but I was never able to see the French, Belgian or German lines. Not enough time. Issues have made it so I will never get to go again. Now through your work I can see and walk where I cannot today and did not then.. Again Thank you Sir for doing this.
Just finished dan carlin's ww1 podcast serie so this perfect timing.
I'm loving this series of videos. Please keep making them. Cheers, b.
Imagine the terrible sound of a Maxim fired in such a small concret box
I know what it sounds like. Sounds like the ringing and silence of being permanently deaf afterward.
What!?
@@Seeker-wq8jc pretty much what i imagine 😖
Do you think they improvised some hearing protection
Glad you mad it back from the front lines!
Ian do you ever get goofed up and begin an Inrange or Forgotten Weapons video with the wrong intro?
On April fools he should do it on purpose
brian Randall Hey he really did it!
Great stuff, Ian!! I'm glad a few pieces of the Great War have been preserved, particularly here. One can get the "view" of the war, and really understand what "Trench Warfare" meant!
Just as a note:. My Mother had an issue of NatGeo (new) dated midyear, 1928-32 that had a article on WW I, ten, twelve years after. It was destroyed in a flood, but she read it and remembered the pictures, because of several family members in the war. It was a tough look, as it shows artillery, small arms, and flooded trenches in sections across Belgium, France, and on. She remembered that the author said it looked like the soldiers just packed up and walked away a few days ago. The civilians wouldn't go into the "Bois" as they died if they did. It's on NatGeo's master index. My Mom was born in 1918, and was 10-13 when NatGeo came in the mail.
Just wanted to pass it along.
Thanks Ian. I love these trench videos
Ian is wearing a jumper and a coat. Now that’s a rare sight. Seriously this has to be one of the best channels on YT. The variety and quality of the content is second to none.
Thanks for the great content of the trench series.
“Only the dead have seen the last of war.”
I wonder how many pioneers/engineers died building those bunkers so close to each other, must of been horrendous
Maybe they went to the other side and said "Look, guys, lets not shoot at each other and lets both build the most impressive fortifications we can, so that the generals may decide that this area is too well defended and they don't order offensives here"
@@GerackSerack I almost wouldnt be surprised if that happened, when you hear about things like the French Mutinies and the Christmas Cease-Fires. I bet there were some old world "gentleman's agreements" going on a lot more than we'd expect!
I can't find any such info about the actual digging of the trench, but, given it was dug under fire, I would say quite a few. Actually, during construction, the Germans and the Belgians/French got even closer to eachother than the situation which remains, which is how the position was consolidated in late 1915, after we got fed up with the many attacks the Germans mounted.
11 sappers of the 2nd Engineers battallion died constructing the "Mousetrap" in 1917.
I was wondering the same. How on earth were they able to set the forms into place? Much less secure them to a previously-poured layer of concrete.
@@cracklingvoice you can see they are made of cinder blocks. Likely formed in the rear area or even brought into a supply point and stacked on at night then filled with concrete.
I love this type of content. Thanks!
This is really amazing man. Thanks!
Awesome... Thanks for the upload.
12:38 Ian waits for the family to pass before re entering his den.
I believe the main reason of the zig-zag pattern was to dissipate artillery blast and not avoid direct gun fire if the trench was overrun.
Both. Often gates and what I would call Cavallities wrapped with barbed wire were sited at the bends to be pulled down to cut off sections overun.
It was both. It kept shrapnel flying all the way down the trench line, but also made defensive points if the trench was overrun.
dual purpose. and no, i dont believe any areas had nets on the tops. would have been destroyed after a few grenades, and on top of that if i grenade fell through, it would be just as hard to get it back out of the trench.
I’m sure you know, but there was a VERY impressive network of miniature railroads (2ft gauge vs standard 4ft 8 1/2 in) used for transport of men and supplies, in some places actually in the trenches themselves. Both sides built them, Germans called them “Feldbahn” There’s a number of locomotives and cars preserved, some even in operational condition, in various places around the world.
Thank you Ian for sharing history
Very informative. Thank you.
Thank you for another of your excellent videos. I have often wondered about the soldiers on the ends the Western Front, knowing you are at the end of the line with no one on your flank must have made for a worrying time.
The actual Western end was litterally on the beach. At Neiuport Le Bain. The Eastern end was on the Swis sborder at a place called Pheterhouse.
Thank you Ian... Lest We Forget
My father told me he toured some of the WW1 battlefields during WW2 when he was serving in the Army. He was in Belgium so maybe this is what he saw. He also said there were areas that were off limits due to live munitions still around from WW1.
