On 4 September we slipped out of Consevoye and, with great anticipation, made our way 4.5 hours (24kms, 4 locks) to the iconic town of Verdun.

War and its effects, human and physical, are everywhere to be seen along this section of the Meuse.

We had formed a grim but clearly imagined view of our visit to Verdun. It’s a town that holds a very special place in every French heart, especially in this, the 100th anniversary of the gruesome but heroic scenes that unfolded in the First World War. Grim might be the wrong word yet, as we pulled alongside the stone quay in the city centre, we had already unconsciously adopted a solemn, reverential mood as we moored in a place that has seen more than its share of horrors.

The city itself has a sombre but not unattractive tone in its architecture, dominated by stone and serious-looking edifices along the canal/riverfront. This atmosphere was accentuated by the overcast conditions on our day of arrival, which lent added solemnity to our thoughts.

The name of the city is a latinised version of a word meaning ‘fort’, and it seems Verdun has always played a strategic role. In the 17th century a large citadel was built on the site of a former abbey, significantly strengthened in the 17th century by the famous French military engineer Vauban. The Prussians held the city briefly in 1792 and again in 1870, after which an extraordinary ring of 28 fortifications ringing the city was built.

These fortifications, or many of them, played a major role in the event Verdun is most famous for…. the Battle of Verdun between February and December 1916, the longest, costliest and nearly the most deadly in the entire First World War, possibly ever.

The day after our arrival we caught a hop-on-hop-off shuttle bus into the hills above Verdun to try to get close to the scenes of destruction that still evoke these horrors 100 year later.

A few statistics help to put the carnage into context. By 1916, WWI had become a war of attrition, and the Germans chose Verdun as a place where they hoped to wear down the French through massive destruction when national prestige could not permit retreat.There was no real aim to gain territory for strategic purposes; it was more about harvesting a killing field.

In an area not much greater than 20 square kilometres, both sides launched some 30 million rounds of heavy artillery in 6 months. One strategically identified hill absorbed so much bombardment, it was reduced in height by 27 metres. Seven villages were  destroyed, utterly and forever wiped from the landscape. Most deaths occurred through artillery bombardment, not through direct combat; bodies that had been buried were repeatedly uncovered and pulverised by fresh bombardments.

Both sides suffered some 1 million casualties, including perhaps 300,000 deaths, very many of whom were not recovered but could only be listed as missing. At times at the height of battle there were 10,000 or more deaths and injuries every day, for weeks.

We visited the Douamont Ossuary, site of one of the largest war cemeteries in France, with more than 16,000 graves. More gruesome still is the ossuary itself in the basement of the building, which you can glimpse through small windows, where the bones of at least 130,000 unidentified soldiers are interred. More are discovered and placed there even today, 100 years later, whenever roadworks or building excavation uncovers yet more bones in the killing fields of Verdun.

On a more direct level, we also visited one of the seven destroyed villages, Fleury-devant-Douamont, where today the sun-dappled groves of trees strive to camouflage the scene of total destruction suffered in battle. Fleury was desperately fought over, changing hands 16 times in little more than a month at the height of the battle. We wandered the pathways, reading the plaques which marked where once had stood a house, a bakery, a butcher’s shop, a small farm. Now all that remained were craters. And memories of people’s destroyed lives.

In the end, the Germans failed to destroy the French Army and its spirit at Verdun. Due to the policy of high rotation adopted by the French command, more than 70% of soldiers in the French Army in 1917 served there, embedding memories of their experiences in millions of French soldiers and millions more of their family members. Fundamentally, for the French, Verdun became the embodiment, the representative memory of WWI.

More positively, in recent years, Verdun has come to represent more than war and death. In the 1960s it started to become a symbol and place of Franco-German reconciliation, culminating in a moving visit in 1984 by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who stood hand in hand with Francois Mitterand in driving rain at Douamont to remember common sacrifice.And Verdun’s 18th-century Episcopal Palace has become the World Centre for Peace, Liberty and the Rights of Man, which focuses on peace and harmony generally but with a special emphasis on Franco-German relations.

I should mention here that while we were in Fleury and Douamont, many of the visitors we shared these places with were small groups of young Germans, each with a guide explaining places and events. Clearly, there is a desire to understand how such things came to pass and, I like to think, not just because so many tens of thousands of their relatives and countrymen are buried in these hills.

After an enjoyable three days in Charleville-Mézières, we left the city on 28 August, bound for Sedan and the limit of navigation of the Meuse River. South of Sedan the Meuse becomes a canal which follows the river bed but with many canalised sections.

We arrived in Sedan after 5.5 hours and the final 28 kms (6 locks) of the navigable river. To be honest, there is nothing especially remarkable about the city of Sedan, save the fortress Chateau de Sedan, which is reputedly the largest medieval castle in France, dating from the early 15th century with numerous additions and fortifications over the centuries. The chateau certainly is massive. It’s worth a couple of hours but frankly there is little else in the city to detain you for more than a day or two.

