Plugstreet 14-18 Experience set for November opening

An interpretation centre is scheduled to open near Ploegsteert in Belgium this November.

Entitled the Plugstreet 14-18 Experience, after the British troops’ version of the village’s Flemish name, the centre will explain the role the area and its surrounding region played in the First World War and aims to give visitors the information they need to get the most from a visit to the nearby battlefields.

Anny Beauprez, president of the tourist office of the Commines-Warneton area, which includes Ploegsteert, says: ‘The architect designed the centre to comprise a pyramid-shaped roof above a main display area that is largely underground and reached by a sloping walkway.

Belgium: the forts of Liège

On the morning of 4 August 1914 the garrison at Gemmenich, close to the border between Belgium and Germany, sent a message to General Leman, commanding the Belgian 3rd Division at nearby Liège. ‘Belgian territory has been invaded by German troops,’ it read.

The infiltrating soldiers reported by the outlying Belgian positions belonged to General Karl von Bulow’s 320,000-strong second army that was pouring into Belgium. Their initial target was Liège, which they hoped to storm before pushing on into France, cutting the two nations’ armies in two before their British allies could provide reinforcements.

Napoleonic re-enactors and the Battle of Waterloo pt2

For Napoleonic re-enactors, events don’t come any bigger than the annual restaging of the Battle of Waterloo.

The spectacle regularly attracts around 3,000 men and women, dressed in the uniforms of the era, who act out the events of 18 June 1815 on the same ground that was trodden by the armies of Wellington and Napoleon.

And the colourful, dramatic and often noisy display is watched by many thousands more.

Belgium: Napoleonic re-enactors and the Battle of Waterloo

And here come the French

Every year thousands of Napoleonic re-enactors travel to Belgium to recreate the Battle of Waterloo.

This annual re-staging of the 1815 battle that saw Napoleon Bonaparte’s French army defeated by a confederation of other European nations led by Great Britain and Prussia and commanded by the Duke of Wellington, attracts well over one thousand re-enactors dressed in brightly coloured and authentic-looking uniforms of the period.

Many of the combatants, however, are not necessarily what they seem. There are Poles taking the role of Frenchmen, Dutch playing Scots, Germans dressed as English...