Trench Warfare

Today Mom and her friends rented a car and drove outside the city.  We went to a small town called St. Mihiel near Verdun.  This is where some terrible battles took place during World War I.  At one of the sites we visited, the trenches dug by soldiers to protect themselves from the enemy were still clearly visible.  They had filled in a bit over nearly one hundred years, but you could still walk in them and see the stone and cement used to shore up the sides.  There were bunker-like caves for shelters, but for the most part the trenches were open to the elements and to enemy shelling.  The town was occupied by Germans for four years and the trench warfare between the French and the Germans, and near the end, American soldiers under General Pershing, went on for all that time.  The bloodshed and loss of life were horrific.

It was very quiet there - we arrived late afternoon after the tour buses had all gone.  In fact, we were the only ones there.  Mom let me off my leash in the forest as we walked around in the silence.  The only sounds were the layers of dried leaves crunching underfoot and the singing of the birds.  As we gazed into the trenches it almost seemed as though we could hear the ghostly voices of the men who had died there.  It seemed a hallowed place and I sniffed around reverently and did not pee.

This sign says that this was a German shelter.

 The fallen leaves of trees, the moss and undergrowth have softened the reality of barren mud and the stink of trench warfare nearly a century ago.