Remember the Somme

We headed north on the Canal du Nord last Wednesday, August 3. The canal is a junction canal that links the large canals of the north to the Oise valley. The information about the Canal du Nord in our waterways guide was a little daunting, talking as it did about the heavy level of commercial traffic on the canal and some of the difficulties for leisure craft. Maybe because it's August vacation season, or maybe it was because we'd motored with big commercial traffic on the Meuse/Maas River (and in previous boating experiences on the American rivers), but we found that neither the level of commercial traffic or the boating conditions presented any difficulties. In fact, we rather enjoyed the rural landscapes and not having our views constantly blocked by trees.

It is true that the mooring opportunities on the Canal du Nord are limited, and are primarily just quays located here and there that don't have the water and electric services beloved by owners of smaller leisure craft. (We like services, too, but we're often not able to moor in full-service ports because of our size. However, we're better equipped to be self-sufficient and quays usually work well for us.)

Our mooring on the "Port d'Erchau", a rather grand name for a concrete
quay with a few bollards in the midst of farmland and small villages
with few-to-no services like grocery stores or bakeries. But it was
a very hot day, and we were happy to be there by noon so
that we could sit out the heat. And we weren't the only ones taking
advantage of this spot "in the middle of nowhere"

The section of the Canal du Nord that we had to travel before getting to the Somme River canal was not particularly long. By the end of the second cruising day we were at the city of Peronne, on the cusp of entering the Somme, again tied along a quay. We'd been hoping to take on some water at our stop, and stay for at least a couple of nights so that we could visit the WWI museum in Peronne. But the water supply we were hoping to access from an adjoining campground was broken, and our mooring was not particularly attractive, so we stayed just one night.

Two things about the Somme. Like some other waterways in France, it is not strictly pure river; it is more accurate to call it a "canalized river", where some stretches are just canal and some stretches include the natural river. Also, management of the Canal de la Somme resides with the local governmental unit--the Departement de la Somme--and not with the Voie Navigables de France (vnf) that is responsible for most of the canals and other waterways in France. 

A vestige of the past--a boat cruising south would think that
they were about to be able to make a choice between the Canal
du Nord and a southern branch of the Canal de la Somme. They
would be wrong. The southern section of the Somme Canal was
closed to navigation in the early 2000's

Barriers prevent boats from straying from the Canal du Nord onto the closed section of the
Canal de la Somme

When we turned onto the north/west section of the Somme on Friday morning, we were really pleased with how pretty the waterway was. At first we were quite hemmed in with trees, but that didn't last for long and we had plenty of gaps where we could see the countryside. Weed growth in French waterways has been a problem for some years, and although we encountered some sections with weed, overall it wasn't nearly as bad as we saw on some parts of the canals we cruised on last year.

The river spreads out on both sides of the canal, and creates
bog-like areas and lakes. In some of these areas, residents have been
able to build small structures and create interesting gardens

We're cruising in the canal (with the weed), and the river is visible in
the top part of the photo

Approaching a lock. Unlike many of the other French locks that
are automated, we had to telephone to arrange for roving 
eclusiers to assist us with our passages through locks
 and mobile bridges 

A "weed eater" used to clear weeds from the canals. It's not clear
if this is an effective long-term solution, as it seems to result in
"seeding" the canals with plant material that grows back rapidly

Our first overnight stop was the village of Cappy. Aside from a church whose 1654 tower is on the monuments list in France, there is not a lot to be said about the town. We stopped there because it has a port that theoretically could accommodate us, but as we moved past the first quay and saw it fully occupied by long-stay boats, we were getting a little discouraged. We were concerned about our water supply, so we pulled into the fuel dock for temporary mooring and filled up from one of the nearby water faucets. Fortunately, there turned out to be space for mooring against a grass bank just before the town's lift bridge, and we had cords enough to be able to plug into electricity. 

There we are, the first boat in line

While we were filling with water, Lon struck up conversation with two of the resident boat owners. One thing led to another, and after we were settled we were invited onto one of the boats for a "welcome to Cappy" drink. One of the men, Peter Kellett, was an American with a 30-meter long barge and was an avid student of WWI. One of his grandfathers had served with the British army during the days of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, not more than a few miles away from where we were. Peter offered to serve as our personal WWI-Battle of the Somme tour guide the next day and we readily accepted. We had spent some time in the area 10 years ago, but it's a big topic and we were happy to see some new things.

