Normally I do not travel to the battlefields of the first world war in summer, since the woodlands are way to overgrown at that time of year, but this August I was in my favourite area again, for a fair and a “Brocante”.

Since I had some time spare time, I decided to visit the verdun battlefield, not the woods themselves, but the area that is signposted “Champ de bataille 14-18” aka what I normally refer to as “the touristy bits”. I had actually never been there and decided after all these trips it was about time and they are perfectly accessible in summer (signposted, good tracks etc)

On the way in I stopped at Mont devant Sassy to visit a former Franco/german cemetary, dating from the early days of the war. There isn’t much left, except one headstone and the memorial of the mass-grave and from the village you have a nice view into the meuse valley. After that I stopped at Dun, to admire the same view, but from the other side of the meuse

The second day (and in the afternoon of the third day) I visisted the verdun battlefield, mainly site like the ossuaire, fort Douamont, the destroyed village Fleury and some remants of a few artillery emplacments/bunkers. I will not go into great detail about them, since these are all well documented and even signposted sites. Below some impressions, there is much more to see!

More and bigger photo’s on my google+ albums:

The trip in
Day 1: Verdun & ouvrage de Falouse
Day2: Verdun

Enjoy and don’t forget to comment, also don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for videos of my world war one trips. 🙂

 

The memorial Mont devant Sassy

 

 

The view from Dun sur Meuse into the valley

 

 

Ouvrage de falouse

Ossuaire Douamont

Destroyed bunker

Old trench

 

Artistic work inside for Douamont

On the roof of fort Douamont