The Ypres League and the Commemoration of the Ypres Salient, 1914—1940

Abstract

This article explores British visions of Ypres between 1914 and 1940, and concentrates on the work of the crucial interwar remembrance movement, the Ypres League. The city of Ypres became a crucial symbol of all Britain was fighting for during the course of the First World War, and rapidly developed a holy aura. Led by the league, the horrors of industrial warfare were commuted into a spiritual quest in which British and imperial troops were purified by their experiences in the Ypres salient. After the war, British people visited Ypres in large numbers in order to imagine the sufferings of the servicemen and gain a spiritual benefit often with the assistance of the Ypres League and its publications. This reflected a culture of high diction and ritual greatly at odds with the idea that the twenties and thirties saw the dawn of an age disillusioned with the values of 1914. The British also became resident in Ypres in considerable numbers, and the article explores the relationship between the local population and the immigrants. By exploring the nature of war commemoration through the detailed case study of one particular site, it is intended to deepen the historiography of commemoration studies.

First World War Cemeteries: Insights from Visitor Books

“…The notion of behaviour as performance suggests that visitors seek to participate in, and demonstrate knowledge of behaviour that is appropriate for these sacred and sensitive sites, with up to 70 percent of survey visitors indicating that they intend to visit a military cemetery during their stay (Edensor 2000;Vandaele and Monballyu 2008;Winter 2011). This information can be provided by non-tourist settings and by battlefield tour guides, and it is evident that many tourist activities follow traditional remembrance practices (Seaton 2000;Iles 2008;Connelly 2009). …”

“…He also notes that at such sites, tourists may be concerned to perform appropriately in accordance with accepted norms, but that this often requires competence and skill. As other researchers have observed, contemporary tourist practice on the Western Front has been influenced by the traditions of pilgrimage, which were adopted by tour guides such as Tonie and Valmai Holt in the 1970s (Iles 2008;Connelly 2009). Recent research continues to find continuity between the traditions of pilgrimage and contemporary visitation practice (Seaton 2000;Walter 2009).…”

Battlefield visitor motivations: explorations in the Great War town of Ieper, Belgium

“…Tourists were regarded as those for whom the battlefi eld trip was motivated by leisure and general interest, and they supposedly lacked the emotional and spiritual depth of pilgrims (Mosse, 1990;Walter, 1993;Lloyd, 1998;Scates, 2006;Connelly, 2009). The creation of travel as pilgrimage thus satisfi ed a number of social needs for the population of the time, and as Iles (2008) suggests, it provided a context in which the potentially confl icting interests of the bereaved and tourists could be accommodated.…”

“…Iles (2008) argues that part of this was to avoid sensation-seeking tourist activity during, and in the early years after the war, and for example, the Michelin guides encouraged a pilgrimage perspective. Connelly (2009) argued that a 'proper' form of visitor behaviour manifested as pilgrimage within a British middle-class context was established in Ieper through the activities of the Ypres League, in which 'working-class bank holiday atmospheres were considered utterly inappropriate' (p. 64). In London too, the Imperial War Museum was conceived as a place of pilgrimage, and the selection of paintings was debated, fi nally being based upon their informational rather than artistic qualities (Malvern, 2000).…”

“…The later travels of citizens from the younger countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, whose nationdefi ning stories were formed during the war, were also framed within the notion of secular pilgrimage (Walter, 1993;Inglis, 2005;Scates, 2006). Tourists were typifi ed as those whose travel was motivated by entertainment and interest rather than by seeking graves, and as such, they were regarded by some as inferior and out of place on the battlefi elds because their activities were thought to trivialize the events of the war (Mosse, 1990;Lloyd, 1998;Connelly, 2009).…”