Traveling to Lose the Misery

Located in Diksmuide in Belgium, Yser Tower, erected in memory of Flemish soldiers killed during the First World War is the greatest monument of peace in Europe. It houses a museum and a chapel.
On August 4, 1914, Belgium was invaded and despite the resistance that opposes the Belgian army to the German armies, the thrust is stronger after the battle of the Marne. On 10 October, the fall of Antwerp threatens the Allied front: the command decided to create a front running along the Yser from Diksmuide to the sea and to keep it. This plains region is the scene of recent clashes movement “race to the sea.” From 18 to 26 October 1914, the two armies clash and escalating its attacks. At the end of the month to avoid the breakthrough of the front, the Allies and the King Albert I of Belgium are part of the flood plain to permanently halt the German advance. The decisive battle of October 1914 will gradually become a landmark of Flemish memory after the war. Early in the conflict, King Albert issued a proclamation “To the army of the nation,” urging people to come Walloon and Flemish fight united under the flag of Belgium: “Remember, Flemings, the Battle of the Golden Spurs. ” This call is interpreted by many soldiers as an affirmation of identity tacit recognition of Flemish and Dutch. But during the four years of war, a gap will widen between communities. Most officers, French, speak French as soldiers, Flemish, do not know the language.
Many will pay with their lives for lack of orders. At the end of this conflict, 70% of victims are Flemish. A movement of the front was created among the soldiers who wrote an open letter to the sovereign – the will of the Yser – considered a founding document of the policy brief that will be applied in the following decades.
From 1920 to honor the memory of Flemish soldiers died during the war, pilgrimages are organized each year and a monument was erected: the Yser tower surmounted by a cross, was inaugurated August 24, 1930. It will be destroyed in an attack in 1946. Five years later, a door to peace, on which is inscribed the word “Pax” is built from the ruins of the tower. In 1965, a new tower, 84m, is inaugurated. At the top of the tower initials AW-WK means “All for Flanders, Flanders for Christ”. He is also enrolled in the four main European languages (Dutch, French, English, German), the inscription “Never again war”. Peace monument, the tower of the Yser is primarily a place of commemoration of Flemish soldiers died during the First World War, then became a landmark of Flemish nationalist movement.
In 1997, the ensemble has been restored and the crypt in which nine soldiers based Flemish and Walloon a soldier. On the site of an area of 4 ha, a “Gateway of Hope” – a reconstruction of a bridge used by infantrymen to go from the front line outpost – can be borrowed by the visitor. Inside the tower, or Ijzertoren Museum Tower offers the Yser, over 22 floors, temporary exhibitions as diverse as “the underground life at the front,” “mud”, “Art on forehead, “” animals during the war “… The permanent exhibition, meanwhile, traces the history of two world wars and the inter-war period. Two floors are devoted to the history of Flanders. On the ground floor houses a chapel with stained glass and Yan Wouters Eugeen yoor an auditorium and broadcast a continuous film “Violence never brings peace.” Guided tours and educational activities are organized regularly. In the late 1990s, the share of the museum is recognized internationally and he joined the International Network of Museums for Peace Nations. From 2004, the museum extends its action to ethnic and cultural component of Flanders today, responding to the wishes of the soldiers of 1914: respect for individual differences.