Battlefields

[August1991]

I know that Americans re-enact Civil War battlefields. I have been to Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.

It seems small.

In Quebec City, there is the Plains of Abraham. Laurier made it a national park with stone monuments. On Chemin Ste-Foy, I used to show American tourists where Bourlamaque fought.

Borodino outside Moscow is another level. To see the monuments. markers requires a car. Napoleonic battles are immense.

Curious about the Seven Years War, I wound up looking at Austerlitz. (The Seven Years War was largely fought in Saxony between Austria and Prussia. Prussia won and Canada became English. Angry, France (Napoleon) refought the war. (Austerlitz is in, uh, Saxony)

Marathon, Thermopylae (it took me three days to find the pass, it exists). Carthage in Tunisia. 

The landing at Dieppe. I walked up the road to the Commonwealth cementery

I have not been to Stalingrad.

I have been to Anzio. The Americans bring their dead to one large place. The British/Commonwealth bury their dead nearby. In too many cemeteries, I have seen the standard rectangle of a New Zealander or Canadian.

I have been to Compiegne where Hitler forced France to sign. I have also been to the now defunct memorial in Poland where Germany defeated Russia in 1917.

I have walked down the remnants of the Great War trenches. (Some still exist. Kubrick's Paths of Glory is accurate.) I have seen where the sappers created this huge demolition in 1917. (It's still a crater.)

I walked around the Warsaw Ghetto trying to figure out the walls.  I walked around Hue, Vietnam's forbidden city - trying to understand 1968. 

Many times, I drove across the Green Line of Beirut.

=====

My point? I don't know if it's useful going to places where men fought.

Some battlefields are immense, beyond comprehension - others are smaller.

In Germany, there is a place: the Teutoburg Forest Battle.  Romans versus Germans, significant in world history, battlefield understandable - except that it is not clear if the battle took place in the place where the museum exists.

IOW, I don't know if going to places where men fought helps to understand why they fought. 

 

[Army Guy]

On 4/6/2025 at 11:31 AM, August1991 said:

I know that Americans re-enact Civil War battlefields. I have been to Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.

It seems small.

In Quebec City, there is the Plains of Abraham. Laurier made it a national park with stone monuments. On Chemin Ste-Foy, I used to show American tourists where Bourlamaque fought.

Borodino outside Moscow is another level. To see the monuments. markers requires a car. Napoleonic battles are immense.

Curious about the Seven Years War, I wound up looking at Austerlitz. (The Seven Years War was largely fought in Saxony between Austria and Prussia. Prussia won and Canada became English. Angry, France (Napoleon) refought the war. (Austerlitz is in, uh, Saxony)

Marathon, Thermopylae (it took me three days to find the pass, it exists). Carthage in Tunisia. 

The landing at Dieppe. I walked up the road to the Commonwealth cementery

I have not been to Stalingrad.

I have been to Anzio. The Americans bring their dead to one large place. The British/Commonwealth bury their dead nearby. In too many cemeteries, I have seen the standard rectangle of a New Zealander or Canadian.

I have been to Compiegne where Hitler forced France to sign. I have also been to the now defunct memorial in Poland where Germany defeated Russia in 1917.

I have walked down the remnants of the Great War trenches. (Some still exist. Kubrick's Paths of Glory is accurate.) I have seen where the sappers created this huge demolition in 1917. (It's still a crater.)

I walked around the Warsaw Ghetto trying to figure out the walls.  I walked around Hue, Vietnam's forbidden city - trying to understand 1968. 

Many times, I drove across the Green Line of Beirut.

=====

My point? I don't know if it's useful going to places where men fought.

Some battlefields are immense, beyond comprehension - others are smaller.

In Germany, there is a place: the Teutoburg Forest Battle.  Romans versus Germans, significant in world history, battlefield understandable - except that it is not clear if the battle took place in the place where the museum exists.

IOW, I don't know if going to places where men fought helps to understand why they fought. 

 

During my time in Germany, i had many opportunities to travel and walk the battlefields to see if i could understand what those soldiers went through to prepare myself,to be a better soldier...what it did show me was the tremendous cost they paid, on both sides..., i traveled and went to several concentration camps and found out just how evil war can make people....

then my first tour of Afghanistan i got to experience war close and personal...nothing my training taught us had prepared me for the horrors we would do to each other...the smell of blood in the air, the smell of rotten flesh, the sight of ripped apart bodies, pieces of them hanging with bits of clothing still wrapped around flesh in trees after an airstrike had hit a small villa , or the bodies of someone that had been flatten by a long convoy of trucks and tracks vehs, flatten beyond recognition with just a tuff of hair telling you it was once a human....War touches all your senses...and leaves unforgettable memories that will never fade....That's what every politician should experience, before sending men and women into battle ....Walking in their footsteps is the first baby step....into understanding war, and why men fight....but actually experiencing it all....because words do not do the experience justice....

[August1991]

2 minutes ago, Army Guy said:

During my time in Germany, i had many opportunities to travel and walk the battlefields to see if i could understand what those soldiers went through to prepare myself,to be a better soldier..

 

Years ago, I had time in Germany.

Curious, I started looking at the battlefields of the Seven Years War - significant to Canada.

I soon discovered that it was a war between Prussia and Austria. I could understand the battlefields in Saxony and now in the Czech republic.

Austerlitz. This battlefield was immense. Napoleon (like Hitler, Trump, Putin) wanted to show they are not a loser.

Borodino. I have been to Borodino. In 1912, the Russians put stones to indicate places.

Plaines of Abraham. Laurier put stones. I can walk. It takes a car/hours to go between the stones of Borodino. 

=====

Did you know that the Seven Years War had two treaties?

The Treaty of Hubertusberg: far more important at the time.

The Treaty of Fontainebleau, signed later.

 

[August1991]

1 hour ago, Army Guy said:

....

then my first tour of Afghanistan i got to experience war close and personal...nothing my training taught us had prepared me for the horrors we would do to each other...

...

Years ago, early 1980s, I found myself in the midst of a Sri Lankan civil war. I was alone.

AG, you had guys beside you.

======

As a young boy (1970s?), I once spoke to a man who had fought in the Great War.

I still remember his answer: "We were together. I had him beside me. He was with me. We went together."

[PIK]

I was lucky to stand beside my towns last ww1 vet yrs back at the cenotaph. He just stood there and cried. Then my eyes went blurry, from my own tears. I will never forget that.

Edited 18 minutes ago by PIK