We left Reims this morning feeling fairly well rested and ready to go for our last week of the trip! (I think I slept 11 hours night before last and 10 hours last night! Woohoo!) We'll be in Paris by this afternoon, but first we stopped at a few last memorials along the way.
First up is the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial for WWI. This is a fairly small cemetery in terms of acreage (only 36), but it's actually the second largest American WWI cemetery in terms of the number of soldiers buried here. There are 6,012 headstones, 100 Stars of David, 241 MIAs, 597 unknown soldiers, and seven sets of brothers.
The headstones are lined up in four square burial plots, and the memorial at the far end is very different because it's made of pink granite instead of the traditional white memorial buildings. It's really beautiful with its Romanesque semi-circle with a chapel at one end and a map room at the other. I don't think I've mentioned the map rooms, but at every single American military cemetery or memorial (that has some sort of room in it), there has been a battle map inlaid in different colored marble or ceramic on the walls. Some are gigantic, like at the American Cemetery above Omaha Beach, and some are fairly small like the one here. And even if you don't know anything about the battle, they are absolutely beautiful to look at because of all the details and colors.
Here's the information about the battle from the visitor's pamphlet. (Remember that the war had been going on since 1914 at this point, and the Americans had just entered the war in late 1917.) "Germany's strategy for 1918 envisioned destruction of the weakened British and French armies. On May 27, 1918, German forces broke through French positions and reached the Marne River at Chateau-Thierry in three days, creating the Aisne-Marne Salient and threatening Paris."
"The Allied situation was so dire that they pleaded for all available U.S. divisions to help the French eliminate the Aisne-Marne Salient. Newly arrived American divisions shored up the Allies. The Germans were unable to capitalize on their gains. Their final offensive failed on July 15. Allied and American forces countered wih the Aisne-Marne Offensive, launched on July 18."
"Ten U.S. divisions took part in that offensive, forcing the Germans north. Roughly 310,000 American soldiers and Marines fought in this first large-scale operation by the American Expeditionary Forces in WWI."
This is the marker of American poet, Joyce Kilmer. He wrote the well known poem called "Trees." But this one called "Memorial Day" seems more appropriate here.
"Dulce et decorum est"
The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
Of men-at-arms who come to pray.
The roses blossom white and red
On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
And martial music cleaves the sky.
Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying lead and crimson steel
They plunged for Freedom and the Right.
May we, their grateful children, learn
Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
Who went through fire and death to earn
At last the accolade of God.
In shining rank on rank arrayed
They march, the legions of the Lord;
He is their Captain unafraid,
The Prince of Peace . . . Who brought a sword.
After leaving the cemetery,we were headed to see the Chateau-Thierry Monument. But in another one of those lovely impromptu moments, we saw a sign for a ruined castle and veered off our assigned path to find it. It took a bit of looking, but finally we found it up on a hill located next to a big, beautiful chateau that's now a luxury 5-star hotel. (The hotel is in the foreground by the pool, and the ruins are in the back.) The picture is off the Internet so you could see a good wide view of the place.
This is a diagram of what the castle looked like before it was torn apart and sold for scrap stone.
The ruin is referred to as the Chateau of Fere en Tardenois, and it is fantastic! I mean this is something like you'd read about in a book but never see in real life! We are so lucky!
The ruins are up on a bluff and they sit above a stone rampart with a moat below (no water). Then there is a ruined bridge that crosses the moat, but it looks newer than the ruins up on the bluff. The bridge is absolutely gorgeous, with huge arches and decorative stonework. When I first saw the picture of the ruins on the sign, I thought this bridge was a Roman aqueduct because of the huge arches below the walkway. So beautiful!
After crossing the bridge, there are quite a few ruins of the chateau itself. It's not nearly as tall as some of the ruined abbeys we saw, but it's just as cool!
After seeing the place, I had to look up information about it. So here's what I found at http://www.ila-chateau.com/fere/. "Fère-en-Tardenois was constructed between 1206 and 1260 as a fortified castle by Robert de Dreux, grandson of Louis VI, King of France. Little is known of it except that it belonged to the royal family Valois-Orléans-Angoulême from 1328 to 1528 when it was given by Louise of Savoy, mother of François I, to Anne de Montmorency, Governor Général of France and Chancellor to six kings from Louis XII to Charles IX."
"A warrior, diplomat,minister, devotee of the arts, Montmorency was the most powerful man in all France next to the king. He was in possession of six hundred feudal properties, one hundred thirty châteaux and baronies, four mansions in Paris and numerous other holdings."
