A lot of WW1 and a Brief Visit from Hitler

Monday 18 – Friday 22 April 2022

We’ve finally slowed right down into dossing mode after spending the first couple of weeks of our trip dashing around from one tourism opportunity to the next.

Monday kind of dissolved into one big shopping extravaganza. We “popped into” a Carrefour near Charleville-Mézières to pick up some food, finding ourselves in one of the biggest hypermarkets we’ve ever seen.

We must’ve spent the best part of an hour just scouring the “outlet” section. The usual €1 bins yielded nothing (though we’ve had good bits and pieces from those in the past), but we did make a purchase: two Bodum travel mugs. We do have some very old very cheap travel mugs in SOK but they have handles and won’t sit in SOK’s cupholders, which can be annoying. These’ll be much better (and we liked the price too!):

After that, we headed to the nearby Decathlon. To be fair, a trip to Decathlon had been on Mark’s list for a good while. He sourced new caps and shorts (in each case to replace old ones that are on their last legs) and had a very good look round everything else they had to offer.

Our shopping complete, we drove to the small star-shaped town of Rocroi.

Construction of the town started in 1555 under the French king Henri II, with Vauban sent in to upgrade the defences a century and a half later. It certainly bears all the hallmarks of Vauban:

We did a late afternoon lap of the ramparts and then explored the town itself. It’s very small, and they’d even managed to dig up the main square in time for our arrival!

Overnight: Rocroi (18 April)

The free aire at Rocroi is just outside the ramparts and was unsurprisingly quite busy.

On Tuesday morning, Mark decided that it was time for another jog, so off we went. Another very slow 5 miles completed…..

Then we drove for about half an hour, back across the border into Belgium, to the tiny hamlet of Brûly de Pesche. After Germany invaded Belgium in May 1940, the search was on for a suitable site for a HQ from which Hitler could take charge of the invasion of France.

On 22 May 1940, Brûly de Pesche was chosen. With only 112 inhabitants and hidden away in a forested area in the Ardennes, it ticked all the German boxes.

Over the period 27-29 May 1940, the residents of 28 villages, around 27,000 people in total, were forced to leave the area surrounding Brûly de Pesche.

Workers were brought in from Germany and constructed two German-style chalets, one for Hitler’s personal accommodation and the other to house the officers’ mess. Between the two, a small concrete bunker was built to protect Hitler in case of air attack.

The bunker is original, though the chalets have been reconstructed (as closely as possible to the originals in terms of size and location). Inside, one houses a museum and a film about the site, whilst the other contains a museum about the Belgian Resistance.

Nearby are Hitler’s paddling pool (apparently he didn’t like to get too hot) and the “Rotunda”, in which he could wax lyrical to an enthralled audience…..

Hitler arrived at Brûly de Pesche on 06 June 1940. The French army was defeated on 17 June and Hitler oversaw the drawing up of peace terms at Brûly de Pesche on the night of 21/22 June before travelling to Compiègne on the 22nd for the signing. He moved on to Strasbourg on 28 June, with the local residents being allowed to return to the area around Brûly de Pesche the following day. And that, as they say, was that.

The hamlet itself remains little changed from the old photos, give or take the addition of a bus shelter and a few modern bins:

All in all, it’s a small site but a really interesting place to visit.

We could have returned to Rocroi for a second night but Mark had spotted another free aire at a place called Revin a few miles east that looked good, so we thought we’d give that a try.

Overnight: Revin (19 April)

Revin was a much bigger place than Rocroi, and to be honest just didn’t seem as enticing from a tourism perspective. We didn’t bother walking around. The free aire did the job: situated by the river, right behind an Intermarché supermarket.

Wednesday was a pootling day. We cut across country along country lanes, taking in the scenery as we went and arriving at our next destination, Banteux.

Overnight: Banteux Municipal Aire (20 April)

We got to the aire at Banteux mid-afternoon on another lovely sunny day. Time to get the chairs out! Within ten minutes we had our only neighbours for the night, a nice couple from Market Drayton. We haven’t seen many British vans at all this trip, so Mark got to flex his chattering muscles.

We did try to pay at the Mairie as directed on the signs, but it was closed. A lady came round to collect our €7 later in the evening. We assume she was from the Mairie rather than just being a local chancer!

We were now firmly in the territory of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), with a World War 1 cemetery seemingly around every corner. We stopped off to look at a few on Thursday as we trundled through more country lanes to Delville Wood and then on to Bapaume.

