No idea what the previous poster meant. I'm really enjoying this and looking forward to more....are we off to the WW1 battlefields hence the title?

Troll!

Just ignore him/her, he'll disappear as soon as the Fodors editors get my email, along with others', reporting him/her.

Gertie, you're right. We're off to look at some battlefields. More in a minute ...

“Monsieur, je vous propose …”

Last month I spent a few days at Verdun and Chemin des Dames, French battlefields of the Great War. There hasn’t been a lot written here about these two areas, both beautiful in their own way, but each with a particularly grim past. This trip report is about the hotels and the food, a bit of history, some practical information about what you can see, and a few observations about what it felt like. Beware, it’s not all pleasant reading.

I went first to Copenhagen to see my daughter, who is studying in Århus. After four days of good company, good sightseeing, and that curious mixture of Danish cosiness and reserve, I flew to Paris. It was October 18, the day of the transportation strikes. I had planned to take the TGV to Reims, but the rail unions foxed that idea. I booked a room opposite Gare de l’Est and spent the night in Paris.

In the end I lost only half a day of my itinerary. Late the next morning I was able to catch the first TGV to Reims. I picked up the rental car and, carefully laying down a trail of breadcrumbs, made my way out of the city. I was aiming to look first at Les Éparges, near Verdun, but it was getting late. I drove instead straight to the Hôtel de Lorraine in Longuyon, a small town near the intersection of France, Belgium, and Luxemburg.

My room was spacious, simple, and clean. The drawing card was Le Mas, the hotel restaurant. I was reminded again that the pleasures of the French table are more than the appearance, taste, and scent of the food. In the right environment, the little rituals flood me with contentment: a warm greeting when entering a restaurant or simply the words “Vous avez choisi, monsieur?” It might be the recommendation of exactly the right wine or the careful sweeping away of bread crumbs after the cheese. And a particular favourite, even though I don’t have a sweet tooth: the waitress, standing beside the desert trolley, saying “Monsieur, je vous propose …” and then naming every item on the cart.

I chose the Menu de plaisir et de terroir: foie gras de canard and then sillure, a local fish. The surprise here was the light sauce, which was creamy and subtly flavoured with cabbage. This was a pairing that I would never have dreamed of, and it was further enhanced by a glass (all right, it was half a bottle) of Rully, a white burgundy recommended by Mme Tisserant, who runs the dining room. The cheese and desert trolleys both rate honourable mention.

The next morning, as I was leaving, I asked Monsieur Tisserant, the chef, about the fish. Sillure, he told me, is a very large river fish “avec un visage grotesque.” I mentioned the sauce, and he beamed. “Cabbage from our garden,” he told me.

www.lorraineetmas.com/index.htm

On to the battlefields, a very sobering counterpoint …

Thanks for sharing, AA.

Great report.

On the edge of my seat. I have a friend who lives in that area who is always digging up WW1 metal bits.

“… voilà cinq jours que mes souliers sont gras de cervelles humaines …”

Twenty kilometres southeast of Verdun, a tall ridge overlooks the village of Les Éparges to the west and the flat plain of the Woëvre to the east. The German army took the crest in 1914. Recognizing its strategic value, the French attempted to dislodge them in February 1915. It was a ferocious engagement, a foreshadowing of the kind of fighting that would take place around Verdun a year later. “You cannot know what man can do to man,” a French soldier wrote to his wife. “For the past five days my boots have been slick with human brains; I have been crushing chests, walking through guts …”

By the end of April, the French held most of the ridge, but not the actual peak. From 1916 to 1918, the two sides tunnelled under each other’s positions and set off gigantic explosions. It wasn’t until 1918 that American troops finally cleared the hilltop.

The road to the battle site is well marked. There is a French cemetery at the foot of the hill and then a tiny road up to a plaque. A path leads up to a monument, and then onwards to “Point X,” the highest part of the ridge. It was, like so many of the other sites I was to visit, quiet and deserted, save for the French family I met as I walked up to the monument. At first glance, there is nothing to distinguish this from any other hillside path, until you realize that you are zigzaging between shell craters.

“… the forces of France will bleed to death …”

In late 1915, Falkenhayn, the Chief of the German General Staff, shrewdly concluded that an attack on Verdun would force the French to defend it to the last man. Still stung by the humiliation of the Franco-Prussian War, the French could not contemplate the loss of historic Verdun. Though weakly defended and vulnerably sited in a deep salient, the French fought.

Both sides suffered terrible losses; between February and December 1916, German and French casualties at Verdun exceeded 700,000. A swath of land west, north, and east of Verdun was devastated, churned up and scarred by tens of millions of artillery shells, poisoned by gas, and littered with unexploded munitions, fragments of metal, discarded gear, and human remains. Roads and forests disappeared, and villages were destroyed; eight of them were never rebuilt.

Today, there are farms again along the valley of the Meuse. But visitors soon see the dozens of military cemeteries in the area; in a chess-like way, white crosses mark French graves, black crosses mark German. The tall, steep hills and the deep ravines, areas of the most intense fighting, were reforested in the 1930s. The woods look peaceful and inviting, until you start to walk into them. Then you see the shell holes—millions of them, interconnected. You can occasionally see vee-like grooves, which are probably the vestiges of trenches, and concrete structures, now crumbling and covered in moss. Do you remember Browning’s Childe Roland, afraid to set his foot upon a dead man’s cheek? You have a sense, when you step into the forest, that you are walking on an open grave.