The Battle of the Somme was a World War I battle fought by the armies of the British empire and France against Germany. It began on July 1, 1916 and ended on the 18th of November of that year. In the initial planning, the French were going to be the principal army and the British were going to serve in a supporting role, but the demands of the battle in the east near Verdun had diverted much of the French military resources to that area. The British, therefore, became the principal army in the Somme offensive. What was originally hoped to be a strong offensive effort, in the end, became merely a means of relieving pressure on the French at Verdun by requiring Germany to keep resources in the west. When all was said and done, more than three million men had fought, and one million were killed or wounded, for a mere few kilometers of forward progress.

The Lochnagar Crater, created on the first day of the offensive, when the British exploded 27 tons
of explosive in tunnels that had been dug nearly to the German front line

You don't have to drive far in this area to see a military
cemetery in a field. For some reason, these small cemeteries
seem especially poignant to me, filled as they are with
young men who are still far from home

The Fricourt New Military Cemetery. Not especially large, but evidence
of tragedy for Yorkshire, full of the graves of men from Yorkshire
regiments, many of whom perished on the first day of the offensive

Lon and Peter at Maricourt, where the flags mark the dividing
line between the British troops and the French troops

Having lunch at The Tommy Museum in Pozieres. The cafe's owner had
a huge amount of WWI memorabilia displayed in the dining areas as well
as an outdoor museum behind the cafe building

The rusted display to the left is comprised of guns, helmets, etc.
recovered from the former battlefields. To this day, farmers continue
to recover war materials from their fields, including 
unexploded artillery shells

More displays in the Tommy Museum

Peter Kellett told us that he feels compelled to speak for those who died in the war. He wrote a long poem as part of that effort--much too long to repeat here--but it begins:

            We are the dead. Names carved in stone on monuments which stand alone

            on hills where once we fought to save the world, or so we thought.

After that rather intense day it was lovely to be invited to share in an outdoor barbeque dinner with Peter, Luke (the other boater we'd met), and a few of their friends.

How civilized was this? No paper plates for this picnic--nice tableware,
real wineglasses, and quality flatware

On Sunday morning we left Cappy and continued down the Somme, stopping in the town of Corbie. The town is larger than Cappy, and was the site of a large abbey beginning in the 7th century. What remains today is the last vestige of that abbey, the abbey church, most of which is a reconstruction after centuries of wars, fires, vandalism, and neglect. Corbie nearly managed to escape the destruction of WWI, but it came under German artillery bombardment in 1918.

John and Margaret from New Zealand preceded us into Corbie by a couple of days, but were still here when we arrived. We all took a little excursion by bicycle this morning to a small, but interesting, bit of WWI history--the site just a few kilometers outside of Corbie where Baron von Richthofen, the famous aviation ace "The Red Baron", crashed in 1918 and was killed. 

Margaret with Lon and me in front of a sign
which designates the crash site. The Baron was involved in
a dogfight, but it seems he was not killed in that dogfight,
 but by ground fire from Australian troops below.
(No mention of any involvement by Snoopy)

Our ride also got us to this viewpoint overlooking one of the lakes formed by the meandering
Somme. Google lied to us. They said our bike route would be "mostly flat", but as we were "up here" and our boats were "down there" at water level, "mostly flat" wasn't quite accurate

A few kilometers in the other direction from Corbie stands the Australian National Memorial, located adjacent to the Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery. The memorial stands atop what was designated in WWI as Hill 104, a military objective during the effort to retake the village of Villers-Bretonneux from the Germans in April 1918. It honors the Australian soldiers who fought in France and Belgium. Lon and I headed over there after lunch.

The British Commonwealth gravestones allow for personal
messages. Most we've seen have been patriotic or expressions
of love and/or pride. This was the first one I'd seen with a cynical message
(and I can't really say I blame them):
 "Another life lost 
   Hearts broken For what"

Cemetery in the foreground, the memorial tower in the background.
The tower contains nearly 11,000 names of unidentified Australian dead

The cemetery and surrounding countryside as viewed from the tower. The
crunchy, brown grass is evidence of the extreme drought France finds itself in

Tomorrow, we cast off once again and are headed toward the city of Amiens, famous for its cathedral. We're hoping to stay for a few days, and then, rather than continue down the Somme, will head back the way we came and slowly work our way to the port near Paris where CARIB will spend the winter. Canals continue to be closed in other parts of France, and the drought is so severe that a number of towns have to have water trucked in, but for now our cruising route is still open.