Thirza Vallois has written a most special and informative article about WWI today. I am honored she is sharing this with us and it brings attention back to a war many people have forgotten about.
Imagine a young boy visiting with his father one of the battlefield sites of World War I and being so impressed that he starts collecting memorabilia from that war, the Great War as it is named in Europe. As years go by the boy grows into a man and the collection into the world's biggest — 50,000 items collected singled-handed by Jean-Pierre Verney (that's his name), "with the dogged patience of a peasant" as he specified when he was interviewed. On last Armistice Day, 11/11/11, the seen sown but Jean-Pierre when still a child bloomed into a new, monumental museum, in Meaux east of Paris —Le Musée de la Grande Guerre— believed to be the world's biggest. To crown it all, the museum has been granted national status and was inaugurated by President Sarkozy in person, a fairy tale conclusion that almost didn't happen, for no one in France was interested in purchasing Jean-Pierre's collection which all but landed in the US.
It took a chance encounter between Jean-Pierre and the Mayor of Meaux, Jean-François Copé, for the collection to remain in France. For the record, Copé is a prominent political figure and the leader of the UMP (Sarkozy's party). He discovered the collection during a local exhibition and realized at once both its value and potential asset for Meaux. His political position enabled him to initiate and patron the project of a museum, proof if need be the huge media coverage, and the 10,000 visitors on its opening day. All for an excellent cause. The location of the museum in Meaux was further justified by its position at the gateway to the Battles of the Marne that preluded and concluded the war, respectively in 1914 and 1918.
I urge you to visit the museum. You will learn miles about this somewhat "forgotten” tragic war, unfairly overshadowed by the one that followed, of which it was the first act. Did you know that the largest American military cemetery in Europe is not the one situated in Normandy's Colleville-sur-Mer(9,387 graves), but World War I's Meuse-Argonne (14,246 graves)? That's where Sergeant York became a hero. In 1941 Gary Cooper was awarded an Oscar for that role. Did you know that 2 million American soldiers were stationed in Europe in 1918?
It is inconceivable that this huge page of history should be glossed over despite its huge repercussions on world politics, still today. It is sad that a substantial territory of France, and an attractive one at that, is ignored by most visitors, except for its champagne! It is intolerable that its devastation and ruin, should go unnoticed. And it is tragically painful that its millions of victims, the dead, the missing, the maimed and the traumatized... many of them relatives of ours from not so long ago, should be deprived of our compassion and a place in our memory. Did you know that every so often the remains of a soldier or several are stumbled upon in the fields of northern France, several Australians quite recently? In 2009 an acquaintance of mine who lives in the Somme hit upon the remains of a Canadian whilst working in his garden... Rudyard Kipling for his part never found those of his only son, whom he came to search for in the empty fields of northern France.
I urge you to travel beyond the museum along the remembrance trails. This is where the emotional experience gathers momentum. I travelled several of them in the past couple of months, an experience I am not about to forget. Most recently, on November 12th, I attended the unveiling of the Rainbow Division Monument on the site of the one-time Ferme de la Croix Rouge. On 25th and 26th July, 1918, their 167th and 168th regiments won a major victory there that helped bring the war to an end. Men from all over the US had joined the Rainbow Division, which "stretched over the whole country like a rainbow" according to Douglas MacArthur. The poignant bronze, designed by British artist James Butler, was on display for three months in London's prestigious Royal Academy before travelling to the open countryside of Picardy. Here, under a radiant sky on that day, French and Americans, military and civilians, old war veterans and village children, officials and ordinary locals, bonded around it to pay homage to the US "doughboys".
I urge you to visit the vast expanses of north and northeast France. Their gentle light and peacefulness are conducive to redemptive meditation. You will take the measure of man's folly at the Douaumont Ossuary by Verdun — 700,000 casualties, 300,000 of them dead; at the Thiepval memorial you will stand speechless as you behold the endless lists of the missing carved on the monument's walls — 73,367 British and South Africans, among them Major Cedric Charles Dickens, the writer's grandson, and a 14-year-old kid, Private Reginald Giles: What on earth was he doing on a battlefield away from home?