I entered the battlefield from the north, following the path of the German assault. D905 runs through the Bois des Caures, the scene of a remarkable defense by Colonel Driant and his Chasseurs. There is a trail through the woods to a stele marking the place where he died. You can go on from there to his command post, but I encountered deep mud and turned back.

The road continued southwards to Vacherauville and Bras-sur-Meuse, where I turned eastwards and climbed back up into the Forêt de Verdun. The Tranchée des Baïonettes soon appeared on the left. Two companies were said to have been buried alive here in shelling, leaving only their bayonets poking up through the earth. There is an imposing gate at the entrance; the trench itself has been covered by a protective concrete structure.

Further hill climbing brought me to the structure that marks the centre of the battlefield. Three long galleries spreading out from a tall shell-shaped tower—the Ossuaire de Douaumont—contain the unidentified remains of 130,000 French and German soldiers killed at Verdun. Inside, the names of the “disparu” are carved into the walls and ceiling. Outside, I glanced into one of the basement windows and saw bones. There are many windows; there are innumerable bones. I saw hands and parts of legs.

The French national cemetery falls away down the hill in front of the Osssuaire: 15,000 crosses sweep across two huge fields. On each marker is a name, a division, the words “Mort pour la France,” and the date of death.

Forts Douaumont and Vaux are nearby. The former, stripped of its heavy guns and left in the hands of a small garrison, fell early in the fighting. The loss of this symbolic fort sent shock waves through France, spurring repeated attempts (and causing tens of thousands of deaths) to recapture it over the next eight months. The roof of the fort, pounded by countless heavy shells, looks like a turbulent ocean. The dry moat is barely discernable and the façade is broken and distorted. You can tour parts of the underground corridors and rooms, which include a walled-up gallery containing the remains of more than 600 German soldiers who were killed in an ammunition explosion in May 1916. Fort de Vaux, famous for a stubborn defense by Major Raynal, is in slightly better condition. It, too, is open for tours.

Colonel Driant’s stele, the Tranchée des Baïonettes, the Ossuaire, the national cemetery, and the forts: these sites are more than memorials. They feel like shrines. As one historian said, “honour transcended common sense” at Verdun. The immediate consequences are sorted and stacked in the basement of the ossuary, and Verdun has cast a shadow over France ever since.

I have been following your report with this map www.maplandia.com/france/lorraine/meuse/verdun/
It shows the terraine as well as the places. My friends live in Foameix to the north east of Verdun.
You are right, it's an area/event which is little written about. Have you seen Intimate Voices from the First World War? There's a first-hand account of your battle in Chapter 9.

Gertie, thanks for that link to the map. It's fascinating to look at the ossuary and the forts from the air (and even more incredible to realize that I was actually there).

I didn't drive through Foameix (it's a really tiny place, as you doubtless know), but I did stay one night in Étain, which is about three kilometres south of it. As a matter of fact, my next installment will talk about the hotel in Étain.

I haven't read "Intimate Voices" yet. I just looked it up and I will probably add it to my collection. At the end of this trip report I'll post some practical information for those who might want to visit Verdun and I'll include a list of the books I did read.

Anselm, it's always a pleasure to come across one of your beautifully written reports. I remember you talking with someone at the Toronto GTG who had visited the battlefields of northern France and now you have been there too!

One of my uncles, born in 1917, was given the middle name of Verdun, after the battle. He was in the first group of Canadians soldiers to liberate the Dutch in 1945 and was treated royally when he returned there in 2005.

You may enjoy reading "Three Day Road" by Joseph Boyden about two James Bay Cree, Xavier and Elijah, who become famous snipers in the Canadian Army during the First World War.

http://www.goodreports.net/reviews/threedayroad.htm

This is indeed fascinating.
You were helpful when I asked about visiting Beaumont-Hamel from Paris (and I got there! and it was well worth the trip). Now I see what a depth of info you have about WWI.

Hi moolyn. Thanks for the comments, and thanks, too for the recommendation of the book. One more to add to my reading pile.

Yes, that was a conversation robjame, SallyCanuck, and I were having at the GTG. SallyCanuck was telling us about her visit to Canadian war sites of both the first and the second war, and robjame spoke about seeing the Canadian military cemetery in Holland.

Interesting that your uncle would have been named Verdun, although it was doubtless on everyone's mind in 1917. There is a part of Montreal named Verdun, and a community near Quebec called Charny, which is also the name of a village just north of Verdun in France. If fellow-poster Laverendrye checks in here he may know whether they were named during or after the first war.

nfldbeothuk, I remember your trip planning and your trip report. I've been reading a lot of Great War history recently (and paying for it with nightmares), but I still have a great deal to learn. Hope I haven't made any glaring errors in my history in this trip report.

La Sirène

My next night was in a hotel called La Sirène in Étain, a small town about 20 kilometres east of Verdun. I again had a large room with a recently modernized bathroom. The décor felt a bit dated, but the room was quiet and comfortable. The dining experience was significantly different, with a less attractive dining room, a less sophisticated menu, less finesse at the stove, and certainly a less formal service. I had a workmanlike terrine de maison, then escalop de veau with a too thick mushroom sauce. But every cloud has its silver lining. The Côtes du Rhône was rather good and the brussels sprouts, tamed by long braising with small pieces of bacon, were perfect.

http://hotel.sirene.free.fr/index.htm

“Tout ça me bouleverse …”

The city of Verdun didn’t look its best on a cold Sunday morning. I walked up to the Palais épiscopal, one of the first structures to be hit in the German artillery barrage of February 21, 1916. It now houses the Centre mondial de la Paix, where I chanced upon a temporary exhibit of those stereo photographs that were popular in the years leading up to the war. The exhibit attendant, a young German man, gave me a set of special glasses so I could see the three-dimensional effect. It was a startling peek at the fighting: men firing artillery, men digging trenches, men marching into battle, and men dragging the wounded to shelter. The photographs were full of death, sometimes poignant, but usually not. Shelling broke bodies; it buried them; it launched them into the air. There were two unforgettable photos of corpses hanging in trees.

