The Palpable Presence of Death: Verdun
There is the palpable presence of death here. Verdun.
If you look closely the trees are growing at funny angles and there are these little hills. But, wait, they are not hills. They are the remains of trenches from the First World War. The trees are growing at funny angles because they are growing out of the sides of the old trenches. The ground that was once stained with blood is now turned back to forest.
Verdun is a shrine. The town's name reverberates with the old ideals of the sweetest death being in battle fighting for glory. But death was not sweet here. It was relentless and certain. For 18 months, beginning on February 21, 1916, when the Germans attacked, Verdun was a meat grinder.
One talks quietly and walks gently here. There is an aura of sacredness about the place. Over a million men were killed. 130,000 were never identified.
I began my tour in the Citadelle Souterraine (Underground Citadel) in the town. It was in the Citadelle that troops came to prepare to go to the front--and where they came for a few days respite from the unremitting battle in the trenches. You take a circuit of the Citadelle now in little cars. Holograms explain how it was used and recreate the atmosphere of battle.
In the end you exit the cars and walk into a room where six coffins have been placed. It is November 10, 1920, and a veteran of the struggle lays a bouquet of flowers on one of the caskets. That casket is the one that now rests beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris; the body of a veteran of Verdun is France's unknown soldier from World War I.
The battle sites abut the town of Verdun to the North. For a one day visit, I could only deal with the some of the main sites. Since most of the principal ones are on the right side of the Meuse River, that is where I spent my time.
I went first to the Memorial de Verdun, where the whole history of Verdun was explained. It is a museum as well as a memorial. There are artifacts from the battle and superb explanations. All the while you think of the dead. What did they die for? Ultimately, they died for nothing--absolutely nothing.
It was a fight to capture Fort Douaumont. The Germans took it and the French took it back. Had the Germans been able to get past Verdun, the way to Paris would have been open to them. It would have been the surrender of 1870 all over again.
At one point Verdun was almost surrounded. To supply the troops only one road was open, the road to Bar-le-duc south of Verdun. One after another every form of conveyance available carried supplies and ammunition to the front in one direction, and the dead and wounded in the other. It went on for months. The soldiers named the route "Le Voie Sacree" (the sacred road). The road from Bar-le-duc to Verdun still bears that name. It is the only road in France that does not have a number on the maps.
The towns surrounding Fort Douaumont were wiped out by the shelling and never rebuilt. You can see signs memorializing some of the towns as you take the route through the battlefield. Remains of one of the towns, Fleury-devant-Douaumont are kept as they were when the battle ended. You can walk through the remains. There are labels identifying where businesses and houses once were.
Fort Douaumont was finally retaken and the remains of the Fort can be visited. You walk in through the remains of old trenches--the ones with the trees growing in strange directions.
The men died in many different ways. On more than one occasion, men were suffocated when the sides of their trench collapsed. In one case, the men were left just as they fell with their bayonets protruding from their tomb. It is called "Le Tranchee des Baionettes" in French and the small memorial was built from donations by Americans.
When the battle was over, Verdun was littered with bones. The local bishop went on a campaign to properly bury the bones. They were collected and grouped by the sector of the battlefield where they were found. They built L'Ossuaire (the repository of bones) to house the bones and they are there to this day. There are chapels memorializing the areas from which the bones were taken. French? German? They are buried together. Who could tell French from German in death?
Outside L'Ossuaire is a French military cemetery. The names of many of those buried there are unknown.
After several hours visiting the town and the battlefield sites, I had had enough communion with death. I drove back to my house swap north of Nancy. It was emotionally exhausted. I hadn't seen it all--and someday I will return--but I felt as though I had been on a pilgrimage. There is no great cathedral in Verdun and no stained glass windows. What there is is a vast memorial to man's inhumanity to man.
IF YOU GO
It takes a full day to see the Citadelle Souterraine and the major battlefield sites. You can take the tour of the Citadelle in English and much of the material at the Memorial is in English, French & German. This is holy ground to the French, which means that decorum is required. It is really not a place for small children.
Maps and guidebooks to the main sites can be purchased at tourist information in Verdun.
If you look closely the trees are growing at funny angles and there are these little hills. But, wait, they are not hills. They are the remains of trenches from the First World War. The trees are growing at funny angles because they are growing out of the sides of the old trenches. The ground that was once stained with blood is now turned back to forest.
Verdun is a shrine. The town's name reverberates with the old ideals of the sweetest death being in battle fighting for glory. But death was not sweet here. It was relentless and certain. For 18 months, beginning on February 21, 1916, when the Germans attacked, Verdun was a meat grinder.
One talks quietly and walks gently here. There is an aura of sacredness about the place. Over a million men were killed. 130,000 were never identified.
I began my tour in the Citadelle Souterraine (Underground Citadel) in the town. It was in the Citadelle that troops came to prepare to go to the front--and where they came for a few days respite from the unremitting battle in the trenches. You take a circuit of the Citadelle now in little cars. Holograms explain how it was used and recreate the atmosphere of battle.
In the end you exit the cars and walk into a room where six coffins have been placed. It is November 10, 1920, and a veteran of the struggle lays a bouquet of flowers on one of the caskets. That casket is the one that now rests beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris; the body of a veteran of Verdun is France's unknown soldier from World War I.
The battle sites abut the town of Verdun to the North. For a one day visit, I could only deal with the some of the main sites. Since most of the principal ones are on the right side of the Meuse River, that is where I spent my time.
I went first to the Memorial de Verdun, where the whole history of Verdun was explained. It is a museum as well as a memorial. There are artifacts from the battle and superb explanations. All the while you think of the dead. What did they die for? Ultimately, they died for nothing--absolutely nothing.
It was a fight to capture Fort Douaumont. The Germans took it and the French took it back. Had the Germans been able to get past Verdun, the way to Paris would have been open to them. It would have been the surrender of 1870 all over again.
At one point Verdun was almost surrounded. To supply the troops only one road was open, the road to Bar-le-duc south of Verdun. One after another every form of conveyance available carried supplies and ammunition to the front in one direction, and the dead and wounded in the other. It went on for months. The soldiers named the route "Le Voie Sacree" (the sacred road). The road from Bar-le-duc to Verdun still bears that name. It is the only road in France that does not have a number on the maps.
The towns surrounding Fort Douaumont were wiped out by the shelling and never rebuilt. You can see signs memorializing some of the towns as you take the route through the battlefield. Remains of one of the towns, Fleury-devant-Douaumont are kept as they were when the battle ended. You can walk through the remains. There are labels identifying where businesses and houses once were.
Fort Douaumont was finally retaken and the remains of the Fort can be visited. You walk in through the remains of old trenches--the ones with the trees growing in strange directions.
The men died in many different ways. On more than one occasion, men were suffocated when the sides of their trench collapsed. In one case, the men were left just as they fell with their bayonets protruding from their tomb. It is called "Le Tranchee des Baionettes" in French and the small memorial was built from donations by Americans.
When the battle was over, Verdun was littered with bones. The local bishop went on a campaign to properly bury the bones. They were collected and grouped by the sector of the battlefield where they were found. They built L'Ossuaire (the repository of bones) to house the bones and they are there to this day. There are chapels memorializing the areas from which the bones were taken. French? German? They are buried together. Who could tell French from German in death?
Outside L'Ossuaire is a French military cemetery. The names of many of those buried there are unknown.
After several hours visiting the town and the battlefield sites, I had had enough communion with death. I drove back to my house swap north of Nancy. It was emotionally exhausted. I hadn't seen it all--and someday I will return--but I felt as though I had been on a pilgrimage. There is no great cathedral in Verdun and no stained glass windows. What there is is a vast memorial to man's inhumanity to man.
IF YOU GO
It takes a full day to see the Citadelle Souterraine and the major battlefield sites. You can take the tour of the Citadelle in English and much of the material at the Memorial is in English, French & German. This is holy ground to the French, which means that decorum is required. It is really not a place for small children.
Maps and guidebooks to the main sites can be purchased at tourist information in Verdun.