In summer 2018, I explored some of the key sites involved in World War I and the newer memorials and museums, including the newly renovated Musée de l’Armistice. It was a heart-wrenching trip, but it gave me a much deeper understanding of the losses and sacrifices, as well as the history of how the war came to an end. It was a hard story to write, but it won the Best Destination Article 2018 at the French Travel Article Awards (run by the French Tourist board Atout France) in March 2019.
This article was published on the Times’ website on 10th November 2018. Read it on their site (with pictures) here.
Horror, heartache and beauty on the battlefields of Northern France
Twelve thousand small white crosses arranged in geometric lines rise like a gentle wave across the shallow slope. My eyes follow the lines into the vanishing point and the first stomach-wrenching blow of emotion rises to my throat, choking me and sending tears streaming down my cheeks. We haven’t even stopped the car yet. As we drive north from Arras, this first sight of La Targette cemetery followed by several more cemeteries evokes the deepest of sorrows as I realise the magnitude of losses in just this area alone.
The sight makes real the knowledge that World War I left 9.5 million soldiers dead and more than 21 million wounded. Under each of those crosses lies a soldier; a son, a brother, a father, an uncle; a man who loved and was loved; who laughed and cried; who lived and then died in a horrific and brutal war.
November sees the centenary of the end of World War I and these memorials have long welcomed visitors and relatives to pay their respects – here there are cemeteries for the British, French, German, Czech and Polish. However it is the museums, many new or refurbished since 2014, that hold the key to gaining a better understanding of the war’s history and providing visitors with a vivid and emotional experience. To fully understand how this brutal conflict was brought to an end, we need to travel two hours south to the very place it happened: the dense forest of Compiègne. Here, the Musée de l’Armistice has recently opened after a €1.3 million makeover, and it tells the story of how the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.
When we arrive at the museum, the last drops of rain are dripping from the mighty beech and oak trees around us; beech nuts crunch underfoot. The museum is set on the former railway siding where German and Allied leaders came in two separate trains for the signing of the first Armistice, a location chosen thanks to its rail links to both Germany and France.
It was here at dawn on 8th November 1918 their respective trains drew in and those aboard began what would become four days of negotiations, culminating in the signing of the armistice at 5am on 11th November, which declared that at 11am, all fighting would cease on land, sea and air.
At the heart of the museum stands a replica of the railway carriage that served to host the conference. We peer through the windows to see each place clearly named for the French, British and German delegates who were involved, including leader of the Allied forces Marechal Ferdinand Foch who only left the carriage once in the four days to attend a church service.
Elsewhere, the displays tell how the war began, through to how the Armistice came to be signed in the railway carriage, on what is now a newly turfed and manicured clearing outside. Other exhibits show how soldiers passed the time between action moulding shell casings into elaborate goblets, and several wooden stereoscopes depict some 800 scenes from battles and how locals’ everyday lives were affected during the war.
A chilling monument outside shows a fallen German black eagle being speared by a Gaullist sword reflects the French’s initially triumphant mood in 1918, but there is little about today’s museum that depicts the armistice in this way. Instead it is presented as a moment in time, with displays that explain how it led to further terrible events.
The Nazis regarded the 1918 armistice as a humiliation for Germany and so, when it came to the signing of the 1940 armistice between France and Germany, Hitler ordered the carriage to removed from the museum (tearing down a wall in the process) and returned to the clearing for the Armistice to be signed in the same place. The Fuhrer stayed just 15 minutes, and didn’t utter a word. He then ordered that all the statues and memorials inside the clearing to be destroyed except that of Marechal Foch – many consider this the ultimate revenge, to leave Foch surveying the destruction and humiliation of truce undone. The railway car was then taken to Berlin, and later destroyed by fire at the Ohrdruf Concentration Camp in Eastern Germany. All that remains of it is two pieces of wood, found in the 1990s and brought back to the museum.
Outside, in the huge circular clearing surrounded by trees, the memorials have been re-laid in preparation for the 2018 anniversary ceremony to be attended by world leaders. For now it strikes me as odd that such a significant place should feel so hidden from the world. Indeed the car park is almost empty.