I drove north up the right bank of the Meuse to the village of Bras-sur-Meuse and then turned west across the river to look at Côte 304 and le Mort-Homme. These two hills, perfect sites for artillery, were the focal point of the fighting on the left bank. Like Les Éparges and so many of the hills on the right bank, there was prolonged and brutal fighting for possession. Today both are forested, quiet, and lonely.

I took D123 and D19 north and west to Butte-de-Montfaucon. This hilltop village was held by the German army until cleared by American assault in 1918. There is now a tall monument commemorating the action. Beneath it, all that remains of the original village are the ruins of the church. The new Butte-de-Montfaucon lies 100 metres to the west.

Meuse-Argonne, the largest American cemetery in Europe, lies on a gentle hillside between the villages of Cunel and Romagne-sous-Montfaucon. There are more than 14,000 Americans buried there, most of them killed in the Meuse-Argonne offensive of 1918. I arrived during a moment of sunshine; under autumn leaves, the setting was haunting.

I walked past the graves, all the way up to the chapel at the top of the hill. On my way back I ended up in conversation with two other Canadians and a French couple from Verdun. The latter had with them a high school student from Des Moines, Iowa, who was living with them while on exchange. This young man had arrived only a couple of months before with hardly a word of French, but was apparently making wonderful progress.

The woman from Verdun mentioned that her great uncle had died in “quatorze dix-huit,” as she referred to the war. A moment later, she turned to me, gestured with her head towards the graves, and said, “Tout ça me bouleverse.” This is all overwhelming. I nodded. For some reason, this was the place where I felt shattered. I had been looking at craters, trenches, barbed wire, and walls entombing soldiers. I had seen bones, pictures of corpses, and too many graveyards. Cursed with a vivid imagination, I had added in the explosion of shells, the rattle of machine guns, and the screams of the injured.

It was time to move on.

Three dogs worked their way across a field, followed by three men carrying shotguns. Hunters. It all looked so normal, despite what was under their feet. I was on D38, heading back to Verdun. I turned onto the Voie Sacrée—the vital supply link—and drove south to Souilly, where Pétain had his headquarters. I was taking the route of France’s survivors.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
Man's inhumanity to man never seems to end does it. We need to keep reading, keep visiting, keep not forgetting.

Great report. Indeed, I have always felt that the Meuse and Ardennes regions are a much more somber reminder of the wars in Europe than anything that can be seen in Normandy. The Ossuary at Douaumont is in my opinion the most chilling site in France, yet the cemetery is lovely, with a rose bush planted in front of every cross or crescent.

I had a great uncle who lived in Etain for the second half of his life. (He was transferred to a nursing home just across the border in Belgium, where he died around 2002.) Anselm, I'm sure you would have been interested in seeing the neighborhood ("Les Clairs Chênes") where his house was, as it was a former American NATO base, and all of the houses are American military housing from the 1950's, transformed over the last 50 years into French houses, yet so unmistakably American. I never liked staying in my uncle's house, because there was something completely alien about the French furniture trying to fill American spaces.

Meanwhile, for November 11, 2007, France had only 2 remaining veterans from "14-18". In 2006, there were still 5 of them. Next year, who knows?

What an interesting and informative report, thank you.

(P.S. I had to look up "silure" as I've never come across that kind of fish before - apparently it's a kind of catfish).

Very interesting indeed.

Bookmarking with great interest.


Thank you

Muck

Anselm:

A fine report, as usual.

Verdun is indeed a chilling place, and I can remember my first visit over 35 years ago when one could walk through the basement of the Ossuaire amid the bones. It certainly brought home the horror that Verdun must have been.

If you have not done so, you might want to read Alistair Horne's "The Price of Glory: Verdun", to my mind the best account of Verdun in English.

You wondered about Verdun and Charny in Québec. They were both named in the 17th century during the French regime, and not during the First World War. However your question intrigued me and I set out to discover whether the names of any towns or cities in Canada had been changed during or after the war (aside from thw well-known Berlin to Kitchener). According to Alan Rayburn's informative "Naming Canada", there were many townships, streets, lakes and mountains named or renamed after WWI battles, but very few towns. Verdun is commemorated by a lake in Québec, a township in Northern Ontario, and a glacier in the Rockies.

I'll look forward to your next report whenever that may be.

"... a rose bush planted in front of every cross or crescent."

kerouac, I'm glad you mentioned the crescents. While crosses certainly outnumber crescents, they are a reminder of the conscripted "colonials" who fought for France.

Was that NATO base in Étain? I ask because there is a Bois de Clairs Chênes just north of the American cemetery at Cunel.

hanl, thanks for looking up sillure (it may have only one "l"; I am an error-prone speller in both English and French). Monsieur Tisserant said it was a huge fish.

Laverendrye, thanks for clarifying the origins of Charny and Verdun. I will add one more that may have a First War origin: Charny, Quebec was a railway town (a division point, if I remember correctly) and the railway name for it was "Joffre".

