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May 26, 2013, 1:31am

Any Port in a Storm :: Compass Points :: Europe :: France :: The Ardennes, Kingdom of the Dead

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Topic: The Ardennes, Kingdom of the Dead (Read 646 times)

kerouac2
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The Ardennes, Kingdom of the Dead
« Thread Started on Apr 29, 2012, 5:39am »

There are plenty of people living in the region of the Ardennes, but the people who came to die there outnumber them by far. The fields and villages have been soaked with blood countless times but most dramatically in 1870, 1914 and 1939.

I had not been planning to make a special trip to a cemetery during a recent trip to Sedan except that the day before I went, there was an article in the newspaper about a controversy in the local cemetery, which contains the largest German funerary monument built in France. The German army built it in 1915 while occupying Sedan in order to honour their war dead from 1870, many of whom were interred in the cemetery.

However, now it is falling apart and is considered to be both a danger and an eyesore. The German War Graves Commission has declined to participate in any sort of restoration because all of the German remains have been removed from the municipal cemetery and either repatriated back to Germany or interred in one of the local German military cemeteries. Many of the people of Sedan feel that the construction was an affront and a provocation to begin with, so they have no wish for any municipal funds to be used except for dismantling the rubble. But in both France and Germany (and a number of other countries), there is also a feeling of what is called le devoir de mémoire (the duty of memory), so there is a possibility that private citizens and veterans' associations may collect enough money for a restoration.

Naturally, I wanted to see this for myself while it is still there, so I hunted down the Saint Charles municipal cemetery, which is also a French and Commonwealth military cemetery.

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It is quite a large cemetery with all of the extravagant tombs of previous centuries and plenty of the normal everyday graves. I am always on the lookout for families with new and astonishing ideas for tombs, and I discovered two that fully qualified -- the gypsy greenhouse tomb and good ole boy Average Joe.

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The time for amusement now terminated, I climbed up the hill toward the German monument, which has indeed seen better days.

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Another couple hundred meters brought me to the military zone of the cemetery.

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Even though it contains "only" about 3000 graves, the main thing that impressed me was that all of the allies are mixed together, all having died in the same place for the same cause -- French, Belgians, Russians, British, Australians....

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[photobucket height=480 width=640]http://s450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/Noyers-Pont-Maugis/?action=view¤t=84a22d80.pbw[/photobucket]

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I knew I had to make a trip to another important cemetery after this one. Time to leave.

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kerouac2
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Re: The Ardennes, Kingdom of the Dead
« Reply #1 on Apr 29, 2012, 6:12am »

In Sedan, I had already spotted this sign and it had immediately clicked.

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We are always talking about the American, Commonwealth and French military cemeteries, but there is rarely much interest in the German cemeteries. A lot of people just seem to filter them out, and yet in France alone the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.) looks after 192 German war cemeteries from WW1 containing 768,000 dead and 23 war cemeteries from WW2 containing an additional 228,000 dead.

France and Germany went to war against each other three times in a short 75 year period, the first one being the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. While only 80,000 lives were lost, it changed the face of Europe with the annexation of a significant part of France. And the deciding battle of the war took place in Sedan on September 1, 1870. After that French defeat, the German troops overran eastern France. In any case, this explains why Sedan was chosen for the German monument.

The cemetery of Noyers-Pont-Maugis is only about 10km from Sedan, and it was created by the French in 1922 to bury the German war dead properly. It now contains 14,055 German victims of WW1 and 12,788 victims of WW2.

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The WW1 tombs have upright crosses which represent in most cases 6 soldiers, with three names engraved on each side.

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The graves from the second world war are flat plaques.

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A panorama of the killing fields from the cemetery
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There is of course a chapel in the middle of the cemetery.

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German efficiency: bouquet vase spikes so you can leave flowers on a tomb

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It is always sad to be the one and only person visiting such a place.

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Apparently in the year 2012, the leaders of many countries remain just as determined to send 20 year olds to be slaughtered at will, as most of the world continues to be ruled with fear and hatred. At least France and Germany seem to have learned some important lessons.... but at what price?

« Last Edit: Apr 29, 2012, 10:30am by kerouac2 »

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bjd
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Re: The Ardennes, Kingdom of the Dead
« Reply #2 on Apr 29, 2012, 7:06am »

So many lives lost in each war. It's true that the German military cemeteries are never mentioned. I wonder if Germans visit them as much as Australians, Canadians, Americans etc visit the Allied cemeteries in Normandy?

Odd that the chapel looks like a bunker!

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nycgirl7664
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Re: The Ardennes, Kingdom of the Dead
« Reply #3 on May 3, 2012, 4:43am »

I agree that the chapel looks weird, but I love the stone pavement surrounding it.

This is a very poignant photo essay. It is indeed a shame that there apparently aren't many visitors to this place.

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gabriele
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Re: The Ardennes, Kingdom of the Dead
« Reply #4 on Jul 22, 2012, 11:19pm »

I've seen the bouquet spike vases here in the US but don't know where they originated. Of course in the graveyards I've seen in France (not military) the momentos represent a cross section of sincerity, piety and sometimes bad taste. (I say that having seen too many cheaply made "I prayed for you at Lourdes" (in French of course) and either poorly rendered/painted flowers on the ceramic or an enameled picture on a stone marker and who can forget the plastic flowers, dutifully replaced on a grave but the weeds still growing.
By chance one visit to France I found myself on the Chemin des Dames and was caught up in the history. I've since bought a set of books on the Great War, with contemporary accounts being written during the war. It covers all the areas, not just France/Belgium and a study I plan on undertaking...having read bits and pieces so far.
So many Americans have little or no perspective on wars once they're over. Quite the opposite in France; I can't think of a town or village that doesn't have it memorial to those who fought and fell for France...

The church....I didn't see a bunker, I saw the simplest form of a cross without being specific to one 'cult' or another (I love the way the French call every religious practice a cult...really equalises things).
Thank you for everything

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