It is early on a Saturday morning, and I am standing in the middle of a field in Northern France. The morning sun, high above the clouds, has not yet dispersed the mist, and it clings to the trees scattered around me and floats just above the green grass that reaches out in all directions. As the piercing cold stings my hands, I perceive the profound silence here, miles from the closest town. Usually being enveloped in such an environment would be peaceful, but the scene before me today is, in contrast, haunting. Planted around me are thousands of black crosses, marking the final resting place of over 44,000 German soldiers from the First World War. This is the German cemetery at Neuville St-Vaast. It is our first stop of the day in a week that has been filled with site visits and orientation on the battlefields of the Great War in France.
Our training started Monday, five days before, with a whirlwind of administrative processes and briefings on the Vimy and Beaumont-Hamel sites, as well as all Canadian memorials maintained by Veterans Affairs Canada in Europe. Much of our direction was delivered by VAC Admin in France, but also via teleconference from various people back home at Veterans Affairs in Charlottetown. Over the course of two days we filled out tax and employee forms, toured both the Vimy and Beaumont-Hamel site, received instruction on how to drive in France and for over an hour, with much trial and error, were outfitted with our bright green and red uniforms, complete with a couple golf shirts, a dress shirt, dress pants, belt, fleece sweater, rain coat, wind-breaker, splash pants, toque, and neck-warmer, with ties for the guys and scarves for the girls.
By Wednesday morning, most of the formalities had been dealt with, and we settled in for a couple days of solid classroom instruction. What followed could be described as a two-day ultra-intensive University-level WWI course. We covered, at length, the ranks and structure of the Canadian military, with a crash course in HQ organization and logistics on the front. This was followed by instruction on the range, technical issues and evolution of guns, artillery and weapons during the Great War. Then we tried to keep up with a four-hour brief on the First World War in general, focusing on major battles, campaigns and strategies of all sides on all fronts. Then the French Red Cross took an hour of our day to explain how to dial '18' (European '911').
Thursday consisted of eight more hours of classroom instruction, this time with more specific focus on the Battle of the Somme, including Beaumont-Hamel, and the Battle of Arras, including Vimy Ridge. Although the instruction on both Wednesday and Thursday were phenomenal, I still struggled to stay awake, as the lingering effects of jet-lag were allowing me only 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night. Either way, by the end of the day Thursday we had more info and background on the First World War than we know what to do with. The next two days would help us put it all in context.
On Friday we visited close to a dozen sites involving the Battle of the Somme. Braving the biting cold, we took a full tour of the remains of the battlefield at Beaumont-Hamel, before driving to different cemeteries, towns and random fields to get a lay of the land as it stood on July 1st, 1916; the first day of the four-month battle. Seeing the lines as drawn across the miles of countryside, the size of the craters that were blown that morning to initiate the attack, the extensive German fortifications behind their 2nd line at Pozières and the countless war cemeteries that dot the countryside of Northern France were all eye-opening experiences. To trudge through the mud in the path of these soldiers and to visit the cemeteries where they fell (some as young as 16 or 17) quickly brings the reality of war into focus. I am doubtful that a higher-quality tour of the battlefields of the Great War exists.
And so, when I found myself in the middle of a massive cemetery on Saturday morning, I felt better-equipped to comprehend the context of where we stood and the events that led to these men being buried in this foreign field. Over the course of the day we would visit several Canadian memorial sites and get better oriented in how the lines were drawn at the Battle of Arras. By 5:00, as we gazed at the imposing rear slope of the ridge that Canadians had fought and died capturing, we were all freezing, exhausted and hoping that, somehow, all of the info that we had been taught over the past six days would somehow be absorbed into our brains. Most of us were also ready for a beer.
Sunday was a near-carbon copy of the one before, with late mornings all-around. In the evening, I walked through Arras with Reta, Kristina and Becky for Mass at the beautiful L'église St. Jean-Baptiste. It seemed a fulfilling conclusion to what had been an extremely busy, but incredible week. One would expect our next week, however, to include a another steep learning curve, as we would begin to put our training into action. The next day would be our first in uniform.
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