Travel Stories - France

"verdun"

introduction

With the help of a lift we arrive in the centre of the city of Verdun. We’ve got a little bit of sun and we wonder what to do next. First tot he Information center, the train station, do groceries, drink a beer on the terrace in the sun, have lunch or visit the Citadel? We walk over the bridge of the river Meuse, through a busy shopping street and we pass the stately Fascist-like "Victory" monument towards a mini Arc-de-Triomphe ("Port St. Paul"). A little further we see a petrol station, supermarket and the train station close together. After collecting information we buy some beers at the supermarket and eat lunch at an Asian restaurant. Next to the river Meuse there are many terraces but we sit on the stone terrace and enjoy our cans of beer looking at the gigantic fountain that is placed in the river. My thoughts wander off to what happened here during WW1. I wonder how the city would look like during those war-years. Now it’s very peaceful but then it would like chaos. I read in my travelguide that nowadays Verdun is a dull and depressive city - not so surprising given the history that tells us everything was in ruins. But for us it looks OK.

The citadel of Verdun

We have decided after we finish our beers to go to the "Citadel Souteraine". It takes some time to find the entrance of the Citadel but after a while we found it. We enter the “cave” or “shelter” in the hill and pay the entrance fee. We are suppose to sit down in a small carriage which stands on a track and then we take off. It takes us into the dark corridors deep into the hill. Wee see pieces of old film, puppets wearing uniforms from WW1 and accompanying voices. This all will take us back during the battle that razed here during WW1. It gives us an impression of how it must have been here during the war. I had hoped for a little more information about front lines, attacks and positions, but more goes about the feelings and personall experiences of the French soldiers that were besieged for a long time by the Germans. Half an hour later we are back on the streets and we take some petrol at the previously visited petrol station. Suddenly we see a sign indicating that the "Voie Sacree" started here - the lifeline that continued to provide supplies and soldiers to the front despite all the shelling.

Voie Sacree:

The "Voie Sacree", the sacred road, was about 75 km long and ran from Verdun to Bar le Duc and was the only route that was suitable for the supply of new French troops and equipment to the frontline. It was guarded by mainly colonial troops from Senegal, an auxiliary corps of semi-soldiers and veterans. These troops had to throw constantly little stones and rocks on the road with shovels, so that the passing soldiers in their trucks could drive those rocks and stones into the road with their massive tires. Broken trucks had to be pushed into the verge so that the flow of vehicles could continue uninterruptedly. And it worked. From February to September 1916 the trucks drove day in, day out, in two endless rows. In the eight days to 6 March, 3500 trucks drove 190,000 men and 23,000 tons of ammunition to the battlefield. It has been calculated that at the peak of the battle every 14 seconds a vehicle drove by, which would be 250 trucks per hour. Maurice Barrès gave the supply route to the battlefield the name 'Voie Sacrée', to the 'via sacra', the antique name of the road along which the sacrificial animals in antiquity were brought to the altar. During the Battle of Verdun, a total of 2,000,000 French soldiers were transported along this road, along with more than 1,000,000 tons of ammunition. And for 400,000 men the 'Voie Sacrée' indeed became a 'sacrificial road' because they died on the battlefield.

It is time to arrange a sleeping place for tonight and we walk over another bridge over the Meuse river towards the “battlefields” and "Belleville". We ask for some water to a resident by some houses and then we are to walk up a hill with our heavy packaging. We see no other option – there is only some houses and no place to sleep otherwise than walk up the hilll. We cross a piece of abandoned land, a railway and then find a gravel path that goes up, steeply. There we come to wider paths that go zigzagging upwards - but we do not find a good camping spot because it is so steep. So we continue on the path and hope that we can find a good spot at the top. A sign indicates that we are here in a military zone and have to go back but it is already late and we are happy to find a reasonable place later when it starts to get dark. There are two flat sections between the many bomb craters where we can set up our tent. It is just as frightening to poke a peck in the ground knowing that there are still many unexploded explosives in the soil but we don’t have a lot of choice. Crazy to sleep here tonight but also part of the adventure.

fleury

In the morning we pack up our stuff and walk down the same road we came up. We get a lift very fast and a female brings us from Verdun town to the American cemetery at the “battlefields” which are about 5 to 8 kilometers outside the center. After paying our respect at this cemetery we stop a little construction van. We can jump in the back and the guys take us to the little town of “Fleury”. This town doesn’t exist anymore; it’s totally destroyed during WW1 and the battle that razed here. "Memorial de Verdun" is the museum that was built on the spot where the train station used to be. We pay the entrance fee and see, among other things, on a short film that the village is one of nine places that has been destroyed and has never been rebuilt. If we look here at photographs that were once a village and did not change less than 16 times between the Germans and French and now realize that we are in the same place, which makes it unrealistic but also real. First we want to walk to fort "Douaumont" but when we notice that this will cost a lot of time again we put our thumbs up and get lucky. Again we are allowed to sit in the back of a working van. We sit between the pots of paint, brushes and an old collapsed table we drive to the famous fort.

