Verdun

Verdun, the name of a local village, is now used as shorthand to describe a battle that lasted months and stretched over a large area of the Meuse-Argonne.  Regardless, the offensive here was the final great push of the First World War, and led to the Armistice after the Allied Forces pushed the Germans back beyond the Meuse River.  It is an area of forests (one now called the Foret Morte Homme, the forest of dead men) and hills.  I wanted to see this area, just south and west of Luxembourg.  It is sobering.

The remains of the forts, the pill-boxes, and God help us, the trenches where men lived or died through artillery barrages, machine gun fire, and bayonet attacks, remain.  AS do the memorials and the graves.

The French ossuary and cemetery is the largest memorial.  The light within is amber from the glass inset in the southern walls.  It is a beautiful and quiet place.  The cemetery stretches out in front of the memorial, down the hill and towards the town of Verdun.  The memorial is easily found on Google Earth.

The American Memorial sits on a hill, near the top, in front of the ruins of the church that served the community, the abbey and the seminary.

This photograph was taken from the site of the former main street of the small town below the church.  Before the war, it was lined with tall houses, the offices of the local Gendarme,  and the city's administrative offices.  All of the town was destroyed in the fighting.

The structure with the horizontal slit near the top is a German bunker.  It is typical in construction of the others that remain in the area.  It is made with rubble from the destroyed church, cement, and railroad rails in the roofing.  This is the view from the forward bunkers of the hill county to the west.

The countryside is so peaceful now.  But brave men and women fought over it in the screaming hell that was and is war.  As I walked among these positions, and earlier as I walked in the Trench of Bayonets, I was awash with sorrow for the young lives that ended here.

The American Cemetery is near the village of Cunel.  This is the approach to the cemetery from Cunel:

The road above leads through the grounds.  There is an oval drive that surrounds a center park and fountain.  The cemetery itself is to the left as you look through the park.

The fountain in the center points up the hill through the graves on either side to the chapel at the far end and up the gentle slope.  The grounds are very well kept by a French crew hired by the U.S. Government, as these memorials are maintained by the U.S. through agreements with the French government.  I spoke with the Cemetery's manager, and he was very respectful of the responsibility with which he has been entrusted.

As you walk along the graves, and read the markers, it is clear that no one was favored to live in this battle.  There are private soldiers, their sergeants, the lieutenants, the bakers, the buglers, the messmen, the nurses, the Texans, the New Yorkers, the Montanans, the Italians, the Irish, all there.  War doesn't discriminate at all.

The chapel was quiet, and as calm as you would expect.

Behind the chapel, I took a photograph of the hills amongst which these Americans now rest.  It is, as I wrote before, peaceful now, and very beautiful on the edge of The Foret de Morte Homme.