A dig is set to begin to uncover Britain's last remaining model of one of World War One's bloodiest battlefields.
Surviving soldiers from the Battle of Messines Ridge in 1917 made the mock battlefield - complete with trenches, dug
A dig is set to begin to uncover Britain's last remaining model of one of World War One's bloodiest battlefields.
Surviving soldiers from the Battle of Messines Ridge in 1917 made the mock battlefield - complete with trenches, dugouts and wire - on Cannock Chase, Staffordshire, as a tribute to their dead comrades.
The scale model built by German prisoners of war, which was also used as a training camp ahead of the final push in WW1, is about to be excavated and reburied.
Archaeologists will begin charting the site - the only example of its kind left in the UK, which was planned out in painstaking detail by troops returning from the conflict which cost 50,000 lives.
Experts said the terrain model was built not only as a training aid for other soldiers at Brocton Camp, in Staffordshire, but in recognition at the horrific toll of slaughter the battle - fought around the landmark Messines ridge - took on the brigade.
The ridge formed an anchor in the German front lines but the week-long offensive of infantry attack, aerial bombardment and heavy shelling resulted in an Allied victory with four Victoria Crosses awarded to Empire soldiers for bravery during the fight.
The terrible human cost of the battle ran to 50,000 men killed, wounded or missing across both sides.
The battle was fought in the build-up to the much larger and far bloodier Passchendaele offensive which would begin in July of that year.
Staffordshire County Council, in a project funded by Natural England, is going to make a record of the model for future generations before re-covering the site on Cannock Chase in October.
Councillor