Silent Cities: Visiting the LARGEST Military Cemetery in France | History Traveler Episode 384
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- Опубликовано: 8 окт 2024
- When you visit the Western Front in France, one thing thing that you'll see a lot of are cemeteries. A lot of them. The sheer volume of crosses and headstones in the silent cities of the Western Front help to give an indication of how destructive the First World War really was. In this episode, we're visiting a town that was completely destroyed during the war before walking the ground of the largest military cemetery in France at Notre Dame de Lorette.
This episode was produced in partnership with The Gettysburg Museum of History. See how you can support history education & artifact preservation by visiting their website & store at www.gettysburg...
Support the effort to expand history education on PATREON: / historyunderground
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Map animations by @SandervkHistory
A very sobering video and you’ve presented it beautifully and respectfully. I visited WW1 battlefields many years ago and the affect it had on me has never left me. I think all school children around the world should visit these places. Lest we forget.
Same hear I've been to Ypres to see where my great grandfather fought. A very moving experience.
@@jamesross1799I wanted to go BUT the bastards running the trips wanted not the same plus a bit to do the trip, it was twice plus another third. Thieves
J.D., another superb video...wherever you want to take us viewers, just go there and know that your loyal following will more than appreciate your efforts. Thanks again.
The military cemeteries always tell the true story of war. Always leaves you with great pause.
Wow, very sobering. The mass graves hit me hard. 10,000 unknown dead. Think of the families not knowing what happened to their child / sibling.
Thank you for your work on these videos, I learn a lot from them.
@@kenbrown7334 Yup, the Great War was a definitely a war in which the common soldier fought and died for the arrogant politician's pride.
I imagine it's pretty sobering to see the loss first hand. Thanks for the video.
Moving video for a Frenchman like me.
General Barbot was one of the 42 French generals KIA during WWI.
I have always wondered how civilization even endured after these Great Wars & so much loss of life !? So many people died (especially) in WWI for what was truly No real reason!! Thank God , humanity found a way to carry on !! Thank you for all your hard work in bringing us this knowledge and entertainment!!!
Powerful, sobering video presented per usual with grace and respect. France has really been through it and suffered greatly. Thank you, JD for another stunning video. The panels containing over 5000 names are truly staggering.
Remembering those who are lost so long ago is so crucial in the preservation of history although I feel sometimes people forget the amount of sacrifice that went to get the world we have today thank you for the video
I really appreciate the work you put into this video! Just by coincidence when you showed the wall for Paul Mauk, my last name which isn't all that common showed up directly below him- Maul. I had to freeze the video and take in the three names that showed up- Kurt, Max, and Michael. My Maul family came over to the United States in the 1870s from Germany. I couldn't help thinking that these men were likely of some relation to my family. It's one of those things that makes one stop and reflect.
Wow...Just Wow.
The level of loss in WW! was astounding and that video brought that fact home. Thanks JD.
John Kiplings father rudyard was instrumental in the starting of the imperial war graves commission which is now the commweath war graves commission
Interesting!
JD just like a big ghost looking over the country side. A very sobering site. Thanks for sharing! ❤️💯👊👍
Excellent as usual. Very sobering
What a wretched war that was, and really for nothing. Thanks for the perspective JD. By the time WW2 started, France's population really had not fully recovered from the 1st war. I can understand their reluctance collectively to engage in another one so soon. Thanks for sharing. God bless, Rob
I completely agree they are deeply interlinked and I've heard it said before that the period 1918 to 1939 was a cease fire in the "20th century Great conflict " as modern societies I don't think we can grasp what it must have been to have lived in the path of the army's of ww1 communities completely ceased to exist swallowed up by no man's land . Another brilliant video. Thanks for what you do I appreciate it mate.
That shell casing lying next to the grave was very sobering 😢
its still sad to see all those crosses. even sadder and hard to believe that such a large cemetery containing 40,000 graves, is but a small portion of the over 1 million french dead in ww1.
Pretty sobering.
Was here 12 Nov 2017, stopped on my way to Vimy Ridge.
"Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?"
@@GlasgowCeltic88 have always loved that song. Willie McBride.
That drone shot at the start showing how big it was…. Wow.
It’s truly the silence that gets to me in every battlefield and military cemetery
Hey for your information, In the village of Mont-Saint-Éloi near Ablain Saint Nazaire, in the Arras region, there is the grave of a soldier, an American legionnaire who died for France in 1915.
Kenneth Weeks, american author writer, who was to die defending French soil, was born in Chesnut Hill, Boston Massachusetts, on December 30, 1889.
In the cemetery of the hamlet of Écoivres, the tomb of soldier Kenneth Weeks, a former legionnaire of the 1st Foreign Regiment who fell on the field of honor on June 17, 1915 north of Arras. This is the little story in the famous Histoy.
