Fleury: A Village That Died for France | History Traveler Episode 311
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- When a war comes, it doesn't just affect the combatants who are directly involved. It touches and destroys everything in it's path. Nowhere is this more evident than in a small place called Fleury, a village that died for France in the Battle of Verdun.
This episode was produced in partnership with The Gettysburg Museum of History. See how you can support history education & artifact preservation by visiting their website & store at www.gettysburg...
NOTE: At @12:41, I say some about the Bauernhof farm. What I didn't know in that moments that "bauernhof" means "farm" in German. My mistake.
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Dude, masterful work with these documentaries. This is stuff that should be on the history channel. Not that the history channel covers much history anymore.........
Appreciate that! Glad that you're enjoying it.
Agreed.
Obviously someone is in denial about the intervention of our benevolent alien overlords.
@@hatuletoh 🤣 no denial, have nothing against the alien overlords, I just like a bit of history on the History Channel instead of cryptids and aliens once and a while lol
Dudes and Dudettes... This IS the History channel!
My great uncle Captain Marcel Verzieux commanded his company of French Engineers at Fleury devant Douaumont. He was wounded, and awarded the Croix de Guerre for his defence of the village.
History such as this is not taught any more. It is so sad, the millions who died and the younger generation now don’t know anything about it. The only way we learn from our mistakes is looking back and seeing them. Your channel is so much appreciated.
Well, i live at the German French Border at Strassburg and i can Tell that it's Well known at both Sides and also part of the History Lessons in school. There are some more of These disapeared villages during WWI in the Vosges Region.
Unfortunately History ist repeating at other places ...
@@geroo3380So true. We are watching this history repeat.
I don't know where you live, but where I live, this war, in general, and some of its battles in particular, are taught in all of the schools.
My children between the age of 8 and 4 are being Educated on ww1 at school.
I first read about Fleury in a book published in 1964, the 50th Anniversary of WW1. The title was "Still Quiet On The Western Front" and the author visited many sites of the war including Fleury. He said the saddest and in a way most frightening marker he saw was one that said "Here was Fleury." It was hard to imagine a whole town blown to atoms.
"Still Quiet..." is a great read by the way, a good one to pick up if you ever see it in a used bookstore.
Wayne, thanks for the heads up.
@@la_old_salt2241 You're welcome! I found my copy in 1979 and haven't parted with it since.
I had the chance to make a visit to Verdun while stationed in Germany with the USAF. It never quite registers with you until you stand on that undulating ground the scale of the carnage and the hell that Verdun had to have been when you realize that it's all overlapping shell craters. Even seeing this it's still hard to imagine the experiences of the soldiers that fought here.
The before photos are eye opening. I'd envisioned Fluery as more of a quaint hamlet. It was, in fact, much more "modernized" than I had thought. Thank you, JD!
It was a small farming community, the pictures are largely Verdun but equally destroyed.
That was the city of Verdun
Merci ! Thank you so much for focusing on Verdun, my GD pa was sent there at 18, survived but came home traumatized and broken for the rest of his life...
My grandfather and his brother (Julien Porisse) were at Verdun. My grandfather was seriously injured and his brother was killed, right there where you were. Thanks for the informative video. Hopefully, UA-cam won’t discredit this post and let it stay…
Julien PORISSE
Mort pour la France le 30-10-1916 (Fleury-devant-Douaumont - à Thiaumont, 55 - Meuse, France)
Né(e) le/en 28-02-1896 à Roubaix (59 - Nord, France)
20 ans, 8 mois et 2 jours
Carrière
Gradesoldat de 2e classe
Unité102e régiment d'infanterie (102e RI)
Classe1916
Bureau de recrutementLille (59)
Matricule au recrutement2939
MentionMort pour la France
Lieu de transcription du décèsRoubaix (59 - Nord, France)
Mes condoléances pour votre famille. J'ai des grands oncles qui étaient dans le Verdun. Un est mort à la somme et l'autre est mort près d'Arras jusqu'à avant la fin de la guerre. Ils étaient Americans dans l'armée Canadian.
Very sensitive presentation, J.D. Thank you for pointing out the tragedy of war, not just for combatants, but non-combatants as well. Back in 1985 or so, I visited the American military cemetery at St. Mihiel (located SSE of Verdun) and traveled through the Verdun area. It was a gripping experience I'll never forget.
Tragic all around.
Processing so much footage on such short time and still keeping the value of the episode and history in. Damn good job 👏🏻
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Thanks for showing the fox. I like that you show the local fauna such as the groundhogs at Antietam.
To me, it means that no matter what war does to an area, nature will eventually come back and heal itself. That is something which cannot be destroyed.
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I saw this coming from previous episode :) Great stuff as always! As you walk at the Verdun battlefield you realize that distance between Fort Douaumont and Fleury is only under couple kilometers. It’s unbelieveable that it took so many months and enormous casualties for Germans to reach the pulverized village.
