Beneath Hill 60: Inside the circles of hell

There is a scene in the excellent Australian film “Beneath Hill 60” where two German soldiers are talking about the consequences after they have realised the enemy is about to blow their position sky high.
“Why don’t we just move back,” said one, reasonably. “After all Europe is a big place, one hill is not going to make any difference.”
The other is mortally offended.
“Our High Command would never consider it. The place is filled with German blood. You simply don’t understand war,” he concluded imperiously.

Understanding war is indeed a difficult task, particularly something as nasty, brutish and long as the First World War. The anonymous and unimpressive Hill 60 (deserving only of a number) was a particularly senseless battlefield in an extremely senseless war. The hill changed hands several times both before and after the events depicted in the film. The objective became meaningless over time and took millions of lives in the process. In some ways WW1 was the ultimate salute to the absurdity of modernism.

Tho events beneath Hill 60 are a little known adjunct to the 1917 Battle of Messines near Ypres in Flanders, Belgium. Based on the diaries of Captain Oliver Woodward, David Roach’s screenplay tells the stories of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company a group of miners and engineers cobbled together for the task of digging passages under enemy lines. Woodward was a Queensland miner brought in specially for the task. The plan at Messines was to lay 21 mines with almost 500 tonnes of ammonal explosives underneath German lines deep in the blue clay 25 metres below the soggy upper-level soil.

The plan was the brainchild of Viscount and Field Marshal Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer. Despite the toffish name and the Blimp-like reputation of many fellow World War I generals, Plumer was one of the finest army commanders on the Western Front. It helped he had an infantry background not cavalry and was not addicted to the grand but futile charges so beloved of many of his peers.

The idea for tunnels (attachment is a rich text file) came from the Germans. When the trench warfare was deadlocked in 1915 German Engineers realised the possibilities of literally undermining British morale by building a system of tunnels under their lines and detonating large charges of explosives. The British retaliated and began a rapid recruitment program of English and Welsh miners. The Government and mine owners objected and the net was cast further wide to Canada and Australia.

For almost 12 months ahead of the Messines battle, Plumer organised the digging of the mines which would be detonated prior to a ground assault. The evening before the attack, he told his staff, "Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography.”

19 of the 21 mines laid exploded and according to the British newspapers, Londoners were startled out of their sleep at 3.10am by the sound of the huge explosion. German positions were shattered and their menacing high ground defence disappeared in an instance. The British advanced a few miles but the poor condition of the shell-torn terrain prevented them from following up the advantage.

In the end Hill 60 was just another death-ridden postscript to a vengeful war of attrition that destroyed a generation of young men across the "big place" of Europe and its imperial outposts. As ominously foreshadowed by the equally vicious American Civil War 50 years earlier, here were industrialised nations fighting with technologically advanced, mass-produced weapons which enabled killing and wounding on an unprecedented scale. 20 million people died and 20 million more were injured. The callous lack of regard for life it showed up led to the real war to end all wars 20 years later.

Jeremy Sims’ film Beneath Hill 60 gives us a window into that world. It is a below-basement level window and the claustrophobia of the Australian tunnellers it depicts is deftly handled. Though set in the months leading to June 1917, the weather is invariably cruel, wet and miserable. It is truly T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Sims takes us under the dull roots of the waste land to confront a human-engineered hell. The story contrasts springtime fertility with the black and muddy stench of death. The Australian flashback scenes invert the seasons as well as tone of the film. But as the only Australian scene in the film that is not a flashback shows, there is little chance for redemption for those who have visited the circles of hell under Hill 60; the best anyone can hope for is a painful and memory-scarred survival.

No wonder so many survivors don’t like talking of their war experiences. War is the very antithesis of life. That's why so few people understand it.

Belgian PM pledges support for Philippe Bogaert’s release from Qatar

Belgian Premier Herman Van Rompuy has pledged to do everything possible to get countryman Philippe Bogaert released from Qatar where he is currently appealing a three year prison sentence. Van Rompuy (report in Flemish) claimed that Belgium was doing everything it could for Bogaert “taking into account the limitations that the legal frameworks of both countries impose.” The prison sentence was handed out after several cheques failed to clear which he guaranteed while managing director of a Qatari subsidiary of a Belgian company. Bogaert is not actually in jail at the moment but has been stuck in a Kafkaesque scenario for almost a year unable to leave the country.

