A Duty Nobly Done — Anselm and Margriet in Flanders and Picardy

Interesting, Anselm. Had you considered posting this as a blog (see:

http://wwar1.blogspot.com/)

A great start!

Anselm

A truly wonderful journey for you to undertake. We all look forward to your reflections.

tC

I have been waiting for this! The start is wonderful and we await your impressions of this area. This is wonderful to have these letters as a guide and purpose for your trip. Type on!

Thanks for the encouragement. Harry's letters have been a beacon, if not an inspiration.

PatrickLondon, I hadn't thought of a blog, but we have plans—embryonic at the moment—to put all of the letters up on a website.

Oh, this will be wonderful - looking forward to reading the trip report and more of the letters.

My Dad was in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII and I've always wanted to go there and re-trace his steps.

Anselm - Looking foward to the rest.

“Nobody could wish to see a finer lot of men …”

At the outbreak of the war, Harry was a 34-year-old captain with the 5th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery in India. He landed in Marseilles on November 7, 1914. Two weeks later his artillery brigade was supporting the Lahore Division of the Indian Corps in French Flanders, southwest of Lille. Harry spent most of the next year in this part of France, fighting in the battles of Givenchy, Neuve-Chapelle, Aubers Ridge, Festubert, and Loos.

We spent a day driving around the area. Was it war myth that made it feel so melancholic? Flat land stretched off into grey mist, clods of grey clay lay in freshly turned fields, and grey water pooled in ditches.

We stopped first at Fromelles. In July 1916, British and Australians forces fought an action here whose sole purpose was to prevent the Germans from moving reinforcements south to the Somme. In less than 24 hours, the Australians took more than 5,500 casualties, the British 1,300. It was a devastating blow to the Australian 5th Division, which had only just arrived on the Western Front. The “Sugar Loaf”—a German strongpoint that was the source of murderous machine-gun fire—is today the site of the Australian Memorial Park. The centerpiece, a poignant statue portraying Lieutenant Simon Fraser carrying a wounded comrade off the battlefield, is called simply “Cobbers.”

Interestingly, the story of Fromelles isn’t over. During the battle, more than 400 British and Australian soldiers managed to break through the German lines. They were killed in the fighting and eventually buried by the Germans. There was no record of their graves. Through a remarkable and persistent sleuthing, an Australian teacher named Lambis Englezos last year located signs of a mass burial site. This past spring, excavation confirmed that the missing soldiers were in five burial pits, well behind what had been the German line. The Australian and British governments have since announced plans to exhume the remains, identify as many as possible, and re-inter them with military honours in a new cemetery.

We continued along Aubers Ridge and then a short distance west into Neuve Chapelle. Harry, by now a major commanding an artillery battery (four 18-pound field guns), supported the attack that captured this village in March 1915. Two months later, this is likely where he sat to write the letter that opened this report. Neuve Chapelle was rebuilt, of course, with brick houses, a new church, and wide streets. We parked beside an itinerant butcher whose day-glow sign advertised “Cheval haché.” The new Neuve Chapelle is singularly unattractive.

The Indian Corps spent 13 months in this sector, from just north of Fromelles down to Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée in the south. The war diaries of the 5th Brigade are full of references to the little towns on this flat plain—Richebourg, le Tournet, Mauquissart—and, in a fascinating way, the unique names the British applied to battlefield features, such as Chocolate Menier Corner, Port Arthur, and the Sunken Road.

There is a memorial to the Indian Corps just outside Neuve Chapelle, built on the site where they launched their attack in March 1915. A stone pillar overlooks the battlefield, with “God is One” carved in the many languages of the Indian Corps. The names of the missing—more than 4,700—are engraved on the circular walls of the memorial. They are arranged by battalion and show the distinctive ranks of the Indian Army: sepoy, naik, and havildar. The Royal Field Artillery is well represented, with gunners, drivers, and syces among the missing.

We continued west, finishing our day in Vieille Chapelle. Zelobes Cemetery, no bigger than a handkerchief, is well hidden off the D945. The cross of sacrifice, so prominent in Commonwealth war cemeteries, is absent here. The grave markers show the remarkable diversity of the Indian Corps—Sikhs, Punjabi Mussalmans, Ghurkhas, Jats, Pathans, and Garwhalis, to name a few. “Nobody could wish to see a finer lot of men,” wrote Harry, shortly after arriving in France.

Anselm, I'm so pleased to finally read the start of your latest trip report. Your reports are always wonderful so I look forward to following this one too.

Already it brings back memories of our first road trip across the north of France and Belgium and the Netherlands where we passed cemetery after cemetery full of fallen soldiers. I also recall the warm reception we received in Holland when people discovered we were Canadians. Later I learned that my uncle, now a handsome 91, was in the first group of soldiers to liberate the Dutch at the end of WW2.

thanks again for a fabulous beginning. can't wait to hear the rest.

“I have just had the misfortune to lose a subaltern …”

May 6, 1915

My Dearest Mamma

… Our little trip up to Belgium has been quite an experience for us. It was concentrated essence of the thing & we learnt a lot. We now make ourselves out rather superior & give ourselves airs. I’m afraid I can’t say we were sorry when we came out of action. The Bosch had got us just to a T. & another night’s digging in a new position would have been the alternative. The peace after coming away is a great contrast …

M.L.

HBC Arthur

In April 1915 Harry spent a bit of time at home on leave. Returning to France on April 25, he discovered that the Lahore Division had been sent north to Ypres, where the Germans had launched a ferocious attack on French and British positions around the city. He found a lift to Ypres and arrived in time to support the Lahore Division’s attack on the 26th.

This was the Second Battle of Ypres, infamous for the first widespread use of poison gas on the battlefield. “I saw some asphyx. gasses being used,” Harry wrote, “thick yellow clouds of it & I have seen it turn a whole firing line like one man. It must be deadly stuff.” His battery was on the road out of Brielen, a town just west of Ypres, and from there he could shell the Germans on Mauser Ridge, opposite the Lahore Division infantry. But the enemy located his guns: “I have just had the misfortune to lose a subaltern – an attached fellow whom I hardly knew. It was while the battery was being shelled this morning. My captain was wounded also I’m sorry to say in the head, but I hope not very severely.”

They moved the battery, but were discovered once more. The shelling continued. It was bad enough for the artillery, but for the Lahore Division infantry, Second Ypres was a tragedy. The infantry were relieved on May 1, while the Lahore Divisional Artillery stayed on for another three days. “We have no very definite task” wrote Harry, “& I have attached myself pro tem to a French Colonel, who seems very glad of my help, as I cover of bit of the line he cant quite get. He was very cordial about it.”

We drove out to Brielen. It is a cluster of houses on a country road, surrounded by flat fields and occasional trees. I had hoped to be able to follow Harry’s line of sight, but we were in clinging fog. We turned east and followed the German line over to Langemark. There is a German cemetery here, a darkly somber place. Under a canopy of oak, black flat stones mark the burials, and near the entrance, the Kameraden Grab—a mass grave—contains the bodies of 25,000 soldiers. Off in the distance, a statue of four soldiers watches over the cemetery. Silhouetted against the fog, these figures were deeply unsettling.

We moved on to Saint-Julien. At the crossroads once called Vancouver Corner, the Brooding Soldier—the upper figure of a Canadian soldier, head bowed, leaning on his rifle reversed—“marks the battlefield where 18,000 Canadians on the British left withstood the first German gas attacks on the 22-24 April 1915. 2,000 fell and are buried nearby.”

