Expanding a golf course near Ypres has yielded the remains of no fewer than 141 fallen soldiers

After about eighteen months, the excavations at the De Palingbeek golf and country club in Ypres have been completed, VRT NWS reports. Archaeologists examined 2.1 hectares of former front line and found the remains of at least 141 soldiers, more than 2,000 traces of war and 720 pieces of ammunition. According to VRT NWS, it is one of the largest archaeological investigations ever carried out on the battlefields of that war. The work was prompted by the planned expansion of the golf club.

The site lay on the front line: French troops held it until January 1915, then British troops, and by April 1918 Germans were there, L'Avenir writes. In a first phase, 29 German and 4 French soldiers were recovered and have since been reburied in Langemark and Ypres. Specialists count individuals on the basis of bones, as complete bodies were not always preserved. A team of French and German anthropologists took part, and efforts to identify victims are continuing.

Notable finds include two German tunnels, one of them 30 metres long ending 55 metres from the British line, with the diggers' graffiti still visible on the planks, and a well-preserved French trench from 1914. Archaeologist Bert Heyvaert of Monument-Vandekerckhove calls such finds extremely rare. Items recovered include a British bugle, a French officer's sabre and a cap badge of The Welsh Regiment. Some will go to the In Flanders Fields Museum, and a one-off exhibition will be held in the clubhouse on 11 November.