FORT DOUAUMONT and VERDUN

One day in the autumn of the year 2002, my friends invited me to visit a monument of the World War. That fort is called Fort Douaumont where is in Verdun, one of the cities in Lorraine Region. I am new in France so, I don’t really know why this monument is so special. The idea to visit the World War monument, in general, is not really an attractive destination for Indonesian tourists. In my mind, I thought about visiting different kinds of museum.
It was raining on that day, but it stopped as soon as we departed. We started our trip at 10 o’clock from my friend’s dormitory. My friends and I are living and studying in Nancy, in the capital city of Lorraine Region, in the East of France. There were five of us, including 1 girl and 4 men. We were driving to our destination.
On our way from Nancy to Fort Douaumont, I enjoyed the atmosphere of the French villages that were on the right side of the road. Our car passed the fields of corn, the fields of Colza (plant for oil production), grassland, hills, and many other exciting sights. We passed some towns too, but I could not remember their names.
After two or three hours of driving, we arrived in Verdun (about 108 km from Nancy). It was already late in the afternoon, but still, there was not a lot of sunshine and the weather was cold. My friend parked her car in front of the Verdun’s tourism office. I thought, it was the end of our trip because in my mind, usually the tourism office is placed in centre of the city.
At the office, my friend asked about the location of the Fort Douaumont. She explained the fort location and how to go there. Then I realized that we still needed to continue our journey for another 10 km (20 or 30 minutes by car) to Verdun suburb. I bought some postcards while I was there.
When we have arrived in the centre of the city of Verdun, I saw a big building beside the river that appeared as a classic fort gate. I thought it was Fort Douamount. I didn’t know the name of the building but the construction was very strong and classic. I only knew that the river’s name is Meuse. The river passes through the middle of the Verdun city and continues to Belgium and Netherlands.
We didn’t spend too much time in Verdun. We took some photos beside the bridge, its gate and also, river. But then we continued our journey to Fort Douamont.
I don’t know much about Verdun, but I have read from a certain book that Verdun is very near from the German-Franco frontier. It is only 40 km or 20 miles from frontier. Because of its location that is closed to the frontier, Verdun is often identified with the world war. We also passed certain world war site. We visited a village where the world war had situated. By the street notice board, I read that this village was a lost village. We found only one little church and a cemetery. In general, the forests of Christmas tree were in right-left road.

Fort Douaumont
Fort Douaumont is not the same as classic fort. The fort classic has the big and high wall. It also has a guards’ post on every side. When we arrived at the fort, I saw the different fort construction. The fort Douaumont was almost the same as the hill. I think it was used as a war camouflage.
This fort is in karsts (Land is dominated by Calcaire corrosion). France built the fort because they lost all of theirs Alsace and part of the Lorraine’s region in the Franco-Prussian War (1870). They built 38 forts around the city of Verdun and Fort Douaumont is the largest of all forts. The fort had been built since 1885 and then, it was completed at the end of 1913. In the World War, the German soldiers and the France soldier took turn in conquering this fort. The fort’s surface covers about 3 hectares of the land, is 400 meters long. It has a lot of tunnels.
One of the rooms was modified as a receptionist room. In this room, the war memorabilia such as war photos, soldier uniform, and other things left from war dominated the entire room. The tourists can buy some souvenirs such as postcards or books in here.
After we paid the tickets, we began our adventure from the fort’s corridor or hallway that is six meters in height. This fort was made from the combination of stones, sand and other special concentrates. It was very cold inside. The fort’s wall looked humid too.
Some rooms were more special because they have special history, such as the cemetery of the seven infantrymen from France, or the German soldier’s cemetery. The languages notice boards were also written in French, German and English. The corridor and room had a good light. But in some rooms, such as the soldier’s bed room or the kitchen, there were hardly any light. But this specific condition actually left us the feeling of going back to the situation during the war times. During the world war, the source of the light was only the candle and oil lamps. The Germans soldiers brought the generator for their sources of electricity. Fort Douaumont was used as the way to the front by infantry soldier. The fort was actually designed to hold only 800 soldiers. However, during the war, it held about 3000-3500 soldiers.
This fort has some ground and underground floors that are connected by the stairs. The stone wall is very strong. In some wall, there were engravers. As a war monument, the fort had a lot of ancient war equipments like the mortars and also some photos of the Commander who lead this fort. The biggest gun within this for was called The Galopin Turret. It has 115 mm gun-turret (type 155 R). The other gun was the 75 mm gun-turret. (Turret = small tower where rotated gun or canon exist).
After we visited the inside of the fort, we went outside to see the top of the fort where we could see a very large area.
We were there for almost 4 hours. We continued to visit the other world war monuments. We visited the cemetery of the World War II’s victims near the fort. The cemetery is also equipped with museum.
On our way back to Verdun, we stopped at Memorial de Verdun. This building was used as world war museum. Unfortunately, since we arrive too late in the evening, the museum was already closed. From the brochure, however, it informed that this museum has the collections of ancient world war equipments. From outside the museum, there were mortars and also other world war machines. When I looked closely, the word “Verdun” on the wall of the museum is actually written as “Verdvn”. My friend explained that a long time ago, the letter “V” has the same function as the letter “U”. That is why, the word is written as “verdVn” instead of “verdUn”.
We reached Verdun city at night time. As soon as we arrived, we started to search to look for a place for dinner. We knew nothing about the restaurants in Verdun City. But, at the end, we chose to eat at the “Kebab” restaurant because the menu seemed to serve “Halal” foods for all of us. Kebab is a food from Turkey or North Africa that looks like sandwich. Usually, the bread is filled with meat slice, salad, union slice and sauce. Sometimes, it is eaten with fried potato…yam..yam.
After dinner, we went for a walk in Verdun city. We visited the Verdun church. I don’t know what type of architecture the church is. (Roman or Gothic?). Luckily for us to see there was an Accordion festival inside the church. It was my first time, I saw a lot of accordions that are from many different generations. I saw the accordion concert too. I was very surprise, because the accordion players consist of an old man, a young man and children.
Before we headed back to Nancy, my friend invited me to enter the bar. She said that we must try drinking the beer. She explained that during the World War, The German has taken over the Verdun City, so because of that reason, there was a German beer drinking tradition in this city. Since I didn’t drink alcohol, I only ordered a soft drink. My friends ordered German beers.
We ended our journey by drinking coffee. When we left Verdun, it was already later on at night. It was almost midnight when we arrived in Nancy. Everybody went straight back to their dormitories
I will never forget the visit to the world war monuments in that autumn. The visit gave me a lot of knowledge about why the world war is very important for the French citizens. This war especially has resulted in the loss of a lot of innocent lives. Therefore, we must create and keep the peace in this world. (Luth). Thanks to Arlene, David, Hicham and Adel