We went next to Tyne Cot, the largest Commonwealth cemetery. Near the cross of sacrifice I watched some workmen refurbishing grave markers. One man used a grinding wheel to polish the face of a stone, while another used a small etching tool to refresh the name carved into the face. There are 12,000 graves in Tyne Cot; the names of 35,000 missing are carved on the rear wall. These workmen will be busy for the rest of their lives.

Ah, there you are. Reading with great interest.

What a fascinating and very personal trip report. I'm very much looking forward to more.

This is lovely; thanks for sharing.

Anselm: this is a great history treasure that you are sharing with all of us.

Perhaps you should make a book of it, or at least, as was suggested, a blog.

I cannot imagine a more evocative reason for a trip around northern France.

Those cemeteries are sad reminders to all who have seen them, from both World Wars.

Please continue. you have a faithful and grateful audience.

A melancholy, evocative report especially so when our country is at war again. Thank you for posting.

My thanks, again, for the kind words.

Margriet has pointed out that I used the phrase "war diaries" without explaining what they are.

Major fighting units kept a daily record—or diary—of events. We were able to locate most of the war diaries for both Harry's 5th Brigade and for the Lahore Divisional Artillery, so we were able to match the dates of his letters to what was going on around him at that moment.

And, just to clarify the hierarchy of formations: Harry commanded the 64th Battery, which was one of three batteries in the 5th Brigade. The 5th Brigade was one of four brigades in the Lahore Divisional Artillery.

I'll explain at the very end of our trip report how to find war diaries.

“Safe back in the trenches …”

Harry returned to Neuve Chapelle, arriving back in time for the Battle of Aubers Ridge. The techniques that had worked at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle ran into a harder and wiser German defence. And then, a few days later, the Indian Corps fought in the 10-day Battle of Festubert; the result was a one kilometre advance at the cost of 16,000 casualties. Harry was one of the injured. He wrote this from a casualty clearing station, one day after the battle ended:

May 26, 1915

My Dearest Mamma

Just a line again today as you will be unreasonably anxious until I am ‘safe back in the trenches’ again … I expect to be right enough to go in two or three days time & already feel perfectly fit & eye not troubling me though it looks a horrid sight & is kept covered up. I was lucky in having no damage whatever to the eye itself. The (other) wound is of course completely healed & was never anything at all … This is rather a quaint place – a plain square room nice and airy, some disinfectants, a couple of deck chairs & some stools made of wine cases with strips of wood nailed on as legs. Rows of stretchers all round the room are our beds – not too uncomfortable. Accommodation of course for people who are just going further or going back like myself. My eye is dressed every two hours & improves every time. It does not trouble me at all …

My best love

H.B.C. Arthur

Harry returned to action and spent a relatively quiet summer before the Battle of Loos. The Indian Corps’ role was peripheral, although no less bloody: they made a diversionary attack northeast of Neuve Chapelle while the main battle took place south of the la Bassée canal.

The education of the young, and other things on the mind of Major Arthur

June 9, 1915

My Dearest Mamma

I write again today to ask if you will please buy me an aneroid barometer—one of those little round ones in a leather case (pocket one). I want to see how far fuzes burn in accordance with pressure of atmosphere. It has clouded over again this afternoon & I suspect we shall have another thunder storm. The French seem to have been pretty successful the last few days & our people out at the Dardanelles too.

We are all very quiet here & I divide my days between going to the obs[servin]g station for a few hours & the education of the young.

Please thank Nora very much (or yourself?!) for the sunshades which will be most useful—I will write her tomorrow to thank her for the chocolates.

J.C.

HBC Arthur

Harry wrote from time to time about the officers joining his battery. They were very young men: “… I have got two new subalterns named Clark(e?) & Thomas. They are nouveautés & I hope will be a success. The former seems a nice boy & the other not too bad except he appears to know more about everything than I do.” And later: “We have just got a new subaltern named Wrigall. He has been 6 mths at Woolwich. He looked rather frightened on arrival. Our last one was overconfident. This one too little. He looks a nice youth however.”

There were problems to be solved: “On arrival at this village we had no less than 3 cases of drunkenness (after being clear of it for about a year!) I went round to all the houses in the main street & was very eloquent in my best French. You know sale of alcohol to Br. soldiers is absolutely forbidden …” He said he received a sympathetic hearing.

Harry’s initial assessment of the war—“The whole thing depends on tidiness. It’s a funny game”—evolved as the cycle of fighting, rest, and refit repeated itself month after month. He grew restive when out of action and was frustrated by the lack of accurate war news: “I think the cheap & fantastic accounts of some of our press absolutely nauseating.” He remarked on the gap between staff and those actually fighting: “Major Barton in the bde [brigade] has got a DSO & richly deserved it. There is great indignation in the infantry at the shower of honours on the staff, whilst the people who have faced the bombs & the machine guns get nothing.”

But his good humour and dry wit were irrepressible. He took care to thank his family for gifts of cake, pudding, and curry powder. He asked them to send him flypapers, toothpowder, torch batteries (Ever Ready, a box of six cells, number 226B.S), razor blades (Gillette), a transparent protractor, and “bandages for wounded telephone wire” (some kind of tape, I assume). He sent his binoculars off to be mended, and then wrote to his mother: “I am asking Ross & Co. to send my field glasses to you when repaired. I was told they kicked a bit as so many men had died between the giving of the order & payment of the bill. Perhaps you would pay their bill also? Ross Opticians, Bond St.”

When in action, the officers’ mess took on a different look: “We have established our mess in a tiny tumbledown house by the wayside and have partitioned off part of it with straw screens & a waterproof sheet. We have a lot of straw down on the ground & a plank suspended from the ceiling with a few bits of wire for a table — a few old chairs & we are very comfortable.” In action, he spent a lot of time in the observation post. He assured his family that he was doing all he could to avoid harm: “We have built up a great sandbag arrangement and nothing but a direct hit would be likely to harm us. And before that I should have made myself scarce in a dugout we have handy.” Yet they must have realized the danger: “They have got a 17 [inch] gun over the way & it makes a hole like the crater of a volcano. I should think Well House [the family home in Banstead] wd about go inside.”

He wrote affectionately about his horses, Joscelyn and Givenchy: “I am lucky in the new mare. She is rather bourgeois, but will do me very well in a quiet way.” He asked frequently for news of his nephew John, who was also an artillery officer on the Western Front. He remarked on insects in the summer (the flies, he said, were as bad as in Poona) and described the house martins that had built a nest in his observation post.

He made light of his wounds.

"I was told they kicked a bit as so many men had died between the giving of the order & payment of the bill."

Sounds callous these days. But Mrs F's grandfather was almost bankrupted by the problem: officers were being killed before paying their tailor's bill, and the sheer numbers of dead creditors became impossible for many shopkeepers at home to cope with.

AnselmAdorne, thank you this captivating report. I absolutely love reading the letters from Uncle Harry. His expressive way of writing is powerful.

In the last few years, my husband and I have focused most of our travel on WWI and WWII. I am embarrassed to say that much of the history was lost on me during my education. But now it seems to occupy most of my travel planning, a thirst that seems unquenchable.

When we visited northern France and Germany this past summer, we were overwhelmed by the graciousness and gratitude of the people. Very humbling and moving.

What a treat -- two vivid writers for the price of one.

Ah, curry powder. My mother always rather bridled at the fact that the most heartfelt message in my father's very first letter home from a prisoner of war camp in WW2 seemed to be "Please send curry powder", but food had to be the first priority, I suspect.

Most fascinating, yet unsettling, post. "Enjoying" it immensely.

