Legacy of war

IF YOU want to see the literally monumental legacy of modern war go no further than northern France.

Here you can find the often sinister, but far from ghostly, reminders of 20th century conflicts.

And they are truly monuments, in both scale and emotional impact, from the massive rock-hewn and concrete bases built to launch V2 rockets in masses against London, to the memorials for the fallen of a previous war, next to the still shattered battlefields where they died.

To reach them I used a symbol of a new, peaceful and united western Europe - Eurotunnel. This was the first time I had travelled this way, and the journey, taking only 35 minutes and with no risk of sea sickness, was a revelation.

I travelled to Folkestone by rail, catching GNER's earliest train south, before joining my party. Our guide drove us on to the train in a people carrier, which carried us into Calais and then to Dunkirk, Arras, and a place called St Omer.

The latter was the home of two remarkable wartime legacies, precursors of Cold War terror and the "Space Race".

They were both bases for V2s, one of Hitler's secret "war-winning" weapons. The rockets, intended to blast Britain into submission, were the ancestors of the intercontinental missiles which filled the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and the USSR, and the rockets which the superpowers fired into space.

La Coupole, now a state-funded museum, was originally a vast underground complex, bored out of the chalk by thousands of slave workers, including Soviet prisoners who disappeared after they were moved from the site.

It was never completed because the D-Day landings forced the Germans to fire their missiles from sites in Holland and Germany rather than France. But its scale is still remarkable.

You need to take a lift to get from one level to another, and there is room not only for cinemas and interactive displays, but also for a couple of V2s, plus their pioneering rocket engines.

The result is impressive - and terrifying, because of the human suffering that went into its creation, and because this site was built with the intention of raining terror down on the British people from what was - for ballistic missiles - point-blank range.

The scale of the V2 project again becomes clear not far away, at Le Blockhaus d'Eperlecques. This was built in a forest from reinforced concrete and, although not all the original buildings remain, the surviving shell is enormous.

It too was built with forced labour - a simple memorial nearby recalls the Belgian teenagers who slaved there. But, despite its hidden location, the Allies sent planes armed with "earthquake" bombs to destroy it.

Although they could not destroy the concrete emplacements with direct hits, the vibration created by one near- miss damaged sensitive equipment, and the Germans moved out.

On a smaller scale, and the work of enthusiasts rather than local authorities, is the Museum Of The Second World War at Ambleteuse near Calais. It contains a massive array of war relics, collected from all round the world down the years, including authentic uniforms modelled by specially-made dummies in authentic uniforms.

One of the surprise discoveries of this journey was that only relatively recently has a museum dedicated to the evacuation of Dunkirk been opened in the port - again the work of private enthusiasts. It uses locally collected artefacts, and pictures of the dramatic events of 1940, to tell its story.

In Calais the wartime museum is based in a bunker, a former German telecommunications centre which was cleared with flamethrowers when the Canadians liberated the port, which was the scene of a desperate siege in 1940, followed by four long years of occupation.

A little further south you can find a monument of a different kind, a conscious memorial to young men from a young country, with a poignancy all its own.

Here, around Vimy Ridge, the sheer horror of modern conflict is even more apparent than at the Second World War sites. The grass and tree-covered landscape is still indelibly marked by massive craters, the result of the total war of the 1914-18 Western Front.

The frontline trenches are preserved, and you can see just how close the fighters were - literally a grenade's throw apart. Not visible on the surface are the miles of tunnels, dug deep enough to offer protection from the incessant shellfire, where visitors can retrace the steps of soldiers moving up to the front, ready to go "over the top".

Many were Canadians and their country still provides guides to explain the importance of this testing ground for its young warriors.

The object was to seize the ridge itself, where you can now find the remarkable memorial to Canadians who fell in the attempt.

In nearby Arras you will find a less immediately apparent reminder of people's ability to endure war.

It seems a splendid example of a traditional town centre, with buildings dating from the mediaeval to the early modern periods - except the town was practically wiped out during the First World War, and had to be painstakingly reconstructed afterwards.

It was mainly garrisoned by British troops, who dug more tunnels here to add to the mediaeval ones which already existed there.

If one theme runs through this tour of war sites, it is that the people who look after them have a overriding desire to ensure that young Europeans should understand what previous generations lived through.

Watching some of the groups of teenagers wandering around the Vimy trenches, I was not entirely convinced that the message was getting through, but one can only hope that these events are something we shall never forget.

Finally, this was a journey through France, and I must report that we ate splendidly throughout. The highlight was a remarkable dinner at the Hotel Chateau Tilques.

I lost count of the number of courses but I managed to finish them all.

Eurotunnel has a useful leaflet called Discover Wartime Memories, which gives details of the sites mentioned in this article and many others. For information or to order guides contact Eurotunnel on 08705 353535, or go to www.eurotunnel.com

The Comite Regional de Tourisme Nord-Pas de Calais also has a holiday guide covering northern France, it can be contacted at 6 Place Mendes France, BP99, 59028 Lille; tel 00 33 (0)320 145757; website www.northernfrance-tourism.com; email contact@crt-nordpasdecalais.fr

La Coupole: BP 284 62504 Saint-Omer; tel 00 33 (0)321 930707; www.lacoupole.com; email lacoupole@lacoupole.com

Le Blockhaus d'Eperleques: 62910 Eperleques; tel 00 33 (0)321 884422; www.leblockhaus.com

Historical Museum Of The Second World War, 940 Route Nationale, 62194 Ambleteuse; tel 00 33 (0)321 873501.

Memorial du Souvenir, Bataille de Dunkerque, Courtines de Bastion, 32 Rue des Chantiers de France, 59140 Dunkerque; tel 00 33 (0)328 280925.

Calais War Museum, Parc St Pierre, 62100 Calais; tel 00 33 (0)321 342157.

Memorial de Vimy, 62580 Vimy; tel 00 33 (0)321 506868.

Arras Tourist Office, Place des Heros, 62000 Arras; tel 00 33 (0)321 713401.

Updated: 09:30 Saturday, November 08, 2003