The view from Sanctuary Wood in August 2003

In World War 1 this landscape was soon turned into a sea of mud, with the trees reduced to shattered stumps. The strange thing to me was that my mind went back to an earlier conflict on Belgium soil - the Battle of Waterloo. The neat ranks of the ripening maize reminded me of the columns of French infantry toiling up another hill, around La Haye Sainte farm, against the fire of the British artillery.