I recently unearthed a cache of letters I wrote my parents from Korea. The difference between what I told them, and what was actually happening, make me wonder at the things Harry is glossing over.

More, please!

Thank you so much for starting this. We've been waiting ever since our dinner together with you in Paris.

On another note, I hope you've made some plans for these wonderful letters and any other memorabilia you might have. If your children don't have much interest , You might consider donating them to your relative's regimental museum. We did that with all our WWI family memorabilia. Some to the Princess Patricia's CLI and some to the Surrey and Queen's regiment . We still have some of David's father's things and we need to finally dontae those, I have to find out what regiment he was in in the Canadian Army

Not to steal your thread, Ernie but does anyone know what regiment or outfit this would be? One of his medals has his #36068 S Sjt LAD, GAPC on it.

avalon

This is a strange inscription. I'm assuming that this is a First World War medal. Service medals, such as the 1914-15 Star, and the War and Victory Medals are engraved with the recipient's number, rank, initials and surname, either on the back (for stars) or the rim (medals).

Orders and decorations such as the Distinguished Conduct, the Distinguished Service, and the Military Medal add the recipient's unit.

Clearly the number and rank are there (Staff-Sergeant--at that time often abbreviated S Sjt), but the letters following don't make any sense, either as a name or a unit.
Is LAD the initials? Is there a surname? I'm not aware of any unit with the abbreviation "GAPC"

If you can tell what the medals are, that might help.

This site will help you to identify them:

http://tinyurl.com/79jqxj

I'm sure that Anselm will forgive us this small deviation from his fine report.

avalon, I rather thought that if anyone might know the answer to your question it would be laverendrye. I hope you can find out a bit more about David's father's record.

nukesafe, Harry was a master of understatement. I suspect that part of it was simply to keep a stiff upper lip, and part was to avoid distressing his family. We have transcripts of some of his nephew John's letters from the front. His descriptions were far more graphic than Harry's.

On a related note, Harry censored his own letters and always took care not to mention the names or numbers of battalions, brigades and divisions, nor where he was. (Well, almost always careful; writing home about his horse named Givenchy was a pretty big clue about where he was at the time.)

Back to Ypres

In November 1915 Harry’s mother fell ill—a stroke, perhaps—and he started to send his letters to his sister Leonora, whom he addressed as Nora or Nonny. There was co-incidentally, a change in his war: the Indian Corps was withdrawn from Europe and sent to Mesopotamia. But the Army kept the Lahore Divisional Artillery on the Western Front, so Harry and his 5th Brigade were moved north to support the Canadians in the Ypres Salient.

I was struck once again by how topography, history, and weather blend to affect my mood. That southern arc of the Ypres Salient—from the Menin Road south through St. Eloi and on down to Wijstschate—felt dark and malevolent. The thick fog persisted, the soil was wet, and the hills, as modest as they are, reminded me of the intense fighting for the high ground overlooking Ypres. As I had discovered in Verdun in 2007, there are times when an active imagination can be disturbing.

Harry fought in this sector for seven months. The war diaries take on a numbing rhythm: they shelled German front-line trenches, communication trenches, and assembly points. They fired at enemy batteries, observation points, sniper’s posts, and machine gun positions. (Harry: “I just fired a couple of rounds at a Hun working party time 9:30 pm observed by the infantry. I’m sorry to say in my anxiety not to hit our own lines I went over the German ones both shots. Lines mighty close about 35 yards in one place only a little left of where I was shooting. I allowed too much margin …”) Observers counted all of the shells fired by the Germans and attempted to pinpoint the location of their guns. (The Lahore Divisional Artillery intelligence summary noted that the officer commanding the 64th Battery [that was Harry] reported the flash of a German 5.9-inch howitzer firing at 7:20 pm, visible from N.33.b.4.1. Harry was at “Daylight Corner” when he sent in that report, about 1200 metres southeast of where we slept at the Hostellerie Kemmelberg.)

He was fortunate to miss the debacle of the St. Eloi craters, but did take part in the Battle of Mount Sorrel. (I read somewhere, and now can’t find, a comment that the artillery bombardment before the Canadian attack to reclaim Observatory Ridge was the heaviest and most concentrated British gunnery to that point in the war.)

Somewhere around this time Harry was wounded for the second time. There is no detail, simply a reference in early July to having his dressing changed every day. And immediately after Mount Sorrel, his mother died, and he later wrote to say how glad he was to have been able to get home.

Where Canada mourns

Pushing south towards Picardy, now in our fourth day of fog, we left the Harry trail for a few hours. Below Lens we climbed up onto Vimy Ridge, parked, and followed the directions of a security guard, who pointed us toward a path under maples. We saw nothing until a party of French school children emerged from the mist, and we realized that the Vimy Monument was towering over our heads, grey against grey.

This was the site of a success: four Canadian divisions took the ridge in a meticulously planned and well-executed attack at Easter 1917. Vimy is mythically significant for us, in part because it was a watershed event in our nationhood, but more profoundly because it has come to symbolize our mourning. The design of the monument, bold in the 1930s, is unlike any other memorial on the Western Front. We cannot be the only Canadians who have stood there in pride, humility, and sorrow.

We drove a couple of kilometres further south to Nine Elms Cemetery, where we looked for the grave of Fred McAvay, an uncle of SallyCanuck, who posts here on Fodor’s. He died in the assault on Vimy, April 9 1917. We had brought maple leaves down from the ridge (it just seemed like a very Canadian thing to do); we left some at the grave marker, took a few photos, and drove straight down the A1 to Bapaume.

Bookmarking. We were in Belgium in October, had a guide for two days to see the Battle of the Bulge area. Next trip will include Flanders.
Those letters are better than any history book! Please consider donating them, or selling them, at some time, to a military museum or something so that so many others can read them and begin to appreciate what that war was like.
I'm going to follow along with this and thank you so much for sharing. As history lovers we are on a quest to visit the sites my dad lived through during WWII, and many others that particularly appeal to us. Both world wars have thousands of places worth visiting.
Thank you!!!!

My roots are in northeast France, and all of these cemeteries are part of the landscape. The only other country that I have visited that seems to have as many military cemeteries is Vietnam.

“Where were you during the great offensive?”

The big push on the Somme—four months of intense fighting in the summer and fall of 1916—moved the line a few kilometres back towards Germany. It came at an appalling cost. A year after the battle, John Masefield described what still lay on the battlefield: “Corpses, rats, old tins, old weapons, rifles, bombs, legs, boots, skulls, cartridges, bits of wood & tin & iron & stone, parts of rotting bodies & festering heads lie scattered about. A more filthy hole you cannot imagine.” Place names like Beaumont-Hamel, Thiepval, Mouquet Farm, Pozières, Delville Wood, and Mametz still evoke a sense of horror.

We found gently rolling hills and shallow valleys. Many of the fields were still green, those that were plowed showed a light, dry earth. There was no mud, no melancholy, no malevolence, just a remarkable sense of peacefulness. But it hasn’t fully healed. While the inhabitants go about their normal lives, the reminders are everywhere: the distinctive green Commonwealth War Graves signs at every intersection, the tour buses from Reading, the school parties standing on the lip of the Lochnagar Crater, the memorials, the monuments, the scars.

We visited Beaumont-Hamel, site of the Newfoundland Regiment’s attack on the opening day of the Somme. Of the 801 in the contingent, only 68 answered roll call the next day. Rex Murphy, that wry journalist and quintessential Newfoundlander, has observed that his compatriots “are not unacquainted with grief.” But this was the worst day in their history: “Not an outport nor a town but sent someone, not a family hardly but was to bear the terrible cross of a favourite they were never to see again.”

