World War I cemeteries of the Pas de Calais (by kerouac2)

[Deleted]

My peculiar attraction to military cemeteries reached new heights yesterday as I visited some of the largest graveyards in France as well as the stunning new memorial at Notre Dame de Lorette. You can just consider this a companion piece to The Ardennes, Kingdom of the Dead from two years ago. In any case, I left Arras yesterday morning in freezing temperatures and under dull skies. I had spent the previous night in a nice warm bed, but I always imagine all of those soldiers who spent months in frozen trenches, caked in mud until they were blown to bits or gassed.

So my first stop was the Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery with 7,650 graves.









I was the one and only visitor and the frozen grass crunched under my feet as I walked around.



I find that the trees of northern France are an excellent visual aid to convey a feeling of winter.



All around the cemetery were frozen fields lying fallow.



Back when the tombstones were carved, they didn't have 3D printers, so it boggles my mind to imagine how and where these stones were prepared. The French and Germany cemeteries have nothing as elaborate.

           

           







As I prepared to leave, two gardeners were beginning their day, but I doubt that there is much to keep them busy at this time of year. Not even any leaves to rake.



Just a few kilometres away is Notre Dame-de-Lorette, the largest French military cemetery with the remains of 45,000 soldiers.







Frankly, the cemetery of Verdun is easier to photograph because it is all on a long slope but only 16,000 tombs (plus the bones of 130,000 Germans and French mixed in the ossuary).



This cemetery has a few bone plots for unidentified soldiers.

           









I also admired the spirit of this defiant hydrangea that refuses to die.

[Deleted]

what a stupid war



Just across the road from the cemetery is the new memorial that was inaugurated less than a month ago. It is a ring of 580,000 names of all of the soldiers that died in this area.





You enter the metal ring through this passage.







So many names are repeated so many times, and I'm sure they were not all of the same nationality.

           



           



There are a couple of openings to the outside world, all former battlefields.











There were fewer than a half dozen other people. I encountered a British women in tears. "It's so incredible," she said.

[Deleted]

Back outside, there were diverse other commemorative remnants.







This path purportedly went to the ruins of a church, but I did not feel confident on the ice, so I didn't try to go and see.









Some local livestock had wisely dressed for the weather.









When they were building the memorial, naturally they found more bodies.











At least the trenches are gone...



plenty of room left in the car park...

[tod2]

It's awe inspiring - an even more so looking at the enormous space with not a soul in sight.

You said: As I prepared to leave, two gardeners were beginning their day, but I doubt that there is much to keep them busy at this time of year. Not even any leaves to rake.

I was wondering why they don't use this time of year to paint those very stained and yellowed crosses.

Another thought....how can so many men have the exact same name???

[bjd]

Thanks for this. I think these lists of names are so much more moving and give a better idea of the thousands who died than the old fashioned memorials put up after the war.

[bjd]

Tod -- about people with the same names -- I'm not surprised at all. I have been spending the past year reading lists of names while doing genealogy research and there were fewer names used in the 19th century and earlier. The lists of Johns and Josephs and Mariannas are endless, with an occasional more original one thrown into the mix.

[Deleted]

Dec 9, 2014 11:48:04 GMT tod2 said:

Another thought....how can so many men have the exact same name???

Any list of 580,000 people is going to have lots of duplicates, and I'm sure you know that back in the times of villages, it was extremely common to keep using the same first names over and over again. Just imagine if they ever make a list of the 10 million soldiers who died... or the 10 million civilians.

[Deleted]

I made a couple other stops before getting on the autoroute to Paris. All of the places that I visited are on the same small road. Here is the Czech cemetery.











And here is the Polish memorial.

My last stop was at the German military cemetery of Neuville-St. Vaast. It is the largest German cemetery in France with 44,833 tombs. Neuville-St. Vaast also has French and British military cemeteries with respectively another 7,500 and 12,200 tombs. It really boggles the mind when you think that I could have walked to all of these places in no more than an hour or two. I think I would feel very strange if I had to live in one of the villages of the area.

I was the sole visitor to these 44,833 young men.







Most of the German cemeteries look more miserable than the French or British ones. I don't know if it was by choice or because the losing side didn't have as much money to spend on such things.















At least one of them had received a family visit.

And then it was time to take the road to Paris.

[tod2]

That was tremendous Kerouac. I can't get my head around how they went about finding who was who among the dead. I know American soldiers have or had, I don't know now, the 'dog tag' with details on it. How do you identify someone with no kith or kin present, or maybe body parts seperated. How on earth did someone compile such a history of names.... damn marvellous if you ask me.

Kerouac, I liked you snazzy little red car!

[Deleted]

It was a Kia.

[mossie]

A labour of love Kerouac, thanks for reminding us of the terrible sacrifice in the "War to end all wars".
I toured some of these cemeteries some years ago and found it a very sobering experience. We also attended the "Last Post" ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres, where I shed a tear.
Our Commonwealth War Graves Commission does an excellent job of maintaining our cemeteries and has sections all over the world. I don't suppose there are too many countries in which British and Commonwealth servicemen have not died during the last 100 years.

[lagatta]

The Commonwealth graves are certainly beautifully tended.

At Udine in Fruili, there is also an ossuary (Tempio Ossario - no surprise that Italians were big on lofty Latinisms). At the time very impressive, as the only location of war graves I'd visited was at Dieppe (Second World War). www.tempioudine.it/ (in Italian)

[Deleted]

Here are aerial views of Cabaret Rouge and Notre Dame de Lorette.

imageshack.com/a/img674/9133/zMKM1c.jpg                     imageshack.com/a/img908/8953/sVbijN.png

[lola]

You've found a lot of beauty there, K. Thanks for visiting for us.

What if all war dead had eternally preserved graveyards? Romans, Celts, 100 Years War, every Inca or American Indian soldier?

I'm just has happy to get recycled when I turn to dust. Either that or something with a big mourning marble angel.

[Deleted]

If any of you watch the Tour de France on television, you will be able to see all of these places and more during the Arras >>> Amiens stage on July 8th. The Tour will pass in front of the Notre Dame-de-Lorette necropole and the new Memorial ring. It will continue to Vimy Ridge, the British cemetery of Sailly-Saillisel, the French necropole of Rancourt, the South African memorial at Bois Delville, the Franco-British memorial of Thiepval and the Australian national memorial near Villers-Bretonneux.

The story of the necropole of Rancourt is a bit more unusual than most. It was created at the private initiative of Mathilde du Bos, née Johnston, from New Orleans, Louisiana. She wanted to honour her son who had died on the battlefield there at age 26. She created a big committee of widows and mothers to raise money, including a public subscription in the United States that raised $25,000 to rebuild the church of the totally destroyed village.

As for the Australian memorial, it lists the names of 10,773 Australian soldiers whose remains were never found. It was the last WW1 memorial to be inaugurated in France, just one year before the beginning of WW2.

[anshjain97]

Just saw this thread- indeed, to me it's really the list of names which show the scale of the war. Very moving.