I did read "The Price of Glory." In fact, I lugged it and several other books along on this trip. I'll post on that at the end of the trip report.

Yes, the Clairs Chênes neighborhood where my great uncle lived was in Etain. On the link to the satellite map that Gertie gave, you can easily locate Etain and see the whole neighborhood of the American houses north of the old town. And to the right of that, you can also see the airfield.

While Googling "Clairs Chênes" to see if there was any relation to the cemetery in Cunel, I even came across a real estate agent selling a house there, so you can even see some photographs of a typical Clairs Chênes house if you do the same.

Just found this informative and beautifully written report. Anselm, thanks (I think!) for bringing the horrors of WWI so vividly to life. We hear so much about WWII, but the violence and destruction of WWI seems to be forgotten. The lost generation, rather than the greatest.

kerouac, I found both the aerial view and the real estate listing. I drove between the housing estate and the airfield on my way to Longuyon and had no idea either was there.

thursdaysd, thanks for the comments. As Gertie said above, we have to keep remembering.

Le Château de Labessière

From Souilly, it was only another 10 kilometres east to Ancemont, a small town on the left bank of the Meuse. I was greeted by Monsieur Eichenauer, the owner of Le Château de Labessière, who showed me the lounge where we were to meet at 7 for an apéritif. My room was on the second floor, a huge affair with two beds, a giant wardrobe, several chairs, and a large glass-top table, where I sat to write these notes. There were tall doors leading out onto a private terrace and, once again, a very modern bathroom.

There were only two other guests that night, a French couple from the Loire. We sat in the lounge, chatted with Monsieur Eichenauer, and sipped our drinks. The conversation turned to the war and the battlefields. The woman from the Loire said that her grandfather had been a physician at Fort de Douaumont, although she didn’t say when. They were planning to visit the battlefields the next day.

Our host served dinner, an excellent jambon cru with melon, and then a superb magret de canard. There was ample red wine: Fronsac, I think, but I didn’t write it down. The cheese was a young chevre and a gentle blue that we concluded was brebis. Dessert was profiteroles.

We moved back into the lounge, where Monsieur Eichenauer joined us for coffee and a glass of mirabel. He told us that the château had stood vacant for many years and had fallen into disrepair. By the time he bought it in the early 1980s, it was uninhabitable. He gradually refurbished it, installing heating, water, electricity, insulation, panelling, and flooring. There are places where you can see the work of a do-it-yourselfer, but the overall restoration has been remarkable.

www.chateau-labessiere.fr

“… collective acts of defiance …”

I left Verdun and drove west past Reims to Laon. Michelin describes this city as “splendid … perched like an acropolis on a rock, crowning a tall outcrop of land which overlooks the plain.” From a distance, it is indeed very striking. But on a Monday, when most of the shops are closed and an icy wind swirls around each corner, it will leave you cold. If you do visit, park on the north side of the lower town and take the funicular up to the top. A round trip is only one euro, but watch that you don’t get trampled by the school children racing for the seats.

Chemin des Dames is a long narrow flat-topped outcropping some 200 metres in height. A natural barrier, it runs in an east-west direction just north of the Aisne. After the battle of the Marne in 1914, the German army retreated to the hilltop and dug in.

If you stand on the edge of the escarpment and look down on the Aisne, you immediately understand what a well-protected defender could do to anyone attempting to climb to the top. Add in a scalloped edge, which provides what amounts to arms reaching out towards the river, and you can fire at your attackers from three sides.

Some historians have suggested that there was scarcely a worse place on the entire Western Front to launch an assault. Nonetheless, Neville, the new chief of the French General Staff, chose Chemin des Dames for the spring campaign of 1917. Heavy losses overshadowed small advances. French soldiers, scarred by Verdun, lost confidence in their leadership. Isolated refusals to move forward spread into mutiny.

I drove west to east along the top of the ridge. The wind, cold in Laon, was sharp and unrelenting on this exposed outcropping. The beetroot harvest was in full swing. An immense machine hoovered beets out of the ground and pitched them into dump trucks. I stopped at La Caverne du Dragon and peered down at the Aisne, my imagination working overtime. General Neville was packed off to North Africa, relegated to obscurity. Pétain, the savior of Verdun, was brought back in to quell the “collective acts of defiance,” as they are referred to at the Musée de l’Armée in Paris.

Looking to escape the battlefield, I drove down the north side of the ridge to L’abbaye de Vauclair. As one might expect, the 12th century Cistercians chose a sheltered and isolated location to build their simple beauty. That was unfortunately no protection from Great War shelling; it is today a tranquil ruin.

www.chemindesdames.fr

I'm still here and still enjoying this Anselm. What a foodie you are.Where next?

L’Auberge de la Vallée

Expect a warm welcome, a comfortable room, and a good meal at L’Auberg de la Vallée in Bourg-et-Comin. Madame and Monsieur Dardenne, the owners, are friendly and quick to laugh. I dined well on a terrine de maison, entrecôt, and a glass of Bordeaux, and then had one of those language moments. I had chosen sorbet for dessert. The waitress—the owners’ daughter, I think—asked if I wanted “chantilly.” I was dumbfounded and suddenly missed my wife, who would have known the answer to this puzzle. My confusion must have been evident. “Whipped cream,” she said, in perfect English. Ah. “Non, merci.”

www.auberge-delavallee.com/auberge-hotel-restaurant.htm

Windows by Chagall

I followed my trail of bread crumbs back to the car rental office in Reims. Battlefields behind me, I spent a day enjoying warm sunshine, pedestrianized streets, and a wonderful lunch of moules frites at Le Grand Café. I went twice to the cathedral and its magnificent walls of light. If any good was born of the Great War it was Chagall’s stained glass windows in the east end of the cathedral. They are simply stunning.