Also my grandfather fought with the Marines during WW1. He lived until I was 21 and told me some stories...
Farmers in West-Flanders do still occasionally find WW1 munitions to this day when working their fields
I love these videos!
I'm learning a bit more about trench warfare here, while these trenches are about 60Km away from here :).
Thank you for that.
You often never see what is right on your door step. It's just the place you live, what's special about it? That's why things like ths are so valuable, they make peopleappreicte things.
The wind noise redub was nice, the pedestrians in the background wasn’t a nuisance either, it’s nice to see people enjoying it.
Thank you Ian very cool!
dodengang , my grandfather was a Belgain soldiers in that bloody war from 1916 till 1919
It was excellent. Had a few clips where you forgot to lower the original volume for the talk-over, but still great. Really appreciated the pausing on the pictures of the poor guys who had to live, and possibly die, there. Do wish they'd put a coating over all concrete and steel - a form-fitting coating - to protect it all from corrosion and decay now. Done correctly, it would still show the various features of all aspects of the trenches, but would still protect them.
Cost and time. It will take probably another hundred years or so to clear out the unexploded ordnance from around there.Belgium and Northern France are probably the only places that teach Ordnance disposal at Agricultural College.
Great video! Welcome to Belgium ... as we where in the thick of it, many relics left of the big wars. In the the Ieper (Yper) museum and museums in brussels are very impressive.
If anybody needs info, send me a PM or leave a question below. I'm in Brussels.
I'll take you up on that Mon V! I'm comimg over next weekend up through Calalsi to visit the Wesern Wall Museum at Neuiport. Is this site close to there? How do I find it?
www.flandersfields.be/en/do/trench-death
Contact information
Location:
Trench of Death
Ijzerdijk 65
8600 Diksmuide
Phone/Fax:
+32 51 50 53 44
E-mail:
dodengang.diksmuide@warheritage.be
Website:
www.bezoekdiksmuide.be/dodengang
From Nieuwpoort it is about 14Km; 15min by car. You can find the location "dodengang" via Google Maps as well, including the satellite photos.
Hope this can help.
www.google.com/maps/dir/Nieuwpoort/Dodengang,+IJzerdijk,+Diksmuide/@51.0448593,2.8446027,977m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x47dcbb60ee3a08d1:0x40099ab2f4d5960!2m2!1d2.7480158!2d51.1284823!1m5!1m1!1s0x47dcba59c787c15d:0x9fe057921e084c06!2m2!1d2.8434678!2d51.0454686!3e0
Man that looks a lot closer then I imagined.
Very good video
Another place I would not want to be stationed! Really something - thanks Ian :)
Today we're almost 100 years after the 'end' of WW1. And there are still tons of ammo, shells and explosives burried in that area. I may be hard to believe that this war still claims human lives. Farmers in Ypres area still risk hitting ordonance when working their fields. Not to mention the mine shafts filled with explosives that were constructed for the battle of the mines. The shafts never detonated and are still lost.
Dunno how those machine gunners managed a smile in that context
Just wondering, did they ever make trenches where the back wall was lower than the front, like how on medieval castles there wasn't always a parapet on the inside of the wall? From what I've gathered, it was so that if the enemy did get on the wall or capture an outer wall, they'd have no cover from arrows shot from further in the castle, making it more difficult to keep those positions. Something like that would make it easier to defeat captured trenches, when the enemy occupying them would not have as much cover from shots from further back trenches.
Not so good though for shrapnel protection from mortar and artillery fire that land behind the trench line.
That was the purpose of the bends and bunkers inside the trenches. Note also the grenade chutes into the 'mousetrap' area in the forward area of the Belgian trench.
Well the problem with that us artillery, which your men needed full cover from lest they die horribly
The whole area has been fortified since the year dot. It is sometimes calle dVaubin's play ground. The Belgians did have fortified positions on thier borders. The Germans had 420mm M Gerat 42 better known as Big Bertha, built despeciffically to crack them open,. They also used 320 mm Skoda heavy howitzers, so think of that the next time you drive a VW clone. There is an Imperail War Musuem book of panorams a of the area showing the area at the time. Can't find the title though at the moment, as I've lent thebook to a friend. We are of fthat way next weekend for a visit.
Weedus History proves you wrong on the point of the 76mm. Many of these constructions have withstood hits from far larger artillery.
Neat. Not sure if you're aware there's what sounds like doubled audio around the 5 minute mark, seems like you're still doing added voice over, but didn't cut out the sound from the original recording.
Please keep the stuff on Amazon Prime coming!!!!
