Today is our last day in the Verdun area, and we're going to try and squeeze in all the places we didn't get to yesterday. Hopefully we have enough time! Our first stop of the morning is a boulangerie (bakery) and a grocery store. We discovered yesterday that all of the memorials we're visiting are way up in the hills and forest away from the towns, and there weren't any places to grab a snack for lunch. So we bought our favorite jambon (ham), fromage (cheese), and buerre (butter) sandwiches at the boulangerie, and a big six pack of water for the road! We're ready for the day now!
The first memorial we visited is up on a butte and it's called Le Mort-Homme. (All the quoted information in this post is from the plaques located at each memorial.) "Le Mort-Homme is the name of a former hamlet that consists of two hills where terrible hand-to-hand fighting took place. This is the site of the famous order from General Petain ending with the words, 'Courage! We'll get them in the end!' This area was hotly contested until 1917 when the French finally captured a German tunnel.
Two divisions paid a particularly heavy price in this region." One of them, the 36th, erected the "Skeleton Monument" which is what we came to see. It's a very disturbing and powerful monument, with the huge skeleton towering above and wrapped in a tattered flag. I have to say this is one of the eeriest monuments we've seen. Usually they are very heroic and proud, but this one is focused on the losses and it shows you Death in all its power.
The other hill in the Le Mort-Homme area is Cote 304. "The bombardments here were so heavy that the dust and smoke concealed the hill. 75 batteries concentrated their fire on a few hundred square meters of ground. 21 divisions won fame in this sector and 10,000 Frenchmen lost their lives here. To commemorate their heroism and sacrifice, a committee of former soldiers who fought on Cote 304 commissioned a tall pyramid bearing the numbers of the units who participated." A little inscription near the tall memorial reads, "More than men, this very soil has retained the unescapable memory of the havoc wreaked by artillery from both sides. History has gentle healing powers to stop violence of all kinds, but it is up to each of us to work to this end." We've seen quotes like this at many memorials over the years; it's really too bad that history, more often than not, tends to repeat itself. I appreciate the hopefulness in the sentiment, and it's what I try to teach my students - that we can prevent history from repeating itself, but it takes thoughtful, determined people to do so.
Next up on our itinerary is the American Memorial at Montfaucon. As we were driving through the small towns and farmland on the way to the memorial, we kept looking up hopefully, in case we could see it from miles away. And sure enough, at one point when we rounded a corner, there it was rising up on the hill in front of us. It's beautiful and so typically American with its height, architectural details, and symbol of liberty at the top! I love it!
"The Montfaucon Monument commemorates the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. During 47 days of fighting, between Sept. 26 and Nov. 11, 1918, the American First Army forced a general retreat on this front. This hill was captured on the second day of the attack. It was the site of the old village of Montfaucon, destroyed during WWI. Directly behind the monument are the ruins of the Montfaucon church. Little else remains of the original village. Because of its dominating point between the Meuse River and the Argonne Forest, this height has been the scene of many bloody battles throughout recorded history."
"The monument, with an overall height of 200 feet, is topped by a symbolic figure of Liberty, which faces the front line of the American First Army as of the morning of 26 September when the attack began. This American offensive was the greatest battle in American history at the time."
This monument is so beautiful and proud, standing atop this great hill, but the coolest part was discovering that there are the stunning church ruins directly behind it! None of our research had told us about the ruins, so this was a great two for one! As usual, we wandered through the ruins in awe, taking way too many pictures, and not even noticing the rain! What a fantastic morning!
This shows the two of us bundled up in our rain coats. It rained all day yesterday and today, even when the sun was shining! But that's ok! We're still having a blast!
About 10 minutes away from the monument is the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery. I didn't know this, but it is the largest American cemetery in Europe; it covers 130 acres and has 14,246 headstones. 268 are Jewish Stars of David and the others are the white Latin crosses we've seen in all the American cemeteries. There are also 18 sets of brothers, nine Medal of Honor recipients, and the names of 954 missing are inscribed on the walls of the loggia.
This is a beautiful cemetery with so many parts to it: a loggia and chapel, reflection pool, reception area, tree-lined walkways, eight sections of tombstones, and beautiful trees and flowers lining all of it. It's really something to see! The best view is from the loggia up on the hill where you can see all the crosses stretching out below you in perfect rows. It's so beautiful here but so tragic to think of all these young lives lost before they even knew what life had to offer.
This is some of the information presented at the cemetery: "U.S. and Allied counteroffensives in the summer of 1918 stopped GErman advances. By September, plans were made to strike German forces along he entire Western Front. U.S. First Army, commanded by Gen. John J. Pershing, received the mission of defeating German forces in the region between the Meuse River and the Argonne Forest northward to Sedan. Formidable enemy defensive positions in depth extended miles north of the front lines."
"The First Army units launched the assault on Sept. 26 and consolidated its positions by the beginning of October by capturing Montfaucon. The offensive's second phase began and they seized the heights of Romagne and Cunel. By Oct. 31, French and U.S. forces finished clearing the Argonne Forest. The final phase began when U.S. units seized Barricourt Heights and began crossing the Meuse River and advancing across the Woevre Plain. By Nov. 7, the U.S. units had captured heights on the south bank of the river and the Armistice became effective on Nov. 11, 1918 at 11:00 AM local time."
