One of the things about connecting to the landscape of the Great War

is understanding how what we see today connects to the story of the war itself.

So in this week's episode we're going to take a walk to the front line.

We're going to start on the outskirts of Ipe and walk up past cemeteries, the sites of trenches, up to where the very

front line was located, just on the outskirts of the village of Zillabig. So let's get our pack,

strap on our boots, and head back to the old front line. The city of Eap had been fortified by the military architect Valba in the 17th century.

Rich on taxes from the European cloth trade, Eap had once been the centre of that trade.

It used its money to defend the citizens of Epe and a whole system of walls of ramparts were built by Valba around the city.

By the time of the Great War, most of these had been dismantled,

and a section remained from the Menningate to the Lilgate where we're standing now.

The Meningate and the Lilgate were named after the roads that ran through them. They

weren't gates. There were gaps in the ramparts that allowed people and traffic pulled by horses

or mules to continue along the roads which the gates took them to, in this case Mennon or Lill.

While the Mening gates is the more famous one because of the huge memorials of the missing that

exists in the last post that is sounded there every night, for most of the war, the main

exit for troops out of Epe was not the Meningate because that could be seen by the Germans

on the high ground surrounding the city of Eap. It was in fact where we are now, at the Lillgate. So this was a route

of common routes for soldiers to make their way to the front line. If they'd come up from the

railhead near Popperinger, marched down through villages like Vlamatinger, and into Epe, perhaps

been billeted in the cellars or around the cloth hall or St. Martin's Cathedral, they would have received

orders to move up to the front line, perhaps on the outskirts of the village of Zillabeeke,

and it's that route that we're going to take now, from here at Epe, up through what was once

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