Saint Mihiel

Ah, yes, the Canal de la Meuse is a bit more relaxing than our previous two canals. Less locks, more cruising. It's a "canalized river", which means that we have a mix of canal sections and sections where the river flows with the canal. Because we're traveling downstream, in those sections with the river we actually have a bit of current helping to push us along.

One of the sections where we're cruising on the river. Easy to
tell by the red and green channel markers.

Weir to the left, canal to the right.

We're stopped for a couple of days in the town of Saint Mihiel, about 35 kilometers to the south of Verdun. A Benedictine abbey was first established in the area in 709. Buildings come and go, so no vestige of the original building exists, although Saint Mihiel still has a Benedictine library in the center city whose oldest manuscripts date back to the 8th century. Other churches, abbeys, and convents were established in town at different places and times.

Religious buildings seem to have been the "Infrastructure Programs"
of bygone days. The present Abbaye-Eglise Saint-Michel dates
mostly from the late 17th and early 18th centuries, although the
earliest building on the site was established in the 9th century.

The former Couvent (convent) de Minimes. Founded in the 12th 
century as a Benedictine priory, it was given to the Minimes monks
in 1598. The structure was partially rebuilt at the end of the 16th
or beginning of the 17th century. It was sold after the French
Revolution and converted into a farm that is still privately owned today.

Saint Mihiel was a center of artistic endeavor during the Renaissance. Native son Ligier Richier was a sculptor of some renown during that period, and a previous blog posting mentions his famous work that resides in a church in Bar-le-Duc, the skeletal funerary statue of Rene de Chalon. Richier left notable works related to the "Passion" in the churches of Saint Mihiel.

"Swoon of the Virgin", in Eglise Saint-Michel.

The "Lamentation of Christ", Church of St. Etienne.

The French Revolution diminished Saint Mihiel's role as a seat of culture, law, and learning. It regained some status when it became a garrison town at the end of the 19th century, but two successive German occupations in the World Wars of the 20th century had a significant detrimental effect. Despite significant physical damage from the world wars, Saint Mihiel retains some of the "old".

A mix of older and newer buildings in the center of town

A kinder, gentler gargoyle from 1554: a monkey, with not
a dragon or demon to be seen.

Green algae in a diversion canal once used by 
tanners, and in the background, remnants of the
ramparts that surrounded the town in the Middle
Ages (but were mostly torn down in the 17th C).

Saint Mihiel is particularly remembered for what occurred there during the Great War. The German army captured the town in September 2014. In fact, their push west--before being stopped--created what became known as the St. Mihiel Salient. (In battlefield parlance, a salient is a bulge that projects into enemy territory.) The German-occupied bulge in the front lines prevented the allies from using the Meuse River to reinforce their positions in Verdun with troops and munitions. As was true further west in Europe, trench warfare became established in the area, and bloody battles were fought to try to retake St. Mihiel. It wasn't until September 13, 2018, that St. Mihiel was liberated by U.S. Army General Pershing's First Army in The Battle of Saint Mihiel--the first independent American Army operation of WWI. Sadly, too many vestiges of the horrors of that war still exist.

A French military cemetery on the outskirts of
Saint Mihiel. There is an American military cemetery
in the general area, but too far away for us to bike. 

A "small" cemetery, with just under 4000 dead. In this
cemetery the markers were used mostly for graves of (fully
or partially) identified soldiers; at the top of the hill were
3 ossuaries with the remains of the unidentified (which
number between one and two thousand).

The memorial for the Bois d'Ailly operations
in 1914 and 1915, which didn't accomplish much
militarily, but did result in a lot of casualties. The
gravel area in front is an ossuary for the remains of unknowns.
An inscription reads: "Here lie many unknown French
soldiers who died for the Fatherland".

The area of the "Tranchee de la Soif" (Trench of Thirst). This 
German-fortified trench was captured by the French on May 20, 1915,
but the French were surrounded, cut off from resupply, and surrendered
on May 22, 1915. The name of the trench refers to the fact that the
French troops ran out of water. 

The woods are full of trenches and pits from
shell bombardments.

After a fascinating, but somewhat depressing, time remembering the futility of WWI, it's good to get back to the present.

Cliffs around Saint Mihiel are used for rock climbing. Here, Lon
checks out a potential cave, which turned out not to be one.

A bit of excitement on the river: the sailboat (to the left of the photo)
got out of the channel and went aground. Lon rowed our tender out to 
that boat and took its anchor to a deeper part of the water so that the
boater could winch himself out of trouble.

After a day of projects and chores we will be casting off our lines and cruising tomorrow. As we have many times during this trip, we are hoping the weather forecasts that call for rain are incorrect.