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THE CANADIAN WW1 MEMORIAL ST JULIAN OUTSIDE YPRES BELGIUM


sommewalker

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St. Julien Canadian Memorial at Vancouver Corner
The memorial, also known as “The Brooding Soldier”, commemorates the Canadian 1st Division in action on 22nd to 24th April 1915. The Canadian division held its position on the left flank of the British Army after the German Army launched the first ever large-scale gas attack against two French divisions on the left of the Canadians. From the start of the battle at 17.00 hours on 22nd April and for the next few days the Canadians were involved in heavy fighting, losing some 2,000 casualties - killed, wounded or missing - from the division.Frederick Chapman Clemesha, an architect from Regina, had submitted his design for the competition. Clemesha himself had served in the Canadian Corps during the Great War and had been wounded.

Clemesha's design comprised a single tower of stone with the head and shoulders of a soldier at the top of the tower. The soldier had his head bowed and was in the pose of a serviceman standing with “reversed arms”, that is, he was resting his hands on the rifle butt and the rifle was pointing with its barrel to the ground. Chapman's design was the runner-up in the competition, and his design was chosen to be sited at the battlefield site of St. Julien in memory of the Canadians who fought during the Second Battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915.

The memorial is 11 metres high and constructed from a single shaft of granite. The stone was quarried in the Vosges mountains, the scene of bitter fighting in the mountains between the French and the Germans during the early months of the 1914-1918 war. The granite stone block for the shaft was transported directly to St. Julien in Belgium. The stone block for the head and shoulders bust of the soldier was taken to Brussels where it was carved
The memorial at St. Julien was unveiled by HRH the Duke of Connaught on 8th July 1923. The former Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, was present and paid tribute to the Canadian forces, thanking them for their sacrifice and extending the gratitude of the French nation for their part in the war of 1914-1918
about that time in the early 20s ,
there started to appear brass representations of the memorial,
funnily enough from what I can find out,
made in England from scrap shells,
and shipped over to Belgium and then sold,
as the battlefield tours started about then,
they were made as tourist souvenirs , as a keepsake,
and over the years have been copied and re copied,
the first photo shows 3 originals,
the second photo shows a modern copy ,made from from pewter
using a mould made from an original piece,
the next shows an original found today, note the leaves etc. on the design
how crisp they are as in the original ones in the first photo,
they were cheap souvenirs back then, but in todays markets as the originals are classed as antiques, they can command a descent price,
and very rarely surface on the market,
so keep your eyes peeled they are out there,
the last 2 photos show the actual memorial,
at st Julian's just outside ypres Belgium,
quite an impressive memorial,
even passing it in a coach its stands out ,its a fitting memorial to the brave Canadians that died and were lost back then

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