Visit the magnificent museum and cemetery at Delville, significantly nicknamed Devil's Wood: out of the 3,200 South Africans who fought here in the inferno of the woods, only 143 came out of there unscathed....
Visit the Canadian memorial of Vimy Ridge, a Canadian victory that led to Canada's independence. Walter Allward's colossal monument is of stunning beauty mingled with poignant sorrow. Rising above the one-time battlefield and the more recently planted woods, the maternal figure of "Canada Bereft" looks down to a vast coffin representing Canada's 11,285 dead. Give a thought to the 23,000 Australian casualties, sacrificed for the sake of a windmill held by the Germans in the village of Pozières.... And to the New Zealanders who dug the underground tunnels of Arras, notably the Wellington Quarry which can be visited.
A German Jew in a German cemetery in a different war...
This goes on and on. Millions of untold stories, of soldiers and civilians, of villages blotted out of the face of the earth, of displaced populations and starvation, and already some deportations... No words can describe the suffering in this infernal War of the Trenches, which eventually led to a famous mutinee at Le Chemin des Dames and to the execution of 28 mutinees. This is the very site visited by Jean-Pierre Verney when still a boy. The Yankee Division too fought here, in 1918, and left moving artistic testimonies carved in the underground walls.. And the famous American poet Alan Seeger volunteered to fight here earlier, in 1916, and died later in the Somme. He was the uncle of Pete who accompanied our student years with the heartbreaking song, "Where Have all the Young Men Gone?" His photo served as model for the statue surmounting Jean Boucher's commemorative monument on Place des Etats Unis, in Paris, opposite the Baccarat Museum.
Next time you visit the Arc de Triomphe give a thought to the soldiers of the Great War, known or unknown. The one resting here was picked out of eight aligned coffins by a soldier assigned to the task. After agonized hesitations, he placed the bouquet of flowers handed him for that purpose on the 6th coffin, the sum number of his 132nd Regiment.
Thirza Vallois is the author of the internationally acclaimed Around and About Paris series, Romantic Paris and Aveyron, A Bridge to French Arcadia. A long-time Parisian, Thirza is a Sorbonne post-graduate and also holds the prestigious French Agrégation. Thirza is an expert on all things Parisian and has also written the Paris entry for the Encarta Encyclopaedia. She has appeared on PBS, BBC, the Travel Channel, the French Cultural Channel, Discovery and CNN, has worked as a consultant for the BBC, has spoken on BBC Radio 4, NPR in the US, and had her own programme "postcard from Paris" on one of London's radios.
Thirza also lectures to art societies and educational organisations throughout the world and writes for the international press. Her award-winning Three Perfect Days in Paris story, published in United Airlines' Hemispheres, was aired on their international flights and travel channels.
Besides Paris, Thirza has been travelling and writing about other areas of France. Many of her stories can be found on line. Her joy to help visitors travel off the beaten track has led to her devoting several years and an entire book to the Aveyron, a beautiful, little-known hidden corner of rural France.
Around and About Paris, volume 1, covering the centre of the city, is now available as an ebook, making it the ideal companion for the reader on the move. This new and entirely revised edition is now available in print in Paris. It can also be purchased through Thirza's website.
"There are all sorts of guidebooks on Paris... and then there are Thirza Vallois's extraordinary Around and
About Paris! "
The Sunday Times, London
"An astonishingly informative companion."
The Times Literary Supplement, London
"I think we can safely toss all other Paris guidebooks aside."
William Boyd, The Spectator, London
"Treat yourself to this treasure!/Booklist, The Library Journal, US
www.aroundandaboutparis.com
www.thirzavallois.com
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Cost: 185 euros per person (about $240)
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I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour includes many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.
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