The Ethics of Battlefield Tourism (Or, How Many Time Can I Say "Battlefield" in One Post)

High Wood by Philip Johnstone

Ladies and gentlemen, this is High Wood,

Called by the French, Bois des Fourneaux,

The famous spot which in Nineteen-Sixteen,

July, August and September was the scene

Of long and bitterly contested strife,

By reason of its High commanding site.

Observe the effect of shell-fire in the trees

Standing and fallen; here is wire; this trench

For months inhabited, twelve times changed hands;

(They soon fall in), used later as a grave.

It has been said on good authority

That in the fighting for this patch of wood

Were killed somewhere above eight thousand men,

Of whom the greater part were buried here,

This mound on which you stand being…

Madame, please,

You are requested kindly not to touch

Or take away the Company's property

As souvenirs; you'll find we have on sale

A large variety, all guaranteed.

As I was saying, all is as it was,

This is an unknown British officer,

The tunic having lately rotted off.

Please follow me - this way …

the path, sir, please

The ground which was secured at great expense

The Company keeps absolutely untouched,

And in that dug-out (genuine) we provide

Refreshments at a reasonable rate.

You are requested not to leave about

Paper, or ginger-beer bottles, or orange-peel,

There are waste-paper-baskets at the gate.

High Wood (called Bois des Fourcaux by the French, a name misprinted on British maps) was the site of fighting from July to September of 1916 as part of the Battle of the Somme in France.  High Wood was captured by the British after months of fighting; it was one of the last major woods in the Somme offensive to fall.  Like other WWI battlefields, High Wood was turned into a cemetery and memorial place (pictures below).*  There is a lot more information about this battle, including a day by day account of events, that can be found here.

High Wood can be seen in the background behind the cemetery.*

A restored memorial stone at High Wood.*

What made this battle particularly terrible (I mention this to reinforce the irony of the poem) is that the Germans were fortified in the woods with machine guns while the British approached from grain fields.**  It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the people in open fields are at a militaristic disadvantage compared to the ones hiding in the woods.  In short, the battle for High Wood proved to be no less terrible than the rest of the horrific events of the First World War.

 The Calvary preparing to charge the forest at High Wood.*

Johnstone, whose real name was John Stanely Purvis, wrote this poem in 1918, a few years after the Battle of the Somme but before battlefields were inundated with tourists.  Much like Hardy’s “Channel Firing,” “High Wood” predicts a remarkably accurate future.  Based on Johnstone's description of a soldier whose tunic has just rotted off, I believe he is speaking of the near future. Really, he is describing a permanent future where battlefields are tourist attractions. 

This poem describes people touring the High Wood battlefields, narrated by a tour guide who rattles off statistics about death and war without hesitation.  Notably, the High Wood battlefield has never been cleared of bodies and debris like some others, but this tour guide apparently doesn’t care.  He doesn’t seem bothered that “this mound on which you stand” is where 8,000 dead men are buried, shifting immediately from describing the battlefield to asking a woman not to take things from it… after all, his company wants to make a profit on souvenirs.  What’s the point of war if not to gain some profit, and if you didn't make enough during the war, no worries, plenty is left behind.

I also think his use of “Company” as a proper noun is interesting.  A company is a term for a group of soldiers, so he could be saying that the things on the battlefield are the property the soldiers who fought there.  This actually has an almost kind tone where the guide requests that they not take things from the dead.  Personally, I read this poem as a satire, mocking the desire of the living to see where men died and providing an indirect commentary about how wrong that is, so that interpretation doesn’t work for me.  I think the “Company” refers either to an actual company that has taken advantage of war for profit, the way weapons manufacturers do, or the government that continues to use these men for their own purposes, even in death.

Whatever you interpret the “Company” to be, the overarching theme of the poem is clear.  This author imagines battlefields becoming nothing more than tourist attractions, complete with souvenirs and snacks.  As I mentioned earlier, he was ultimately correct.  To this day, many battlefields (from a lot of different wars) have become major draws for tourists.  However, as a general rule, I think these places are regarded with much more respect than Johnstone would lead readers to believe.  Nonetheless, I think he expresses a very real fear, especially from the perspective of a war veteran. No one wants to see the place where his friends died, where he was wounded himself, become a trivialized location. Dare I take a Fussell stance and say Johnstone saw the battlefield of High Wood becoming a theater?

Philip Johnston is a pseudonym for John Stanley Purvis, a First World War veteran who was wounded at the battle of High Wood.  He survived the war, though his younger brother did not.  Johnston’s true identity was not learned until his death in 1968.^  “High Wood” is an interesting perspective on the preservation of war battlefields and begs the question, what is the place of tourists on fields of war, and how can battlefield tourism be done respectfully? I think battlefield tourism can be respectful. I think it can be educational. I think that relatives of those who died there have a right to visit, the same way they can visit a cemetery. I also think Johnstone probably feels the same way, and has a more nuanced view of battlefield tourism than this poem would let on.

Tourists visiting the High Wood battlefield in 1919, after the war.  Some were
relatives of men who died there and went on pilgrimages to see where
their loved ones had died.^^

*https://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/somme/high-wood/ 

**https://allpoetry.com/High-Wood

^https://yorkcivictrust.co.uk/heritage/civic-trust-plaques/john-stanley-purvis-1890-1968/

^^https://greatwar.nl/frames/default-tourism.html