Bapaume (actually Gueudecourt) to Peronne

Only watch the following overly long video if you have laundry you can fold or some ribs you can smoke while you are watching so that you can accomplish something productive with that time.

After rejoining the Via Francigena several miles south of Guedecourt, I ran across one of the many military cemeteries that are scattered across the countryside, but this one was filled with the graves of German soldiers – 11,422 of them. I sat on a park bench at the front of the cemetery and ate my lunch while thinking of what each of those graves represented. I was overwhelmed again, as I was at the French military cemetery on Lorette Hill at the enormity and the senselessness of the losses. They were all just young men doing what their countries asked of them. They may have bought into whatever nationalism or propaganda their political leaders fed to them, but the fallen soldiers hadn’t set the policies; they only paid the ultimate price.

What I learned later in the day is that I had entered the area that had been occupied by the Germans, and which was part of the area in which the Battle of the Somme was fought, one of the bloodiest battles in human history. Over four months in 1916, over one million soldiers were killed or wounded.

You can see the villages of Bapaume and Peronne on the right side of this map, which shows the modest movement eastward in the front line over the course of the Battle of the Somme. The village of Gueudecourt is the first village due south of Bapaume.

Lighter Thoughts

There is no good segue from war to something lighter, so I’ll just make an abrupt jump. Here are some things that aren’t war-related to end on: