Across the North of France: One Last Look Back

Theresa and Katy and I greatly enjoyed our trip to Normandy and back. Though we saw a lot, there was a lot that we skipped over. We could go again and spend twice as long and never see the same things twice. To close out this trip, I leave you with some random observations.

Really, I have only one observation. Europe has a lot of history and unfortunately much of that history is very sad.

On Utah Beach, there is a marker that shows Strasbourg to be 660 kilometers, or roughly 400 miles, away. This is roughly the distance from Indianapolis to Chatanooga, Tennessee. If you drive from Indy to Chatanooga you will pass near perhaps 2 or 3 monuments to battle fields. All of these are specific to the 5 year period of the US Civil War.

In driving from Strasbourg to Utah Beach we passed near:

1. The Maginot Line from WWII
2. The battlefields of the Franco-Prussian war near Metz
3. The American WWII cemetery in Lorraine, near the location of the Ardennes - Alsace campaign.
4. The WWI battlefields of Verdun
5. The WWI battlefields near the river Aisnes, known as the Chemin des Dames
6. The WWI battlefields of the Marne
7. The WWI battlefields of the Somme
8. The WWI battlefields near Amiens, from the 100 day offensive
9. The WWII battlefields of the D-Day Beaches.
10. The WWII cemetery near Omaha beach, were they gathered those who fell in the post D-Day battles leading to the capture of Paris.

This is only including recent battles. We could have included Henry V of England's invasion of France at Harfleur ("once more into the breach !") or William the Conquerer's little excursion to England from the same beaches.

My point is this: Northern France has a lot of beauty but it is built upon a great deal of blood. Anyone over 40 in France has been affected in someway by wars...either by fathers or grandfathers or relatives killed or wounded or dislocated. Don't get me wrong, the folks in the US were very much affected too. But the wars of the 20th century were an out-of-town game for the US. Sergeant York was able to return home to Tennessee after WWI and live in peace. The area we drove through was "over there" for the doughboys in 1918 and for the GIs in 1944. In Europe, it is only the most recent generations that don't have a memory of destruction and reconstruction and accusations regarding who collaborated with the wrong side or the right side.

Actually, I'm not sure what my point is. I can understand a bit whey Europeans and Americans think differently about world events. But other than that, all I know is that there are way too many battlefields.