T. S. Eliot may have had the Bristol in mind when he wrote about “one night cheap hotels.” Actually, my only real complaint was the cold hot water. The bed was comfortable, and in the restaurant I found again the pleasures of dining in France: the best waiter I have ever encountered served me an excellent magret de canard in fig sauce with chestnuts and pear poached in red wine. With it he recommended a glass of Médoc. Contented and feeling proud of my self-guided touring, I asked about a digestif. The waiter offered cognac, armagnac, and calvados, but sensing my hesitation, suggested I try something local: marc de champagne. It was sublime.

www.bristol-reims.com/index.htm

Ici Repose Un Soldat Français Mort Pour La Patrie 1914-1918

I returned to Paris the next morning and spent a couple of hours at the Musée de l’Armée. I had a very long lunch at a café and then idled my way back to the hotel.

Verdun still on my mind, I went that evening to the Arc de Triomphe to visit the Unknown Soldier. It was October 24, the anniversary of the recapture of Fort de Douaumont. As traffic swirled around l’Étoile and darkness crept in, a dozen veterans, some soldiers, officers, and a handful of civilians marched up to the eternal flame. During the short ceremony, my mind wandered, pondering how difficult it is to understand another nation’s soul. I thought again about honour transcending common sense and about war wounds that never heal. As the proceedings drew to a close, one of the officers started to sing La Marseillaise. The woman standing beside me joined in. I would have liked to, but then I realized that I didn’t know the words.

Anselm

Hi Gertie. I do enjoy the food, even when someone leaves the cheese course in the fridge. If by "where next" you mean future travels, we're planning to meet Miss Adorne in Paris at Christmas.

I just wanted to finish this up with some practical information on touring the area. Who knows? Perhaps someone with an interest in Verdun will search and find this useful:

Car rental: I booked through AutoEurope; the rental was from Europcar on boulevard Lundy in Reims. The rental office is about a seven-minute walk from the downtown train station.

Guide books: the Michelin Green Guide for Alsace, Lorraine, and Champagne covers Reims and Verdun. The guide for Northern France covers Laon and Chemin des Dames. I also carried Michelin’s Verdun and the Battles for Its Possession (published in 1920) and Alistair Horne’s The Price of Glory. My compatriot Laverendrye pointed me towards Stephen O’Shea’s Back to the Front and Nigel Jones’s The War Walk.

Maps: The Michelin Local series offer excellent detail at 1/175,000. You need map 307 for Verdun and map 306 for Reims, Laon, and Chemin des Dames. (It is worth mentioning that a great deal of thought and care has gone in to road signs and parking places for both Verdun and Chemin des Dames.)

Recommended times: I spent two days in the Verdun area and half a day at Chemin des Dames. If constrained by time (or interest), skip the city of Verdun itself and focus instead on the battlefields. Forts Vaux and Douaumont, the Ossuaire, Tranchée des Baïonettes, Mort-Homme, Butte-de-Montfaucon, and the American cemetery at Meuse-Argonne could all be seen in one very full day.

I will second the idea that the city of Verdun itself can be skipped.

Wonderful snippets Anselm. I had no idea Chagall did the stained glass in Reims. Have put the whole area on my list, not to mention the gastronomy.

Bookmarking to read when I have time to savor the details.

I had thought about doing something similar a few years ago but never made it.

There are also Chagall stained glass windows in the cathedral of Metz.

Bookmarking for our next trip.

Most interesting, thank you, Anselm.

Thanks for this moving and informative account.

It makes a nice change from the accounts of tourists who rush from one "must see" to another and are forever worried about the price of meals. Small French hotels with their distinctive restaurants and local produce are a very enjoyable experience.

Visiting battlefields and cemeteries are a sober reminder of the violent history of this area, and this perhaps explains the desire of the present generation to live in peace with their neighbours. There has been too much death and destruction caused by nationalism.

Yes, isn't it nice to have a bit of history, art, philosophy and gastronomy.

Anselm: Bravo! I have saved this for future reference. Thanks for sharing. Now go watch Casablanca and learn La Marseillaise for the next time. Thanks again.

Truly fascinating post, Anselm. I have been interested in this ever since I saw the war memorial exhibits in Kansas City, as a boy. I recall vividly the scale model of battlefields, with the earth churned into a jumble with interlocking shell holes covering every square yard.

We have done canal trips up and down the Marne, and around Reims, and I made a point of visiting cemeteries, but I obviously did not do my homework.

Thank you for stirring my imagination again. Perhaps I will get an opportunity to retrace your steps.

Hi, Anselm,

such a lovely report. you really brought it to life. [pehaps not the most elegant compliment about a battle-field tour but the best I could do].

your hotel /restaurant recommendations are useful too. My best friend [american] introduced me to Rully, so any restaurant that serves it is OK with me.

regards, ann

Anselm,
What a fascinating report. Thank you for sharing your trip with us.
Judy

Truly remarkable report. Thanks.

Anselm: Let me add my e-voice to the chorus of praise for your latest trip report.

When we met in Ottawa and you outlined your travel plans, I could not have imagined how rich a harvest you would extract from WW I battlefields.

