MooN
Active Member
I have always been aware of the sacrifices made by so many through both wars and the more I learn the more I believe that what the french call a "devoir de memoire" ( a duty of remembrance) becomes more a neccessity as time goes by. Living memory of the 14 - 18 war is now gone, there is now, I believe, no one alive who fought in this conflict. Our duty then, to these men & women, to remember them, what they stood for & why they died. 2014 marks 100 years since the "great war" though the 70th anniversary of the 2nd seems to be more mediatised.
I've planned a week end visit for the end of the month to some of the battlefield memorials & cemeterys in the somme (so relating to the 1st war) I had seen a while back that a couple of the battle sights in the Aisne are reachable from here in a day trip so I seized the opportunity last week to go visit a couple.
Having had to wait for the library to open I didn't get out of town 'till after 10 & the wee man in googly mappy thingy had said over 2 hours to get to Chateau Thierry & the bits I wanted to see so I needed to get a wiggle on. No stops for pics on the way ...
I arrived at Chateau Thierry around 1, so it had taken me about 2 & 1/2 hrs to get there! I had no plan of the town & how to find "Hill 204" & the americain monument but I needn't have worried, arriving in town from the south:
see that white block? directly above the bike, on the hill in the background, to the left of the stand of trees?
well If I use the camera zoom without moving...
I guess that's what i'm looking for!
I rode through town, stopping for some lunch on the way, & then up the hill. there were eventually some signs for the Americain monument, but is wasn't exactly difficult to find.
It's effin' huge!
though unfortunately in the process of being cleaned (4th row from the bottom, extreme left. you can see a bloke with a pressure washer...) I imagine in view of some centenery celebrations to come, which meant I couldn't go inside it, but it's still pretty impressive!
The view from the other side over the Aisne vally is awesome, this is facing east. It's fairly obvious why this was a strategic position that was so hotly fought over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Château-Thierry_(1918)
apart from the bloke with his pressure washer I had the place to myself!
Back on the bike again a a few miles north is Belleau wood & the americain military cemetary.
The entrance.
again, I had the whole place to myself
If you don't count the huge team of groundsmen mowing the grass & blowing the leaves about
If I remember rightly : 2289 graves, & 251 blank crosses on "unknown" graves
The chapel:
& the other side:
what looks at first glance, on the photo's anyway, like some odd wall colouring is in fact simply a list of names, written in red an all the walls from floor to ceiling.
1060 names, men who lie in unknown graves & who's bodies have never been recovered.
Riding another kilometer or so north along the same road & I arrived at the German cemetery.
Almost as understated & subdued as the americain cemetery is grand & proud.
there are no big signboards on this one, no grand entrance, & no 50 foot high flagpoles, though it is neat & obviously well looked after.
each of the crosses has 2 names (often with rank) on each side
"In this cemetery rest 8625 Germans who fell during the 1914 - 1918 war.
In the side of this pillar is a trap door, inside which are two books. One is a very simple paperback "visitors book", which a quick flip through reveals as containing signiatures of many nationalities, often with a word of hope, or forgiveness, or sorrow. The other is in a hardback pale blue cover & has as title simply "book of names"
in the book, there is simply an alphabetical list of the names of each identified soldier, & the reference number of his grave in the cemetery.
At the far end of the cemetery is a long low monument, faced with a series of steel plates.
the title, carved in german & french along the top, reads "Here lie unknown soldiers"
the fist steel plate on the left is inscribed:
"In a communal grave, here lie 4321 german soldiers, fallen during the 1914-18 war. 3847 remain unidentified.
turning to the right,
The names of those lost, but for whom a body was never identified.
Wandering through the cemetary I was surprised to find this
I had to do a sort of mental gymnastic mindshift to replace mypreconcieved "world war" information into the 1914 - 18 context & remind my self that this all hapenned again only 20 odd years later...!
Food for thought...
Time was getting on & I needed to get home befor the animals children get back from school so nomore pics as I just rode home the shortest way I could find.
