HistoryNovember 9, 2018 | 4 min read
WWI left behind a geography of remembrance that stretches from the Flanders fields of Belgium to the chalk ridges of northern France and the memorials of Canada. For history teachers, these sites do something a textbook cannot: they make the scale of the war legible in a way that stays with students long after the trip ends.
WWI memorial sites make some of the most powerful destinations available for a history student trip.
November 11, 1918 marked the end of what was then called the war to end all wars. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, an armistice was signed between the Allied forces and the Central Powers, formally ending four years of fighting that claimed over nine million soldiers and seven million civilians. The centenary of that armistice has passed.
The sites that mark it remain among the most powerful educational destinations in the world.
Every evening at 8:00 p.m., traffic through the Menin Gate in Ypres stops and buglers sound the Last Post, the traditional military bugle call played at military funerals and commemorations. This ceremony has taken place every night since November 11, 1929, interrupted only during the German occupation of World War II. Through this gate, vast numbers of British and Commonwealth troops passed on their way to the Ypres Salient battlefields. The gate bears the names of 54,896 soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient and have no known grave. For students, standing in that archway as the bugles sound is a moment that requires no explanation.
The 117-hectare Canadian National Vimy Memorial stands atop Hill 145 in northern France.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge was fought in April 1917. Dedicated in 1936, the monument honours all Canadians who lost their lives during WWI and pays particular tribute to the 66,000 Canadians killed in the war with no known grave. Their names, 11,285 in total, are inscribed into the memorial’s walls. The twin pylons rising 27 metres above the ridge are visible from kilometres away. Preserved trenches and shell craters still mark the ground around the monument, allowing students to walk through the terrain where the battle was fought. If you are planning a history trip to France, Prométour’s France: Cultural Tour includes dedicated time at the Vimy Memorial and can be built around your history curriculum.
Beginning in 2014 to mark the centenary of the war’s start, the Poppies installation by artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper consisted of 888,246 ceramic red poppies, one for each British and Commonwealth soldier who died during WWI. Originally displayed at the Tower of London, the installation has travelled to sites across the United Kingdom and has been seen by tens of millions of visitors. The number 888,246 is not abstract when you are standing in front of it. The installation now has a permanent home at Imperial War Museum sites in London and Manchester. For groups travelling to the UK, Prométour’s UK and Ireland: Cultural Tour can incorporate visits to IWM London and other WWI commemorative sites.
The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) manages 26 American cemeteries and 29 memorials and monuments across 16 countries, most of them in France and Belgium. The Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France, the largest American military cemetery in Europe, holds the remains of 14,246 American soldiers. The Aisne-Marne American Cemetery at Belleau Wood holds 2,289 graves. Each site is immaculately maintained and open to visitors year-round. For American history teachers, these cemeteries offer a direct and affecting point of connection between the curriculum and the landscape of the war.
St. Symphorien Cemetery near Mons is unusual among WWI cemeteries in that it was created and maintained by the German army and contains both Allied and German graves side by side. It is also where Private John Parr, believed to be the first British soldier killed in WWI, and Private George Price, believed to be the last Canadian soldier killed in the war, are buried within metres of each other. The cemetery is small, quiet, and largely unknown to most visitors. For teachers who want students to confront the human cost of the war without the scale of a larger site, St. Symphorien offers something harder to find: intimacy.
A student trip to WWI memorial sites connects directly to Canadian and American secondary history curricula covering the causes and consequences of WWI, the role of Canada and the United States in the Allied effort, the Treaty of Versailles and its long-term consequences, and the literature of the war, from Wilfred Owen and John McCrae to the poets of the Harlem Renaissance who served in France. At Vimy Ridge, the curriculum connection is explicit: the Battle of Vimy Ridge appears in most provincial history programmes at the secondary level and is central to how Canada understands its own emergence as a nation.
Prométour builds fully private, custom school group tours to France and the UK, including dedicated itinerary time at WWI memorial sites and cemeteries. If you are planning a history or social studies trip to Europe, take a look at our France: Cultural Tour or UK and Ireland: Cultural Tour as a starting point. Every itinerary is built around your programme and your students.
