With the commemoration of the 1st World War 1914—1918 in prospect, together with Brussels–based writer, poet and historian Serge R. van Duijnhoven we conceived a very interesting project. It is composed by my landscapes of the former battlefields and Serge’s written stories and poems in which the over eight hundred miles frontline — that runs from Nieuwpoort and Ypres in Belgium, through Northern France, towards Verdun and Basel in Switzerland was followed; all in accordance with the described places mentioned in diaries and journals of veterans of the 1st World War.

The starting point for this quest are the poignant and personal notes and diary reports of Odon van Pevenaege, Louis Barthas, John Jackson and Carl Heller, a Belgian, a French, an English and a German-Dutch soldier. Four men who fought for Honor, God and Homeland in the trenches but nevertheless lost their sight of empathy and (co–)humanity. As Louis Barthas [France|1879–1952] wrote in one of his war journals: ‘…common suffering forges the hearts together and makes hatred disappear. Between indifferent people and even opponents sympathy was created. If only we had spoken the same language!’ —This quote became the title of our book with contributions of 12 Dutch and Flemish top-writers, published by Rubinstein Publishers Amsterdam.