The Battlefield of Zonnebeke

My wife and I were walking over the battlefield of Zonnebeke to take the train back to Bruges. We were alone on the vast arena of death. We saw on every side of us evidences of deadly strife. Gun carriages smashed, ammunition scattered all around. We walked in deserted trenches and saw them strewn with mementoes of the fight: a soldier’s English Aeroplane at Zonnebeke overcoat in one, boxes of hand grenades partly used, Mill’s bombs lying about, helmets, rifles, a brazier, a dead rat, and all the debris there as the men left it, the bodies alone taken away. What tragedies those empty trenches could reveal! We came to an English aeroplane smashed upon the ground. As I photographed it I thought of the days when the skies were filled with these airships fighting, while beneath were the awful discords of war.