Remembrance Trails of the Great War on the Western Front: routes of heritage and memory

ABSTRACT

The First World War Centenary (2014–2018) is stimulating much interest in the memory of this conflict and is already encouraging increased tourism to the old Western Front region of France and Belgium. One of the strategies adopted by regional tourism authorities is the creation of ‘Remembrance Trails’ – self-guided circuits designed for car, motorbike or bicycle. Using a case study approach, this paper will examine these trails from a perceptual angle to demonstrate how, despite the lack of empirical evidence in our understanding of them, Remembrance Trails have a key role to play in the emerging war-tourism resources of the region. Using the model of Timothy and Boyd (2015), the routes are interpreted as either organically or purposively planned and in linking ‘sites of memory’ able to provide an effective way of engaging with the landscape and narrative of war. The paper argues that the routes have an important role to play in the transmission of memory and as ‘linear memorials’ can be viewed as emerging pilgrimage routes with the potential to concentrate experience in a dynamic way.

KEYWORDS:

• Western Front
• First World War
• battlefield tourism
• Remembrance Trails
• memory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Stephen Miles has degrees from the universities of Durham and Sheffield and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Glasgow in 2012. His research interests relate to tourism at sites of conflict and the way war heritage is interpreted and presented. His book The Western Front: Landscape, tourism and heritage is published by Pen and Sword books in 2016.

Notes

1. In 2013–2014, Germans comprised only 0.7% and 2.0% of ‘World War One tourists’ in the Westhoek area of Belgium and Northern France, respectively; Westtoer (2014): slide 22.

2. These are part of MacCannell's Site Sacralisation model; the complete stages being: (1) naming; (2) framing and elevation; (3) enshrinement; (4) mechanical reproduction and (5) social reproduction (MacCannell, 2013, pp. 43–48).

3. The model adapts the work of Murray and Graham (1997) for the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

4. Communitas is defined as a state of social cohesiveness which arises when people spend time together removed from the roles and responsibilities of their normal social positions. It is marked by a transition to a new state – a rite of passage – where deep bonds are formed through common experience (Turner & Turner, 1978).