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我第一次去伊普尔是在1987年春天一个寒冷潮湿的日子。我记得格罗特市场和布厅，它的柱廊沿着东面的脸。我的记忆也带来了一种空虚感。在我的印象中，格罗特市场空无一人。在我的记忆中，没有停着汽车，也没有公共汽车在周围行驶，只有一片在细雨中闪闪发光的巨大空间。我是七月中旬回来的，在我的记忆中，又是一个安静、令人昏昏欲睡的小地方。我记得我走到梅宁门，在大门东门廊对面的街角上，有几家非常普通、不起眼的小商店。我想其中一个是杂货店或者肉店。当然，我访问的时间非常有趣，因为它是在第三次伊普尔战役爆发七十周年前夕。然而，几乎没有迹象表明有什么特别的计划。 I can’t remember any notices giving details of special events or parades. All seemed immensely low-key. This is not to say that the people of Ypres were indifferent to the war and the impending anniversary, far from it. Anyone who has ever visited the city will know that at 8pm every evening buglers sound the Last Post under the great barrel vault of the Menin Gate, or the Hall of Memory as its designer, Sir Reginald Blomfield, so poignantly labelled it. It is a simple, but deeply moving act of respectful commemoration. No, the point I am making is that although the swelling tide of the Great War renaissance was well under way, it had not yet brought vast numbers of British people, especially school groups, on visits.

过了几年我才再次造访伊普尔——实际上可能是五六年吧。我回来后感到震惊。现在，梅宁兰街上到处都是时髦的精品店和商店。格罗特市场要繁忙得多，而且有一个停车系统。去参加“最后一站”的仪式不再是相对晚到，找个好位置，而是需要至少提前十五分钟到达。从那以后，我越来越频繁地访问伊普，所以我成为了英国和英联邦国家，尤其是澳大利亚人、加拿大人和新西兰人涌入这座城市参观大门的现象的一部分，他们在“最后一站”仪式上激动地站着，参观布衣厅的博物馆……买巧克力锡盔，喝当地美味的啤酒，吃同样美味的贻贝和薯条。现在，游客的数量意味着“最后的邮递”仪式的时间安排要更加谨慎。要想有机会看到好风景，至少要提前45分钟到达。现在，无论是学校、英国退伍军人协会还是军团协会，几乎每天都有团体敬献花圈，夏季的几个月里可以排得满满的。至于在停战日参观，特别是在周末参观，游客很可能根本看不到梅宁门，因为他们不得不在格罗特市场附近找一个地方。

然而，我们在那里是为了什么?是什么把我们带到了这座迷人、友好的西弗兰德斯城市?试图确定每个访问者的动机显然是不可能的。然而，可以提出一些粗略的建议。数字通信的巨大优势和成果之一是信息和记录的可用性。反过来，这使得家谱更容易，考虑到军队非常官僚的程序，我们都更有可能找到一个曾经服过兵役的家庭成员。然后，考虑到伊普尔在第一次世界大战的英国军事经历中无处不在，许多人发现他们的亲戚在突出阵地服役并可能死亡也就不足为奇了。接下来是一战本身的神秘魅力。是什么让它如此牢牢地控制着我们的想象力?也许这与嫉妒有关? In our world of cynicism, information coming at us from all angles bearing many different, often contradictory, messages at once, the men who went off to war in 1914 are bathed in a glorious light of certainty. No matter what became of them later, our hearts tell us that they signed up because they believed totally and utterly in the cause. Unconditional belief in a cause: how wonderful that seems. We also have the bitter-sweet sensations of power through knowledge of their fate which we often translate into a journey starting in innocence but often ending in brutal experience. We can pity them, and that gives power, but also makes us feel strangely powerless. If only we had a time machine, we could go back and warn them, tell them what we know and how they might avoid their fate. But we don’t, and so desperately feel the need to do something. We can go to where they served, suffered and perhaps died. We can stand there and conjure up some kind of communion with them. This is clearly an emotional journey with very little hard-headed, rational thinking about it, but emotions are powerful motivators and the visit to Ypres is often seen as the way of assuaging, or even exorcising, them.

虽然我是一名职业历史学家，享有研究和教授历史的特权，但当我去伊普尔时，我肯定能感受到它的情感吸引力，它经常会直接穿过我的其他思考和感受。出于同样的原因，我对这座城市本身的痴迷，与其说是它的战时状态，不如说是它从战争结束到1939年所发生的事情。我被当地人如何回到这个破碎的城市，并开始重建他们的房屋，企业，职业和生活所吸引。他们住在预制的小木屋里，这让我很着迷。令我着迷的是，旅游业几乎立即兴起，人们开始参观废墟和战场。当我去伊普尔时，我不顾一切地寻找他们的踪迹;想想他们去过的地方，见过的人，买过的纪念品，带回家的回忆。我想更多地了解那些决定在伊普尔安家的英国人。到20世纪20年代中期，他们的人数已经足够多，需要建造一所学校，并让游客注意到一个永久的英国社区的存在。正是出于这个原因，我很高兴能写一本书来探讨这些想法和问题。 Ypres gets under the skin alright, but how much of that is because of what we impose on it by what is in our head and how much is because of real ghost inherent in the very fabric of the place, I really don’t know.

阅读更多关于Menin门以及英联邦战争坟墓委员会网站上的其他战争纪念碑:www.cwgc.org