Since then I have been reading the latest bio of Edith Wharton, whose charitable work in wartime Paris and whose visits to the Front are extensively captured by author Hermione Lee.

WW II seems a picnic compared to the relentless carnage of WW I. (Not seeking a dispute here about which was worse....) The monthly losses defy belief and one wonders how -- and why -- the 2 sides carried on.

Delightful too to see the large number of Cdn posters here: WW I means much more to us, I feel, than to Americans, who joined so much later.

BTW: We are heading back to France in March and I may contact you separately for advice -- we are staying in the r. du Faubourg St Antoine, a stomping grounds of ours from 15 years ago but an area that has surely changed a lot since then...

Thanks to all for your remarks. I'm truly touched.

Gertie, only some of the windows in the cathedral in Reims are by Chagall. If you go, look at the extreme east end, behind the chancel (the aspidal chapel, in church terms). They are unmistakably Chagall. Beautiful blues.

chartley, your comment about the "desire of the present generation to live in peace with their neighbours": there is a remarkable photograph of François Mitterand and Helmut Kohl standing hand in hand at the Ossuaire de Douaumont in the early 80s. A cynic would say they both looked uncomfortable, but I found it very powerful.

maitiatom, I'm working on those lyrics ...

Nukesafe, you spoke about stirring your imagination. Thank you for saying that.

annhig, that was my first encounter with Rully and I hope it wasn't my last.

tedgale, it's always a pleasure to hear from you. Regards to you both. I will stroll down rue du Faubourg St Antoine at Christmas and let you know what it feels like.

Anselm

Just a link to a chart detailing the appaling casualties of WWI. http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/blww1castable.htm

Anselm, thanks for this fine report. We made a short but memorable pilgrimage to the Somme and Ypres this year, so your report is most timely.

The image of the Eddie Bauer card scraping the windshield is priceless....

Anselm - Although I knew you had posted your report, I waited until I could wallow in the whole thing. I wasn't disappointed.

It must be conflicting to be on holiday in an area that has so many ghosts. Can you ever really forget the past while you are there? Maybe such a sober reminder is necessary occasionally.

I recall the shock of visiting the Canadian cemetery in Holland and looking at the ages on the markers - mostly 18 to 22 yearolds sent to their deaths by an older generation.

"the pleasures of the French table are more than the appearance, taste, and scent of the food."
Exactly! Unless you linger over a meal in a wonderful French restaurant, you are missing this whole experience.

Well written Anselm. I know you have spent considerable time preparing and polishing this report and it shows. Thank you.

Did I miss a link to your pictures?

Wow!

I would tell you how impressed I am with your eloquence... but someone did that.

I would tell you I loved the details... but someone did that.

I would tell you how much I learned from your report... but someone did that.

I will echo all the sentiments that others have posted.

As a 40yo American, I know more than the average (!) about WWII (my father faught), but frighteningly little about WWI. It truly is the forgotten war. You've spurned my interest.

Thanks for waking my brain up on this weekend morning.

Anselm, beautifully narrated. A poignant reminder of "...man's inhumanity to man".

My wife's father served in the US Army in WWI in France. He would have been 111 years old this year. Only two French veterans left--both would have to be over 100.

Jinx Hoover

To Surfmom, I can say that, in Britain at least, the First World War still looms larger in our minds than does the Second. The Second is seen as very much a "just war", while the First was wholly avoidable and pointless. The number of combatants killed in the First was much larger, and their memorials are in every town and village in Europe. Some of the smallest villages in Britain are known as "blessed" because nobody from them was killed.

The First also had a greater effect due to the number of wounded, and the number of widows. The consequences of the armistice of the First was depression, unemployment, and another war, while the Second was followed, in the west at least, by a determination to establish a better, more peaceful, world.

I have not been to Verdun yet, but I know how awful it is to see Ypres, Vimy Ridge, Thiepval and Tyne Cot. The dead in their hundreds of thousands to secure small pieces of muddy ground.

Fra_Diavolo, thanks for linking to that chart. The numbers are astounding, and as robjame pointed out in his post, soldiers were typically very young.

Sue, the Eddie Bauer card: for a moment I thought I’d be really Canadian and use my MEC card, but it isn’t as sturdy as the Eddie Bauer one.

robjame, about the conflict of being on vacation and then confronting something as unsettling as a Great War battlefield: when I got back I told Margriet that the trip seemed like a lot of hard work, and I meant that in an emotional rather than a physical way.

The photos: no, you didn’t miss the link. I wasn’t happy with any of them, so I thought I’d sneak through a trip report without pictures. I’ll look at them again and see if any are worth showing. If I do, I’ll come back here with a link to PBase.

“The pleasures of the French table …” I wrote that for you, robjame. I knew you’d love it.

surfmom, Jinx, and charltey, thanks for the comments. As a Canadian, we tend to have a greater awareness of the western end of the Western Front, the area where so many of the Commonwealth soldiers fought. However, with my interest in France I shifted my focus to their end (essentially from the Somme east to Switzerland). I knew very little of the American involvement until I started to read about Verdun and the later months of the war. How unexpected it was, then, to find that one of the most moving places I encountered was the American cemetery at Meuse-Argonne.

Another chilling chart (I confess that I didn't hunt it up to give the link) is the one concerning the birthrate in Europe during and for 10 years after the war.

“Mort pour la France.” Terrible and haunting.

