Remembrance Day in France

As planned we took a few days visiting Beaumont-Hamel (November 10) and Vimy Ridge (November 11) and some of the other memorials from World War I. Everywhere in this area there were memorials and war cemeteries from so many countries. It was very sobering to see these sites and realize the terrible cost in human lives that this war took. It is no wonder people had hoped that this would be "the war to end all wars".

All the cemeteries are striking in the way they have been maintained for over 90 years and the dignity they preserve for these fallen soldiers. The size of some of these cemeteries is incredible. One French cemetery had over 22,000 graves while a nearby German cemetery had over 44,000 graves. When standing at the entrance to the German cemetery, the crosses stretched to the horizon and each cross marked the graves of four soldiers! To this add the thousands of names of soldiers engraved on the memorials. These were the soldiers whose bodies were never found in the mud and destruction of the battlefields. This was the case at Beaumont-Hamel where so many Newfoundlanders died.

It was at Beaumont-Hamel that the women of Newfoundland raised enough money to buy the battlefield and preserve it as memorial for those soldiers. This is now one of the few spots where a World War I battlefield has been preserved. Led by Sarah, a student guide from St. John's, we were able to retrace the path where the Newfoundland Regiment went "over the top" from the "St. John's Road" trench to their furthest advance marked by the "danger tree". It was over this short distance that the regiment was wiped out. It is a powerful image of how quickly so many people were killed.

We spent Remembrance Day at Vimy Ridge. Apparently the official memorial ceremony was held on the previous weekend but the guide staff organized their own ceremony for 11:00 am on November 11. It was a small ceremony with no official groups but instead attended by individuals (including individuals of the Canadian Armed Forces) all making their own personal pilgrimage of remembrance. The memorial itself is beautiful and from its location on top of the ridge it provides a fantastic vantage point of the surrounding French country side. Later we descended down the hill through areas still pock marked by shells from the battle in 1917. At the bottom of the hill we explored the frontline trenches of the Germans and Canadians, just 25 metres apart. From here we went underground where the Canadians used tunnels to bring troops secretly up for the attack. Here thousands of men had to wait in silence for 36 hours in tunnels that were 2 feet wide and about 7 feet high. I can only imagine how frightening and lonely it must have been as these soldiers waited for their orders to attack.

As a Canadian I was proud of these 2 sites. The sites and the staff do a good job of presenting the war not as places of glory and victory but of tragedy and the hope that the lost youth of World War I have passed on to the youth of today. The youth represented by the student guides and my own two children, Niall and Aaron. The lessons of this war were not lost on Aaron and Niall. In their explorations of these sites they seem to understand some of the realities of war and the cemeteries showed them the true scale of the cost in human lives that war brings. I am definitely glad we came. If you ever have a chance, it is well worth visiting these places. And if you come on Remembrance Day, it is just like Remembrance Day in Newfoundland -- cold, wet, and windy.