The statement made that "nine-tenths of the time our men were fighting Nature, and the remainder fighting Germans," cannot be much exaggerated.
It is, of course, impossible in photographs taken long after fighting has ceased, and, indeed, in any photographs except those taken from aeroplanes,[11] to give an adequate idea of what the surface of the salient was during the war. Plate 9 gives some idea of the ground beside the road, near Hooge, _after a dry summer_,[12] and Plate 10 gives a similar view, after rain, near Gheluvelt. The bit of "Tank Cemetery" at "Stirling Castle" (Plate 11) on the high ground close to "Clapham Junction," and the illustrations of Hill 60, serve also to give some rough idea, but only a very imperfect one, of the conditions. Even now one has to walk in serpentine fashion along the ridges between the shell-holes in order to make any progress. But in the war winters each shell-hole was filled with liquid, sticky mud, and over such ground our men had to advance time and again, oftener by night than by day, slithering down the slimy banks into slimier mud, scrambling up the other side somehow or other, carrying full kit all the time, and continuously exposed to murderous shell-fire from commanding positions. There can have been no condition in the whole campaign which brought out better the indomitable pluck and spirit of our infantry.
[11] See the photograph on p. 30 of the "Michelin Guide to Ypres."
[12] Figures in the distance are German prisoners, of whom there were a great many at the time, occupied in "clearing" operations.
Plate 12 is taken at the cross-roads ("Clapham Junction") between "Dumbarton Wood" and "Stirling Castle" on one side and "Glen Corse Wood" on the other. It is at the highest point of the slope which falls down through Hooge to Ypres. Of the woods which our men named so picturesquely nothing whatever remains--in fact, the skeleton avenue on the Becelaere Road (Plate 13) contained more trees than were to be seen anywhere else in the neighbourhood, and even these I found to have been cut down later on. Their only use would be as firewood.
On my last visit to the salient, a year ago, reconstruction in the shape of what may be called hutments, or something a little more substantial, had commenced at the eastern end and extended as far as Gheluwe, while even up to Gheluvelt there were beginnings of attempts at cultivation. If one had not seen elsewhere what has actually been done, it would seem physically impossible that soil so utterly destroyed could be brought again into cultivation for a generation. But the Belgian and French peasants are capable of wonders.