Thank you for your RUclips Channel.
As french, i can only appreciate what you've done with this video to help making people understand what french has been going through during WW1, and the mindset at the start of WW2.
I live in northern France (Laon, on the Chemin des dames) and even today, we can still see the scar on the land due to WW1. There is not a single town in France without a stele to remember those who fall during WW1. Almost every french family has lost someone during WW1.
So hearing that french are cowards or white flaggers is the biggest insult you can make to the memory of those men, and those who fought bravely in 1940.
Thank again for this video. It truely means a lot for us, french people.
I'm proud of my country. I'm proud of those who fight for him, and we will always remember them.
🇨🇵❤
Thank you. I really do appreciate that. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time in your country each time I’ve been there.
If you ever visit the chemin des dames, it will be a real pleasure to me to drive you around, or just have a talk with a good beer 😁
As I've gotten older, I'm 64 now, I continue to get more sick at the waste of humanity by the stupidness of war. I've told you I'm a vet, son of a vet, grandson of a vet who lost his leg in France Sept '44. It just makes me sick at the loss of life, the futures that were cut short. What could have been of these men and women who lost their lives, futures....so sad! We MUST find a way to mend our differences. I know that's naive but SMFH
It’s our governments that pull the strings. The US government in recent years has been able to trick formerly anti-war liberals in to cheerleading for the wars in Ukraine and Israel. All because they think that if they go against their team (the Democrats) that it will somehow result in the other team (the Republicans) winning the next election. Sad.
Thank you so much, so so very sad that so many never came home.
Fellow me Lad, you're something else! Your work can feel like a pop in the nose (in the sense of realization).
With this information, thinking back to the behavior of the world war survivors I knew, "new world" and "old world", growing up, their behavior and manner reflected shock. They were stunned. They were disoriented. So, THAT'S what it was.
Thank you JD. Stunning…. I really appreciated your comment at the end about the relation of France from WWI and WWII…. This video proves the heavy price they paid fighting WWI. This French cemetery is beautiful.
Thank you again for another great episode. I teach US and world history, and when teaching wars it is too easy to forget the human side of conflict when the focus is on the political and other issues. I strive to always use some first-person accounts to allow my students to realize the statistics are not numbers, but people. People with dreams and hopes cut short by the events around them. So often kids tell me they are not interested in politics and world events, and I simply remind/inform them that world events are interested in them. This sobering glimpse demonstrates how dramatically true that is. The perspective you add to these videos, particularly the cemeteries; drive that idea more strongly than anything I offer my students. Thank you.
The scale of devastation is incomprehensible. Big kudos to everyone who gathered all of those names, organized them alphabetically, had them etched into metal, and continue to maintain the memorial. Truly mind blowing.
What a beautiful area. Thank you and may they rest in peace.❤
This is so sobering and sad. It shows how horrific wars are.
Wow this is so interesting, thank you for your insight and sharing...when I visited the military cemetery where my Dad lies, the whole site made me stop to catch my breath by taking it all in....a very intense experience for sure
Utter horror. i have studied WW I; i have seen the numbers, yet they were just that. Your visit to this one cemetery, from one battle is the first time those numbers hit home with a heavy realization. i now "get" it; soul-rip.
Amazing content I love WW1 history, sobering, keep up the great work.
Thanks!
@@TheHistoryUnderground your very welcome!
The book “Poilu” by Louis Barthas does a great job of explaining in detail the battles that took place in and around that hill. True hell. Constant close quarters combat since trenches were 45-50yards away at times.
Definitely need to get that book.
Visited so many cemeteries in Western France in 2008 with two of my boys. After a month of crossing the battlefields, learning about what has occurred on the ground we traversed and visited so many cemeteries I was suffering depression. Only years later did the memory become one that was more factual and less traumatic.
Wow! This was a very thought provoking video indeed. I really enjoyed yow you pointed out the names of relatives of famous people (Sitting Bull, Rudyard Kipling) who ended up dying in the Great War. I always find it interesting that French military graves are usually engraved with the slogan, "Mort pour la France" ("Died for France.") Yes, the staggering losses (25 % of French males between ages 18 and 30) of the Great War certainly contributed to French and British reluctance to get involved in a Second World War. Keep up the great work J. D.!
Rudyard Kipling did NOT die in the Great War
@@richardwest6358 Neither J. D. nor myself said Rudyard Kipling died during the Great War. I believe he said either Rudyards son or grandson did die during the Great War. The Great War resulted in a whole lost generation unfortunately.
@@frenchfan3368son
Thank you, that was very interesting, i was not aware of that huge ring memorial.
I have a cousin who must be named on those walls, he is commemorated at Fauberg DeAmiens cemetery, Arras as still missing.