As at Vimy Ridge, we watched Canadian university students—buoyant and confident—giving tours of Beaumont-Hamel to French school children. Ninety-three years ago these young men could have been subalterns facing a very short life; these young women could have been nursing sisters dealing with unspeakable injuries.

We looked at the Lochnagar Crater at La Boiselle, stopped at the memorial plaque at Mouquet Farm, and visited Thiepval, with its memorial to the missing of the Somme. We drove down to Péronne and toured the war museum; rather a good one, we thought. We visited the German cemetery in Fricourt on our way back.

In early July 1916 the Lahore Divisional Artillery moved from the Ypres Salient down to the Somme. They came south by train and went into rest in the village of Fieffes, 35 kilometres from the front. There was a different pace when at rest:

July 6, 1916

My dearest Nonny,

It is delightful to get your letters so regularly. They come in with the communiqués & contain far more matter of interest … I seem to have quite enough to do these days. At 9 o’c (8 o’c according to Gregorian reckoning) we have been having some director work (that is an instrument for taking angles) for officers. We get in at 11 or so & stables carries us on to lunch time. In the afternoon I have been riding off some 3 or 4 miles to get [my wound] dressed. By the way, the thing ought to be healed over in 3 or 4 days time. I shall be glad. In the evening I have been taking an hour’s lesson on the Morse buzzer. The above with the interstices filled in with a few official papers — reading newspaper and so on pretty well fill up the day.

On Saturday, we have got a concert. I am supplying beer. The funds are supplying cigarettes. On Monday we are having a little dinner party at a place called the Officer’s Chit — a small affair …

Now my very best love

fr HBC Arthur

On Sunday, he reported that the concert had been a success: “Last night we had a concert which went off very well. Roseveare sang something about the village pump of which the chorus was the pump the pump the pump pump pump pump pump. It went down very well.”

But he chaffed at missing the action:

July 17, 1916

My dearest Nonny,
A line before I go to bed. – We are in a new billet a farm in a village street. It is comfortable & the lady is friendly … My dear I hear tales of a fresh British capture of villages near the Somme. I hope it may be substantiated. I have it on the authority of our field cashier. I have not seen even yesterday’s paper. You have the advantage of me already. We are still at rest. I wonder how long we will remain so. “Where were you during the great offensive?” Well I was in our wagon line …
And now to bed
HBC Arthur

And had to face an ordeal:

July 28, 1916

My dearest Nora,

Today I have survived an ordeal. I was asked last night to lecture to officers of a battalion on matters of artillery. Today I did so & am sorry to say took two hours over it. I should add that they survived too. When I had finished the major said quite gravely – Well, we shall understand that if you shell our own trenches it will be because it was a warm day or for some reason like that. I haven’t any idea why he said it. It was a cruel thing to say! …

My best love I will stop now

HBC Arthur

Beautifully written and inspiring - thanks for the story of your journey - looking forward to more.

Thank you, thank you - Anselm! How lovely to take the maple leaves to Fred's grave...makes me teary reading it.

Sally Canuck, I'll mail the photos (and your book) tomorrow morning.

Sausage Valley

The Lahore Divisional Artillery stayed at rest until August 2 and then marched over several days to the Brickfield at Albert. On August 8, they were ready to relieve the Australian Field Artillery, who had been supporting the Australian infantry’s attack on Pozières.

Just east of Albert there is a long shallow valley running southwest to northeast from the tiny village of Bécourt up towards La Boisselle. The British called this Sausage Valley. (There was, of course, a Mash Valley; it was on the other side of the Albert-Bapaume road.) On August 9 Harry and his battery set up at the upper end of the valley, shelling German positions just east of Pozières. The next day, the 10th, the weather, which had been bright and hot, turned to mist and drizzling rain.

The 5th Brigade’s war diary entry for August 10th: “Battery commanders checked registration and established communications with O.P.s [Observation Posts]. During the afternoon, enemy heavily shelled Sausage Valley.”

And the Lahore Divisional Artillery war diary, August 10th: “Normal day and night barrages carried out … Registrations were continued. Casualties: Major H.B.C. Arthur, 2/Lt. J. McIvor, 2/Lt. E.F.L MacPherson 64th Battery, 5th Bde. RFA KILLED Capt J.V.O’Brien R.A.M.C attached 5th Bde RFA KILLED …”

Just like that.

On September 28th the War Office wrote to Harry’s mother, unaware that she had passed away: “The Military Secretary presents his compliments to the Honourable Mrs Arthur, and begs to inform her that a report has just been received from Army Headquarters in the Field which states that the place of burial of the late Major H.B.C. Arthur, Royal Field Artillery, is as follows:- ‘Sausage Valley, La Boiselle, Sheet 57.d. Square X.15.c.4.7’ The Military Secretary ventures to send this information now, as the Honourable Mrs Arthur may not have previously received it.”

Harry was buried a few hundred yards from his battery, in what was later called Gordon Dump Cemetery. It is on the north slope of Sausage Valley, at the end of a wide grassy path leading away from a country road. Everything around it is farmland now, just as it was in July 1914. We walked down—predictably, in mist that turned to drizzling rain—and found his grave. McIvor and MacPherson, his two subalterns, lie alongside, as does Captain O’Brien of the Royal Army Medical Corps. It is a tranquil place, but ineffably lonely. We stood there for a while, then signed the visitor’s book, took pictures, and left a poppy.

“I have implicit confidence in you, my soldiers,” wrote King George in a message to the British Expeditionary Force at the outbreak of the war. “Duty is your watchword, and I know your duty will be nobly done.” Harry, a soldier of the King, fought in the battles of Givenchy, Neuve Chapelle, Second Ypres, Aubers Ridge, Festubert, Loos, Mount Sorrel, and the Somme. He was twice wounded, mentioned in despatches, and killed in action; it was indeed a duty nobly done.

Geez, now I'm teary again.

A wonderfully written, moving and well composed report, Anselm (E). But then, I've come to expect nothing less from you. Thanks very much for your good work and I'm looking forward to more.

M.

AA, I don't think I've ever used the word "enthralled" to describe a trip report but you and Great Uncle Harry have certainly captured my interest.

Deborah

Your reports are tops in my book. Will savor in-depth when I have time this weekend. Looking forward to it!

Best to you and Margriet. I cook that Paris-apartment chicken at least twice a month. Then I make chicken tacos in adobo sauce with the leftovers.

The person who suggested writing a book about your unusual trip is right. With all those letters and your experiences interwoven, the story would make a nice travel book.

Anselm

I am truly touched and moved by the words you have recorded here. The passion and angst felt by those who have been moved to visit war sites is nearly indescribable.

I presently teach a course that covers Canadian involvement in World War I and the letters from Margriet's Great Uncle Harry certainly provide many opportunities for lessons. Thank you for sharing this intensely personal experience with us.

tC

Wow. Thanks.

Tears are coming down my cheeks and shivers are running up and down my spine as I read your report, Anselm.
Your writing makes me feel as if I were in those fields to see what you saw and feel what you felt. Thank you.

Anselm

A great story, beautifully told.

