Monday, June 27, 2011

Willeman

Wednesday 22 June
Willeman's the village my first stop-over's in, like most of the villages speckling the French countryside, you'd need a detailed map to find it, an old church with a steeple, a handful of old farmsteads, and a few houses, heaps of charm. Theyre nestled down in little dales, hardly deep enough to be a valley but you dont see them looking over the vast roll of the croplands, apart sometimes for the steeples.
The other couple staying here are German resident English people, made for an interesting and enjoyable dinner table.
Like most of the B&B's you're in somebody's home so you mind your P's and Q's, but that's fine with me coming from my just the cat for company home-life, dogs and livestock work-day.
Road to Azincourt
Big day today, headed out after the croissant breakfast, north to St Omer, threatening to rain after a few km's so pulled off to fish out the leggings at a signpost saying Azincourt.... could that be?
And it was, Argencourt, scene of Henry V's big battle against the French in the mid 1400's, 4000 odd English outnumbered 4 to 1 by the locals.
The weather played a big part in things, Henry's lot had already suffered great deprivation losing a third in numbers from typhoid and dysentery on arriving, the French thought they had it in the bag but their armour-clad troops got bogged down in the fields.
The game-breaker was the English longbow-men, fascinating weapon. 40kg string pull, that's lifting a big bag of dog crackers with two fingers, there's a weighted rope set up to test yourself and believe me, I could do one, but I'd be flat to do 10/min, which was their fire rate, training was intense and forensic study has shown bowmen got deformed back and shoulders, they had some technique where the back muscles came into major play. This thing could outfire the crossbow at 4 shots/min, which required cranking to set the tension, each longbowman had an assistant passing arrows, range 200-300 metres depending on wind.
Suit of armour, Azincourt Museum
So, 2000 of them firing 10/min could deliver an arrow shower of over 300/second, the battle's actual rate was a heap more than this, not sure I got the number of bowmen right, and the 4" tip could penetrate 1.5mm thick armour.
Stuff being in the opposing front line, the English only lost a few hundred men, the French thousands before they took to their scrapers.
Have heard it before, but to reiterate, the origin of giving the fingers came from the French penchant to disable bowmen permanently by whacking off the English bowmen's drawstring fingers, who in turn if they were the one with the upper hand, would display their intact digits appropriately, all this as opposed to the single finger American salute which seems to indicate a more aperturely focussed predeliction. Bit of trivia for you...
The English were also professional, everybody was in pay, the French still on the old system of the local nobles bringing their rounded up contribution of not well trained conscripts.
So there was a couple of hours shot to bits, a museum well worth the visit, and a sneaking thought I might actually be tempted into pulling out Shakespeare's "Henry V" for a read when I get home, its said he depicts a range of characters involved in the battle very well.
Just down the road a few km, another village, another patisserie, dont got much Francais but a bloke can always point out what goodie he'd like, this time a burger size bun thing covered in sliced almonds, chocolat au cafe asks the girl, cafe sil vou plait je repondre, and I get this dose of coffee cream between two slabs of heavy meringue under the almond cream sliced nut coating.
Ho ho, lunchtime is going to be easy meat round this place. I get a coffee further along the way.
The dome at LaCoupole
I make it to St Omer, where nearby is my next stop, La Coupole, a 72 metre diameter 5.5 metre thick concrete dome over a labyrinth of supporting tunnel work, which was to be Hitler's secret base for preparing the launch of the V2 rockets, another 2 hours down the drain of enlightenment.
Built in a hurry by forced labour, but fortunately for Britain, never completed before war's end, the place is also a shrine for those fortunate enough, if you could call it that, to be pulled from the Holocaust camps to work here. I've never seen a more graphic photo display of those times, pretty unsettling, and my hosts here say they have heard, not a place to take young kids to, oui d'accord to that.
There's also display of rocket development and technology, Werner von Braun, the physicist brain behind most of it, later made a member of the SS, he and his staff of 100 odd being snaffled by the Americans to work on the US missile program, and to eventually be granted US citizenship in the mid 50's, and contribute greatly to the US space program. You get to see real V1 and V2 examples here.
Then on to Vimy Ridge where the Canadian forces heroically took this strategic piece of ground, and where their magnificent monument to their 60,000 fallen now stands. Theyve elected to keep the shell-pocked ground in its post-war contour, looks like a piece of mogulled ski piste.
Shelling was by far the biggest cause of casualty in the Great War, followed by disease, and the horror of "over the top boys" somewhat trailing. The front line trenches in some places were only 50m apart.
Then they were at it again in WWII, the ground here just about a human compost field when you consider the broader sweep of history, you'd need to be careful digging a post hole even.
On to Arras, where I'd hoped to take a look at the Kiwi dug cave system which secretly housed 3000 troops for an assault on the Germans, but I couldnt find it in my rapidly running out day, so had to be satisfied with carrying on towards Albert, where I found the NZ National Memorial at Longueval and had a respect-paying walk among the graves in the evening light, quite a few family names recognised, many Maori, and sadly, many simply marked Unknown Soldier.
From there, quite a rural jig-jog back to home base in the fading light, not knowing which way up, but in the general direction indicated by the now setting sun, village after village, narrow lane after another, just left it to the GPS, and here we are.
There's a chateau just along the way, the full deal, aging countess in residence, tunnels underground to another on a nearby hill, attached farm estate, managers for that and the maison.
Saw a deer on the road today too, theyve signs here depicting rampant deer, just like in the US, and in one place like in pic left, a sign saying:
L'animuax Gros
Traverse Frequent

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