Verdun Tour 2023

Taking in Verdun, Main de Massiges & Ypres
24-28 July 2023

After a three year hiatus caused by the pandemic the Branch returned to touring the Western Front with its most ambitious project to date, reaching the battlefield of Verdun.

With an itinerary put together by Branch Secretary Chris Daughters and our good friend and tour guide, Mark Smith, our coach made an early start from our 'home' at Walthamstow Cricket, Tennis & Squash Club, our target for the first day being the beautiful city of Reims in the Marne Department of France, some way short of Verdun, but convenient in terms of accommodation and managing travel times as the tour went on.

Day two dawned with weather that can best be described as “filth”, which might have been expected to put a dampener on proceedings (sorry) but in fact served to enhance the gloomy atmosphere of many of the sites we were to visit that day.

We began at the famous Fort Douaumont; a brief walk around the moonscape that covers the area, and indeed the fort itself, was followed by a tour of its claustrophobic interior and the development of a sense of amazement at the heroism of those who fought in such a grim environment.

We then moved on to Fort Vaux, a little smaller, but with very much the same character, before taking a walk in the woods in search of Fort Souville; unlike its big brothers, it has not been put in a state fit to receive tourists, but the sight of it is truly evocative.

Our final stop of the day presented us with much the most imposing sight, the Douaumont Ossuary. After the war the unidentified remains of 130,000 men, French and German, were recovered from the battlefield. Nature was allowed to take its course, after which the bones were placed within the ossuary, a T-shaped building with a short trunk and a 150' tall tower at its junction. Those bones can still be seen through windows around the base of the building, lending it a distinctly mediaeval aspect. In front are the serried ranks of graves of another 16,000 men.

We had been well prepared for a good deal of day two's sights, having had the good fortune to have Christina Holstein speak at our branch meeting the week before we travelled, but the morning of day three was something new to all of us.

Massiges is a commune in the Marne Department of north-eastern France. La Main de Massiges is high ground to the north, shaped like a left hand with the fingers pointing south-westwards. A section of the trench-works on the top has been restored and opened to the public and there a plans for a museum to be constructed on the site.

In the meantime, it makes for a fascinating visit, greatly enhanced by a knowledgeable guide. To the north again is high ground, known as 'The Vipers Head' which was occupied by the Germans from early in the war. In February 1915 they detonated mines under the French position and overran it, pushing the poilu back to the village. On the 25th September 1915, the French attacked (the date is of course significant to us, as the first day of the Battle of Loos) and retook most of the ground they had lost, holding it for the remainder of the war.

Later in the day we visited the French La Forestiere Cemetery, where lie two thousand French soldiers killed in the various battles in the Argonne throughout the war. It is also known as the “Hydrangea Cemetery” on account of the great number of such flowers there, planted by Countess de Martimprey in remembrance of her husband, killed in 1915.

Day four saw us move to Ypres, taking several stops along the way.

The first of these was at the Italian Cemetery at Bligny-Chambrecy. The Italians had sent 40,000 troops to France in 1918 to help repel German offensives in Champagne and on the Chemin des Dames. They lost nine thousand men, three and a half thousand of whom are buried in the cemetery.

This was followed by visits to a couple of old favourites; the cemeteries at  Brandhoek and the grave of double VC winner Noel Chavasse, and then on to Essex Farm and that of fifteen year old  Valentine Strudwick, together with the dressing station where John McCrae of 'In Flanders Fields' fame served for a time.

The day was rounded off by the ceremony at the Menin Gate, which it was most pleasing to see was very well attended in spite of the monument being under restoration and the rain bucketing down.

Next day it was time to head home, but we still managed a couple more visits on the way to the ferry, with the first being  the German Military Cemetery at Langemark.

Last stop was Tyne Cot Cemetery where, as has become tradition on our tours, we held a brief ceremony at the grave of a 'Walthamstow Man'. On this occasion it was that of Lieutenant Kingsley Christopher Shuttleworth of the 1/4th Suffolk Regiment, killed in action on the 19th November 1917. His Walthamstow connection came from his time at Forest School, which made for a nice link in that our guide, Mark Smith, is also an 'Old Forester'.

From there it was off to Calais and an early ferry, with discussion of next years tour – the Somme, where we still have unfinished business from 2020.