You and other readers might be interested in a photo gallery I came across recently from the Canadian section of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. It's a series of photos taken mostly in the early 1920's showing the cemeteries with the original wooden crosses and some of the memorials such as the Menin Gate and Thiepval while under costructions.

http://www.cwgc-canadianagency.ca/gallery/index.php?lang=en

The Canadian War Museum also has a wonderful on-line archive of photos, documents and objects from the First World War

http://tinyurl.com/8mhu7s

For those who may be in Ottawa between now and Apr 13, the CWM has three temporary exhibitions on the First World War: "Trench Life-A Survival Guide" and two photography exhibitions--one of CWGC Cemeteries, and another of present scenes along the entire front from the North Sea to Switzerland by Michael St. Maur Shiel which are simply stunning.

laverendrye

Thanks, laverendrye, I will be in Ottawa for Winterlude so will definitely see this exhibit.

For once in my life words fail me, other than to say thanks to all who have posted.

Margriet is working away on the hotels and restaurants, and I have a little note to post on the new apartment in Paris, so there is a bit more to come. Photos, too. Eventually.

laverendrye, thanks for the links. My daughter (who is studying in Ottawa) had mentioned that exhibit when she was home at Christmas. I'll take a look when I'm in Ottawa next month.

Hotels and Restaurants: Flanders and Picardy
Our trip to Flanders and Picardy took five days, and we stayed in four different hotels, two in France and two in Belgium. Thank you to all those who made suggestions last spring.

Lille: After an overnight flight, and a train trip, our requirements for a hotel for our first night in France are always modest. It must be quiet, clean, and easy to get to. After sifting through the possibilities and reading the reviews, it generally comes down to an older hotel, close to the station. These places often get mixed reports—one person’s charming is another person’s shabby, after all—and the Hôtel de la Paix (www.hotel-la-paix.com) is no exception. In November, it seems to cater to business travellers, but it certainly suited our needs. The staff were pleasant, it was quiet, it was neither too hot nor too cold, and the bed was comfortable.

Our criteria for a restaurant on the first night are equally simple: it must be close to our hotel and ready to serve dinner before 8 pm. This usually means a brasserie, and in Flanders, not surprisingly, a brasserie like Les Trois Brasseurs really does make their own beer and serves a tasty choucroute garnie, as well.

Poperinge, Belgium: A romantic luxury hotel is a sure antidote to short, dark November days. The mid-week special at the Hotel Recour—two nights for the price of one—makes it even more appealing. We stayed in the main house in one of “romantik” rooms named for the Muses. Ours was Euterpe, and it was every bit as nice as on the website (www.hotelrecour.com). The spacious rooms and high ceilings keep the decoration from being too frou-frou; there are comfortable chairs and mohair throws; a bath you can swim in, and a comfortable bed with fine linens. The rooms in the attached annex, which are named for architects and designers (van der Rohe, Eames), are decorated more sparely, but no are less luxurious.

On one of the two nights we stayed there, we ate at the hotel’s restaurant, Pegasus. This was expensive, but it was full-bore gastronomie, with hot and cold running waiters, bringing countless small plates with interesting food pairings—raw tuna with celeriac, foie gras with purée of Brussels sprouts, for example—all intensely flavoured and delicious.

The buffet breakfast, pricey at €17, is lavish (and what’s not to love about chocolate for breakfast)? We rationalized the cost as a roundabout and swings situation, since we ate sandwiches for lunch.

Kemmelberg, Belgium: The Hostellerie Kemmelberg (www.kemmelberg.be/) is a rustic lodge sitting at the highest point in Flanders (156 metres above sea level). We understand that the view is spectacular. On our visit, however, the hotel was shrouded in fog. If you go in November you might be better off not paying extra for the valley view. The room was small, though comfortable, but the public rooms are spacious with large windows overlooking ... whatever there is to see. We commented on leaving that we would love to come back when we might be able see a little more, and the manager gave us a postcard; it is a lovely view.

The restaurant at the Kemmelberg serves excellent classic cuisine. We had the set menu of lemon sole with sauerkraut, oysters with champagne sauce and watercress soup, pheasant with braised endives, puff pastry with banana mousse and kiwi sorbet, and our meal began with three amuses-bouches and ended with three mignardises.
Breakfast here was excellent, too, and according to the card on the table, the eggs come from their own chickens.

Albert, Picardy: We received a warm welcome at this particular Hôtel de la Paix, a simple but pleasant family-run hotel near the centre of Albert that caters to business travellers and to the Great War set. It’s well maintained, and the bathroom was impressively new. The hotel restaurant is deservedly popular and was full every night with both hotel guests and local residents. Our one caveat is that the hotel has changed hands since we were there in November.

A Few Words about Food
Lunch/: Our first lunch of the trip, in Ieper, was pleasant, but heavy. We realized that we wouldn’t make much progress if we made it a habit to eat such lunches. Besides, much of our trip was to be through small towns and villages, so we decided to pick up sandwiches along the way. This was easy enough in Belgium—broodjies were readily available from bakeries in most villages, and in Kemmelberg we even found a sandwich shop. French Flanders was a different matter. We stopped at three bakeries, and at each when we saw no sandwiches, asked if they had any quiche, perhaps. We’ve bought quiche from bakeries in Provence and in the Auvergne, but, apparently, chez les Ch’tis they don’t eat quiche. Who knew?

We were very impressed by the food in Belgium, where even a simple meal of steak, fries, and salad (Café de la Paix in Poperinge) is thoughtfully prepared. It is definitely a country of Patapoufs. Coffee always seems to come with cake (sometimes with cake and chocolate), even at the end of a meal. There were many highly regarded restaurants in the area, and we were sorely tempted to try out the Hostellerie St-Nicolas in Elverdinge just outside of Ieper. They offer a three-course lunch with wine and coffee for the astonishingly low price (did I mention they have two Michelin stars?) of €48. Alas, we realized that doing so would cut short our touring for the day. But we’ll definitely return to Flanders—and we’ll be sure to go when we are more likely to see the view from Mount Kemmel.

Anselm and Margriet, thank you so much for sharing this. I think your thread title could apply just as well to how you have fufilled our duty to honor and remember those who fought in the Great War. Although I have visited many of the WWII sites in Normandy, I have not (yet) had the opportunity to go to the places you describe. Thanks again.

Anslem, what a beautiful and moving report, made all the more poignant because of the ridiculous circumstances and chauvinistic enthusiasms that led to the blood bath of WWI. Its painful history is often eclipsed by its consequence, WWII.

Those wishing to understand more about the "Great War's" genesis might read KING, KAISER, TSAR Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War by Catrine Clay. This history describes the intrigues, misunderstandings, and jealousies that led these three grandsons of Queen Victoria to allow circumstances to result in this debacle.

Again, thank you for sharing. RIP, Cousin Harry.

The number of places called Hôtel de la Paix and Café de la Paix in Northeastern France says a lot about what they have been through.

ANd special thanks to Maigriet ,too for her hotel and restaurant report.

We too stayed on Mont Kemmel but we were able to enjoy the view.

I must put the Hostellerie St-Nicolas in Elverdinge on our to do list for the next time we are in Ieper

Anselm, thank you for an interesting and profoundly moving trip report. Once again it is the words of the participant, and not the backward glance of the historian, that bring these events to life.

wow. thank you.

hi anselm,

I just found this after what I had thought was a particularly hard week at work - you and uncle harry put my troubles into their true perspective.

i echo what others have said - both uncle harry's and your writing on this subject deserve a wider audience. and you have prompted me to research my own grandfather's role in WW1, which thankfully [my father having been born in 1923] he survived.

regards, ann

Paris, slowly

Like a very good meal, Paris is a city best savoured, not rushed. We took long walks, poking into new neighbourhoods and re-visiting old favourites. On a sunny day, we sat in Tuileries, our feet up on the edge of the fountain; when we finally moved on, we made it no further than Palais Royal, where we found another fountain for our feet. We went to one museum, la Musée des Arts et métiers. We attended the Fodorite get-together at Gallopin, where we had the pleasure of meeting PatrickLondon, Nikki, and Avalon and her husband.

