Alan - The Menin Gate

I didn't know. I don't know how, I didn't know, but I didn't know.

There's a place, called Ypres. It's a little town, in Belgium, and, if you know anything, about the Great War, you'll know, that it got shelled, again, and again, and again.

Theres a road, of several, that leads into Ypres, called Menin. 

This, is the Menin Road, I knew.



I fought, along the Menin Road. They called it, the Battle of Passchendaele, but, it wasn't one fight, it was five months, of mud, shells, and dead horses.


Just, outside the city, was a place, called Hellfire Corner. I don't know, how the photographer, took the picture, because, they never, stopped shelling it. It rained fire, just about, every hour, of the day.

Equally dangerous, was the Menenpoort.

'Poort' means 'gate' in Dutch, and it's where, the Menin Road, entered, the city. I'm told, it once, looked like this.


 But by the time, I got there, it looked, more like this.


Everything, in that first picture, was blown up. No houses, no trees. And definitely, no gate. I don't know, if there once, was a gate, there, but when I, passed through, the Menenpoort, it was through, rubble-choked streets, from the houses, over a little bridge, that you had to mind, you didn't fall through, the holes, and past, a pitted hill, into the open, hell, of the Menin Road.

They say, there were lions, made of limestone, at the Menenpoort, but I, don't remember them. I remember, the destruction, mostly. I remember, trying to pass, through the gate, alive, with the shells, thick. I remember, the dead.



 

I remember, the destruction. But, I didn't know, what they had made of it.

I learned, today, that there, is a new Menenpoort. They built it, in 1927.

 But it is not, just a gate.
 
The plaque, atop the gate, reads: TO THE ARMIES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE WHO STOOD HERE FROM 1914 TO 1918 AND TO THOSE OF THEIR DEAD WHO HAVE NO KNOWN GRAVE

And, inside, the walls are carved, with the names, of 56,000 soldiers, who died, in the fighting, near Ypres, but whose bodies, have never been recovered, or identified. There, were so many missing dead, that their names, would not all fit, inside the gate, and so, a second memorial, at Passchendaele, contains a further, 35,000 names.
 
 I did not want, to pass, through, the Menin Gate. None of us, did so, willingly. It was, by far, the most dangerous gate, out of the city, and to pass through it, was to pass, into Hellfire. So many, passed through, that gate, and never, came back. It was a gate, to Hell. But, we all of us, who fought there, passed through, that gate, at one point, or another, going out, to die, or coming back, to try, and heal. We crossed the bridge, in fear, and, in hope.

Menin Gate, is a peaceful place, now. A beautiful place. It does honor, to the thousands of men, who crossed, that muddy moat, in the course, of their greatest sacrifice. It may, even, do honor, to me.

I do not know, where they lay, my body. I do not know, if I have a grave. There are graves, with my name, but I do not know, if they, are mine. I do not know, if, perhaps, my name, is, in Menin Gate. Perhaps, one day, I will know.



At last, there is a gate, at the Menin Gate, a place, for all the lost, and dead, to sleep.
And, every evening, as part, of the Last Post Ceremony, at the gate, they read Binyon's 'For The Fallen'.

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free. 

 

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears. 

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe. 

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them. 

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night; 

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

-- Alan.