… about the sleep issues last night – but not by very much. Although it did take a while to get off to sleep, once I did finally drop off I remember nothing whatsoever until about 07:15 when I woke upto find my little spec here as deserted as the Mary Celeste.
Mind you, it’s not quite true that I remember nothing. In fact I was being interviewed by the local tax inspector who professed total astonishment that my outgoings were exactly the same as my incomings, before any allowance for food and other such personal expenses. I had to explain that some of the outgoings were notional outgoings, that quite often I was fed at work, and that I really was living on the breadline, giving them a tour of my apartment in Jette and showing them the repairs.
So on with the motley today and this is where I start work.
The road between the Belgian border here near Rocroi and Nevers in the Bourgogne is one of the best in the world. It has everything, except the St Lawrence of course, but it also has loads of history and we pass through one of the most devastating battlefields of the war. Not the Somme, or Ieper, or Verdun, but the Marne where the French held off the Germans for four years.
It also has abandoned motorways.
Well, not really abandoned, but in the late 1990s the French built this superb 10-km stretch of motorway to bypass Rocroi and brought it all the way to the Belgian border, and here it sits because the Belgians won’t extend it.
It really is the Road to Nowhere.
The town of Rocroi is interesting, though.
This part of France has always been the cockpit of Europe with invading armies from everywhere crossing back and forth. Many of the nobles fortified their houses and the local churches and even a few hills, and so the King of France ordered a fortified city to be built here.
It’s a typical star-shaped fortress and contrary to what people might think, it’s not a Vauban fortress because it was built in the mid 16th Century, over 100 years before he was born. Nevertheless, he did come here and make a few improvements to the original design.
The fortifications are still almost complete today, and that’s quite astonishing. Some has fallen down and a couple of modern gateways have been pierced through, but nothing, apart from the original narrow gates, seems to have been demolished.
About 10 kms outside the town, the main road passes over a culvert that I have always been convinced was a former railway line.
One of the tasks of today was to track it down and sure enough, here it is. A local yokel (who was not a very vocal local yokel unfortunately) told me that it ran to Rimogne where there were important slate quarries. He remembers it as a boy but it’s been closed for years now.
Winding my way through the Ardennes I come to the town of Rethel.
This is a beautiful little town on the banks of the Aisne with plenty of history. And you might think that the history is reflected in the old buildings here. But in many cases you might be wrong because much of the town and some of the “historic” buildings date from no earlier than 1920, and some from 1945.
The town hall here for example, is from the early 1930s
In 1914 at the start of World War I the town was burnt down (it’s not just in Canada that this happens) and the invading German soldiers did the rest. Rethel was one of the major German garrison towns behind the front line of the Marne battlefields.
In 1940 the town was smashed by General Guderian’s Panzers who passed this way on their race to the coast and then to the Swiss frontier.
The high Champagne plateau is famous for its sugar beet and its wind turbines. There are dozens of each all over the place, and here is one of the bigger sugar beet plants. It’s owned by CADSAR EUROLUZ, whoever they might be, and you can see some wind turbines in the background.
It makes quite an impressive photograph, which is no surprise, as it’s an impressive building in quite an impressive setting.
You’ll all know of this roundabout because I’ve talked about this quite often. It’s on what is the highest point of the plateau and 6 roads come into it. It’s here that we turn south, direction Chalons.
What is remarkable about it is that it is here that the air changes. Standing up on the top here you can feel the difference in the air – to the north and west it’s all claggy and oppressive but to the south it’s a lost fresher and a lot more inspiring in the same way that the air in North America is. It’s something that I can’t explain.
Final stop is one of the biggest German war cemeteries in Northern France. Over 12,000 soldiers, and more arrive each year as they are exhumed from farmland, are in here, four to a grave. There are quite a few Jewish graves and also quite a few soldiers with Polish names because, don’t forget, Poland didn’t exist at this period and was partitioned between German, Austria and Russia
There are probably a few French names in here too because Alsace-Lorraine was part of Germany at this time and soldiers from there were conscripted into the German army.
So tonight I’m at the American war memorial at Blanc Mont. This is one of the highest points on the Marne front line and was heavily fortified by the Germans. There are still the remains of trenches here. The hill was stormed by the Americans under Pershing at the beginning of October 1918 and the Germans pushed back.
And as you might expect, the monument is closed for repair so it can’t be visited. No surprise there, is there?
. There isn’t even a hotel for you to go and have a kip.
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