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Finally at the Battlefields

For over two years I have been thinking, talking, writing and dreamt about this. To finally start the next phase of my project, to go down to the actual battlefield and visit the sites and areas where the soldiers in my reasearch are assumed to have been fallen, and where they are commemorated or buried.

Finally the day came, and I decided to start the documentation in the area of Messines Ridge, to visit the places of five Swedish soldiers who fought at the Western Front, and sadly fell there.

Please follow me in my foosteps, it was not the best weather today, but we cant have the power over that, nor could the soldiers. Below an area-picture, that maybe makes it a bit easier to follow the pictures below in a more larger context.

Note: The trench maps below may not be from the correct time or period, but shows the terrain at that time.

5015 Pvt Nils Otto Lundius – 45th Infantry battalion AIF – June 7 1917.

Nils Otto Lundius takes part in an attack that starts on June 7, 1917, from the Stinking Farm location, and then through the defense systems to the east. Nils is killed during the first day’s battles, and is buried in Messines Ridge Cemetery just east of this place.

Up to the right you see the Stinking farm as it is today, in the middle and the left you kan see the Ridge from where the German Bunkers may have seen the units advancing. You can see in one of the pictures from the Ridge side, the high Cypress trees or similar, as also seen in mid-high photo.

23149 Corporal Hilding Hedlund – 15th Canadian Infantry battalion – December 23 1915.

Hilding was spending his time in December 1915 at the area around Plogsteert Woods, when his unit 15th Canadian infantry battalion was moving between Kortepyp Huts, the Reserve position near Red Lodge area and the trenches, beleived to be around this position. Hilding was killed in action at 23rd of December 1915.

The top left photos are facing North East, from a position that Hilding could have been when he was killed. The other pictures describes some locations from the old trench maps.

1216 Pvt Neil Nilsson – 33rd Infantry battalion AIF – June 8th 1917.

Neil Nilsson belonged to D Company who were connecting the different lines with communication lines, and it was probably in this area he was killed June 8th 1917, later buried at Plogsteert Wood, but is now mentioned at Menin Gate Memorial. 

The left photo is facing West South West and the photo next to it facing toward the Crater to the South, but it is on private ground. Neil are according to the diaries between the two farms, Factory Farm and Flattened farm.

3402 Pvt Johan Hallberg – 57th Infantry battalion AIF – March 4 1918

Johan Hallberg’s battalion, the 57th battalion, conducts a number of raids to the east, in which Johan is estimated to be killed in March 4th 1918.

The photos above top left are facing North East, and the area is marked in red at the trench map.

2421 Pvt Peter Conrad Hedberg – 58th Infantry battalion AIF – March 13 1918.

Hedberg is killed while serving in the defense systems East of Messines near Cinema Road trenches, when he is hit by a large splinter that cuts one leg and tears another. Conrad does not have time to be taken care of before he dies, and was buried near a casualty clearing station back in the defense system. Conrad died March 13 1918.

The top left photos is facing East North East, North and south of the road who goes in the east direction.

It has been very nice to actually be in the terrain and try to “feel it in”, but of course we will never know the exact situation. Maybe get a feeling from it when listening to recordings from those veterans who survived.

The next day I will spend in the area West of Passchendaele, and that time I will try to follow up 12 Swedish soldiers.

Here are some more photos from today.

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Swedish emigration connected to Swedish born WW1 soldiers.

I am still in my fact finding phase regarding Swedish born individuals who fought in the Great War at the Western Front, and also killed and buried there.

Up to this date I am now working with 343 individuals who fall within the criterias mentioned above.

I decided to make some graphic out of the data I have in the database, and have made some diagrams that shows from what county the soldiers were, to, in the longer term, connect this data to data about Swedish emigration, to North America and Canada in particular.

First a graphic diagram that shows which army the Swedish born soldiers fought for. (Updated July 8th, 2021.)

The next diagram shows from which county in Sweden the Swedish born soldiers came from, those who were fighting for Commonwealth, French and German Armies.

Note that the figure 132 are those soldiers that I have confirmed to be born in Sweden, with a picture from the Church book at riksarkivet.se. The others are much likely born i Sweden as well, but I want to be consistent in my research.

Note also that the county of Halland in south west is empty, compared to the graph below. For some strange reason Gotland, the large island to the far East, is empty in all of the graphs, even if I know soldiers from Gotland participated in the War. But I have not anyone from Gotland who fell at the Western Front in my database. Yet.

The data you see in this graphic diagram suits well with facts that says that most of the immigration to Canada from Sweden went on in the 1880s. Mostly from the parts Stockholm and “Norrland”, North land. This to be compared to the data below, who shows the soldiers who fought for the American Expeditionary Forces. Of course this is just one conclusion. There were Swedes who went to US in this time as well, who decided to take a part in the Great War, for the Commonwealth, the Canadian armies, as US not participated yet. I have found a few things in my research that points on that.

The Immigration to US went on from around 1850 to 1910. Almost a million emigrants went to North America in this period. This from an amount of Swedish citizen in Sweden at that time, around 3 500 000 citizens in total.

I have no graph that tells us WHEN the soldiers emigrated, but briefly I can read from the data in my research that many Swedes who fought for the US army in the Great War, went to US around 1907-1914, and from the regions in the south like Västra Götaland, Småland, Kronoberg and Skåne.

As in those days, and still today, most of our population living in the southern part of Sweden, but it is interesting anyway to see that it is in some way connected to the emigration, and I am of course not surprised that it is.

Below you will fin a graphic diagram that shows the total of those 306 confirmed soldiers that I have in my research, of 343 in total.

I havent made any deeper conclusion yet, but the diagrams above shows anyway some interesting facts.

The most common reasons for Swedes to emigrate in these times are connected to climate changes, that caused hard times for the farmers and the Swedish food production, and the in general poor situation in Sweden at that time. Also the offer from US, of free land to the emigrants, meant a lot to this emigration.

I will in also try to draw more facts from my database to be able to do more comparisons in the future, but the main focus will always be the story of the individuals itself, the history of those, connected to the terrain in Sweden, and on the battlefield.