Green Trees and Gravestones: Vimy Ridge, Arras and L'Église de la Sainte Trinité

 

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow,

Between the crosses, row on row,

that mark our place..."

We were at Vimy on Thursday, not Flanders, but as we walked through its quiet fields where the wind sighs over the crater holes these words (by Canadian -- Guelphite! -- Col. John Macrae) came to my mind (and they are in fact recalled by the figure with torch raised on the Memorial, and written on the walls of the Visitors Centre). On the stones of the memorial that rises into the sky on Vimy Ridge there are 11, 285 names engraved, names of Canadian soldiers who fought in WWI whose bodies were never found. Sixty-six thousand Canadians died in that war.

You can see the names to the right of the sculpture. They are engraved around the base of the monument on all four sides.

The two pillars represent Canada and France, standing together. The memorial was designed by Walter Allward in 1920 and unveiled in 1935 (eerily, on the verge of another world war. Did anyone know what was coming?)

Down the hill from the memorial, towards the Canadian front line, past the crazy undulations left by mines and shells, covered over now by grass and planted once again with trees --

 – but do not walk through these trees, because you might be blown apart -- 

Mine crater, centre back

-- down the hill from the memorial, there is a cemetery. It is one of many war cemeteries in the area (we kept seeing them by the side of the road as we drove through the countryside). It is beautiful, green and quiet, a grand horse-chestnut lifting its proud blossoms in the corner, a field of bright rapeseed all around it.

The tombstones say, mostly, “A Soldier of the Great War.” Just that. And at the bottom, where violets and chives grow, “Known unto God.” 

A few of them have names, and ages. They are mostly young: 20, 28, 39, and poignantly, 17, +1917. 

So much old grief and destruction here, in the quiet green day. It was immensely sad. And yet at the same time, there was such peace in that place. 

I found myself praying that they had, each and every one, come into the peace that surrounded me there.

There are oak trees at Vimy again now, 100 oak saplings recently planted, grown from Canadian oak trees. Those oak trees in turn grew from an acorn from Vimy Ridge. The land was blown apart in the 4 years of war there; by the time the Canadians won Vimy Ridge April 9-12, 1917, it was a sea of mud. Our guide told us the men were knee-deep in it all day, every day, standing in mud in the trenches and as they dug the tunnel system that helped them win the battle. There was no grass left, no birds, certainly no trees.

The tunnels, 8 feet below ground and about 6 feet high, dug by hand through limestone and chalk so as not to alert the German troops. They served as mine shafts, bomb shelter, headquarters, communication lines, bedroom (on freezing nights like that before the battle April 9 the men slept in the tunnels, lying on top of each other because the tunnels were so narrow.)

After the battle one Canadian soldier, Lt. Leslie Miller, picked up an acorn he found in the area and brought it back to Canada. That acorn was the beginning of an oak grove that grew over the years on his Ontario farm. Now those oak trees have sent their acorns back to France to grow into saplings planted in 2017 and 2018 on Vimy Ridge. (By chance, on the plane over we sat beside the landscape architect who helped design the grove. She said her vision was of the trees opening out as you approach the memorial into open sky, in a sign of hope.)

The trees are everywhere at Vimy now, some of them sprung from the battlefield and one young soldier’s hope. And there are sheep: they are the site’s lawnmowers because somehow, our guide told us, they don’t trigger the mines. 

There are lively young guides from Canada. And there are small children running around. The BCP (Anglican Book of Common Prayer) says, in its funeral service, “In the midst of life, we are in death.” But at Vimy, the converse is also true: in the midst of death…new green life.

From Vimy we drove to the charming medieval town of Arras, 15 minutes away. 

Town square with tower of Church of St John the Baptist in background

It`s the cutest medieval town you will ever see. Only it is not medieval. It’s a rebuild, because the town was gutted by the war. It is a charming rebuild, complete with town hall and town Giants, who have been its patrons since medieval times. But it is a reconstruction.

The town hall

The town giants who frequent, apparently, the town hall

Near its centre stands L’Église de Saint Jean Baptiste. 

The church survived the Revolution – the only church in town to survive – only to be destroyed in the First World War. Two firefighters, Wacquez and Gasson, lost their lives trying to save the church in the bombardments in 1915. The church burnt, but the people recreated it in Flamboyant Gothic style in 1920. It commemorates the firefighters who died to save it. And it is home to some striking contemporary stained glass, including the only window we have yet seen celebrating the organ. 

(You can see the organ pipes behind the central angel. The window is in fact behind the organ!)

The four gospel writers are there, on either side of the altar, Mark`s lion fiercely fearsome, Matthew`s angelic man writing Our Father who art in heaven. 

Winged lion representing the Gospel of Mark

Angelic man representing the Gospel of Matthew

And at the west entrance, on either side of the organ pipes and the glorious organ window, the whole human story: on one side, Adam and Eve eating that fruit, haunted by the serpent, cast out of the garden. On the other, Mary and Joseph with the child. Death and life together, and between them organ pipes and angels, the sound of a great song. 

The holy family

All this reminded me of a church we saw just before we left Paris, on our way to the wonderful Parc Monceau (see David`s next blog): L 'Église de la Sainte Trinité (Messiaen was organist there). 

Outside the church, a jardin full of people (of course a jardin! This is Paris!)

Enjoying the jardin

 Also outside the church, a plaque with Charles de Gaulle`s call, from exile, to the French people to stand firm:

La France a perdu une bataille! 

Mais la France n'a pas perdu la guerre!

Des gouvernants de rencontre ont pu 

capituler, cédant à la panique, oubliant l'honneur, livrant le pays à la servitude. 

Cependant, rien n'est perdu! ...

Voilà pourquoi je convie tous les Français, 

où qu'ils se trouvent, à s'unir à moi dans

l'action, dans le sacrifice et dans l'espérance. 

Notre patrie est en péril de mort. 

Luttons tous pour la sauver! 

VIVE LA FRANCE!" 

18 June, 1940

Why, we wondered, was this plaque there? At the nearby subway stop we found out. The stop is named after  Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves, a French naval officer at the outbreak of WWII, and a committed Christian, a member of the Sainte Trinité parish. He refused to accept France’s capitulation. He joined the resistance, sailed from England secretly to the coast of Brittany and organized the intelligence network Nemrod. Betrayed by a friend, he was arrested and executed in France in 1941. But his name stands. His name and his courage stand there, with de Gaulle’s words, by the garden where the roses grow. And in the church, a statue of St Genevieve, who also defended her people, the people of Paris, calling them to resist the attacking Huns, organizing the women to pray, her conviction giving them courage and, in the end, the victory. 

Life in the place of death, courage in the time of fear, green trees and a garden: Vimy, Arras, and a church in Paris, this week.

`Canada Bereft` ... but also looking east, over the green land toward the new day