Delville Wood is the home of the South African Memorial, on the site of a horrendous battle in July 1916 in which the South Africans suffered devastating losses.

We found the museum really interesting as it gave information on South African involvement in the war in German South-West Africa and German East Africa as well as on the Western Front. We’d visited the various places in Namibia so had a bit of background., which always helps

We were pleased to see that Jackie, mascot of the 3rd South African Infantry, had his place in the museum:

It’s incredible to think that Delville Wood was turned from a wood to this within a handful of days in 1916:

Nowadays, it’s looking like a wood again, although you can see how cratered the ground still is between the trees:

Amazingly, a single Hornbeam tree is surrounded by a fence and marked as being the sole survivor of the battle. How on Earth…?

From Delville Wood, we slowly made our way to the free municipal aire at Bapaume.

Overnight: Bapaume (21 April)

There are only four spots here, so it was good to arrive reasonably early and grab one; later arrivals weren’t so lucky.

We had a late afternoon wander round the town. There’s not much to see, but a plaque on the Mairie told us how the Germans set a timed bomb in it when they retreated in 1917, which killed around 30 Australian soldiers and two visiting French members of parliament.

We passed multiple graveyards on Friday morning as we drove North-East from Bapaume, including the Australian cemetery at Bullecourt. Mark noticed that a bar/restaurant there is called the Le Canberra and we saw many houses flying Australian flags. We’re not sure if they were there for an event or are a permanent fixture.

We were heading to a tiny little CWGC cemetery to visit my GG uncle. The place was looking spotless, as they always do:

We wondered if anyone had been to look at his grave since we last stopped off a few years ago? Or indeed how many people other than us have been there to see his grave in the last 104 years?

Continuing on towards Arras, we stopped at the rather unfortunately named “Commonwealth War Grave Commission Experience”. “I’m not sure I fancy a War Grave Experience” said Mark.

The CWGC Experience is a new visitor centre, opened in the summer of 2019. It basically gives you a behind the scenes look at the work of the CWGC. You’re given an audio-guide which explains everything as you peer into the various workshops on the site from a central courtyard.

The audio-guide is really good, giving lots of explanation and answering a lot of the questions we’ve had over the years, without any extraneous waffle or funny music.

We saw the workshop where they produce the headstones (around 50-60 a week, for new burials and to replace damaged stones). Portland Stone is the traditional stone we see everywhere in this part of France but other types of stone can be more suited to conditions in other parts of the world. Nowadays they’re engraved by computer-controlled machine, but this still takes around 2 hours per headstone (depending on the amount of detail in the badge and the hardness of the stone).

Other workshops include woodwork (repairing and, where necessary, replacing gates, benches etc), and metalwork (mainly repairing and replacing wrought iron fittings in the cemeteries). In each case, it’s real craftsmanship at work. Very impressive.

They also make all the road signs here to direct people to the various cemeteries; these are then sent out worldwide and put up by CWGC staff in the various countries. The modern signage is very smart, though the signs do tend to get stolen in some countries for the aluminium they’re made from.

Of course, the CWGC is, as they pointed out, one of the biggest gardening organisations in the World. In Western Europe alone, they have grass equivalent in area to 13,759 Wembley stadia, 1,276 km of borders to plant up and weed, and 166 km of hedges to maintain. That’s a lot of gardening equipment for the mechanics workshop to repair and maintain. Apparently, all the turning corners involved in mowing up and down between rows or gravestones plays havoc with lawnmower gearboxes…. oh, and we shouldn’t think that one lawnmower is just like another; the CWGC has 80 different types, plus their own custom-designed edging machines.

Finally they have a “recovery and reburial” section. Here, an exhibition explained how this aspect of the CWGC’s work is carried out. Lots of food for thought here….

All in all, we thought that the CWGC Experience was really informative. Well done, CWGC!

Overnight: Arras (22 April)

We spent Friday night on the Aire just to the North of the centre of Arras:

It’s another big modern aire where everything’s automated and you pay by card to get in (€11.70 for the night including €2 to refill with water); you then get a little printed voucher with a QR code on it that you wave at the electric post, water post etc to get services.

We did manage a late afternoon wander into Arras:

We’re not sure what Saturday’s plan is yet. We may walk back into Arras to have a look at the Saturday market before returning to the First World War.