"Through his five sons and seven daughters, all married into the highest families of the land, he was able to keep his finger on the nation's pulse. Builder of exquisite chateaux at Chantilly and Ecouen, he undertook to create at Fère-en-Tardenois a country seat of relaxation. He mainly ordered the monumental bridge that still stands in the garden of the château to be thrown across the moat. Crossing this beautiful bridge one reaches the ruins of eight huge towers."
"The château passed to the son of the great Connétable Montmorency and then to his grandson Henry II, whose plot to overthrow Richelieu lost him his head at Toulouse in 1632, as well as confiscation of Fère-en-Tardenois."
"Louis XIII returned the castle to Henry's daughter, Charlotte de Montmorency. (Henry IV had once so passionately loved her that he almost fought the King of Spain to retrieve her when, on her wedding night, she fled to Belgium with her husband, Prince de Condé, in order to avoid the King's advances)."
"The castle was finally inherited by Philip Egalité. So anxious was he for the approval of Republicans that he ordered to demolish partially his own château at Fère. To further his political ambitions he sold the furnishings and fixtures. Those which remained were taken to public auction by his creditors in 1793."
"This ended the glorious era of Fère-en-Tardenois. In 1863, the present chateau (which is the hotel that sits next to the ruins), once a wing of the Royal castle, was restored and converted to a hotel in 1956.The castle has been the subject of restoration for several years."
Isn't this place just the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? It's amazing that this exists just up the street from a beautiful little town. Can you imagine getting to look up and see this every day? Wow!
After our little side trip, we headed back to our original destinatino of the Chateau-Thierry Monument. It commemorates the sacrifices of American and French soldiers before and during the Aisne Marne and Oise-Aisne offensives. It's big and awe-inspiring just like all the American monuments we've seen.
"Two heroic-size figures depict the unity of the United States and France" after WWI. The figures are beautiful and so detailed. I love that they're holding hands so fervently.
The monument stands on Hill 204 and provides an overview of Chateau Thierry (a town) and the Marne River Valley. The view is really beautiful!
The sculpture of the eagle and shield on the other side of the monument represents the United States. Beneath it is a map showing the ground gained by U.S. Forces in the region during the summer of 1918.
"German advances in late May led to the 3d Division joining the fight. Its units assisted French troops in preventing the Germans from crossing the Marne River. The 3d Division held the south bank of the Marne until the French American counteroffensive forced German withdrawal. It earned the nickname "Rock of the Marne."
This was another really amazing American memorial, and I'm so glad we got to see it! I've said this before, but seeing all these American cemeteries and memorials makes me so proud to be from the United States! They're really striking and yet humbling.
Our next stop was the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery. (I got this picture off Google images because the tower is covered in scaffolding in all my pics. They're doing a huge restoration project right now.) This is the info about it from the American Battle Monuments Commission website. "With headstones lying in a sweeping curve, the 42.5-acre Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in France, sits at the foot of Belleau Wood."
"The cemetery contains the graves of 2,289 war dead, most of whom fought in the vicinity and in the Marne Valley in the summer of 1918. The memorial chapel sits on a hillside, decorated with sculptured and stained-glass details of wartime personnel, equipment and insignia. Inscribed on its interior wall are 1,060 names of the missing. Rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified. During World War II the chapel was damaged slightly by an enemy shell." (This pic is off the internet as well.)
"Belleau Wood adjoins the cemetery and contains many vestiges of World War I. A monument at the flagpole commemorates the valor of the U.S. Marines who captured much of this ground in 1918." (This monument is by the same man who sculpted the Iwo Jima Memorial in Washington D.C.) This is such a sacred place for Marines that off-duty Marines will often come and ask permission (or not) and camp out in the woods and trenches up on the hill. They want to pay homage to the battle that made the Marines "THE Marines"! This place and Guadalcanal are the two epicenters of Marine mythology. It was an honor to be here.
There's a trail that runs through the surrounding woods where you can see old equipment (like these cannons), trenches, fox holes, etc. but we didn't take the time to walk all of it; it was really long and we needed to get to Paris to turn the car in. (I took pictures of some trenches and small shell craters, but they didn't turn out well enough for you to really see the details.) One of the pamphlets talks about the "veterans" which is what the locals call the old oak trees that were around at the time of WWI. No one logs them because they're full of shrapnel and bullets. So they are still here. This is a pretty amazing place with a lot of Marine pride!
After this it was straight on to Paris! We made it here around 5:00 PM and we are sooooooo happy! We've been to a lot of beautiful cities in our many trips to Europe, but Paris is absolutely my most favorite city in the entire world! As soon as we made it into the historic center, I felt like I was in my "home away from home." If we had a couple million dollars and could afford a small but beautiful apartment on the Left Bank, I would live here in a heartbeat. For some reason this city just speaks to me like no other! And now we're ready to enjoy five more full days here and soak up every ounce of culture it has to offer before we have to leave! I can't wait!
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