France and Belgium seek heritage status for Great War memorials
FRANCE and Belgium are urging Unesco to designate First World War memorials and cemeteries as World Heritage sites, with the centennial remembrance of the war nearing its end.
Both sides of the Franco-belgian border, where much of the fiercest fighting of the war took place, are dotted with monuments to the dead who fought on the great Western Front battlefields such as Verdun in France and Passchendaele in Belgium.
Three million soldiers died on the front line, which stretched from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border. More than two million men are buried in the region, hailing from almost 80 presentday nations. “These sites force us to draw lessons from the past in order to construct a more peaceful future,” said Geert Bourgeois, chief minister of Belgium’s Flemish region, where many of the battles were fought.
France and Belgium are seeking recognition for 139 sites. Unesco’s World Heritage committee will assess their request, as well as 29 other nominations, during a meeting in Bahrain which started yesterday and runs until July 4.
Even though the scenes of dank trenches and pockmarked battlefields form the main popular image of the Great War, France and Belgium are instead centring their focus on the cemeteries, memorials and remembering those who lost their lives. They stress they do not want to glorify war. “Immediately after the war, these were mainly places for mourning, for pilgrimages of the ones who had lost their loved ones,” said Luc Vandael, project manager for the Flemish region.
“But quite quickly they became much more than that. They became an appeal for peace and reconciliation. The slogan ‘no more wars’ is quickly associated with those sites. So yes, there is something larger than just being a cemetery.”
Tourists now make pilgrimages from across the world to remember those who lost their lives on the Western Front. The appeal of the sites has increased during the four years of First World War centennial remembrances that will end with the marking of the Armistice in November.