The overall route was something like the plan with abot 4à or so km tooling around between monuments & cemeterys
http://goo.gl/maps/WwtDv
+/- 380km, gorgeous sunshine all day & wide open spaces to ride in, on empty roads.
a small "devoir de memoire" accomplished.
I've planned a week end visit for the end of the month to some of the battlefield memorials & cemeterys in the somme (so relating to the 1st war) I had seen a while back that a couple of the battle sights in the Aisne are reachable from here in a day trip so I seized the opportunity last week to go visit a couple.
Having had to wait for the library to open I didn't get out of town 'till after 10 & the wee man in googly mappy thingy had said over 2 hours to get to Chateau Thierry & the bits I wanted to see so I needed to get a wiggle on. No stops for pics on the way ...
I arrived at Chateau Thierry around 1, so it had taken me about 2 & 1/2 hrs to get there! I had no plan of the town & how to find "Hill 204" & the americain monument but I needn't have worried, arriving in town from the south:
see that white block? directly above the bike, on the hill in the background, to the left of the stand of trees?
well If I use the camera zoom without moving...
I guess that's what i'm looking for!
I rode through town, stopping for some lunch on the way, & then up the hill. there were eventually some signs for the Americain monument, but is wasn't exactly difficult to find.
It's effin' huge!
though unfortunately in the process of being cleaned (4th row from the bottom, extreme left. you can see a bloke with a pressure washer...) I imagine in view of some centenery celebrations to come, which meant I couldn't go inside it, but it's still pretty impressive!
The view from the other side over the Aisne vally is awesome, this is facing east. It's fairly obvious why this was a strategic position that was so hotly fought over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Château-Thierry_(1918)
apart from the bloke with his pressure washer I had the place to myself!
Back on the bike again a a few miles north is Belleau wood & the americain military cemetary.
The entrance.
again, I had the whole place to myself
If you don't count the huge team of groundsmen mowing the grass & blowing the leaves about
If I remember rightly : 2289 graves, & 251 blank crosses on "unknown" graves
The chapel:
& the other side:
what looks at first glance, on the photo's anyway, like some odd wall colouring is in fact simply a list of names, written in red an all the walls from floor to ceiling.
1060 names, men who lie in unknown graves & who's bodies have never been recovered.
Riding another kilometer or so north along the same road & I arrived at the German cemetery.
Almost as understated & subdued as the americain cemetery is grand & proud.
there are no big signboards on this one, no grand entrance, & no 50 foot high flagpoles, though it is neat & obviously well looked after.
each of the crosses has 2 names (often with rank) on each side
"In this cemetery rest 8625 Germans who fell during the 1914 - 1918 war.
In the side of this pillar is a trap door, inside which are two books. One is a very simple paperback "visitors book", which a quick flip through reveals as containing signiatures of many nationalities, often with a word of hope, or forgiveness, or sorrow. The other is in a hardback pale blue cover & has as title simply "book of names"
in the book, there is simply an alphabetical list of the names of each identified soldier, & the reference number of his grave in the cemetery.
At the far end of the cemetery is a long low monument, faced with a series of steel plates.
the title, carved in german & french along the top, reads "Here lie unknown soldiers"
the fist steel plate on the left is inscribed:
"In a communal grave, here lie 4321 german soldiers, fallen during the 1914-18 war. 3847 remain unidentified.
turning to the right,
The names of those lost, but for whom a body was never identified.
Wandering through the cemetary I was surprised to find this
I had to do a sort of mental gymnastic mindshift to replace mypreconcieved "world war" information into the 1914 - 18 context & remind my self that this all hapenned again only 20 odd years later...!
Food for thought...
Time was getting on & I needed to get home befor the animals children get back from school so nomore pics as I just rode home the shortest way I could find.
The overall route was something like the plan with abot 4à or so km tooling around between monuments & cemeterys
http://goo.gl/maps/WwtDv
+/- 380km, gorgeous sunshine all day & wide open spaces to ride in, on empty roads.
a small "devoir de memoire" accomplished.