Philippe Bogaert is stranded in Doha because his employer’s sponsor refuses to grant him an exit permit to leave the country. Like most Gulf states, Qatar requires foreigners who wish to work in the country to have a local sponsor. However, unlike other Gulf countries, Qatar gives sponsors the right to say whether their employee is allowed to leave the country. Bogaert claims he has been “held hostage” by his sponsor since the company he worked for fell into financial difficulty last year. The sponsor is holding him personally liable for QAR16m ($AUD 5.2m) that the company is alleged to owe debtors, including former staff’s unpaid salaries and rent.

Bogaert has been fighting back using the power of social networks. There is a Facebook group called “Philippe Liberation Front” with almost 6,000 members and he been updating a Twitter page @HostageinQatar since 23 May. One of his earliest tweets read “Don't sign any guaranty checks in Qatar. As a signatory, you are personally responsible and they could eventually get you in jail.” On a regular basis he tweets “I am a hostage in Qatar and this is my Twitter SOS” while telling his back-story to the world 140 characters at a time.

The 38 year old married father of two is a TV producer who says he was offered a “dream job” in April 2008. A communication consultancy company called Dialogic SA, which he had worked for in Belgium, was looking for a broadcast manager in Qatar. He would be working with the Qatar Marine Festival which was run by Sheikha Mozah, the Qatari Emir’s wife. Like all foreign workers in Qatar, Bogaert needed a sponsor and his was Farukh Azad a 28-year-old assistant to the executive director of the Qatar Foundation. Farukh was to play an important role in Bogaert's later difficulties.

What Bogaert did not know was that Dialogic was already in trouble in Qatar. A Few months before he arrived, a powerful Qatari official had asked Dialogic’s management in Belgium for a bribe. Brussels refused and the marine festival organising committee retaliated by refusing to pay its invoices. Shortly after Bogaert's arrival, the committee served Dialogic Qatar with a default notice saying they were not delivering to their standards. The firm’s Belgian managing director was fired and Bogaert was given the job to mend fences.

But after just ten days in the job, the Qatari committee cancelled Dialogic’s contract and Bogaert's new job was to wind up its affairs. The problem was that he needed company sponsor Farukh’s agreement to liquidate but he boycotted meetings arranged to strike a deal. In October, the frustrated Bogaert handed in his resignation which was accepted by the company’s Belgian CEO. But Farukh refused the the resignation and wouldn’t sign the exit permit. Bogaert was placed on a no-travel list and was now effectively a hostage.

He contacted Qatari security police, who called Farukh to settle the matter. Farukh told police that Bogaert had created a lot of problems for the company and accused him of criminal intentions which he said he could prove. Because he was the sponsor, he could have been held responsible for Dialogic’s debts under Qatari law. So instead he launched a court case of his own to make Bogaert personally responsible for the debt.

Dialogic Belgium refused to intervene saying the debts and Bogaert's imprisonment was the sponsor’s decision and responsibility. Stranded and out of cash, he went to the Belgium Embassy in early December. The ambassador apologised and said he could not help him leave but offered to put him up at his own residence. To earn money, Bogaert turned to an old skill and began singing and playing the piano in bars and restaurants around Doha. Despite the support of Amnesty International, Qatar’s Human Rights Committee, and Foreign Affairs bureaus in Belgium and Qatar, no one would intervene in the court case.

On 31 May, he finally had his day in court for a liquidation hearing. Bogaert found it difficult to follow the Arabic proceedings but found out the judge had ruled that Dialogic Belgium were not represented and delayed the hearing to 1 November. By now foreign media were beginning to get interested in his story and he was interviewed by Le Soir, The Independent, the Huffington Post, the Gulf Times and Belgian radio.

On Friday 19 June, he was back in court facing criminal charges on a bouncing cheques case. On Monday 22 June Bogaert was found guilty and sentenced to three years imprisonment. On Twitter, he said: “I can pay 500 Riyals to freeze the judgment and appeal. Then I will have to be represented by a Qatari lawyer during the next hearings.” Bogaert told Journalism.co.uk “If I raise the money, I can appeal so won’t go to jail (yet). But unfortunately, I’ll still be far from free.” Thanks to his publicity, he raised the funds and on 29 June his lawyer told him he had successfully appealed with a new hearing date of 12 October.

Bogaert's use of social media has met with mixed support. While it has undoubtedly given his case a wider audience, Bogaert admits the Belgian ambassador is not very happy with the strategy. “I put [up] an open letter to apologise to officials,” he said. Interestingly Bogaert has not been supported by any media freedom organisations: "I am a TV broadcast manager, not a journalist,” he said. “Although I might become a journalist [in order to receive more support]”.

