First World War battlefields

The battles of Ypres are synonymous with the agony, the destruction and the misery of trench warfare in the First World War. Every unit of the then British Empire served in the infamous Ypres Salient which meant that by 1918 it was already a legend in the English speaking world. Almost as soon as the guns fell silent people started returning and visiting. Follow in their footsteps with me as your guide.

For many this is the essential British battlefield of the First World War. Here Wilfred Owen gained his first experience of the frontlines, and all of the great poets, authors and artists of the Great War served here during the titanic 1916 battle. Visit this place, once renowned for mud and poppies, with me as your guide.

In April 1917 Arras was the site of once of the greatest military operations of the First World War, as the Canadian corps stormed Vimy Ridge and thousands of British soldiers poured out of a network of underground tunnels to confront the German forces. Discover this landscape of ridges and plateaux and understand exactly why the war here was so very hard fought.

See the three major British and Commonwealth battlefields in one visit. From the Menin Gate memorial in Ieper to the Thiepval memorial on the Somme, this visit will provide you with an overview of the fighting, the commemoration and the post-war restoration of this zone of devastation.