Page 13 - Walking Back Through Time

Arras is steeped in ancient architecture with an eminent plaza reminis- cent of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. But in 1914 it was reduced to rubble and soldiers of the British Empire dug in here for the rest of the war spending a lot of time living underground waiting to be ushered to the frontline. During this period many would soon realise that the old ways of war had reached their end, superseded by science and industry which brought greater suffering in a new version of hell!
The Battle of Arras (also known as the Second Battle of Arras) was a British offensive on the Western Front during World War I. From 9 April to 16 May 1917, British troops attacked German strongholds near the French city of Arras on the Western Front. The British achieved the longest advance since the onset of trench warfare surpassing the efforts of the French Sixth Army on 1 July 1916. The British advance faltered in the coming days and the Germans consolidated their positions. The battle, like others before, became a costly stalemate for all and by its end, the British Third and First Armies had suffered about 160,000 and the German 6th Army roughly 125,000 casualties only to further high- light another pointlessness campaign in life-consuming no man’s land.
‘THE THEATRE OF WAR’
POEM - 'No Man's Land'
'Beyond the parapet are shell holes and mud,
Once trees grew tall here above fields in bud.
'Tis now a theatre of war that evokes fear on command, It's where soldiers meet their maker in no man's land.
Only vermin prosper in this insidious quagmire, Bloated rats invading dugouts, impervious to gunfire. It's where Assassins are born and death is the law,
It is a version of hell that both sides abhor.
When the big guns stand down the real fight begins,
As combatants from both sides are cleansed of their sins; Sucked into purgatory with each act of brutality,
Their souls eroded by war’s pointless profanity.