South African WW1 Memorial at Bois Delville (by K2)

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The "Great War" was such a beastly event in the 20th century that I find myself constantly drawn to any place that reminds us of the horrors that transpired between 1914 and 1918. Every single element of information that is provided to us indicates that the conflict was completely stupid and useless and pitted perfectly civilised nations against each other for no good reason. That fact that such things continue all over the world more than 100 years later is frankly alarming.

In any case, even though the Union of South Africa was half a planet away from Europe, it still sent 229,000 soldiers to fight in the Great War which, frankly, did not really concern it at all. About 10,000 of them perished, and the Bois Delville (renamed "the Devil Wood" by the English speaking soldiers) is one of the main places where they died. Basically, a brigade composed of 4 batallions and numbering 3200 soldiers and officers fought the German army only 143 of them emerged unharmed after 5 days of battle starting 15 July 1916. More than 2000 of them were killed outright and the rest wounded.

Well, we all know how the war finally ended, but of course there continued to be controversy regarding South Africa. Some of it was justified and some of it was not. We'll get to that later.

In any case, the South African memorial was unveiled in 1926, and the principal sculpture represents officially represent Castor and Pollux from Greek and Roman mythology but they were in fact a symbolic representation of the two white races of South Africa, English and Afrikaans.

The grounds are extremely impressive. The entire zone was purchased by the South African government in 1920 which sold it to the French government which in turn gave it to the Union of South Africa (for a symbolic franc) as its perpetual possession. The South African Department of Forestry planted two rows of oak trees, but the rest of the woods were left in their original condition at the end of the conflict.

The several paths crisscrossing the woods have been maintained and carry the military names given to the various zones.

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Obviously, South Africa has a controversial history. Black South Africans were relegated to non-combatant roles. 90,000 black South Africans were enrolled in the South African Defence Forces, and 25,000 of them served in France, mostly in the military ports. Of the 11,575 South Africans who lost their lives in WW1, about 10% were black. Meanwhile, two battalions of black soldiers served as fighters in East African and Palestine.

A museum was inaugurated on the site by President Pieter Botha in 1986. This caused a number of demonstrations all over France for the many valid reasons that opposed most of Europe to the political system in place but also for certain reasons which were mostly phantasms. For example, it was claimed that the memorial listed the names of the white soldiers who had died while the black soldiers remained nameless in a nameless mass grave. In fact, the memorial lists no names of any soldier, and no soldiers were buried there. It was additionally claimed that the original monument was to the glory of apartheid even though the system of apartheid did not come into effect until 1949 (and was abolished in 1991). Obviously, South African society was not at all egalitarian back then (but was any other country?), and it can never win any sort of ideological battle on this point.

I must confess that I entered the museum only 10 minutes before closing time, so I was totally unable to do it justice.

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Maybe I'll get a chance to return some day.













I would particularly like to walk a bit more through the woods of the old battlefield.

[htmb]

I found the statements shown in the photo at the beginning of post 2 quite moving: "You are going to die, for that is what you came to do."

For only having ten minutes inside the museum, you did an excellent job of capturing the essence of the place.

[mickthecactus]

Thanks K2 - really, really good.

[nycgirl]

I'm glad to read this info because I'm not nearly as familiar with WWI as I am with WWII (in part because Hollywood is obsessed with WWII, so that's the war I see portrayed the most by far). I do know, of course, that WWI was horribly unique for its time. I read some grisly accounts about the use of poison gas, for instance.

The oak trees and the forest are hauntingly beautiful. Excellent photos.

[tod2]

Thank you for bringing us these photos and report on the South African WW1 Memorial.
It is far more impressive than I could ever imagine and definitely on my list of things to see if we ever take a trip around parts of France. Your photos of the trees are wonderful.

When WW1 took place South Africa was still under British rule, hence the involvement of Native African soldiers together with their white comrades. When we became a republic the army only allowed white men to do military training and not by choice either - you were picked at random and had to appear for duty.
Now the army is 99.9% black men and women, and it is their choice to sign up. How times have changed but war seems ever present on the horizon. Will humans ever stop fighting...

There is a piece of a tree from Delville Wood made into a crucifix. It is in a Garden of Remeberence in our city and at this time of the year starts weeping. A sort of resin oozes from it and drips down onto the ground. This has been happening for years and years now.