Compiegne and Paris

Hey everyone!

Today was our last day on tour. Our first stop for the day was the Neuville-St-Vaast German Cemetery, the biggest German cemetery in France with 44,830 buried there. We then passed two small cemeteries - one Polish and one Czech. 

We then went to somewhere carol had requested - Notre Dame de Lorette Cemetery. This is the biggest French cemetery out of Paris. There was also a memorial that only opened in November, a huge circular memorial that has the name of 580,000 soldiers who fell in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais in WWI. They were in alphabetical order with no distinction between rank or nationally. I found four of our last name (the first I've seen on any memorial) and 13 of my Grandparents' surname with Hans as a first name. Won't include the photos due to privacy though, you'll just have to trust me!!

We then drove to the Peronne Museum which was set in a citadel built in the 1100s. It was set out in chronological order all about the war and had an exhibition of morbid drawings of the war by a soldier called Otto Dix picture. We then got to go in a new exhibition about Australian soldiers that doesn't open for a few weeks. Saw a replica of the Aussie stabbing the German eagle sculpture. 

Our last stop before Paris was Compiegne. At the start of WWI, Kaiser Wilhelm told the German people the war would be over by Christmas and they would be victorious. Thankfully he was incorrect, and by late 1916 Germany was running out of resources its people were starving. As well, the USA joined the allies in 1917. The war would have been over in 1917 but Russia withdrew from the war due to the revolution gaining momentum. Fortunately for us, Germany's numbers still dwindled and they continued to run out of resources, so in the early hours of the 11th of November the Germans approached a rail carriage in a clearing in Compiegne where general Foch (head of the French forces) and General Haig (the allied field commander) were. They said they were there to discuss an armistice (when two parties agree to cease hostilities on even terms), but the allies forced Germany to seek one rather than agreeing to it. It was agreed that fire would cease at 11am on November 11. 

Today we visited the clearing and saw where the German and allied rail carriages stood. We then went into the Armistice Museum and saw a replica of the allied carriage, as during WWII Hitler took the carriage to Berlin, let the German people wander through it and then burned it in the woods in Berlin. We saw lots of artefacts relating to the signing in the carriage. 

Rod also told us that even after the armistice was signed, in other ways the war was still going. Some units hadn't yet received the message so were still fighting. And those who had stopped fighting had to push the Germans back into Germany. Some German people upon their return three stones at them and spat at them as they were ashamed they had lost. As well as this, other soldiers were busy recovering bodies from the battlefields and burying the dead. 

On the 28th of June 1919 (five years to the day of when Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, sparking the start of WWI) the Treaty of Versailles was signed in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles (where I went when I was 18 but coincidentally I'm going back to tomorrow!!). It was signed here as a bit of revenge on the Germans who had made the French sign a treaty here at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870-71. 

Coming to Compiegne was a nice ending to our battlefields component of the tour. It was almost as if we had come full circle. We started off in 1815 with the battle of Waterloo, then learned about all the events and horrors of WWI in Belgium and France, and today we saw where the war came to an end. Rod gave us a few facts and figured to sum it up...

At the end of the war the death toll stood as follows:
- Russia 6,000,000 (and their war was only 1914-1916 before the revolution)
- Germany 4,000,000 (including German, Austrian and Hungarian soldiers but not Czechs, Slavs etc who were forced to fight)
- France 1,500,000
- Commonwealth 1,250,000 (60,000 of whom were Aussie, 46,000 of these Aussies died in France and Flanders)

What an incredible waste of life. And as much as we all agree what an awful waste it all was, it happened again just 21 years later. And it's still happening really. When will we all learn to get along?

I've had a really moving experience the past week. I have learned sooooo much (as you can probably tell by the essay length posts I've been putting up!). I feel like I now have a full picture of how WWI played out, as well as seeing first hand the huge scale of loss and tragedy that occurred. As well, the dawn service at Villers-Bretonneux on the 100th Anzac anniversary is an experience I will never forget, and one I will share with my kids and grandkids one day when they (like I did as a kid) ask what Anzac Day is all about. 

This afternoon i walked to the Eiffel Tower with carol and then to the Liberty monument which sits above the underpass where princess Diana was in the car accident. Tonight we are going in a river cruise for dinner!

I have the next three days in Paris where I'm basically covering some things I didn't get to do in the 8 days I had there at the end of 2010/start of 2011. I'm going back to Versailles due to the gardens being closed, and heading to Giverny to see Claude Monet's garden. Watch this space!

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox