Poignant memories haunt France’s former battlegrounds
Vimy Ridge and Verdun inspire awe in their visitors
Maybe it was because France doesn’t have a Basel, the Swiss city where autobahns are devoured then regurgitated into endless strands of tunnels, overpasses, bypasses and detours. Maybe it was because it was familiar. Maybe it was because it was the last stepping- stone before going home, or maybe it was because the countryside began to overwhelm the view once again.
Whatever it was, my partner and I wanted to kiss the earth within metres of crossing the French- Swiss border. But we waited until Commercy, or to be more exact, Wolnville, a village 10 kilometres deeper into rural, real France. Wolnville is a four-cornered village with a dominating church and a 200- yearold chateau — our abode for the night. If the sweeping lawn and gardens, and pink floral rooms overlooking the carriage house and fields stretching to a forested horizon weren’t enough to convince us that we had found paradise, the meal at a Michelin- rated restaurant in a nearby village that night, the non- juried opportunity to speak French with the proprietor, and learning the history of the area, certainly did.
A hilltop alit with what looked like a Roman temple first alerted us to what may have been the reality of these green fields 70 years ago — namely, a Second World War battle site. A trip to the temple the next morning confirmed this. It was a monument, Delphi- like in design, erected by the U. S. government to honour those 550,000 soldiers who had fought to liberate France and undo Germany’s hold of the eastern frontier of France in the last months of the Second World War. How humbling to realize we were in the heart of Verdun, the stage for some of the most intense fighting of the war.
And, four hours later, we were in the Somme, heart of the most intense battle arenas of the First World War in northeast France. Here, the largest monument in the area — on Vimy Ridge — stood to honour the Canadians who had died to help liberate France almost 100 years ago. Spacious and spare, the site is now a green haven for sheep, silence, and here and there clusters of wide- ranging admirers — joggers, veterans, historians and sombre groups of visiting schoolchildren. An oasis in the middle of a busy corner in France, visitors to the site travel kilometres through quiet forests and tree- lined avenues before reaching the commemorative sites in Vimy — the memorial, the gravesites, the visitor’s centre, the trenches and tunnels.
The memorial is strikingly large and luminescent and its statues somehow Catholic in style and themes ( one named, for instance, the Sorrow of Sacrifice). A spirit of sobriety and reflection pervades all of the sites, from the beautifully maintained cemetery to the visitor’s information centre ( true to its name — no Cokes and souvenirs here!) and steps beyond, to the remnants of each forces’ trenches, metres and craters apart, and the warren of underground tunnels that had served them.
Descending into these tunnels, one can feel the tensions that had underlain life in this pre- Vimy front. One leaves with increased abhorrence for those who had started the war, and immeasurable awe for the people who had done their bidding.