"More than 1.2 million U.S. troops fought during the 47 days of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. About 117,000 were killed or wounded. General Pershing said, 'The success stands out as one of the very great achievements in the history of American Arms.'"
It's so difficult to comprehend the massive amount of damage caused by these two battles, Meuse-Argonne and Verdun, that occurred so close to each other. 117,000 American casualties in M-A, 500,000 wounded and 300,000 dead in Verdun, nine communities completely gone, and numerous other towns razed and rebuilt, not to mention an ossuary with the bones of over 130,000 unidentified young men. It's just so hard to understand the unspeakable carnage and mangled souls. We are so thankful to have visited all the cemeteries we've seen in our travels, but it never gets any easier to process the losses.
Well, we just visited the site of the Battle of Vauquois, and it just never ceases to amaze me, the ways man can find to kill and inflict torment on another. This sight is beyond the mere words that I have to describe it. I'm going to show you pictures and tell you the story, but none of that will be enough to explain the enormity of what we just saw. (The picture to the right is the monument up on the hill to Vauquois. It was a long, steep climb in the rain but it was such an overwhelming place that we didn't even care about the long trek.)
(The pic to the left shows the very top of the path after you emerge from the woods and see the memorial above.)
Here's what the placard at the monument said: "You are at Vauquois hill, 870 feet above sea-level. In 1914, a village with its church and cemetery stood where now there are only mine craters and shell holes. As early as Sept. 4, 1914, the Germans took Vauquois unopposed by the French. On the 16th however it was retaken by the French. Then on the 24th it fell to the Germans, after fierce fighting which cost the 82nd infantry mightily. The Germans also came under heavy fire."
"During the offensives launched by 14 French companies at the end of October and the beginning of December, some ground was gained in the direction of the village. It was necessary for the French to try and recapture the postition because of its value as an observation post. So long as the Germans held it, the railway line running to Verdun was under constant threat of attack. And if the Germans lost it, they would most cretainly have to abandon the positions they had already defended at great cost."
"Attacks were waged back and forth in January and February 1915, with both sides fighting to gain control of a few feet of wall or trenches. IN spite of the close proximity of enemy lines, the constant shelling of the hill, the use of chlorine gase and flame-throwers, neither side could advance or force a retreat. Both sides next set about waging war underground in a desperate bid for victory, because the fires raging on the surface made ground fighting impossible."
"The Germans dug underground galleries at three different levels: 45, 90, and 135 feet below ground level. The French were able to construct similar shelters, but these have long since caved in. Some of these galleries went right under enemy lines. In this way, both sides were, from 1916 to 1918, able to lay mines which, as they exploded, brought down entire units, burying them. The largest of these mines - 60 tons of explosives - was laid by the Germans on the 14th of May 1916. It killed outright more than 100 men of the 46th Inf. Regiment." (This pic shows the craters that were left on the mountain top after the explosions. This picture doesn't even begin to show how deep these craters are. They are massive! Roughly 100-150 feet deep.)
This pic to the left shows one of the underground tunnels that's a bit further away from the explosions. It was a little railway tunnel that was used to ship supplies in and out of the underground tunnels where the men were living and working.
"A staggering total of 531 mines were blown here during the war. Fear of being blown up became so great that both sides adopted a tacit 'live and let live' agreement in which mines were only to be blown up between 4 PM and 7 PM." Can you imagine continuing to do this even after both sides are so terrified that they start scheduling explosions to minimize the loss of life?!! This sounds like some insane Twilight Zone world where nothing makes any sense! Those poor, poor young men! (The diagram in the pic shows two things: The yellow circles show all the explosion craters along the length of this mountain top, and the gray squares show where the buildings in the town of Vauquois were located when this battle happened.)
The pic to the left shows the town before WWI started, and it's a beautiful, quiet, little farming village.
"The entire top of the mountain is now one long series of deep craters, and the village was literally blown off the face of the earth. It is estimated that 8,000 French and German soldiers went missing and were never found." (The pic to the right is an aerial photo I found online. This shows three of the craters, but there are several more in the line.)
The pics (below and to the right) show the path up to and all around the massive craters. It's embedded with pieces of red bricks and red tiles from the houses and rooftops of the destroyed town. They're all over every path that you walk on, pressed into the mud under the feet of tourists. It's so sad. I picked up a couple larger pieces to be able to show my kids at school that this is all that's left of Vauquois. It will be a tangible object that might make the war seem a little more real to them.
This site is one of the most insane things I've seen at all the war memorials we've visited over the years. I thought seeing the craters at Petersburg, VA (Civil War) and Albert, France (WWI) were crazy, but this is just beyond words. What kind of governments would send their young men off to fight this kind of war?!!! It's just unconscionable! These sights have really made me rethink the way I approach WWI in my classroom and the way I look at the entire conflict in general. All I can say is that if this war was fought in a time with TVs, like the Vietnam conflict, we would have seen the same kind of anti-war protests going on . . . only this time they would've been happening all over the world!
Here's one more aerial shot from the internet. This shows almost the whole row of the craters. Amazing and insane! My two words of the day!
Well, that's all from our stay in Verdun. Tomorrow we're leaving for three days in Strasbourg! We've wanted to go to Strasbourg since our last trip with the WSHERC (Wa. State Holocaust Education and Research Center) because neither one of us has studied much about French Jews during WWII. Most of what we've read and the sites we've traveled to have been about German and Eastern European Jews. So this will be very interesting to learn about a new part of this subject for us.
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