Three Days with Benji in Picardy Part 3

Now call me biased, patriotic, or what you will, but for me this was the best bit of architecture to be found in the area.

It's called the British memorial, but it has a large British and French cemetery. I found it impressive that scattered across the countryside of this appealing corner of Picardy there are monuments like this that are kept immaculately by various associations, and obviously treated with the utmost respect by visitors and residents alike. There was something about the design of this one that seemed to me to embody both the horror and the heroism of the struggle - sort of Gothic yet dignified

There is a small museum attached telling the story - this a rather impressive (if that's the right word) montage of pictures of some of the many thousands who simply disappeared and whose remains were never found.

Superb large display boards telling the story of this bit of the struggle

I think a lot of places have this kind of thing - books with lists of names, each one someone's son, father, husband, sweetheart...

... and walls covered with the names of those who were missing by regiment

 

The symmetry was suitably disrupted by the French and British sectors of the cemetery with different style grave markers. I preferred the French version

 

 

Simple stone crosses with nameplates...

 

... or not in many many cases. I think the French version of "unknown" is more poignant

 

than the wordy British "A soldier of the Great War ...

 

Now very late in the afternoon and wanting to visit the Newfoundland memorial before travelling to Amiens I just found myself driving by the Ulster memorial. So I just stopped to take a picture

 

I think it is meant to be a replica of a tower somewhere in Northern Ireland.

 

Now the Newfoundland memorial at Beaumont-Hamel is one of the must-see places.

The mound topped by the caribou is impressive enough, as is yet another story of heroics - a courageous if senseless assault on German positions from which only 68 men emerged unscathed after just half an hour's combat and in which every single officer was killed.

 

But it was here of all places I visited that you could best see the layout of the original trenches

 

No mud, duckboards or military paraphernalia, but you get the idea

Over the top anyone? I was just trying to imagine what those men felt as they looked at the top of this trench before doing something really really stupid.

 

Now in theory this was one of the better ideas of the planners of the Battle of the Somme. Digging under the German lines and planting lots of explosives to be detonated before the assault began. This is at La Boisselle, not far from Albert.

 

Why it is called the Lochnager Crater I don't know, but it is an impressive sight

 

No marked graves, but nevertheless a final resting place for many soldiers, it looks as if visitors really do follow this instruction.

 

It was difficult, with my little camera, to capture the scale of the crater generated by the explosion

 

 

but this might offer some idea.

 

The following attack was, of course, part of the story of disaster.

 

 

An earlier attack by the French in December 1914 in this vicinity was also a disaster with well over 1,000 losses in a very short space of time

 

Now owned by an Englishman there is a service held here every year on 1st July, moving on to Thiepval and Beaumont-Hamel and ending at the German cemetery at Fricourt (which I didn't have time to see. 

 

Time for something other than war - an evening in the delightful town of Amiens, very pretty and very French...

 

 

... in the main!

 

Lovely waterways lined with more restaurants than you could shake a large baguette at

 

A stunning contrast to the story of carnage on the Somme battlefield

 

And a very impressive cathedral.

Well I was missing my wife rather a lot by now, and regard a meal out at a French restaurant to be somewhat inadequate without her company, so I repaired to the McDonalds on the route back to the camp site, before collapsing into bed in my tent. I didn't take a picture of McDonalds - I expect you know what they look like. But here's a funny thing - my French is just about passable in restaurants, supermarkets, shops and camp sites, but not in McDonalds. I think it is the way French versions of the place mix English and French together - "Le Big Mac" for example.

Final part of the story to be posted soon

Three Days with Benji in Picardy part 2

Le petit dejeuner - in my opinion the best meal of the day when you are in France, and outside a tent in decent weather is the best place to eat it. There is something about French baguettes - probably the flour they use (ble noir I think) that is finer than our stuff, so their bread always tastes fantastic. I had a really full day ahead - attempting to visit as many sites on the Somme battlefield as possible in one day, so needed some early refuelling. The stove is one of the best presents ever (from no.1 son many years ago now) - the burner, with its own ignition that still works as well as ever - sits inside the nest of saucepans, and so is very compact - you just need a gas canister to go with it. So great for motorbike trips and backpacking etc.

I had realised half way across the channel that the Thursday I was here was "L'Assomption" and a French national holiday. I think it's all about the Catholic belief that Mary the mother of Jesus remained a virgin throoughout her life (poor Joseph) and was sinless, so therefore couldn't possibly have died, and was "assumed" into heaven. I reckon most French people see that for the myth I think it is, but who cares when you have a national holiday out of it. Bit like the Thatcher government hating a national holiday to celebrate Mayday introduced by the earlier socialist regime but not daring to cancel it.
Anyway today's first stop was the Somme museum at Peronne, where thankfully the musee was ouvert even though the town was virtually lifeless. It has an impressive entrance.

Some contemporary newspapers that make it sound as if everyone on the Western Front was going to have a ripping good time for a few months.