Fort Douamont:

In the beginning of the First World War the Germans had bombed (shelled) the Belgian forts of Namur, Liège and Antwerp with their heavy mortars (Fat Bertha). Hence the French believed that the forts had their time and the government decided (during the war!) to dismantle all forts. At the time of the German attack, Douaumont, the largest fortress of the fortress belt around the strategic city of Verdun, was therefore occupied only by about 60 lightly-armed, almost pension-entitled, territorial soldiers, who actually only performed the maintenance of the buildings. The conquest of the fort by the Germans was therefore not accompanied by much violence. There are several stories in circulation about which German soldiers can exactly write the conquest in their name. According to the most likely story Lieutenant Eugen Radtke and his men from the 6th company of the 24th regiment Brandenburgers were the first to invade the fort. Pretty soon they were followed by Captain Haupt and his soldiers. They did not only do this out of heroism, but especially because they sought protection against German artillery fire. Radtke and Haupt soon discovered that the fort was barely manned and absolutely not in a state of defense. Then they took over the fort and reported 'Douaumont ist gefallen' – the fort is taken.

Both on the German and the French people this made a deep impression. In Germany church bells sounded and the children got a day off from school. And in France, people were in tears and regarded the loss of the fort as a drama. And indeed it was. Even though no shot was fired during the entire conquest. The loss of Douaumont would cost thousands of French soldiers. A then very young captain, Charles de Gaulle, was injured and was to be captured by the Germans. In the counterattack of the French months later almost the same would happen. French soldiers climbed on the superstructure and forced themselves into the fort. Remarkably, the fort was again almost empty again for a different reason. The day before there a fire broke out in the fort and the Germans feared that the fire would penetrate the ammunition storage. So they had cleared the fort. For the second time, Fort Douaumont thus changed occupiers, almost without a shot being fired.

douaumont

At first glance the mighty fort “Douaumont” looks like a small, low piece of demolished concrete. It doesn’t even look like a fort, more a collapsed old bunker. Some flags are hanging outside so you can see it’s open for visitors. Before we go inside, we enjoy a sandwich in the sun on a bench in front of the fort and then pay the entrance fee in a small reception hall. We enter the heavily damaged fort through a heavy black door. Long, icy, humid, underexposed corridors with small niches where you can get to another floor in some of them. You immediately think of how frightening it must have been here with the heavy shelling that this fort has received. There are two floors, a large cannon and many humid rooms where provisions, ammunition and the rest of the supplies for a fort were arranged. Especially the difference with "Fort Fermont" from WWII (Maginot Line) is gigantic due to the lack of hygiene and space. The swallows eagerly build their nest in the dark damp fortress and fly through the broken windows. There is even a wall where behind still soldiers are buried. It is chilly inside and also because that reason it is very nice to walk outside and take a look on top of the fort which is green with grass. Here you can see a number of metal lookout towers which are still visible. Many craters on what now looks like a badly mowed lawn and a canal complete the picture.

The bayonet trench

We would also like to go to "Mon de la Tranchee des Baionettes" where we simply walk to - but that is a bit disappointing in our opinion. The story is as follows; the French soldiers were present in a trench when the force of the German enemy artillery filled the surrounding earth with the trench and buried the soldiers alive. Only after three years was the group of French soldiers "found" when the bayonets of the men were still visible above the ground. Nowadays a stone building has been built around it and where the bayonets had come out of the ground are now white crosses. It is free and freely accessible.

Memorial "Ossuaire"

The weather is beautiful and we decide to relax on the terrace and take a seat on one of the benches on the gigantic terrain of the “battlefields” of Verdun. Finally we take a look at the monumental building "Memorial Ossuaire" which was built in 1932, which due to its special construction honors all prisoners on this largest battlefield in the world. These are two wide corridors that serve as memorial rooms for about 130,000 unidentified French and German soldiers found on the battlefields around the city and where the remains are collected in 52 mass graves. The building looks even a bit Moorish with its separate dome. The light that comes through the colored windows gives the whole a contemporary atmosphere. Unfortunately, we can no longer see the film in the cellar as it is closed. And we also can no longer enter the clock tower to view the panorama. In front of the monument there is a wall on which we take place and the gigantic cemetery behind us. We also let our eyes fall on the forests that are already abundant in the area. Photo’s showed us that this was a lunar landscape between the years of WW1 - 1914 and 1918. We get water at an old fountain what we have seen before and find between the bomb craters in the woods nearby a good place to stay fort he night.

tips & advice (2010)

Name: "Citadelle Souterain" (Verdun)

Address: Av. Du 5e RAP

Price: € 6

Phone nr. : 0329866202

Content:

In 1916, in the second year of WWI, the citadel with its 7 km of underground tunnels was transformed into a command center of the French army. It served mainly to send new reserves to the front line in the mountains around the city of Verdun; there were about 10,000 soldiers present. There was a bakery, hospital and an underground petrol station all accessible by a monorail. About 10% of the tunnel system is now in use as a museum and the above-ground part of the citadel is still used by the French army and is therefore not publicly available. It is worth it, but I expected something more- I thought now it was too much for children - a spectacle - an interactive show.

Name: "Memorial Verdun" museum

Address: in the former village "Fleury"

Price: € 7

Times: 09:00 - 18:00 (closed at noon)

Phone nr. : 03 29843534

Content:

On the spot where the train station of the French village "Fleury" once stood, is this modern white museum building built as a memorial for the battle that took place here. Inside you can see photographs, displays full of weaponry, weapons, remains of eating utensils, letters and uniforms. In the basement a film of 20 minutes in all languages is run twice an hour and on the bottom floor a piece of battlefield is built up what it should have looked like. An impressive museum where you definitely have to go to understand and understand the horrors of this largest battlefield.