Citaat:
A couple of months ago we visited with school the environment of Ypres and the ‘In Flanders Fiels’ museum. This is an interactive museum which was very impressive.
|
Ik zou ervan maken: A couple of months ago my classmates and I visited the environment of Ypres [..] This is a very impressive interactive museum.
Citaat:
The Museum expressed well the horrible aspect of war, namely the thousands of dead and the miserable situations in the trenches.
|
The Museum expressed the horrible aspect of war well, mainly (wat bedoel je met namely? namelijk?) [..]
Citaat:
A thing that a lot of people don’t know is that World War I is also been fought on see. On year before war started, Germany consolidated his fleet by investing much in it.
|
One thing a lot of people don't know, is that the First World War has also been fought on sea. One year before the war started, Germany consolidated its fleet..
Citaat:
The Britons were still stronger but they feeled threathened.
|
Felt, idd
Citaat:
At 1 november or 8 december 1914 for example died a lot of Britsh and German soldiers on see
|
For example; on November 1st or December 8th, a lot of British and German soldiers died on sea.
A ship that has been very important during World War I is the U-
boat , a submarine.
Citaat:
At 7 May 1915, German U-boot layed up a passenger-ship, almost 1189 citizens died, under others Americans.
|
Under others is volgens mij niet goed maar ik weet even geen beter woord ervoor.
America almost declared war
to Germany but just in time, the German commander Wilhelm II interdicted the attack of passenger-ships. In contrast to ashore, where the hostile soldiers where only about 100 metres alienated, the sailors saw eachother rarely.
A thing that hampered the war was the bad communication between the front and the commanders. It was miserable because of broken cables
; lightflashes were impossible in consequence of the guns, pigeons couldn’t fly against the wind and dogs lost the way or started to fight. The only way to communicate thoroughly was
through telecommunication. Nevertheless this was only invented a couple of years ago so it wasn’t
well developed yet.
We also
made a trip around Ypres with Piet Chielens, one of the custodians of the museum. He knew almost everything about the environment and
showed us the nicest places. We viseted a lot of graveyards, wherby I got a good image of the amounts of deads. A ‘funny’ thing about this graveyards is the fact that the German graves had to lay down because they lost while the other graves were all upright. We also visited The Essex Farm Cementary. This is the place where John McRae was the major of the dressing-station. He
dug? himself in the back of the channeldike where he was relativly save for the enemy’s bombs or gas-attacks. John McRae is the autor of the well-known poem In Flanders Field. He wrote this poem after the death of
the son of a good friend. In this poem he urges the Candadian boys
to join the army.
This might me an anticlimax for us, but we have to bear in mind that the poem is written in 1915
, when the war had just begun and
at that time the soldiers were still patriotic and heroic. This poem is an exeption because the majority of the poems we have read
in class were not that patriotic and heroic. ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ from Wilfred Owen which
describes a gas-attack is very touching.
The 11th of november 1918 is the redeemd
??? day. The Britsh
Prime-Minister declared that the ‘most horrible and cruel war of mankind had ended’ He also hoped that
this War
had been a lesson
to all and that it
might have been the last war in history. In
total , 9
million soldiers died, whereof 1 million at the Ypres Salient. The region was marked forever and now it still is, the farmers for example still find splinters of bombs
at regular base .
Our language is still full of phrases such as ‘entrenched attitudes.’
I
hope you
have learned something about war in this letter and that you understand what a
horrible thing war is.