How evocative your report is, Anselm, although indeed that makes for some (entirely appropriate) unpleasant reading. Thank you for this: careful, elegant writing, impressive organization, excellent practical information. You do like duck, don't you?

Looking forward to your next trip and report.

Thanks for this amazing and evocative report, Anselm.

BTW, silures are catfish. In the Dordogne they grow to be absolutely enormous. Maybe they do everywhere, but the ones in the Dordogne are definitely grotesque!

I have a feeling that it's bad form to top one's own report, but I did say that I would post a link to some photos if I ever got round to putting them up on PBase.

I wasn't very happy with the light. Days are short in October and there was often mist about, but these will give you some idea of what the places look like today. Just click on the "Verdun and Chemin des Dames" gallery:

www.pbase.com/anselmadorne

AA

PS ... Leely, I do like duck, lol.

Thank goodness you did top it, AA. I missed it earlier and it is a magnificent read. Thank you so much for posting.

The photos are perfect, AA. It would be hard for them to be any better.

Thank you Anselm for topping this wonderful report for those of us who missed it the first time around.
It brought back memories of our trip in Northern France as a bonus.

Very evocative photos. Thanks again.

This was first posted while we were in France and I misse dit. So glad someone has topped it. We've made 6 trips to various WI battlefields and I'm always glad to see more reports. It really is too bad that most posters here ignore them. They are so much more interesting than WWII

Great photos; I think you managed to get some lovely light. Thanks for the bad form!

I, too, had missed this great report.

Some of your intense descriptions brought back memories of suffering through a semester of studying Claude Simon's "La Route De Flandres"...talk about a sense of emptiness and senseless waste!

Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences and thoughts...that no one should forget.

Thank you for topping this report, I also missed it the first time around. Very moving and thought provoking Anselm. So sad, such a waste.

Schnauzer

Anselm,
I knew you were a great writer, but this is truly superb, a deft interweaving of the glorious, the grim and the gourmet. I hope that your are able to make the TO GTG so that we can hear more of your personal experiences. As a Newfoundlander, I had thought about paying my respects to the lost young men of my town at Beaumont Hamel.

Hi Anselm,

Thank you for topping this; I too missed it completely the first time around. Had you not done that, I'd now be bereft of an eloquent, interesting and moving account of an event in World history that is sadly being lost in the memories of many as the years go by, and one that - I admit - I should know more about than I do. Thank you again.

Looking forward to seeing you again later this year.

Mathieu

Your photos also beautifully convey the appropriate sense of melancholy and peace.

Looks like I've been forgiven the dreadful sin of topping. Thanks to all for the recent comments. I'm truly touched.

LJ, we're planning to visit Vimy and Beaumont Hamel this November. I'm looking forward to seeing you and all the others at the Toronto GTG this summer.

Anselm

This site will be of interest to those who are interested in the region and its history:

www.verdun-douaumont.com

Hello Anselm

I found your wonderful report this morning as I was searching for information on Reims. Thank you for taking the time to write such an informative and gripping report.

This past summer, we visited Verdun and some of the surrounding areas. It has awakened in me a keen desire to learn so much more about this part of history.

Next summer we are heading there again. The information you have provided will be most helpful.

Happy travels!

And here I was thinking this was the new trip report.

swisshiker, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Nikki, I'm working on it. Honest. I'm just slow.

AA

Ah, Anselm, another of your reports--fascinating as always and, despite the grim subject matter, elegant to read. Glad to see this resurface, as I'd missed it before.

Your skill for looking deeply into history, as well as your profound humanism, can be seen in all your reports.

Et vous savez bien comment faire un bon voyage!

Once we were driving in the Fère-en-Tardenois area of Champagne, and in the middle of an otherwise empty field in the middle of nowhere we came across a small cemetery for about 15 American fliers and soldiers. It was lovingly tended, apparently by locals, and was a very moving experience for us.

smalti, je ne sais comment vous remercier.

Underhill, an interesting NYT article about Meuse-Argonne and other American cemeteries of the Great War: www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/travel/30footsteps.html?_r=1

I've been thinking about a trip to look at the American role in 1917-18, perhaps a trip report called "a Canadian follows the Americans through France". We'll see. Meanwhile, I have Flanders and Picardy to write up; we just got back last week.

Amazing report! We're history buffs, especially WWII, just returned from Belgium, had a guide for the WWII sites, plan next year to see the WWI sites. Thanks so much. I'm definitely saving this.

Anselm,

Excellent trip report and photos!

Worthy of topping and topping

Do the Fodorites have an unwritten rule that discourages thread "topping"?

Not to my knowledge. Sometimes a troll will top really old or contentious threads just to be annoying. The regulars will let the topper know how they feel quickly enough. Actually, I like people to top threads that need more input, or are exceptionally good.

This one by Anselm falls into the outstanding category!

thank you nukesafe! I agree.

Ahhhh...thanks for the clarity. I just didn't want to be "that guy".

I'm actually book-marking Anselm's TR because I hope to visit Verdun on my next trip and I'd like to read a some of the books mentioned. I fall into the category of knowing very little about WWI.

thill25, I'm delighted you enjoyed this. I might just point you to another WWI trip report I posted last fall, just after my wife and I retraced the footsteps of her great uncle, who served as an artillery major in the Great War:

www.fodors.com/community/europe/a-duty-nobly-done-anselm-and-margriet-in-flanders-and-picardy.cfm

cigalechanta and nukesafe, many thanks for your kind comments.

Anselm

A Flanders area trip has been discussed. A mixture of great beer and great history...sounds like a winning combination to me!