We alternated each day between dining out and preparing a meal in the apartment, so we spent a lot of time shopping for food. Nikki joined us for dinner at the apartment one evening. We prepared pork chops with mushrooms, Dijon mustard, and cream. Nikki brought a wonderful desert. If you felt your ears burning in November, it was because we were talking about you.

Margriet made several trips to BHV and returned talking about papeterie and doorknobs. She found her way to La Droguerie and bought wool and books about knitting. In the late afternoon she worked away on her spinning wheel (yes, she did bring a spinning wheel, but I’ll let her tell that tale). I spent my time reading of war and thinking about Major Arthur. Paris—rich, elegant, and enticing—pulsed around us; we felt delightfully at home.

We rented a newly renovated apartment on Rue des Archives, between Rue Rambuteau and BHV. We have dealt with the owners before; they have a large flat on Rue des Petits Champs that we have mentioned in another trip report.

Rue des Archives is a vibrant street. The sidewalks are busy and the cafés are full. The street is lined with small shops—jewellers, newsagents, bakeries, an excellent butcher, a couple of wine stores. Just around the corner on Rue Rambuteau are more specialty shops, including a fishmonger, several greengrocers, another butcher, a cheese shop, and a Franprix.

The apartment has an interesting layout: from the entrance hall, there is a large bedroom off to the right, with windows overlooking the street. The dining room and kitchen are straight ahead, also with windows on the street. The sitting room is off to the left, and the second bedroom (with an ensuite bathroom and shower) beyond that. The main bathroom, with a huge comfortable tub, is also off the main entrance hall.

The decorating has that touch of warm welcome that we loved at Rue des Petits Champs, although the owner mentioned to us that she wanted to adjust a few things, such as adding more rugs and rearranging the lighting in the sitting room. The linens are superb, the bed is comfortable. (We used the bedroom off the living room, with windows onto a courtyard. Next time we’ll try the bedroom overlooking the street. It’s slightly larger, and we realized that Rue des Archives becomes very quiet at night.)

The kitchen is wonderfully designed, with clever use of space. There is a stone floor (surprisingly comfortable underfoot and easy to keep clean) and black granite counter-tops. This was our first encounter with an induction stove; we’re now smitten. Everything worked perfectly, a testament to the owners’ care before putting it on the rental market: the wireless internet, the dishwasher, the TV, the stove and oven, the washer and dryer, the heating system, and the door locks.

This was our third time renting from the owners, Sheila and Bruno. They are very easy to deal with, straightforward, and prompt. Their local representative, a man named Roland, is charming, helpful, and droll. Here’s a link to the apartment listing:

www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p210013

And here is a link to their place on Rue des Petits Champs:

www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p143450

Just two more posts to go. Margriet will be along tomorrow to talk about Paris restaurants and then I’ll add a bit of practical information about researching war journeys.

Anselm and Margriet - thank you again for this wonderful trip report. It brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing Harry's and your journeys with us.

That was fun. Let's do it again some time.

Eating in Paris

After 35 years, L’Ambassade d’Auvergne has become one of those Paris institutions. There’s a formality to the service, but it’s not mechanical. You feel that even though he’s done it a thousand times, the waiter enjoys the ritual of the aligot—lifting the wooden spoon high and letting the purée of potatoes, cream, and cheese fall in a sheet back into the copper pot. It’s open on Sunday, which is a bonus. I’m not sure that I’d go there in the summer; I love the food of Auvergne, but it’s hearty fare.

We enjoyed the brisk and cheerful service at L’As du Falafel, and the tasty food—falafel, salade israélienne, and schwarma. We’ll be back.

Au Vieux Chêne: We love this place, both for the food, which is always interesting and delicious, and for the feeling of a team working together to make their customers happy. It envelops you with good humour. This was our fourth visit, and they’ve never put a foot wrong. They sell wine by the glass, and if you put yourself in their hands, their wine choices are thoughtful: both appropriate and affordable.

Café Constant: The food, of course, was wonderful. There is a very reasonably priced set menu, but we were seduced by the specials on the blackboards—oysters followed by roast scallops for Anselm (both of which he declared were the best he’d ever eaten); langoustine followed by pigeon for me. Judging by the number of regulars, the owner’s dream of it being a neighbourhood bistrot has been fulfilled. We were delighted by one old gentleman whose table was specially set with a placemat. Shortly after he began to eat his entrée, napkin tucked under his chin, a young man came in from a nearby store and delivered his shopping to him.

Like other brasseries we’ve been to—Au Pied de Cochon, Petit Bofinger, Thoumieux—Gallopin runs like a well-oiled machine, which may be why it’s a little lacking in soul. But the room is lovely—all dark wood and mirrors and white tablecloths—the company was delightful, and it was open on a holiday.


We decided to try Le Rollin after reading a review in Le Figaro. It praised the bistrot for its generous portions (perhaps too generous, we thought), its atmosphere, and its young chef, “qui adore son métier.” We were able to watch him cheerfully working his magic in a kitchen the size of a postage stamp. We were surprised to see so few people there on a Friday night, and the waiter remarked that the economic downturn was taking its toll. We hope Le Rollin and its three friendly young owners can hold on.

Rue des Archives: The food we cook for ourselves in France is much the same as we make at home. But the yogurt is Mamie Nova, the ham is carved by the butcher off the bone, and the endive, apple, and blue cheese salad is made with Fourme d’Ambert.

Before arriving at rue des Archives, we had checked out the distance to rue Montorgueil, but as it turned out everything we wanted could be found within a few blocks. After a couple of days we knew which was our favourite bakery and that we preferred the butcher on rue des Archives to the big one on Rambuteau. The butcher’s shop is tiny, but holds an incredible variety—poultry, every cut of meat, and wonderful charcuterie—we particularly enjoyed the pâté en croute, terrine au lapin, and celeri rémoulade. M. Letourneau seemed a little dour at first, but after I had told him how much we enjoyed his lamb chops, he always had a smile for me.

As Anselm mentioned, I loved the induction stove in the apartment. Because it heats the cookware rather than the cooking surface, it’s lightening fast, but it can also be adjusted to a very low simmer, unlike the gas stoves we’ve cooked on.

Co-ordinates

L’Ambassade d’Auvergne, 22, rue du Grenier Saint-Lazare 75003 Paris, 01 42 72 31 22
L’As du Falafel, 34, rue des Rosiers, 75004 Paris
Au Vieux Chêne, 7, rue du Dahomey, 75011 Paris, 01 43 71 67 69
Café Constant, 139, rue St-Dominique, 75007 Paris
Gallopin, 40, rue Notre Dame des Victoires, 75002 Paris, 01 42 36 45 38
Le Rollin, 92 avenue Ledru-Rollin (face au Monop’) 75011 Paris, 01 48 06 51 92

A Few More Words about Food

Parisians seem to have taken the smoking ban in stride. Instead of lighting up at the table, die-hard smokers can be seen outside taking a quick cigarette break between courses.

Judging by a scene we watched unfold, it can also provide an opportunity on a date gone wrong. A young woman who obviously just wasn’t that into him took advantage of a trip outside to make a call on her cell phone.

