Behind the Front Lines

Location: Arras

Local departure by coach, then to our hotel in Northern France for a four-night stay.

Accommodation: Hotel

Accommodation Name: Mercure Arras Centre Gare or the Ibis Albert

Location: Vimy Ridge

Our tour begins along the coast belt of Northern France where the main military hospitals were located, often called the ‘Crimson Coast’. We visit Wimereux Communal Cemetery to hear the story of Canadian poet John McCrae who wrote ‘In Flanders Fields’, and then travel to Etaples for the story of the ‘Bullring’ Training Camp, also seeing the vast Etaples Military Cemetery. After lunch we we head to Saint Pol for the story of the selection of the Unknown Warrior in 1919, and then follow a route to the front line via Mont St Eloi, where British and Canadian soldiers gathered for the Battle of Arras in April 1917. Our final visit of the day is the battlefield at Vimy Ridge, having followed a typical route of soldiers from the coast to the front during the war.

Accommodation: Hotel

Accommodation Name: Mercure Arras Centre Gare or the Ibis Albert

Meals: Breakfast

Location: Somme

Today we travel to the Somme battlefields and begin with a look at the story of men who were ‘Shot at Dawn’ for military crimes in WW1. At Bailleulmont we see the graves of the men executed, including Albert Ingham, whose father used the ‘Shot at Dawn’ phrase on his headstone. We uncover the details of the evacuation and treatment of the wounded at Bagneux British Cemetery, Gezaincourt, and then have lunchtime in Doullens with a visit to the Town Hall, which was used as a Headquarters in March 1918. In the afternoon we travel to Vignacourt, where a museum displays a unique collection of images of Great War soldiers taken by a local photographer. We then visit Puchevillers British Cemetery, before ending the day in Henencourt – a typical village where soldiers were billeted on the Somme and did their training.

Accommodation: Hotel

Accommodation Name: Mercure Arras Centre Gare or the Ibis Albert

Meals: Breakfast

Location: Bailleul

We start at Bailleul, one of the main towns used by the British Army in Flanders, and visit the Military Cemetery here, which is close to the site of Casualty Clearing Stations and the Royal Flying Corps aerodrome. We then look at Godewaersvelde – ‘God Wears Velvet’ to the soldiers – and pay our respects at the grave of a nurse killed in Flanders. After lunchtime in Poperinghe, we look at those Shot at Dawn with a visit to the ‘Death Cells’, afterwards heading to Talbot House, a Belgian townhouse opened by padres for the use of all soldiers as a place to escape the war. We then follow a route to the front line via the site of the army camps up to the battlefield at Bellewaarde Ridge. After free-time in Ypres for dinner, we attend the moving Last Post Ceremony.

Accommodation: Hotel

Accommodation Name: Mercure Arras Centre Gare or the Ibis Albert

Meals: Breakfast

Location: Arras

Return home.

Meals: Breakfast