Poperinghe, Bailleul, Wytschaete, Gheluvelt, Ploegsteert, Messines, Zonnebeke, Passchendaele. The other week I grandiosely claimed that I have been reading about the first world war, on and off, all my life. What I ought to have added was ‘with little or no understanding’. Because it wasn’t until a fortnight ago, when I bought a 1916 Ordnance Survey map of Belgium (Hazebrouck 5A), and consulted it while reading Anthony Farrar-Hockley’s account of the First Battle of Ypres, that I began to fix these blood-soaked villages in my mind.
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