The Great War

Today we drove to La Caverne Du Dragons, an underground quarry, dark into labyrinth of tunnels and caves where many German soldiers were holed up during the war, It is quite cold down there and damp and of course very dark although they did have candles and they actually ripped up electricity which they could have on for some of the time, it must’ve been a wretched existence, especially when the rigde was being bombed and they were wondering whether they would be crushed to death. I didn’t really get any decent photographs but the tour was very interesting and lasted about 90 minutes, we then went to a nearby hotel and golf course and had a very pleasant lunch overlooking the lake then we decided to look at some war memorials and gravesites, we went to the French Cemetery where over 5000 souls were laid to rest and just behind that the German Cemetery where are the 7000 were buried, there were massive underground burial sites as well as individual head stones.
In the French cemetery some of the headstones were round and were the graves of Muslims, There were also about 55 Russians buried there.
In the German cemetery some of the headstones were rounded and were the graves of Jewish soldiers.
We then drove to the British cemetery where the headstones to pictured the crest of the regiment the soldier had belonged to if it had been available, in some cases the ages were noted, there were a lot of headstands for unknown soldiers from unknown regiments, it was particularly sad to me seeing the headstones of young lads of 18 killed in the final year of the war.
My dad and I wrote in the book of remembrance.
It was very emotional for all of us.
We drove back to base where Pascal and Bruno served another amazing home cooked dinner, vegetable tart, salad, beef fillet and a selection of cheeses topped off with sorbet.