It’s a good thing that I’ll be retiring in a couple of years, because we are approaching the point where we can’t fit in the restaurants we’d like to try, and the tried and true, and a satisfactory amount of cooking from our suitcases. Obviously, the solution is to make our visits a little longer.

Practical information on maps, guides, and research

We covered a 125-kilometre stretch of the Western Front in five days. It could be done in less, but many of the Great War sites are isolated and accessible only from small country roads. We made a lot of navigation errors in Belgium; I think they have some functionary who hides all the road signs.

We used the Michelin Local series maps: 302 (Nord) for French Flanders and Ypres and 301 (Pas-de-Calais) for the Somme. At 1/150,000, they show the back roads. I also used the French Géoportail website to pinpoint cemeteries and monuments (www.geoportail.fr/visu2D.do?ter=metropole). Click on “cartes” on the left hand menu to call up the IGN topographical map and then adjust the sliders to blend the map and aerial photograph to just the way you want it.

We carried the Michelin Green Guide for Northern France, but I would not recommend it for Great War touring. There are many other specialized guidebooks available, such as those of Major and Mrs. Holt, The Middlebrook Guide to the Somme by Martin and Mary Middlebrook, and Before Endeavours Fade by Rose Coombs.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains a database of more than one million Commonwealth war dead. We had no difficulty finding Harry’s record, which includes the unit he served with, the date of his death, and the location of his grave. Their website also provides a description of each Commonwealth war cemetery and information on how to get there (www.cwgc.org).

For anyone wishing to research a family member who served with the British army, there is an excellent “how to” at The Long, Long Trail (www.1914-1918.net). There is also a wonderful group of Great War enthusiasts (that may not be quite the right word) who post at the Great War Forum (http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?); they have a section devoted to researching individual servicemen.

The Long, Long Trail is also a good starting point to trace the movements of a particular
battalion or brigade. We started there and then went on to Google, which helped us to uncover a wealth of information, as well as pointers to relevant books. We ultimately went looking for unit war diaries, a search that took us to the National Archives of the United Kingdom (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk), the Library and Archives of Canada (www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/index-e.html), and the magnificent Australian War Memorial (www.awm.gov.au). A word of warning: war diaries can be anywhere from boringly loquacious to maddeningly laconic, but you may strike gold, as I did when I found the entry for the day Harry died. (That was actually a very emotional moment; I still recollect the hair standing up on the back of my neck.)

The National Archives of the UK will copy and send you what you want for a fee or you can make an appointment to view the documents in Kew. (We ordered copies of the war diaries we were looking for. It was cheaper than a flight to London.) The Australians and the Canadians have put up digital images of selected war diaries, the former at www.awm.gov.au/diaries and the latter at www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/index-e.html. In the case of the Canadian material, however, I found the best way to get at them was through the Canadian Great War Project (www.canadiangreatwarproject.com/warDiaryLac/wdLacP31.asp).

Once you start reading war diaries, you will find references to those unique battlefield names, such as Sausage Valley or specific locations, such as Sheet 57.d. Square X.15.c.4.7. This is the point where you’ll want to reach for a Great War trench map. GH Smith publishes reproductions of trench maps; they can be ordered online or purchased at many of the historical sites on the Western Front. You can also view a selection online at McMaster University (http://library.mcmaster.ca/maps/ww1/home.htm). The Long, Long Trail site, mentioned above, provides instructions on how to read a trench map.

A note about Harry’s letters: judging by the gaps, we think we have no more than a third of what he probably wrote. The ones we have were all written in pencil, many on the kind of paper that folded up to create the envelope. To save paper, Harry rarely started a new paragraph on a new line. He instead simply opened up the space between one sentence and the next. I found his letters difficult to read, but Margriet worked her way through them, remarking that her mother’s handwriting was just like Harry’s. They are transcribed as written, hence the occasional missing word, spelling mistake, or grammatical clanger. The quotes in the trip report are exact, except where you see points of ellipsis, which indicate that we have dropped a few words for the sake of brevity. Matching the letters to the war diaries, I have pretty much figured out where they were written and what was happening around him when he wrote. I have started to notate them accordingly, and we aim to put them up on a website some day.

Finally, if you have gotten this far you must really be interested in the Great War. I spent a few days looking at the French battlefields of Verdun and Chemin des Dames in October 2007. The trip report—“I feared to set my foot upon a dead man’s cheek”—is here www.fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=2&tid=35091624 if you’d like to read it.

Anselm (and Margriet), a wonderful report, as always. When we last visited Vimy, the monument was still shrouded under its reconstruction veil, and have thus never seen it except in photos. Heartstrings are a-tugging!

Finally caught up with the rest of the trip report. Just want to thank you again for such a wonderful journey you took us along.

I am going to link your TR to the "France trip reports" compilation thread.
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=2&tid=35122116

yk, you are a gem! Many thanks for doing that.

I'm going to add a note about the new apartment we rented in the Paris apartments thread.

AA

Ta-daa, finished! Great report. I have no idea how you did all this, even after your detailed notes explaining it. I am highly impressed.

By the way, I had thought from your screen names that you and Margriet must share an interest in European history. Are you historians?

Leely, I'm delighted you are still making the "apartment chicken." We use that recipe every couple of weeks; we never tire of the flavours.

No, we're not historians. We've both read a lot of historical fiction (Anselm and his wife Margriet play a part in Dorothy Dunnett's Niccolo series), and it's an easy step from fiction to reading history. I find history is a natural companion to travel: with some historical background you can see what is and what was, which sort of doubles your pleasure.

We have two ideas in my mind for future trips. One is to spend a month in Paris and look at all of the sites where the French Resistance fought. The other is to go back to northeastern France and look at where the Americans fought in the Great War. (I'm thinking something like "a Canadian follows the Americans through France.")

The Resistance idea will have to wait until Margriet retires, but it's never to early to start buying books.

AA

Anselm you take my breath away. Unputdownable. I share with you the concept of seeing history as it was and as it is. Travel, history, literature and food....the world is out there.

hi again, anselm,

thank you for posting the links to the WW1 web-sites. when I have more time, I intend to start researching my grandad, who i mentioned before, and my great uncle, also called Harry, who was killed in action somewhere in France, i believe.

thanks again for the lovely trip report,

regards, ann

If you are interested in the French Resistance, you might want to spend time in some remote parts of the Auvergne where many hid out in the forests and there were battles as well. I found about about all of this visiting friends some years back who have a summer home near where one of the battles took place.

I reread the entire thread. What a wonderful pilgrimage. It was not a trip. It was a pilgrimage.

Some years back I did a home exchange in Nancy, France. I took a day out of the trip and went to Verdun. I saw this very strange landscape there and knew it did not look normal. What I realized I was looking at were remains of the trenches. Of course, the edges had softened and the grass had regrown but there was no doubt about what I was seeing. It was a very strange feeling.

Should you go to Verdun make sure you see the ossuary where there are piles of bones from the area that were collected and interred after the war was over. Just piles of bones in a church. Who knows which bones were French or which bones were German. Does it matter? The piles of bones bring home (like the names on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC) the immensity of the loss.

By the way, did you know there is a Canadian cross of victory at Arlington Cemetery in Washington, DC? If you visit, it is very near the Challenger Memorial and right across from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. It was donated to Arlington by the Canadian government in honor of those Americans who fought and died with Canadian forces. I always thought that the soldiers honored were those who fought for the Canadians in World War II, but perhaps it was World War I--or both World Wars.