That trench system is insane
Always top notch
My country has suffered a lot last century :( we are still finding several hundred tons of unexploded ordenance every year
Still a fantastic place to visit. Friendly, good food, and a lot of respect for those who died defending it. More so than in England now, I can assure you!
Though ironically, it has not suffered anywhere near as much as Germany did.
@@TheRomanRuler you should read up on your history i think....
Ehm, are you talking about Belgium right? I do think Germany suffered worse than Belgium. It just is so much larger that it could recover better from both world wars and since it was front line nation in Cold War it meant both West and East invested into rebuilding Germany.
I know Belgium lost 1% of it's population in WW2 and 8 percent of country's GDP. That is nothing compared to what Germany lost. Though accurate numbers are much harder to come up with since Germany lost her "core" territory and was split in 2, Belgium only lost colonies.
The Belgian situation was unique in the sense that military losses were relatively limited compared to neighbouring countries due to the wait-and-see strategy pursued by King Albert 1 and a less successful mobilisation of the army in the first weeks of the conflict. The invasion and occupation of its territory led however to significant civilian losses, which gave rise to a specific form of commemoration in a larger European context. And that was only in the first world war. You have to take into acount in the first world war the most part was fought on Beligan soil, the second world war was even worse. You should visit "Flanders Fields" even in thre 21 st century there are names put on the monument of people who are killed by remaining unexploded bombs even now. Poland was the worst of 18% of the population ...
Interesting place. I have been there many times.
A couple of times in the video where your voiceover is clashing with the 'on the day' audio 5:10 and 9:37 ive noticed so far. Otherwise, great content as per usual!
This was awesome
Very cool
My great grandfather spent 4 years in those trenches, greetings from Ypres
I wish I could go to places like this
Brave men on both sides of the conflict.
I would be cool to see an aerial or map view of this part of the trench lines to understand it a little better.
I would love to know any storys about hauntings at places like this or others.
It amazes me how intricate these defences are, though what also amazes me is how close they are from friend to enemy, how did they do it? At night? Under cover fire? I suppose I need to look into that
even though I've been to the trench of Death I still get emotional looking at a video of it
The Plaquette at 7:18 is very interesting. Pity it is not mentioned. It reads: “ 2nd reg. Genie”. And some names like “Gaston Verlaet”.
PS The river Yzer is pronaunced I-sur like first part of “I” (not the J-part) en Sur - first part of Surface.
very awesome :) !
In french it is called "boyaux de la mort", "boyaux" translating into "bowels" and being military jargon for "trench".
Was just there today, it was closed but we could see all of this. Had no idea this was German
It's written "guts of death" in french on the sign. I don't know if it's worst or not.
Ironic that so many countries fighting against Germany were using Mauser‘s
"The Trench of Death." Clickbait from the early 20th century.
Don't wanna be "that guy", but a few audio glitches in this one.
Demand a refund.
Tiny mispronounciation the belgian line is caled the dodengang witch is more trence of the dead and not trence of death what doodgang would be , but amazing to see nice work
being in a trench with the enemy was getting down to the nitty gritty............................hand to hand combat
Ian, did you get to Iperes and the Menein Gate ceromony? You didn't mention the trench periscope!
51WCDodge I know! I had a toy periscope as a kid, and it was cool to see one in actual use.
con6lex They were litterally life savers. You can make one with a pair of mirrors mounted at 45 degrees to each other. The British made a slim one from tubular metal with a wooden handle , it is still in use with the British Army today. Unlike alot of modern kit, the batteries don't go flat.
There are Shrines paying Hommage to General Patton all over Belgium. He stopped the Germans in many places.
I surprised the two positions are that close to each other.
often it's actually when the enemy takes your frontline you transform your backline (where infirmary,logistics and HQ are) into a frontline and make a new backline for your non-combat units
I'm not sure what would be worse, the trench or the bunker. :/
Well in the trench you could sink into the water and drown. In the bunker the water would come up and drown you. In the trench you would vunerable to flying fragments. In the bunker, if gas gets in your suffoctaed. Outside you might get blown up, inside you could buried alive. Lovley!
P-Talks Don't get to Belgium much? Fine in summer , but winter, if the wind comes from the West straight off the North sea, cold and wet. From the East across flat wet land, cold and wet. The rain is just wet. They call it 4 inch mud. Walk across a wet feild, you're four inches taller by the time you reach the other side. But it is a great country to vist, do so if you can.
How did they deal with water/drainage in the Belgian trenches?