Back on the front line in Arras, we learn more about the story of World War I at the Wellington Quarry, on the outskirts of the city. This superb museum tells how, in 1916, New Zealander tunnellers dug beyond the existing disused quarries under the streets of Arras. With fellow allied miners, they created a huge network of tunnels under No Man’s Land. In so doing, they created a secret barracks for 20,000 soldiers, which proved crucial in the Battle of Arras. We don our hard hats follow our tour guide into the lift and descend 20 metres into the chilly caverns. As we walk through the various quarries, the tour alternates between an audio guide and the tour guide to show what life was like for the young soldiers who came from all over the world – each quarry is named after their home cities, Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Blenheim, Christchurch and Dunedin for the New Zealanders, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Crewe and London for the British. Our guide points out graffiti and drawings on the rocks and shows us how the soldiers stationed there washed in freezing cold water and slept on wooden bunks, and also how they kept up morale. The audio guide has actors telling stories and reading letters home from the soldiers, stoic and philosophical. Knowing that this was where so many young men spent the last days of their lives is heart-breaking. So too is the recreation of how the soldiers headed up, out of the tunnels and into the chaos of the front line. At 5.30am on 9th April 1917, and to the enemy’s surprise, the troops exited the quarries close to German trenches and pushed them back by seven miles. The offensive was considered a tactical success, but the Battle of Arras dragged on, eventually drawing to a close in May 1917 with nearly 300,000 casualties on both sides.
At the new Lens 14-18 museum, we learn more about the Battle of Arras and the war’s other battles and how the war impacted the people and soldiers in the surrounding Artois region, especially those living in the German-occupied area. Descriptive panels, black and white photographs and artefacts tell of the evacuation of Lille; how harshly the locals were treated by the Germans; about the choking gas attacks; the life and poems of Wilfred Owen; and how – with death so omnipresent – photographs of corpses weren’t considered taboo. The design of the building is striking too – an austere black box that instils a sense of trepidation. Inside though, the architecture offers me some solace. Between the chilling exhibits, narrow corner windows offer slices of the surrounding countryside: the light pours into the dark space and I can see the golden fields, the verdant hedgerows, trees fluttering in the breeze. I can see where life goes on, how the landscape has healed and how the sun still rises and sets.
We end our trip at possibly the most affecting site, France’s largest World War I cemetery, Notre-Dame de Lorette. Up a manicured drive behind the museum, it looks out over the vast landscape from its hilltop position. Crosses (and some Stars of David) continue into the distance and, as I read some of the names, my heart feels like lead. Its 25 hectares are the final resting place of 40,000 soldiers – marked by 20,000 individual graves and eight ossuaries containing the remains of those unknown. Among them are six graves in which the father died in World War I, and the son in World War II. The 52-metre lantern tower and the Romanesque-Byzantine church both date from 1920, but since 2014 they have been joined by a further memorial. The Ring of Remembrance was designed by architect Philippe Prost and is a moving work of reconciliation. On 500 vertical sheets of bronzed stainless steel arranged in an ellipse, it presents every single name of all 580,000 soldiers of every nationality who died in the Artois region, listed in alphabetical order. As I walk slowly past the Bourdins and the Browns, the Fischers and Fletchers, the Schmidts and the Sher Singhs, patterns emerge where the more common names are listed; there are three panels of Smiths, one and a half of Jones, names listed in mesmerising rows. While the cemeteries mark out these soldiers by nationality, maintaining them as adversaries, this beautiful memorial puts them side by side, no matter what their rank, regiment or nationality. People; who laughed, who cried; who lived and then died.
Need to know
Carolyn Boyd was a guest of Villa Châtelet (www.villaduchatelet.com) just five minutes from the Musée de l’Armistice. This beautiful chambres d’hotes is set in a villa built for composer Léo Delibes. B&B doubles from €120. For more information on the area, contact Oise Tourist office in www.oisetourism.co.uk). In Arras, Carolyn was a guest of Sawdays (www.sawdays.co.uk/) and stayed at Chateau de Saulty, which as B&B doubles from €75 per night. For more information about the museums and memorial sites, visit www.visit-pas-de-calais.com and www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/en/first-world-war-places-remembrance.
How to get there: Carolyn travelled with Eurotunnel. A car and up to nine passengers costs from £64 each way (www.eurotunnel.com).