Unhappy, dissatisfied, feeling you aren't doing your bit for good old Blighty? Come and have fun being blown to bits on the Somme. Mud, barbed wire, machine guns, heavy artillery - what more could a chap want to while away those long winter months?

This speaks for itself - worth blowing up (excuse the pun) and reading

This museum was a little more expensive than the one in Albert, though quite reasonable. But in my opinion it wasn't quite as good. I liked the way they laid things out in open pits though.

The exhibits had boards around them telling the story of the war in French, English and German. I was too short of time to try to improve my French reading skills so stuck to English

As before the most poignant exhibits for me were the ones taken from the battlefield as they lay and put on show.

I think the ball bearings in the bowl would have been in the grenade or a mortar or similar. Imagine hundreds of these flying at you so fast you couldn't see them. You wouldn't have much chance.

The everyday mixed with the materiel of war

Outside another opportunity to recover in more tranquil surroundings. Peronne is actually on the Somme river, so has lots of water. I was keen to press on to the next destination but would have liked to have stayed for a while in what seemed a lovely town.

Preparing for an open air mass to celebrate L'Assomption. It actually looked like a good contemporary expression of Christian faith and the atmosphere of informality made me feel more positive about the French Catholic Church.

Worth a read if you have time to expand sufficiently

Next stop was one of the most impressive places I visited - the South African memorial at Longueval. I arrived at the same time as some more English folk, and we found the museum closed for the holiday and the gate into the memorial shut, but easily opened. We decided to risk the wrath of anyone watching and wander inside.

Now war history might not be your thing, so I won't bore you with something that I find compulsive and riveting, but will just say that the setting is a place called Delville Wood, and this is a kind of South African synonym for bravery. In July 1916 a total of 3153 South Africans fighting for the British Empire were told to take the wood "at all costs." This is pretty much what happened, and when they were relieved 5 days later only 142 came out unscathed, with a total of 780 finally being reassembled. 

All the Somme cemeteries had one of these outside as far as I could see

These were markers of some kind with what appeared to be street names on them, but I didn't find out their significance - I guess if the museum had been open there would have been some information.

This is "the last tree." The forest was decimated by the battle, and replanted, but they kept one tree from 1916.

For some reason - perhaps the tranquil arborial setting, there was somehow something quite moving about this solitary tree.

It made you think about what it had witnessed nearly a century ago

Some better pictures of trenches coming, but you can see what remains of the places where the soldiers dug themselves in.

No comment needed

This place will live for a long time in my memory

Now I think this picture might be out of order and belong to a different place, but what struck me about so many gravestones was not simply the engraving "A soldier of the Great War known unto God" or something similar, but that he had been identified as belonging to a particular regiment - here the Coldstream Guards. I presume the implication is that there was enough of the soldier remaining to identify his uniform but not enough to be able to say who he was.

Line upon line, row upon row, as far as the eye can see

This could be one of dozens of places I passed. Every road I drove down I passed these - not the celebrated tourist sites but "just another cemetery" with row upon row of graves. This one was British - as were the majority - but served as a reminder that the rolling hills and small towns I was passing through to cross the battlefield in the space of half an hour cost the lives of countless thousands of mainly young men, each mile gained costing days of bitter fighting and almost unimaginable carnage.

One of the "must see" places - the Australian / French memorial at Villers-Bretonneux. Perhaps in terms of architecture one of the most impressive it commemorates the Anzacs who, with some French units, took Pozieres on 23rd July after the disaster they had in Gallipoli.

An imposing entrance - just the warm-up show

 My camera really isn't able to do justice to the size of the main monument

Getting a bit closer I had to take the picture in two halves - but even then the scale is difficult to convey

The walls contain the names of the 11,000 missing Australian soldiers who died in France. The walls are covered with names - not all of them "Bruce"

The view from the top of the tower gives some idea of the scale and the comradeship between French and Australian soldiers is illustrated by the two national flags side by side 

 The landscape of the Somme battlefield. A bit like Leicestershire only warmer and dryer I thought.

 Of course it was a bit of a game for these two French girls - may it remain so for them. Nice to know Thierry Henry is still a French icon in spite of his advancing years.

 The plaques I found really well presented

 Enough information but not so much that it became tedious

 Another obligatory "unknown soldier" grave. So very many of these

Encouraging that some Australian visitors were there, and some had clearly come to visit graves - I believe the flag was Australian rather than British

And if you want the story here it is

 By now it was about 4 pm and time for some late lunch. I had intended to eat at the memorial but it didn't feel right somehow.

 And a nice rest for Benji too. Note the yellow hi-visibility jacket - I think I didn't see a single other motorcyclist wearing one, and they are supposed to be compulsory in France as far as I know.

And on a lighter note - this happens all over the place in France - this chap and his wife drove into the picnic lay-by I was in and didn't bother finding a tree or bush, just whipped it out and relieved himself by the side of the car in full view of the 7-8 of us using the picnic spot.
More to follow..........