Rather ironically, for a town with such a massive fortress castle, is that it was the scene of not one but three humiliating military defeats for France in the space of 70 years. In 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War it saw the French Army beaten and Emperor Napoleon III taken captive along with 100,000 of his troops, leading to the Siege of Paris and the formation of the Third Republic and the Government of National Defence. In WWI the town was captured early and occcupied for four years, during which Crown Prince Wilhelm victoriously paraded his troops through the town to mark the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. Then in WWII a decisive battle in May 1940 resulted in swift victory for the Germans, the effective destruction of the French Army’s capacity and the quick advance of the Germans to the Channel… and the famous evacuation of the Allied forces at Dunkirk.

Poor old Sedan!

On 30 August we left Sedan and travelled along the Canal de la Meuse for 3 hours and 16 kms (2 locks) to the village of Mouzon. The main feature of this rather pretty village is the wonderful Abbatiale Notre-Dame de Mouzon, a church originally established by the Abbey of Mouzon in the 9th century, and which prospered on account of the relics it held of Saint Victor and Saint Anulf, which encouraged strong pilgrim traffic. It was enlarged in the 13th and 14th centuries and again in the 17th and 18th centuries and was saved from the destruction that befell much of the Abbey itself in the Revolution. Our visit to the church was curtailed by a funeral in progress but we nevertheless saw much that was impressive.

The other notable presence in Mouzon is a marvellous little restaurant, Les Échevins. This charming establishment is located in one of the 17th-century “Spanish houses” on Rue Charles de Gaulle. Run by Julie and Damien Hacquard with utter lack of pretension, the atmosphere is remarkable and the food really excellent, at great value.

The following day on 31 August we left Mouzon and travelled 25kms (3 locks, 4 hours) to the village of Stenay. What we found was challenging. The small port, which is in a narrow dead-end channel off the main canal, is quite well formed and equipped, but seemed utterly full and, though we were told there was possibly a spot further up, we were unwilling to risk it, so we rafted up outside another large boat close to the narrow entrance. It was of little consequence to us since we planned to leave the next morning; but the manoevring in and the reversing out were testing for a first-season skipper and crew.

On 1 September we slipped our ropes from our host boat,  reversed with maximum care and caution out of the side channel, and travelled on to Dun-sur-Meuse, an easy 2.5 hours (13kms, 3 locks) along the canal.

There’s not a lot to the small village of Dun-sur-Meuse and its 750 inhabitants. It has a pleasant well-formed pontoon-based halte plaisance and is not unattractive in its way. Its main attraction is the remarkable 14th-century Eglise de Dun-sur-Meuse high on a hill (Haut-Dun) overlooking the village and river, surrounded by walls of the original 11th-century citadel that enclose a cemetery and a collection of ancient houses, some of which have been renovated and clearly provide a superior quality of domicile. Sadly, much of the upper village was destroyed in WWI.

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We actually made two departures from Dun-sur Meuse, the first on 2 September which was aborted after two hours when there was a major lock malfunction, necessitating a return to Dun and a second departure the day following. So it was on 3 September we arrived in the village of Consevoye, 17kms, 5 locks and 3.5 hours up the canal.

The mooring at Consevoye turned out to be up a narrow and short side channel from the canal, at an acute angle, requiring a delicate reverse manouevre which we achieved – very slowly – like old hands.Which we were… this was now our 17th operational day in nearly a month of cruising!

Consenvoye is a village of less than 300 inhabitants, but is pretty and charming, despite its lack of shopping and infrastructure. In WWI it fell to the Germans early and was always behind the German lines. Its inhabitants were expelled and on their return four years later they found most of their homes had been destroyed.

For us, it was delightfully quiet, yet welcoming, and we enjoyed  a lovely, simple dinner at the auberge by the rivulet.

Not all was quiet in Consenvoye, however. Not long after we arrived, we heard the strains of a woman’s voice singing an aria, echoing across the canal. Was it coming from the silo/warehouse nearby? We couldn’t tell but it was captivating. After a while our curiosity demanded exploration, so we set off into the village to find the source of the magical sound. What we found was not a woman, but a small group of people in a courtyard, one of whom was operating a sound desk with pre-recorded music, the courtyard littered with what looked like props from a movie set.

We looked on, and finally gained the courage to ask what it was about. In fact, it was a rehearsal for an upcoming community performance, marking the anniversary of the sacking of the village by the Germans in WWI. They invited us back later that evening for a full dress rehearsal. So, after dinner at the auberge, we returned to the courtyard a little after 8.00pm to see what we might see. Alas, no performance, no dress rehearsal, because the cast were still doing what the French do best…. enjoying a communal feast! They toasted us and made us feel completely welcome in their happy crowd. It was a magical moment.