Lieutenant Lewis George Madley of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers , killed 14 May 1917 at Bullecourt near Arras.
As usual, superbly put together and narrated. Thank you.
Thank you kindly!
WOW!!! Such a beautiful place! And the amount of burials in the squares is unfathomable!! And quite surreal with the shell casing...killed by them and buried amongst them! Just WOW!
One of your very best videos JD. Sometimes the relative simplicity best describes the utter futile waste of life through war. As is the case today
Hey JD..
Ever thought of putting together a free to enter contest for your supporter's to win a trip with you?
I bet it would be a life changing event for some, maybe the only time (they'll) be able to enjoy and feel history like you're able to experience.
Keep up the good work my good sir. Thx for all you do.
Excellent thank you 🙏 May the souls rest in peace 🙏
A very thought provoking video
Glad to see the Graves are so well maintained. Shows the respect they still have.
This was such a great video JD. You really know how to pull great information out of something that isn't a great subject matter and present it well.
In the frame where you put the bullet casing back on the ground there is also a piece of driving band of a artillery shell in the bottom right corner i think.
So much information and Respect in one video, outstanding.
Much appreciated!
@@TheHistoryUnderground Well-earned on your part.
That shell casing tell it all.
looked like there was also something to the right of it, looked like copper or brass.
Arras, should go the the huge Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge, at Neuville-sainte-Vaast
I think that you’ll enjoy some of the upcoming videos. 🙂
The Great War has many interesting facts, JD you will learn much about how this war changed the landscape in Europe and beyond, will be interesting how you cover it within your episodes to come. Cheers and keep up the great work.
Thanks you so much!! I grew near Arras in Northern France. The famous cycling race Paris-Roubaix goes through many paved sectors that where WW1 trenches (Aremberg is the most famous one).
Getting everyting destroyed is both my parents history from WWII. The whole of Finnmark county in Northern Norway was burned to the ground, livestock killed and mostly all people evacuated south. The ones who were left lived in caves hiding from the Germans in the midst of winter.
This is an area on the size of Denmark where Kirkenes was one of the most bombed cities in the whole war, anywhere. It's sad that this is a heartbreaking history not to many outside of Finnmark county really care to much about. Hammerfest, my hometown was just rubble, but people returned and lived under boats and in simple thin walled huts while rebuilding in one of the worlds harchest arctic climates.
Great episode again JD
Museum, sites and military cemeteries is the honest places to tell us the truth about history more than books
Really enjoyed this, JD, and you make some excellent points about the French at the end.
Glad you enjoyed it!
God bless every single soldier and family that has had to lose a loved one every single person in that ground is a hero
For perspective, Red Rocks Amphitheater holds 8000 people.
Crazy.
WW1 is the sacrifice of all European youth, for nothing. One of the greatest tragedies in history.
I would say the greatest to date.
Really enjoyed it mate 👍
Very good video👍
@@wwong617 - Thanks!
Wonderful J.D. I look forward to Chris’s video thanks for mentioning it.
Numbers so high become almost incomprehensible…but there is always another war…
Emotional video
Excellent! Thank you for sharing this.
War invariably, and arguably leaves scars that never (fully) heal…
Hello from Canada I have been watching your channel for a few years and I love it thank you for showing your respect too the war dead and historical battlefields and history in general I too am a big war historian and historian in general I have been researching Military history history of warfare and history in general since I was a kid are you going too do a video on Hill 70 from World war 1 ? its one of my countries lesser known battles and Victories it was led by General Arthur Currie where him and the Canadian Corp fought and took that hill it was a major strategic possession over looking the town of Lens .
It's Vimy ridge, i live nearby
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I’ve been there in the 1980’s. Same time I was at the buried soldiers with the bayonets sticking out of the trench. If you can get inside the monument building museum. They had these 3D slide machines. Mutoscope. You looked into a binocular type device and turned a crank as you looked at flipping slides of the battlefield. It literally put you on the front lines of trench warfare. The slides were black and white but with crisp images. It’s located at this cemetery. I found it very profound.
Very cool JD, when I was stationed in Hawaii in 1985 I was walking along the water front on Fords Island I found several 30-06 spent cartridges. I thought the same thing and if only they could talk.
Also know that in this cemetery, the Notre Dame de Lorette necropolis, fathers and sons are buried together. Fathers killed during the Great War 1914-1918 and their sons who died for France in 1940. Fathers and sons rest together for eternity. May God bless them.
Great presentation. Thank you.
Never forget what so many young men sacrificed for freedom and honour. Heroes, all of them.
The wall of remembrance is just wow! 580,000 names-and that’s not counting all those whose names are not known…wow! Such slaughter-just wow!
Thank you sir. Love.
