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YPRES, Belgium — The padlocked cage beside the driveway on the Butaye family farm near this town in western Belgium is almost full of rusting bombs again. Since January, Stijn Butaye has collected 46 mortar shells on his family's 100 acres, World War I munitions he found among the sugar beet and potato fields, sometimes with the help of his metal detector.
比利时伊普尔——布塔耶家的农场坐落于比利时西部的伊普尔城外，通道旁上了锁的笼子里几乎又装满了锈迹斑斑的炸弹。斯汀·布塔耶(Stijn Butaye)在自家的甜菜和土豆田里清除着第一次世界大战遗留的炸弹，有时也会借助金属探测仪。自今年1月以来，他已在这片100英亩的农田里，发现了46颗迫击炮弹。
Mr. Butaye's father, Luc, won't even plow two of his fields for fear of what the blades might hit. Not long ago, a neighbor riding his tractor ruptured an aging shell, and the explosion sent shrapnel through his windshield, tearing off a chunk of his ear.
布塔耶的父亲卢克(Luc)甚至不敢在其中两片田里犁地，生怕农具挖到地里的炸弹。就在不久前，一位邻居开着他的拖拉机引爆了地里一颗陈年炸弹。爆炸弹出的弹片击中了拖拉机的挡风玻璃，削掉了他耳朵上的一块肉。
"You don't know what could happen," said Stijn Butaye, 26, who has built a small museum beside the barn with hundreds of items — including shoes and eyeglasses and razors and a perfectly preserved gas mask — that he has found on his family's property. "We just use that land for grazing the cows."
26岁的斯汀·布塔耶在谷仓旁建了一座小型博物馆，用于陈列他从自家农场上挖出的大大小小几百件一战遗物，其中包括鞋履、眼镜、剃须刀等，还有一个完好无损的防毒面具。他说，“不知道会出什么事。那片地我们只用来放牛。”
It has been 100 years since World War I erupted in these parts. The men who survived the thousands of miles of muddy trenches that surrounded this strategically important region are long gone and buried. But the earth, in its own way, has become the last witness, coughing up constant reminders of a bloody and relentless war that would demolish empires, leave at least 8.5 million soldiers and seven million civilians dead, and produce legacies that continue to play out today.
距离一战在这里爆发已有百年春秋。当年从这片战略重地上绵延几千里的泥泞战壕中活着出来的将士们，如今也都早已溘然长逝，白骨入土。脚下的这片土地，某种程度上便成为了这场战争最后的见证者，时而呈出一两件旧物，提醒着人们别忘记那场摧毁了多个帝国、夺去至少850万军人和200万平民性命、而且至今仍然影响着世界格局的残酷战争。
Around Ypres, the Allies and the Germans fought for nearly four years in a marathon slugfest that produced some of the war's most famous and deadly battles. It was here that the Germans first used chlorine and mustard gas on Allied troops. Yet neither side ever made much headway despite artillery barrages so fierce and long that they wiped away roads and villages, leaving miles in which not a building or a tree or a blade of grass was left.
伊普尔一带，协约国与德军曾展开近四年的拉锯战，许多著名战役在此地上演，其间死伤无数。正是在这里，德军首次使用了氯气和芥子气武器对抗协约国军队。长时间的狂轰滥炸将这里的道路和村庄夷为平地，数英里内寸草不生，尽管如此，双方仍然僵持不下，战况停滞不前。
The area became a battlefield when German forces wheeled north after being stymied in their initial drive on Paris in the war's opening months in 1914. After that, the conflict shifted toward Belgium as the Germans tried a flanking maneuver and the Allies raced to protect their control of the vital French seaports of Calais and Boulogne. There, along a front stretching southward from the Belgian coast, the opposing armies settled in, turning fertile farmlands into nightmarish killing fields.