There were trench pumps, mostly hand operated, and in wet weather it was a full time job. Originally there would have been inverted A frames with boards layed on them to walk on so there was at least a rudimentary sump. But by the time it rains, you get shelled and dozens men have to answer nature.... All together not a happy camp. Cold and wet, disease and Trench Foot took out more men than enemy fire at times. Though this is the Wesern End of the front. Carry on down through France and you get onto higher and more rocky ground, so conditions changed. The idea of total mud and blood is a Britsh /US concept as most of the forces from those countries served in this area.
What has long fascinated me is the problem of how did they make bunkers by casting concrete over metal reinforcements? If each was in sight of the other, why didn't they interfere with each others' defensive efforts.
Are you going to visit the field of bayonets at Verdun?
How they built that whilst being shot at?
Are you still going to be part of the WWII Podcast?
how many spiders did you encounter on this voyage?
TBH if there was ever another war in Europe would all of these old ww2 and pre ww2 positions be reactivated and used or would the militarizes try to build new ones?
rare double ian
How are you supposed to aim through those tiny little firing slits? They look like they're barely big enough for the barrel of a rifle to fit through.
That's the whole point. The use of Snipers came of age during the Great War. Loopholes were used both sides and many men died because they thought, no one could shoot me through this small a hole.
Wow a .22 hornet could go across
i wish you would give the camera enough time to focus when you look thru the peepholes and such, its like as soon as it gets close you cut away. thanks for the video thoa.
How did the soldiers construct the bunkers while under fire?
Carefully, and mostly at night.
you should go in the italian alps
So I would assume it was constructed under fire. It's most likely those bullets in the concrete would have been fired into wet concrete.
Who says the bullets are from The Great War? A lot of those fortifications saw use in WW2 both during intial Blitzkrieg and after D-Day.
P-Talks There are a lot of fortifications around that area that were resused in WW2. You do find datable WW2 ordnance stuck in the walls in good presrvation. The concrete is a very poor mix, unsuprisingly, and had weathered twenty odd years before round two started. Now some it is so friable you can breack it off by hand. I come from Jersey in the Channel Island's , they were Occupied by the German's in WW2 and a lot of concrete was poured (See the CIOS website) preserving those bunkers is a hell of a job because of the quality of material and the rusting of the Rebar causing expansion which blows the face off and allows water ingress. They are time capsules. You can see the grain of the rough wood shuttering, one bunker has the footptints, complete with hob nails of a German soldier who walked in it before it set. On the macabre side there are provenenced reports of slave workes and forced labourers falling into the pour and being buried.
As mentioned in the video, during WWI the bunker could not be flanked as being protected by the river on one side and by flooded plains on the other side. In 1940 these plains were not flooded and by that time the place was probably already more a ruin than a usable fortification. If someone had used the bunker it would have been smashed to pieces by airplanes. Stukas, Typhoons, etc ... depending on the period.
Also, there was no major fighting in this region in 1944. So I think its only use was in WWI.
The "Dodengang" as it is locally known can be found at Ijzerdijk 65, Diksmuide, West-Flanders.
Weren’t the zig zags within the trenches so if a shell exploded the fragments wouldn’t kill almost all in the straight line trenches
>Hey, Teacher, leave us kids alone.
How did they put these up in the first place? Was everybody, like, “Okay! Nobody shoot for a while while we build our little bunkers!”? That would be quite a bit like snowball forts we built as kids....
They were built under fire.
Why have they raised the floor of the original Belgian trench system? So people can look over the top?
Those are duckboards to keep the soldiers away from flooding and reduce trenchfoot
It is not use till ww2 right ?
A lot of fortifications wer re used in one form or anothe rduring WW2, both in the intial Blitzkrieg, defence and following D-Day. Those bullets are not nessacarily original to the construction.
This was built and used during WWI, it was a part of belgium that the Germans had been unable to capture, the belgian army held onto it under the command of King Albert I.
Railroad rail. The ties are wood
Im a Carpenter who has spent most of my time on concrete forming.
I really cant imagine how the fuck Im supposed form a bunker within machine gun and small arms fire from a enemy trying to kill me.
You actually would need someone on the damn roof to some extent to hand pour concrete via buckets id imagine.
Also I have no idea how you build the form facing the enemy when a lot of this was clearly wooden form work given most of the walls are too flat to have been sandbag barriers to hold the concrete.
I would love to see a video about construction under fire.
They would probably do it at night. Or while the wnemy position is under bombardment and or assault.
When dubbing in the future please remove the underlying audio, the audio around minute 5 became quite harsh in the ears
are you still in Europe?