The Pilgrimage

We rented a car at Charles De Gaulle Airport and headed north to Amiens.

The trip took under 2 hours, through fertile farmland, a boon to this ancient land but also the reason that armies had swept across this landscape from the Celts onward.

The Somme River runs right through Amiens, heavy with the rain that hit the region the week before. We spent the rest of the day checking in, then checking out the Amiens Cathedral, first started and amazingly almost completed in a 50-year period (1220-1270 AD). Again, we were close, but again I was not feeling the feeling you get when you are in a place greater than yourself. My head was on a hill northeast of Amiens, known to some as being “on the Somme.”

?The next morning, we headed out early for Albert, fortified with coffee, a buttery croissant and jam, and before we knew it, we were out of Amiens and heading Northeast in our SUV. The topography started to rise from 50 m above sea level in Amiens to 150 m near our destination.

The paved, straight as the crow flies, Roman Road we drove on was almost deserted and bypassed Albert with a series of round abouts.

Soon the names came, Boisselle, Contalmaison, and then Pozieres. Pozieres where the Canadians picked up from the Australians in early Sept. 1916 and pressed forward.

My grandfather was here.

A s a rookie, and in my defense, I was the driver and paying attention to the road, I mistook the first cemetery for a high stack of haybales. You know how haybales turn grey after a year or so outside, and how farmers stack them high in Alberta? That’s what my mind thought it was seeing. But it was the Pozieres British cemetery and memorial wall, two stories high.

We passed through the village, heading for our goal, a small cemetery near Courcelette. We drove by the Sugar Factory on our left, scene of Canadian victories mid-September 1916, until we turned left and made our way through the village of Courcelette.

The dominant feature here is farmland, and the farmers are on their land with their tractors already this morning, making up for the time lost last week during the heavy rains.

And here was my aha moment, a realization of what the Canadians faced as they attacked across these farmers’ fields. The gentle hills, rolling downwards in a northward’s direction towards the Ancre River.

To the south, flat uplands, at that time riddled with trenches, war debris, and sad crosses in fields, but now, those fields were in the process of being planted and prepped for the year’s growing season.

?I had chosen my destination for a reason. Cemeteries are markers of the battles that went on around them. The British Courcelette Cemetery marked the location of a regimental aid post, where casualties like my grandfather would be sent, triaged, then continue on their journey.

The cemetery also marked the frontlines on about September 15, 1916, so it was a good place to start.

The cemetery, along with hundreds of others across France, Europe, and the world, is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). Shortly after the war, the British commissioned architects and literary artists who collaborated on properly commemorating these places.

Outside the cemetery along three sides was a low stone wall, too high to jump, but inviting the visitor towards the staired entrance. Contained in the entrance was two brass alcoves, one containing a map of the cemetery, and the other a visitors’ book. Looking at the graves we found many Canadian soldiers involved in the Somme conflict, including those from the 7th Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), my grandfather’s battalion, and many with 436/437XXX regimental number, showing that they too had started out with the 51st Battalion out of Edmonton, had trained at Sarcee where they had piled the stones in the shape of a 51, but whose journey ended at Courcelette.

The Canadian headstones all featured the Maple Leaf, a symbol known to be uniquely Canadian a full 50 years before becoming a predominate feature on our National Flag.

The designers also knew that for many pilgrims, they could only stay a few hours, and only visit once. A roofed area invited pilgrims to sit and reflect for a time in the space, in proximity to their lost loved ones.

It was cold, 12 Celsius up on the Thiepval Hill with a brisk wind heading across the land.

Hopping back in the SUV, we headed west along the dirt road, which became a cart path, which soon had big tractor ruts I feared getting stuck in, cursed Google Earth, then took a left turn and popped out by Pozieres; next time I will walk this section. Some partridges scooted away from us into the fields, still known to contain armed munitions which are a constant hazard that the farmers of France and Belgium face every year when the frost brings the iron harvest up from its subsurface hiding places.

A right turn took us to the road to Thiepval.

History on top of history.

A stop at the Australian memorial near Mouquet Farm, a hard point reinforced as a redoubt, one of many on top of Thiepval Hill. Now onward to the small town of Thiepval. A welcome museum invited us in, hot tea and a washroom break, and then a main gallery showing the lifespan of a British soldier illustrated on a wrap around wall, the floor in the middle containing innumerable shells and war debris underneath a see-through floor. The vignette starting with the soldier entering the war zone, then finishing with a trip in an ambulance, a quick march away with the battalion for a rest, or not uncommonly lying with the rest of the dead waiting for a communal burial in a farmer’s field.

In another gallery an homage to the air war over the Somme, a full-size replica of George Guynemer’s Nieuport 17 aircraft on display.

Now back outside and a quick walk to the Thiepval Memorial. The day was getting warmer. Again, I was mistaken, what I thought were flat surfaces on the outdoor cathedral like columns soon revealed themselves to be names, names and names and names of the lost, on the four sided multi-storied columns. The book of names in the brass alcove was a series of 10-12 binders here. Meanwhile the farmers in the adjacent fields worked hard with their tractors to make up for lost time. A small robot was cutting the grass between headstones of the joint British/ French cemetery located on site.

Every British soldier missing in action in this area, but without a known grave, is listed here.

Back in the car and heading north down the hill to Beaumont Hamel. Again, history on history. We pass the Ulster Memorial, and bump over the bank-full Ancre River, noting how boggy the ground on each side was, good only for pasture.

The village of Hamel is quickly passed through, then a famous site comes into view. We had taken a wrong turn and shown up at Sunken Lane (in my defense we had just followed the road sign to Beaumont Hamel). Farmers still use the lane to access their higher fields with their equipment.

Sunken Lane, smack dab in no-man’s land on July 1, 1916, was memorialized by film maker Geoffrey Malins who crawled along the tunnel from the British frontlines to the hidden lane, along with soldiers of the 2nd Royal Fusiliers. Malins lugged his hand crank camera, filmed the soldiers, then carefully crawled forward, and filmed the detonation of the Hawthorne Crater 10 minutes before the main attack. Then he retreated back down the tunnel and filmed casualties pouring back. If you've watched any film on the Battle of the Somme, you've seen Malin's work. Now I crawled up through the sunken lane bushes and trees facing south to come out to where the soldiers would have advanced towards the enemy. Now looking up I could image the white flashes of machine guns pointing towards me from the high ground just up the Thiepval Hill.

Most soldiers never made it further than the nearby farmer’s fence.

As we retreat to the SUV a green van full of young Canadians pulls up, summer students working at the Parks Canada Beaumont Hamel site, our next stop. Their supervisors take them to see the Hawthorne Crater and Sunken Lane. Other visitors to the site kick clods of earth looking for souvenirs in the plowed fields. Small hand crosses with poppy centers, along with handwritten messages are found amongst the Sunken Lane shrubs. We chat with our fellow Canadians, realizing that this really is a pilgrimage all Canadians need to make. Other pilgrims arrive and the Sunken Lane parking lot is quickly getting full.

Google Maps quickly takes us to Beaumont Hamel, a stone’s throw (or two) southeast beyond Hawthorne Crater.