Belgium on the verge of a nervous breakdown

Belgium is on the verge of a partition crisis as its French and Dutch components cannot agree on a government 100 days after the last election. The parties of the northern Dutch speaking Flanders cannot agree on coalition government with French-speaking Wallonia in the south. Not even the constitutional glue of the monarchy in the shape of King Albert II has been able to resolve the crisis. Albert has negotiated between the parties and ultimately asked would-be Flemish Prime Minister Yves Leterme to form a cabinet but all to no avail so far.

According to former nine times Belgian Prime Minister Wilfried Martens, the euro currency is partly to blame for the current impasse. Martens was prime minister for much of the 1980s when the Belgian franc was the country’s currency. He said the conflicts between Walloons and Flemish were just as bitter in his day but the fact they had their own currency lent urgency to seeking a resolution. Martens recalls being visited by central bankers from the Belgian national bank in 1981. "They told us all the time how they were having to intervene every day, billions at a time, to support the value of the Belgian franc," he said. But today’s crisis barely causes a ripple with the euro system which reacts more to problems within the American economy than the Belgian one.

Belgium was created in 1830 as a political compromise. 15 years earlier the predominantly Catholic Southern Netherlands (which had passed from Austrian to French control) was placed under Dutch control by the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon. The new united kingdom of the Netherlands would act as a buffer state against any future French invasions.

But the area what was to become Belgium resented the domination of Amsterdam and King William I. It was mainly a matter of religion. Although the south had both Dutch and French speakers, they were both predominantly Catholic. And they resented the rule of the Calvinistic north. The Belgian revolution of 1830 began with a riot at the opera after a performance of La Muette de Portici set against the local uprising against the Spanish masters of Naples in the 17th century. After bloody street fighting in Brussels, the rebels declared a provisional government and proclaimed a constitution in 1831. Leopold I was installed as King of the Belgians in July that year. The Dutch invaded but were held up by a French force. The Dutch did not end their ineffective struggle to resume control until 1839.

In that year, the Treaty of London recognised Belgium as an independent and neutral country. The new country was dominated by a Francophone elite; the Dutch citizens of the north were second class citizens. Beyond the local squabbles, the wording of 1839 treaty would have long lasting repercussions as it bound Britain to guard the neutrality of Belgium. Britain would have to live up to the treaty in 1914 when Germany invaded. Belgium was a major battleground during that war with the battles of Ypres and Langemarck fought on Belgian soil. During the German occupation it declared Belgium an artificial creation and administratively separated Flanders from Wallonia.

The country was united again after the war. After World War II, Belgium became an administrative capital, becoming first the home of NATO and then the new European Economic Community in 1957. But its internal divisions never went away. For Belgium’s first 130 years, French-speaking Wallonia was the country’s economic powerhouse, the richest coal and steel-making area on the continent. The poorer inhabitants of mostly rural Flanders were largely excluded from power, and Flemish, the local version of Dutch, was looked down on by French-speakers as a peasant dialect.

But after the war Wallonia’s economy went into long-term decline, like other heavy industrial regions in Europe, while the Flemish population grew and the economy of Flanders boomed. Now there are six million Flemings and only four million Walloons, and the unemployment rate in Wallonia (17.6 per cent) is almost twice that of Flanders (9.3 per cent).

The prosperous Flemings mostly vote conservative, while poorer Walloons vote more to the left, and there are no political parties that appeal to both language groups. Since 1971 both communities have administered their own educational systems. Making a government always involves putting together parties from both sides of the language divide, and it is never an easy process. Flemish Christian Democrats won the most votes in the June election with 30 per cent of the Flemish vote and 18.5 per cent of the national vote. But Party leader Yves Leterme has been unable to form a new government. He wants more autonomy for Flanders but French-speaking parties are suspicious he wants to secede from Belgium.

According to a recent opinion poll two-thirds of people in Flanders thought Belgium would not survive much longer as a unitary state. The biggest problem would be what to do with Brussels. The capital is a French speaking enclave within Flanders. Those in favour of Flemish secession are happy to allow Brussels become a European Union city but suggest that Wallonia itself will fragment into French, Luxembourgois and German components.

This view remains speculative while (according to a 2005 poll) 87 percent of all Belgians want the country to remain united. A thousand people took to the streets of the capital on the anniversary of the country's independence to march in favour of unity. One pro-unity demonstrator said "In Belgium, for the moment, we are in crisis. It's a pseudo-political crisis organised by lunatics. No more, no less. It's about power and will bring nothing but misery. Hands off Belgium!"