"LA BELLE FRANCE" France by mtncorg

In the past, I have written “my travels in France have barely scratched the surface of this great country.” A recent trip has somewhat solved some of this itch, at least in the regions of northeastern France. My latest endeavors consisted of a whirlwind tour across the many battlefields that have littered the French countryside in the last two centuries. France had been a country strong enough militarily, for the most part, to push campaigns into neighboring countries, at least, until the end of the Napoleonic Empire. The unification of Germany in the late middle part of the Nineteenth Century forced many changes on the French, however. A series of three separate, though interlinked, wars took place between 1871 and 1945 with the battlefields being played out in most cases on French soil. The Industrial Revolution changed the battlefield such that death and damage became much more dramatic than in past wars.

Time constraints and the theme of my travels kept me in the rural countryside of France – easier to operate a rental car and to witness the monuments, the forts and the graves that can be found around every corner in this part of France. By traveling through the French countryside, I was impressed by the rural beauty of France whether in the forests of the Vosges or the Argonne, the rolling hills around Sedan and in Lorraine, the vast open fields of Picardy and the Tardenois or the cultivated vineyards of Alsace and Champagne. This is countryside that with the exception of maybe Alsace and some areas in Champagne, which doesn’t receive a lot of tourists other areas of France do. This is not the drama of the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Riviera, or the cultural sophistication of Paris or the fantasyland of the Loire. Many of the places I visited were deserted or with only one or two other visitors – not necessarily surprising as military history travel is not something many get excited about.

My travels concentrated on the battlefields from the First World War, an event that significantly changed the World in many ways more than any other event. It was especially significant for the main combatants: France, Germany, Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, America, but the reverberations of the war were felt around the World, as well: India, the Far East, the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa and the Commonwealth Nations associated with Great Britain. I had read the histories, the novels and watched some of the movies. Outside a brief trip I had taken to Hartmannswillerkopf and Verdun some years ago, I really didn’t have a good idea of the landscape in which so many men persevered for four long years. It is World War I that France remembers best, too. Monuments and graveyards can be found in all areas where the battles raged. But not only will you find French remembrances, but monuments abound from other nationalities: British, Canadian, India, New Zealand, Australia, America, even Newfoundland. There are Portuguese graves, Italian graves, Chinese and Indochinese graves, Danish graves, Italian graves, Czech, Polish and Russian graves, and, of course, there are German graves, which is the main way in which the efforts of the German Empire are mostly remembered today, though not the only way as you can still come upon the odd German monument and tunnel system, too.

Traveling through World War I sites, you begin to notice other wars creeping in: World War II, especially south of Sedan and along the northeast border where many forts can be visited along the former Ligne Maginot; the Franco-Prussian War – an event some think of having a significance on the French pysche nearly equal to the First World War; the odd French Revolutionary or Imperial campaign, as well as, fortresses and sites connected to eras long forgotten. So traveling with an open curiosity can lead to many other portals through which you can step. A few which I had time for included the magnificent sculptures of Licien Rigier in St Mihiel; an old Jewish cemetery in rural Alsace; the baroque glory of Wissembourg. I also gained a great appreciation for 1:200000 scale Michelin maps which can keep you from getting lost in a very complicated countryside.

I also bear witness to the graves of many persons whose lives were snuffed out prematurely. Lives, thrown away at the altar of nationalistic glory. The sadness you feel as you look out at one more graveyard is one that still has the power to dramatically affect you as you remember the events which took place almost a hundred years ago. It is a sadness that affects you even more so when you remember that each one of those graves is a story unto itself – a life lived and then extinguished on a scale never before seen in the history of mankind.

• Pros:Culture, Landscape, History, Cusine, People
• Cons:Relatively large country - easy to attempt to try and see too much