Mort pour la France

We Kiwis have been fed  a steady diet of films, novels and family stories suggesting that, for many young men, going off to war was A Great Adventure. Our sense of nationhood was apparently forged in the heat of battle at Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli peninsula. The Anzac Day service there is now almost an obligatory item on the OE agenda. 


Going off to war may well have been a great adventure for young New Zealanders. Being overrun by war, though, was a personal and national tragedy for the French people.

We are spending a few days in Arras before crossing the Channel to London. Arras was part of the Western Front during World War I and was also the site of  a major British offensive  designed to bring the war to an end. Well, no need to state the obvious.


The New Zealand Division, 15,000 soldiers, arrived on the scene in September 1916. And 2,000 of them died within the month. My grandfather, Wilfred, and his brother Roy sailed from Wellington in May 1916 as part of the NZ Rifle Brigade. I have a photo of these two handsome young men in uniform; no doubt they visited the Wellington photography studio to make sure their mother had something to remember them by. My Grandad returned within a year and lived till his late 70s, a hard-working small time orchardist in Hastings. Roy was one of the unfortunate 2,000.

War graves at Estaires cemetery

His grave in the small Estaires Communal Cemetery has been immaculately maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. And he does have his name on a headstone; over half of those New Zealanders who died on the Somme have no known grave.


I didn't know what to expect, or how I would feel, when we visited his grave yesterday. A family member I never knew who has been dead for nearly 100 years ... 


I guess seeing his grave became a very personal way of absorbing the impersonal and obscene figures thrown at us at every war museum or memorial we have visited this week. For instance: Six in ten French men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight died or were permanently maimed in World War I.


However, I came away feeling regretful. I am the only remaining child of an only child on my mother's side of the family...I must be the first of the family to visit this unknown man's grave, and I suspect I will be the only one. It's hard to imagine that our two 20-something sons will feel any connection. And there is no one else in the entire world who is related to Roy Wilkie Saywell. 

Vimy Ridge memorial

The Canadian war memorial at Vimy Ridge also deals in huge numbers. The battle to take this unassuming looking ridge not far from Arras has become Canada's own symbol of nationhood.  The monument itself is remarkable,beautiful and surprisingly peaceful...which was the intent of its designer. More about this memorial


The really interesting story about this monument is that, in World War II, rumours of its destruction by the invading Germans were rife, and widely reported as fact in western newspapers. Hitler himself paid a visit to Vimy Ridge in 1940, was apparently taken by the memorial's message of peace, and it remained intact throughout the war.

The Battle of Arras, though another criminal waste of young lives (the British commanders' tactics weren't the best when it counted), was one in which New Zealanders played a crucial part. We visited the excellent La Carriere Wellington 20 metres below the city of Arras. These medieval chalk cellars were chosen by the Allied commanders  as the place to gather 23,000 soldiers before the surprise offensive against the Germans. 

This is Wellington, looking towards Auckland...

A group of experienced New Zealand miners were called up and became the NZ Engineers Mining Company. Their task was to enlarge these underground caverns and create a series of interconnecting tunnels. Which they did superbly. So, deep underground in northern France, we were led through caverns named Wellington, Auckland, Blenheim, Waitomo...and were made to feel quite special because of our nationality. It was a remarkable experience. 

Last word on this awful war goes  to Siegfried Sassoon, who was wounded at the battle of Arras:

The General

"Good-morning; good-morning!" the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead,
And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
"He’s a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.