May 28, 2014: Verdun Battlefields

Our plan for today was to leave Reims in the morning, tour Verdun and the surrounding area for a few hours and, by early afternoon, head to the town of Colmar in the Alsace region of France (a 3+ hour drive). By late morning, after a few wrong turns and missed roads, we finally found the stretch of road between Verdun and Douaumont we were intent on seeing. Once we started down this road, it was like stepping back in time and witnessing first hand the horror of Verdun.  

For it was in 1916 that the Germans laid siege to the town of Verdun and its surrounding area. The artillery blasts and trench warfare lasted for 300 days and nights and, in the course of the fighting, annihilated thirty towns in the area. It was the longest and bloodiest battle of World War I. More than 100,000 French soldiers (and even more German soldiers) died on Verdun's battlefields. The bombing decimated the area and, although there are now lush forests where there were once only scorched earth and blackened trees, the landscape still bears the scars of this long-ago battle. Everywhere you walk, the land undulates (an aftermath of all the artillery shelling that created the lunar-like landscape), there are still a number of trenches visible, and six of the destroyed villages were never rebuilt. 

We trod through some of the communication trenches, stumbled our way across the shelled landscape, and solemnly walked through one of the destroyed villages. We visited the Ossuary Memorial, a tribute to all the French and German soldiers who died on the Verdun battlefields, and walked through the cemetery of Christian crosses and Muslim headstones. We even peeked in the basement windows of the Ossuary and saw the bones of hundreds of unidentified soldiers. It was all so sad.

Needless to say, we spent much more time in Verdun than originally planned and didn't leave the area until after 5:00 PM. It was almost 9:00 PM by the time we arrived in Colmar. Our hotel is absolutely charming and we enjoyed a very late dinner before heading to bed.

Communication Trenches

Barbed Wire Atop Fort Douaumont

Ossuary Memorial

View from our Dinner Table