这里之所以沦为战场，是因为1914年战争爆发的头几个月，德军企图速取巴黎而不得，遂转而北上。此后，德军又欲侧面包夹法国的重要海港加来和布伦，协约国军队拼力阻击。于是，双方军队在此安营扎寨，从比利时海岸一路向南，将昔日丰饶的农田变成了噩梦般的杀戮战场。
Experts say that in one particularly intense three-month campaign in 1917, known as the Third Battle of Ypres, or the Battle of Passchendaele, the British alone fired more than four million shells. In the end, more than 500,000 men had been killed or wounded, and the constant shelling had turned the landscape into a lifeless swamp. Up to 30 percent of the artillery shells fired never went off, experts say. Some were duds, but many simply slid deep into the mud without exploding.
专家称，在1917年历时三个月的恶战“第三次伊普尔战役”（又称“帕斯尚尔战役”）中，仅英方发射的炮弹就超过了400万枚。战役中死伤人数逾50万，连续不断的炮轰将这片土地变成死寂的废墟。据专家估计，多达30%的炮弹在发射后没有爆炸。其中有一些是哑弹，但还有很多是因为淤陷泥中而未能正常引爆。
Over the years, many of those shells have begun to rise, some appearing even in fields that have been plowed many times before. Most years, there are two or three injuries from World War I munitions in Ypres and the surrounding villages. In March, two workers were killed and a third seriously wounded while handling a shell at a construction site.
多年来，不少这样的炮弹开始冒出来，有些甚至出现在曾经多次耕犁过的田地里。在伊普尔及周边的村庄，每年都基本会有两三起一战残余炮弹炸伤人的事件。今年3月间，建筑工人在处理工地上的炮弹时发生爆炸事故，造成两死一重伤。
The land here still holds so many explosives that almost every construction project poses a danger. Every turned spade has the potential to unearth not just munitions but bones, some carefully laid to rest in full uniform, others blown apart. A local highway stands half finished; work ended abruptly because the bulldozers began uncovering graves, and the British government quickly objected to the project.
这里埋藏着太多的遗留炸弹，任何一个建筑工程都存在着安全风险。每次挥动铁锹，都有可能惊动地下的弹药，或是一堆白骨——有的军装齐整，有的残肢断臂。当地一处高速公路的修筑工程被戛然叫停，因为推土机翻出坟墓，英国政府随即对工程发出抗议。
It is impossible to live around Ypres without feeling the weight of living atop a former battlefield where young men from Germany, France, Britain, Belgium, Australia, Canada and North Africa died, some as young as 15.
居住在旧时战场上的伊普尔人，难以逃离历史沉重的记忆。在这里，来自德、法、英、比、澳、加和北非的年轻人，将生命遗失在枪林弹雨中，有的年仅15岁。
Cemeteries are everywhere. Some are just small clusters of graves surrounded by stone fences beside country roads. Others are carefully laid out rows of crosses that seem to extend forever, crowned by huge monuments. In a German cemetery in the nearby village of Langemark, a patch of grass holds the bones of about 25,000 men, many of them unidentified.
公墓随处可见。有的只是乡间路边石墙围起的几处青冢，也有的高碑耸立，十字架错落成行，绵延无边。附近的朗厄马克村有一处德军墓地，一小块草地下，埋葬着2.5万名德国将士，其中大部分的身份无从考证。
And yet more bodies always seem to be found. In recent years, as the city decided to develop an industrial zone along the Yser Canal, a local team of amateur archaeologists, calling themselves "the Diggers," have followed the bulldozers and uncovered the bones of 200 soldiers, only one of whom could be identified.
尽管如此，还是不断有更多的遗体被发现。近年，伊普尔市政府决定沿伊瑟运河开发一个工业区。一个自称“挖掘者”的业余考古队顺着推土机找到了200名军人的尸骨，其中只有一人的身份得以确认。
The archaeologists also unearthed a stretch of trench that has been partly restored for tourists. Aurel Sercu, one of the Diggers, walked the site recently, explaining how tunnels had led away from the trenches to an underground pump room, a changing area, a workroom and a stock of ammunition, all underwater now. If warm weather ever dries out the area, he said, the ground above might collapse, as has happened elsewhere.