Lauren

Thanks for the information as I was unaware of this monument at Arlington. It was placed to honour those Americans serving with the Canadian Forces who were killed in the First World War, but inscriptions for those serving in the Second World War and Korea are also on it.

http://tinyurl.com/bs6xo7

The Cross of Sacrifice (not Victory, a slight difference) can be found in every Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery with more than 40 graves.

I'll be sure to visit my next time in Washington.

You can't miss the Canadian Cross of Sacrifice if you go to the Changing of the Guard at Arlington. It is right across from where the Tourmobile stops at the Tomb of the Unknowns to the right of the Challenger and Discovery Memorials.

Lauren, I missed your post of February 5th.

I hadn't really thought of the trip as a pilgrimage, but it is a good description. I'm still working away on the photos and will eventually post a link.

I have visited Verdun and did see vestigial trenches, shell pock marks, and the ossuary. It was a sobering journey.

Thanks for the information about Arlington.

AA

I don't know how I missed this thread until now...

My cousin and I are planning a similar trip to visit the grave of our great uncle who was shot down September 20, 1918, in the early preparations for the Argonne-Meuse offensive and just 45 days before Armistice. He was a observation pilot of the 91st Aero Squadron.

From a letter written two weeks before his death:

"No, of course our work isn't very hard. One has to be wide awake and see everything that is going on and act very quickly at times, but as far as being fatiguing it isn't. Of course, when we make three trips a day it is rather hard on account of the high altitude. There isn't too much oxygen up there, but that only occurs once in a great while. Day before yesterday, I started out in the morning, leading a formation of four. When I got about 20 kilometers back, my gas pump failed and I had to drop out and come back. I got it to go again by priming and so when I was over [censored] I turned back alone to get some pictures not far behind the lines at [censored]. We had just reached it and Johnny Snyder, my observer, had snapped 5 plates when I saw 5 Boches coming up on our left. I told Johnny and snapped old '16' around in a left virage (sharp turn) toward home and opened the motor wide. Two of the Boches tried to cut me off but I headed a little east and they found they couldn't do it and at the same time came in range of Johnny's guns and he blazed away and they went back and joined the others behind me. I found that they were gradually gaining on me if I flew level so I nosed down a little and kept turning left and right or 's'ing constantly and outran them. They shot a lot and I could hear the bullets snap as they went by, but when I got back there wasn't a hole in the ship anywhere."

Jean, an amazing letter. Was your great uncle buried in the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery?

Yes, Anselm. His body was first recovered and buried by the Germans. After the war, his remains were moved to the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery near Romagne.

In 1930, the U.S. Government extended an invitation to my great-grandmother to visit the grave of her darling boy. I think this offer was made to one parent (usually the mother) of every U.S. soldier killed in action, all expenses were paid by the government, and she was issued a Special Pilgrimage Passport. (They certainly believed this was the war to end all wars.) I have her diary of the trip which I think was the biggest adventure of her life. My cousin and I plan to follow her route. OK, we'll probably fly to Europe rather than take a train across the U.S. and then a steamship to Caen, but we're going to try to duplicate it as much as possible.

This trip report was amazing. A great read...Great Uncle Harry's letters were incredible. Thanks so much for sharing.

Anselm,

So you have a link to the pictures? Would love to see them...Also, did you and your wife get a blog up and running?

Thank you, thill25, for topping this exceptional trip report. I have printed out this, and the Anselm's previous "dead man's cheek" threads, as I consider them astoundingly well written, and engaging.

No problem...IMHO they deserve to be sticky (hence, me bookmarking both threads).

It has taken a while (and several lessons in Adobe Lightroom), but the Harry photos are finally finished.

It was foggy, as you'll see:

www.pbase.com/anselmadorne/france_2008

AA

My God, Anslem, those are stunning pictures! Quite take my breath away. You were so fortunate that it was foggy, as that gives the exact somber mood for the memorials.

One of the most striking photos for me was the German cemetery. The irony of the Jewish headstones among the crosses ---

These are fine pictures, Anselm, well worth the wait. I particularly liked your photos of Langemarck, the "Brooding soldier", and Vimy in the mist.

nukesafe, I took that photo (the graves of Jewish soldiers in the German cemetery) for my daughter, who was writing a paper on Germany in the 1920s. If I recollect properly, she had referred to a census conducted during the First War that showed that the percentage of German Jews in active combat exceeded their proportion of the total German population. I am pretty sure I subsequently saw a reference to the same data in The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard Evans, but I can't find a reference in the index.

laverendrye, thanks. I found Langemark (my Michelin map spells it without a "c", but I am never sure how anything is spelled in Belgium) one of the most striking places I have ever been. German cemeteries have a very different feel than French and Commonwealth burial grounds. I still find myself thinking about that mass grave and the remains of 25,000 men in a very small patch of ground.

AA

Anselm

I have visited several German war cemeteries in France and Belgium and I too find that they have a very different feel. They seem to me to be dark, brooding places.

I don't know whether you visited Vladslo German cemetery near Dixsmuide, but it contains a pair of statues, "The Grieving Parents", by the German sculptress Kaethe Kollwitz, whose son is buried there. It is very moving.

On her last visit to her son's grave, she wrote:

"We went from the figures to Peter's grave, and everything was alive and wholly felt. I stood before the woman, looked at her – my own face – and I wept and stroked her cheeks. Karl stood close behind me – I did not even realize it. I heard him whisper, ‘Yes, yes’. How close we were to one another then!"

Anselm, thanks for posting the photos. Very melancholic.

On the subject of Langemark, my guide told us that the Germans are buried 7 or 8 deep in each plot quite simply because after the war the Belgians would not let them have any more land for the cemetery.

It is indeed a dark and brooding place.

German military tombstones are very sad, especially when you compare them to the pure white crosses or stars of the American military cemeteries. French military cemeteries are in between those two.

Thank you so much, Anselm. These photos were truly worth the wait. EJ

Thanks from me too Ansel. A few years ago I also visited Langemark. It was a freezing cold, dark, wet day and what is still in my mind is the four statues your photographs so beautifully show. Their bleakness added so much to how we all felt on that visit. We arrived there just after a visit to Tyne Cot and the contrast was so great.

Our guide gave us some interesting titbits of information. I’m not sure if they are historically accurate though. He let us know that the war cemeteries were gifted by Belgium to the allied countries but not Langemark or any other German cemetery. They had to pay. I also recall him mentioning that the reason there were so few headstones and only communal graves in the cemetery was due to the Germans believing that when alive its soldiers fought together therefore, when slain, they lay together.

Joe

Thanks for the comments.

I'm going to see if I can find out a bit more about the history of German military cemeteries in Belgium. When we were in Langemark we overheard a guide explaining that the mass grave had been created and filled after WWII, a relocation of remains that was precipitated by the refusal of the Belgian government to renew leases for several other German cemeteries in Belgium. It's certainly worth tracking down the exact sequence of events.

On another note, I found a contempory photo of Sausage Valley, the place where Harry was killed. This picture was taken 18 days after his death:

http://cas.awm.gov.au/photograph/EZ0113

AA

Anselm: I must heartily agree with others that the photos taken by the two of you are truly stunning. You have captured some of the essence of your travels in those photos. Thank you for taking the time to share.

tC

Anselm, thank you for the lovely, sad images. By the time I neared the last of them, tears were flowing. Have you considered creating a book with your images and Harry's letters and your reflections.

Oh, PLEASE do a book! Include the essence of both this, and your "Dead man's neck--" post. I'd certainly buy it, as well as go on a tour that would cover these historic and tragic areas.

I agree with all the others--very affecting, beautiful photos. Thanks!