Reclaiming the Salient: Resurrecting the Great War Battlegrounds of Flanders Fields

By the end of the Great War, the destruction of the Ypres Salient was complete. The fabled Flanders Fields were devastated, hardly a building or tree was left standing in the battlefield areas that surrounded the city of Ypres. This once proud and prosperous medieval city had been reduced to rubble by years of German artillery fire.

Such was the level of destruction it is said that in 1919, a man on horseback had an unrestricted view from one corner of the city to the other. The rural areas ...