We remember not only the rain and mud that swallowed the dead, but the courage of those who died here
Prince Charles pays tribute to Passchendaele fallen
THE PRINCE of Wales yesterday praised the courage and bravery of British soldiers killed at Passchendaele as he led centenary commemorations of the notorious World War I battle.
Exactly 100 years after thousands of British and Commonwealth troops went “over the top”, Charles led a gathering of 4000 members of their families at the Tyne Cot cemetery near Ypres, Belgium.
The Prince, who was there with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prime Minister Theresa May, said: “We remember it not only for the rain that fell, the mud that weighed down the living and swallowed the dead, but also for the courage and bravery of the men who fought here.
“In 1920, the war reporter Philip Gibbs wrote that ‘nothing that has been written is more than the pale image of the abomination of those battlefields, and that no pen or brush has yet achieved the picture of that Armageddon in which so many of our men perished’.
“Drawn from many nations, we come together in their resting place, cared for with such dedication by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, to commemorate their sacrifice and to promise that we will never forget.”
He spoke in front of a tall white cross that can be seen from miles away across the flat agricultural terrain of Flanders, where the battle was fought.
He told how his great-grandfather King George V visited the same spot in 1922 to honour all those who died in the war.
More than 100 days of fighting in the summer and autumn of 1917, starting on July 31, left about 325,000 Allied troops and 260,000 Germans dead.
The Third Battle of Ypres, known as Passchendaele after the village the Allies were trying to capture, began as an attempt to secure the coast and wear down the Germans who were holding ground captured in Belgium when World War I began in 1914.
Amid torrential rain, the campaign became bogged down in mud that killed men and horses, and gained notoriety for its grim conditions.
There was a huge Scottish presence at the battle, with more than 50 battalions from all over Scotland fighting.
The Tyne Cot cemetery, 15 minutes drive outside Ypres, is the largest Commonwealth burial ground in the world, with 11,971 servicemen buried and remembered there – 8373 of whom are unidentified.
Descendants paid simple tributes to fallen soldiers they have never met.
Most read a brief statement identifying their ancestor’s name, regiment and the date and place they were killed.
Among them was a German serviceman who read a letter from a German soldier, named Otto, who fought in the same battle.
The Duke of Cambridge gave a short reading next to one of the headstones to an unknown soldier maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
He read the inscription found upon thousands of similar memorials across the Western Front.
The Duchess of Cambridge laid a bouquet of flowers before the same grave. She also laid a wreath in memory of German soldiers.
Prime Minister May gave a Bible reading before the Cross of Sacrifice.