I really enjoy your cemetery videos.
Hi JD thank you for a fantastic video what a beautiful cemetery so peaceful and I appreciate your hard work you do keep it up JD
And as remains keep being found these cemeteries keep expanding
Geenral Barbot, his father was Joseph-Théodore-Désiré Barbot famous french tenor that did have the role of Faust in the Premiere of Faust in 1859
I respect you as a person and the amount of entertainment you give me I absolutely love history with a passion my gf doesn't understand it but hey maybe that makes us a rare bunch
What a powerful episode! The waste of young lives in war is so tragic.
If you research both WWI and WWII, you find that, although separated by 20 or so years, it’s all one war.
With the US involvement coming relatively late in the war, the Americans had little input on the Treaty of Versailles. The punitive nature of the treaty was done on purpose by the French and English to punish Germany.
The effects of the Treaty of Versailles was to cause tremendous hardships in Germany through the 1920s and 1930s. Hitler and other like minded Germans, used these hardships to drive the hatred of France and England into the rise of the Nazis.
While this is certainly a simplified version, it does show how much the Allies had learned by the time of the end of WWII.
The rebuilding of Germany became the focal point of the Allies. With the US involvement in this respect, the Marshall Plan, lead the way for rebuilding Europe.
It was through these efforts that we now have a strong ally in Germany.
These episodes are why I follow this channel.
Another great video!
Maybe when you do another Route 66 video series, maybe you can do it from California to Illinois.
Nice job, so few understand the history of the 20th century.
If you can't get to France, the Imperial War Museum in London has a really good exhibit on WWI.
22 August 1914 was the deadliest day for the French army ... with 27000 (twenty-seven thousands) dead ...
A very sobering place it is.
Takes your breath away.....then you are speechless.....................
Very interesting and sobering indeed
Thanks JD for the video, neen therein August, a sombering place. Have you been to the bigggest ww1 German cemetery at Neuville- Saint-Vaast too a few km away from Vimy Ridge?
Amazing what man is willing or unwilling to do against another human. And then do it again 20 years later.
I haven’t seen you do one but the memorial wall on the outside of Pere lachaise cemetery in Paris would be a great place for you check out.
@@Midwstmisfitdrinks thanks for the heads up!
Hey, JD great vid!! Did you happen to see the numbers and/or letters on the head stamp of that cartridge case?
That first panel you went to had a lot of family members from my wifes side.
18:16 very well said...we can never deride the French people and their fighting spirit after realizing their great loss in WW1.
You visit these cemeteries and see names from villages you know and rest a hand upon some headstone. It is beyond tears, it is beyond utterable words. You stand and look then see names of people from home engraved on stones. Beyond prayers from those who pray. Stand and listen to the silence on Sunday and then there is the sound of feathers as some birds fly over. No call just the sound of feathers and a broad landscape. You pause and eventually turn and repair to the carapace of your car and drive slowly away. Now Europe looks away from a new threat. How? We can understand why but the price will not be less for to a family a loss is final and unmissable. This is so both sides of the dividing line.
Hard to imagine what those fields looked like during the war. Thankfully movies like All Quiet ONTWF give depictions. WW1 has become overshadowed by WW2 like the American Rev overshadowed by the Civil War.
Thanks for the video. I had two uncles on my mom side of the family in wwl, their were based. 😊
Fabulous Remembrance.
War did come to the place I live at, long before I ever arrived though. On February 19,1942, the Japanese bombed the Port and town of Darwin. They sunk the USS Peary in Darwin Harbour and one of her guns sits on The Esplanade near the War Memorial. We still have some of the old runways down the track and the present Parliament House sit on the site of the Darwin Post Office that killed most of the Postmaster and his family. They are buried at the Adelaide War Cemetery and every February 19, the air raid siren sounds. You should research the Bombing of Darwin.
Rimless casing, so PROBABLY a 7.92x57mm. German round. Seems a bit too well preserved to be a WWI relic so could easily be a WWII one. Anyway cool finding!
Of all the things in this video you notice that? Does it matter what war it came from? Did you not watch the rest of the video. Did you not see all the crosses, all the dead who have no headstone? No! All you could be bothered with was what type of bullet they were firing at each and whether they actually did fire it in WWI or WWII! You would have have made a perfect Donkey!
As a military firearms collector, yes
Like one more heart-bleeding sobbing "Oh how sad" post would have added something remotely interesting to the comments anyway.
Too bad that you choked yourself with your own bunched panties with what I wrote.
Re: Paul Mauk - He was NOT the youngest combatant, though - I know that a Sailor in either the Royal Navy or Royal Canadian Navy was killed at Jutland - 12 years old - Rank of BOY. (I wish I could remember his name). He was from the Calgary, Alberta area.