Free Weekly Digest

WW1 in one French village, Westerners looting the Holy Land and more from France...

This is your free weekly round of up of my history world. There are snippets of this weeks’ content, images from out on the road in France, news of some in person appearances this summer and news of what is to come for subscribers next week.

This Week

On Monday I wrote about a tiny village on the Aisne and how it saw the passage of four different combatant nations during the First World War:

Prior to the First World War, Soupir had a population of about 400 people. The Mayor, Monsieur Jules Charlier was a 58-year-old-farmer; the local priest, Henri Delfolie was 42. There was a local chateau inhabited by an old lady known as “Marie Boursin." There was a baker, a grocer, some cafés; whilst a blacksmith, a saddler, a joiner, and a cooper all provided nearby farmers may need. Then, this bucolic existence was obliterated by war. In 1914, after the miracle on the Marne, the Allies pursued the Germans back to the River Aisne, which flows past the bottom of the village, and for the inhabitants, their nightmare began.

1914: The British Pass Through

The 2nd Grenadier Guards were at Wellington Barracks, on the doorstep of Buckingham Palace when war was declared. Having been mobilised, they were out on a route march in London the day before their departure when they passed the gates of the palace on their way home. Quite by chance, King George V and Queen Mary wandered down to watch them pass by. Leading his platoon was ‘Jack’ Pickersgill-Cunliffe. The only son of a gentleman from Huntingdonshire, he was less than a year out of Sandhurst and only two out of Eton. Not yet 20, bright, and with a permanent smile on his face, he saluted proudly and was captured by a photographer as the battalion passed the King, who returned their salute. A month later, Jack was leading a patrol into Soupir.

Behind his men, Jack exchanges a salute with the King outside Buckingham Palace.

On the Aisne in mid-September, the Grenadiers edged their way down an eerie canal towpath, shrouded by fog in a relentless downpour. Tentatively, they began to cross a makeshift bridge at Soupir. It was 8.30am, and the British were expecting some sort of opposition. None came. ‘Had some German officer blundered or did the enemy not intend to defend the passage of the Aisne?’ The fog was in fact providing a protective curtain for the BEF, masking their movements from nearby German gunners. The Grenadiers entered Soupir with instructions to pass through, climb the hill on the other side and secure the high ground above at a place called La Coeur de Soupir, where there was a substantial farmhouse. Beyond that their commanding officer knew nothing about where he was or whom he might run in to. ‘I was given no information…’ he complained, ‘either about our own forces or the enemy.’

Thus far they had not set eyes on a German in their wet progress. No.1 Company had been selected as the vanguard and now the decision was made to select Jack Cunliffe and his platoon to press on up the road and into the shrouded woods ahead. Jack collected his men and set off. The woods were eerily quiet, with nothing but the sound of the rain coming through the trees. As well as dense foliage, the mist still hid any concentrations of enemy troops from view. Slowly, blindly they made the steep climb up the narrow road, a wall of greenery on either side of them. Robbed of peripheral vision they disappeared from their commanding officer’s view. Jack reached the farm. All remained strangely quiet. Around the perimeter of the compound there was no sign of the enemy. They probed cautiously towards a crossroads beyond their final destination…

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On Thursday I wrote about the beginning of a new wave of Westerners hitting the Holy Land. Kicked off by Napoleon:

Why Then?

From what I can gather, the age of enlightenment. Up till that point, tales of miracles and inexplicable traditions were more likely to go unchallenged. Before scientific progress revealed the how and the why of the world around us, it was arguably easier to believe that God’s hand was active in everything; to call something a miracle. As the 19th century approached this was changing. It was less acceptable to recount the bible as irrefutable fact without asking questions. People in the west had become more scientifically curious, in larger numbers, and they wanted proof in order to believe.

Visiting the Holy Land was not new by any means. Christians had been trampling through the region for centuries, most notably during the Crusades. This new wave was different, however. They did not come with the sole intention of pilgrimage, or protecting the cradle of their religion. Most importantly for the purposes of this article, the new wave of Western visitors coincided with the dawn of modern archaeology as a scientific endeavour.

With the emergence of this discipline, it stands to reason that westerners began pouring into the Holy Land, where their faith was rooted, in order to look for evidence to substantiate their beliefs. (There is a whole side bar to this where people began losing their sh*t in the early 1800s because the discovery of dinosaurs called into question the notion of the creation in seven days, because at no point does the bible mention a T-Rex, but that’s another article) As an aside, there is also the fact that the Ottoman Empire was crumbling at play here. Excavating the Holy land was one way for Governments to surreptitiously gain influence in this region with future land grabs in mind.

Before that, however, lets have some fun. The first wave of Western explorers, chancers, churchmen, and academics came with less noble aims in mind. Proving that the bible was documented fact was one thing, but far more lucrative, said evidence would be priceless if they could uncover it. And nothing brings people running like the possibility of buried treasure…

Finish Reading

On the Road

For the past week and a half I’ve been escorting a bespoke group through France for Istoria Travel. It was sort of a three-bucket lists-meets-one itinerary, comprising D-Day and the Battle for Normandy, Medieval sites of interests and then the Somme in 1916, Chemin des Dames in 1917 and Americans on the Marne in 1918. Check out the website for details of how we put these together, or to look at some exciting options in Jordan, Italy, Belgium and Orkney next year. In the meantime, here are some more highlights from this week:

We paid tribute to the civilian victims of the battle for Normandy in 1944

We visited the birthplace of William the Conqueror

We explored the ‘Corridor of Death” and looked at the closing of the Falaise Pocket in detail.

Leaving Normandy, we marked the anniversary of the Welsh division’s fierce battle for Mametz Wood on the Somme.

We took a trip along the Chemin des Dames in the French sector of the Western Front

Before getting a sneaky look inside a tank workshop.

And on our final stop, we explored Belleau Wood and then paid our respects to the fallen of the US Marine Corps who died there.

Coming Up

We’re just a few days out from We Have Ways Fest 2024, where I’m going to be talking in the Briefing Tent at 6:00pm on Saturday. Canned Crab and Suicides is all about the Pacific in 1944. I’ll also be signing copies of my 400 page WW1 primer illustrated by Steve Smith straight afterwards.

Tickets are also on sale for a talk I’m giving at the Battle of Britain Bunker on George V in the First World War. It takes place on 31st August and admission is priced at £5.

You can book here.

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