Wevelgem
During the First World War, the Germans constructed an airport. The airport still exists and is now used for private purposes. Also remaining is the German Military cemetery, which is also partly situated in Menen. There are 47,864 soldiers buried there, who all died during WW1. This makes the cemetery the biggest German cemetery in Belgium. Across the cemetery, there used to be a (fake) airport, with wooden planes to mislead the enemy; there are still remains of the airport consisting of a big bunker and a small bunker near the railway. The bridge that connects Lauwe to Wevelgem was destroyed during the Second World War and was rebuilt later.
African military systems after 1900
Unlike the African troops of Britain, who saw very little action on European battfields during World War I or World War II, France deployed hundreds of thousands of African fighting men to aid its cause, including some 300,000 North Africans, some 250,000 West Africans and thousands more from other regions. Over 140,000 African soldiers for example, fought on the Western Front during World War I and thousands of others fought at Gallipoli and in the Balkans. French West African troops fought and died in all the major battles of the Western Front, from Verdun (where they were instrumental in recapturing a fort) to the Armistice. Some writers (Lunn 1999) argue that towards the end of World War I, the black soldiers were increasingly been used as shock troops, and were absorbing three times as many casualties as white French troops. The French did offer such incentives as citizenship for those who fought, and French leader Clemeanceau pushed for continued recruitment of West Africans to fight for France, maintaining that it was better blacks were killed than long-suffering white Frenchmen. One in five West African combat soldiers who fought in World War I died in the war, compared to less than 17% for the French. Colonial troops such as Indian regiments in British employ suffered less.