Pondering On A Quiet Day

The executive management wisely decided against further battlefield visits today, instead it was suggested that because it was hot (20C) and not as windy a gentle bimble was called for.

Thus it was that we stopped for a look at Bray-sur-Somme, pleasant but hardly worth more than a second or two. Nope, one's enough. On to Cappy then. Delightful but brief pedal on the Bromptons. Stop for coffee. Grrrrr.

On to somewhere else via a no through road which caused numerous oooooohs and aaaaaaaaaghs as the multi point turn was ingloriously executed and eventually ... an oasis. Actually, Le Oasis at Chipilli where a beer and lemonade was had for €4.50. I was even pleasant and polite to the locals especially when one opened the door to a panoramic balcony for us to sit at whilst drinking.

Now I'd probably think I was being set up but that was before I knew that the Frenchman was a thief. Oh, well. I've been without a mobile phone before.

Anyway, from said window we spied a proper velo path. It went as far as Amiens and further but after about 15k we met a decent Englishman with his H&S lifejacket adorned wife/partner/mistress on a very smart and shiny barge who told us that Amiens was lovely but from here where we were to there was a bit industrial.

So we turned tail and began to aggravate the locals. This one repeatedly landed in front of me and then took off to do it again. You'd think he lived here.

The Kingfishers were amazing, as always but much slower than ours. Unfortunately I only had my Fuji with me and as that has taken to exasperating me as well it wasn't a great photographic experience. It'll have to go back. Great camera, though. When it chooses to respond to your shutter finger and where has all the viewfinder information gone? After all it's because of said information that I got it. That and the delightful shutter.

Did get time to consider though.

Two days of well planned and apposite visits have left one more drained than I'd have expected. At first the multitude of cemeteries that you pass with indecent frequency cause you to slow, look and think but today? It's not that the novelty has worn off it's just that you can't respond to all of them. We saw a sign yesterday to "Euston Road Cemetery" and looked but it contained "only" a few tens of graves. Only! See, that's what's happened. There are so many and some have very few, some a hundred or so, some many hundreds and some have many, many more.

Along Le Vallee Somme today there are no cemeteries but as soon as you ascend it's north bank they appear

The CWGC does a marvellous job. Each grave is clean and legible. Beautifully tended and landscaped. They are also all open. That is testimony to the high regard in which their sacrifice is held locally. Union flags abound. The "Lions led by donkeys" revisionist history driven by war poets of varied political persuasion is not held here. Yes, some British commanders were inept, incompetent and class riven. Fortunately most were weeded out fairly soon if they were not shot first. Officer attrition was horrendous below Majors. Majors and above were generally not "in the front" lower ranked officers were and they led by example and paid the price.

It's when you see the landscape that you begin to understand why the casualties were so great. This gently rolling countryside extends as far and beyond where we have been. It is a machine gunners delight. There is no cover. Thus trenches are inevitable. If you are going to defeat the enemy you have to kill more of his soldiers than he kills of yours. This is what both sides did. There doesn't seem to be any option and in 1914 they still rode horses into battle. They represented the height of mobility in a field at that time. Sadly, only a few years before 1914 all the combatant nations had invented the machine gun.

Gentle undulations with a white cemetery in the centre. So many like this adorn the countryside everywhere we've been.

I do think that we must be careful not to judge decision makers by our late 20th century experience.

However, my overriding impression is of the wisdom, a century later, of burying the dead where (or very close to where) they fell. It gives context but mostly it gives an idea of the scale of their deeds in a way nothing else can. To see the names inscribed on walls of limestone, the white limestone head stones arranged in vast lines and columns makes certain that it has an effect on you.

Kaiser Wilhelm, considered eccentric at best (some say psychotic) and Moltke, his Christian Scientist secretary of war who was utterly determined to take France using a plan that he'd drawn up for the Franco-Prussian War 30 years earlier were never reasonable in the first place so reasoning with them was never going to happen. Thus WW1 was inevitable and France stepped up to defend itself and Britain undertook to stand by its' treaty defending the neutrality of Belgium.

That was a morally right thing to do. It was a terrible war, obviously not the war to end all wars but a brave and responsible reaction against a nation whose leaders were seeking to overwhelm and subjugate their neighbours. The right response was considered to be more important than to count the cost. Just as well.

I'm so glad that Germany didn't take over France in 1914 because had they done so they'd have taken Britain, too. Eventually.

This has been an experience and I shall never look at Black Adder goes forth and see it quite as I did the first few times.

Caen, 300kms away tomorrow and no Leffe Blonde left.