In the rolling Flandrens fields, nothing nowadays resembles war. Wheat sways in the wind, cyclists ride along quiet country lanes, and villages look friendly and prosperous. The landscape does its utmost to forget. Upon entering Ypres, it is hard to imagine that more than a century ago, the earth here was ploughed by millions of explosions. That entire hills disappeared, that nature vanished, and that people lived in mud and fear for months. The numbers are so large that they lose their meaning. Hundreds of thousands dead. Countless wounded. Generations mutilated. Only at the cemeteries do those numbers regain a face. Row after row of identical white (or grey for the Germans) stones. Names, ages, regiments. Often no older than nineteen years. And of which even the name has disappeared. What touches me every time is the silence. No heroism. No victory. No glory. Only silence. As if those boys, after all these years, are still asking how this was ever possible.