FYI: If you can find/catch the series The Trench Detectives (2006) on TV or DVD, I highly recommend it. I caught it on the Discovery HD Theatre channel not to long ago while I was channel surfing. I saw episode four about the trenches near the Belgian city of Ypres. Unfortunately, I haven't seen it on again.

I'll also add my thanks to Anselm. This has been a wonderful read.

Only a few years ago I spent some time in Flanders, retracing my grandfathers war. As a child I listened to his many stories of his fighting in the Ypres and Passchendaele battlefields. Sometimes I wish I had listened more. I have forgotten so much.

thill25, I couldn't find that DVD on Amazon but one book I can recommend is Britain's Last Tommies by Richard Van Emden. These very old soldiers reminisce about their experiences on the WW1 battefields. It is very humbling.

Bill

Bill,

I think the show was park of this series:

http://www.findingthefallen.com/

part not park

thank you thill25! I've just found that I can download some of the information from the series from that address. Your help is much appreciated.

Bill

Anselm, adding “merci” for your thoughtful and moving report. It is true that we Yanks privilege our participation in WWII (especially the Normandy chapter) over our involvement in “the Great War.” My mother was of the WWI generation and often spoke of the conflict. I recall seeing an old photo of her in her youth with a young man in uniform standing outside a tent in a local army base. She spoke of the needless deaths of so many who, later in WWII, might have been saved with blood transfusions and sulfur drugs not yet available in 1914.

Tedgate, I also read the Edith Wharton bio you referenced. (Now there is a gal who did Europe in style!) Her involvement with those at the front was heroic.

For those interested in the genesis of “the Great War,” I would suggest KING, KAISER, TSAR, Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War by Catrine Clay. King George V of England, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia were closely related descendants of Queen Victoria whose family squabbles and dysfunction played out on the bloody battlefields that Anselm has so poignantly described for us. The war started when these three essentially called each other's bluff.

Anselm, I am so glad that I happened upon your post today. Like so many of your readers, I appreciate your sharing your tour through an anguished part of our history. Not to forget your charming description of bed and board along the way.

<<For those interested in the genesis of “the Great War,” I would suggest KING, KAISER, TSAR, Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War by Catrine Clay. King George V of England, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia were closely related descendants of Queen Victoria whose family squabbles and dysfunction played out on the bloody battlefields that Anselm has so poignantly described for us. The war started when these three essentially called each other's bluff.>>

I have not read Catrine Clay's book so I can't tell whether or not the above is a fair summary of her thesis. However, I have read and studied much on the origins and conduct of the First World War, and the idea that it was started because of a family feud between these three cousins seems to me to be ludicrous.

There has been much debate over the years about the culpability for the start of this war, but no serious historian I have read has put forth the disfunctional family theory. The factors which led to a relatively minor incident in the Balkans igniting a world war are far more complex than a mere family squabble. Moreover, King George V of Britain was a constitutional monarch who played little or no part in the British Government's decision to declare war on the Central Powers. As well, any analysis which does not include republican France is fundamentally flawed.

I may be misrepresenting Catrine Clay's thesis, but I am not persuaded that a personality clash among three monarchs was the cause of the war.

If you were as moved by this report as I was, you should read AnsemAdornes' other similar trip report "A Duty Nobly Done".

http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/a-duty-nobly-done-anselm-and-margriet-in-flanders-and-picardy.cfm

A truly wonderful read!

Laverendrye, Thank you for your observations.
According to the author,KING, KAISER, TSAR presents the origins of the war from more recently available correspondence among the three royals. Of course, the situation was more complex with old hatreds and animosities among those trying to maintain a “balance of power” on the continent. France and Austria-Hungary were also key players in the catastrophe. From my reading, no one, including those on the thrones of Europe including the ones soon to be unseated, had any idea what hell they were unleashing in the summer of 1914. I appreciate your comments.

Many Americans (not I) criticize Europeans for being pacifist. No wonder - given the historical memory in almost every one of their families from the bloodbaths of both world wars.

Nukesafe, thank you for your suggestion to check out Anselm's other report. What a writer!

This is one of the most memorable trip reports I have read during my time on Fodors, so when I saw this article in today's headlines I thought I would resurrect it and include the new update.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-15621308

Ps - if you haven't read the report in full, it is really is worthwhile, even if you're not an history buff.

klondike, thanks for the link to the BBC web site. The photos are dramatic and sobering.

Thanks for topping, too. Timely indeed.

Ernie

What a haunting collection of photos, klondike. Thanks for posting the link.

Anselm, When we were in Normandy visiting the cemetaries and the sites where our soldiers died, my husband bought a book ,
Les Plages du Debarquement. I don't read French as he did and I'd like you to have it if you are interested. I'm at hotmail.com.

Timely indeed.

Yes, I too took time re-reading Anselm's wonderful report today.
Thanks for topping Klondike, and thanks very much once again, E.

M.

Hi Mimi. I am in Ottawa at the moment, back home next week. I'll send you a note next week.

E

Thank you Anselm, for this remarkable thread. I hope you don't mind, but I posted the link on Any Port in a Storm, as a special remembrance,

http://anyportinastorm.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=5516&page=1#122992

Topping. Another splendid report from AnselmAdorne, perfect for re-reading on this Remembrance Day 2012.

Thanks for remembering, Veteran's Day, 2012.

After the Remembrance Day ceremony downtown Ottawa I came home and looked up this post that I found so touching years' ago. How timely that it had been topped.