这些考古者还掘出了一段旧时战壕，现已部分修复，向游人开放。“挖掘者”成员奥莱尔·塞尔居(Aurel Sercu)最近来到战壕，向大家解释了这条沟渠如何把战壕与地下泵房、更衣区、工作间和军火库连通起来，而这些空间如今均已被水淹没。他说，如果有一天这片土地随暖热的天气而干涸，那覆盖在上面的土壤可能会坍塌，类似的事在其它地方已有发生。
Much of what the Diggers found was either reburied with the soldiers or went to museums. But Mr. Sercu, a retired language teacher, has kept some of what was not wanted, including a broken crucifix, a harmonica and a pair of almost perfectly preserved wool socks found in the mud at the bottom of one of the tunnels.
“挖掘者”发现的许多东西又随士兵尸骨一起重新入土，而另一些，则被请进博物馆。不过，身为退休语言教师的塞尔居也自己保留了一些没有去处的物件，其中包括一个破损了的十字架、一支口琴，以及在沟渠底部的泥土中挖出的一双完好无损的羊毛袜子。
When an item, like a straight razor, had a name and number scratched on its side, Mr. Sercu tried to track down the soldier's family. Once, he actually succeeded, but the soldier's last living relative had just died. The woman's husband sent Mr. Sercu a picture of the soldier and said he should keep the razor. Mr. Sercu handles the photograph with care.
每当挖到镌刻了名字和数字的物件，比如折叠式剃刀，塞尔居便会试图寻找物件主人的家属。有一次他居然成功找到了，但是这名士兵的最后一位亲人正好也刚刚过世了。她的丈夫将士兵的一张旧照寄给他，并请他保管这把剃刀。塞尔居异常小心地收藏着这张相片。
"This man died here, and he must know we are looking at his photo," Mr. Sercu said. "There is so much history here. You can't help but become obsessed."
塞尔居说，“他在这里牺牲，他一定知道我们正在瞻仰他的照片。这里面有太多的历史，叫人如何能不着迷呢。”
Officials in Ypres say there is more interest in the war today than there was 20 years ago. Tens of thousands of British schoolchildren come here every year, as do thousands of the soldiers' family members and history buffs, contributing about 40 million euros a year to the local economy. Joseph Verschoore, the deputy mayor of Ypres, said that even Germans were beginning to show interest.
伊普尔的官员称，比起20年前，人们对一战的关注度提高了。每年都有上万的英国中小学生前来参观，另外还有数千名一战老兵家属和历史爱好者来访，为当地经济带来4000万欧元（约合3.1亿元人民币）的年收入。伊普尔副市长约瑟夫·维诃舒赫(Joseph Verschoore)说，就连德国人也开始关注这里。
"I think before they were not always at ease," Mr. Verschoore said. "They were maybe afraid that the people here were still angry. But now there is more understanding that there was a regime there, and it was not very good for their people, either. Many of the German soldiers had no idea why they were here."
维诃舒赫说，“我想，以前他们心里多少有些不自在吧，担心这里的人们仍然对历史满怀愤恨。但是现在大家更加能够谅解了，知道当年德国是受控于某个政权之下，德国人本身也深受其害。很多德国士兵也蒙在鼓里，并不明白自己来到这里出生入死是为了什么。”
But some bitterness lingers. Stijn Butaye's grandfather, who bought the farm in 1960, was eager to rid it of any signs that the Germans had once camped there. He tried to blow up a bunker near the house, and objected to his grandson's hobby.
尽管如此，战争的伤痕并未完全愈合。斯汀·布塔耶的祖父在上世纪60年代买置了这片地，他恨不能把所有德军的痕迹统统清理干净。他曾试图炸除房子附近的一个地堡，对孙子的一战情结也坚决反对。
"Whenever he takes a picture of the house, he cuts the bunker out," Mr. Butaye said. "He hates that it was a German bunker."
布塔耶说，“爷爷每次照房子的相片，都会避开这个地堡。他对这个德军地堡深恶痛绝。”