Crazy.
Once again JD, this is top class. I have followed your channel since you had less than 100k subs and the content you bring is in many cases better than History Channel and National Geographic. Well done sir.
Thank you! That means a lot.
@@TheHistoryUnderground give credit where credit is due, today everything has a political undertone, you give the unfiltered truth about history which is so badly needed in today's society. I said it a many times before but this channel deserves millions of subscribers.
JD, great use of old B&W film, old postcards and drone video. There was much respect in the tone of your narration, thanks. We need to make sure our younger people learn history like this, so it's not repeated, like now. America, and other countries, are now under attack from within and our "leaders" do nothing about it. Amazing how GREED among power hungry politicians can cause so much suffering. I'll get off my soapbox now and say thanks for another great watch and keeping history alive. I'm sure the people of Fleury will not be forgotten by the people of France.
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Wow! That fox was so cute! A stark contrast to the horror and devastation that was once there! Those shell holes? Incredible!!! I can’t imagine the ground caving in on those soldiers or trying to dig them out among continued shelling! Wow! Incredible! So glad you posted this!
I think we've all seen fields like that DURING the battles--when it was basically an area of "mud." We're seeing those fields after the mud has dried. And, like someone said above: Providing the "before" pics of that village are (my opinion) the powerful "add" that really drives home the point here. Show a bare area and say, "This is where a village once stood." That's one thing. Show that area when the village stood--THEN show it post-war. Incredible effect!
This is a very good and useful series that you are doing on WWI sites in France. That war seems to be fading in memory in many ways, which is unfortunate but probably inevitable. It is, however, important to understand that time period in order to understand events leading to our own times. Your series is helping us to that that.
The best episode! You are truly a master. Telling the stories that most people have never heard of. Bravo
I visited Fleury in 1974. While there, one of my companions found an intact Rosary lying on the surface of what was the main road through the town. It was absolutely beautiful. It must have been silver, and the wood beads were certainly ebony. No telling if it had lain there since the war of course, but it was a fantastic find. While there, I found a hole in the side of a small rise that turned out to be an entrance to the cellar of a house that no longer existed. This hole had dozens of spiders hanging on webs spun across the entire depth and width of the tunnel, which was maybe 15 feet long. They looked like Black Widows sans hourglasses. I was wearing a hooded garment, and was young, so I raised the hood, laced it tight, and crept all the way into the cellar. My hand on my heart truth, there was a table and chairs sitting upright in the center of the space. There were leather straps still hanging on one wall that I took to be tack, or harnesses for horses. On the table was a French Army canteen. There was even a religious icon of some sort hanging on another wall. It was incredible.
No sleep November has been epic already! Thanks for all of the hard work!
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I lived in a small village like this until I was 5. My old house is still standing.I can’t imagine it not ever being there me to visit. This is so sad. To go back and find everything you’ve ever known has been destroyed. This video touched me in so many ways. Thank you for an amazing but very sad video. 👍😢
Another top shelf video JD.
Thank you for doing WW1 videos. They are wonderful by bringing overdue attention to the importance of that war to where we are today.
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Well done. Walking that ground is always rather sobering.
Thank you for your sensibility,I live 40 km from this place and my ancestor fought on both side.You have done a great job.
*on both sides
The 1914-18 war was the first truly industrialised war. Artillery, machine guns and barbed wire changed the way war was for everyone, soldiers and civilians alike.
This video is a tiny example of the destruction, and is sympathetically filmed. Thank you. Verdun and the Somme, both in 1916, were complete horror battles.
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Your Verdun series has been sombre and thought provoking as well as fascinating. Thank you for covering aspects of history which are often forgotten about.
Gives a stark reality to the saying “gone, but not forgotten”. Incredible…
From you and dr. Mark Falton I have a Lott of stuff to learn from history thank you 🙏 sir !
Thanks 🙏 you for all your work and devote !
Marvelous job !
I experienced the same feeling of sadness while in the forests of Germany. This was in 1970 while in the US Army.We were in maneuvers and we passed through a village that had been bombed and destroyed with a few buildings still standing. There was nobody living there anymore and it was all quite.The fact that it was dusk made it all the more gloomy.I remember thinking about the people that had died there.
As a Brit I love your American civil war and war of independence videos. You tell not only the history but the personal story's of those who participated. I would love to see your take on the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane.
It’s very obvious your love of history by how you explain and teach through your videos. They’re so well done and interesting to watch. Your voice, the words you use, the music and editing is carefully considered. Thank you for posting these. The History Traveler is one of my favorite.
Thank you!
Awesome video, keep ‘em comin!
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ein super danke fur das super video bis zu nachste mal mach weiter so und die grussen.
I love this Verdun series I looked at the battlefield some years ago great history lesson 😊
There is a French village called Oradour near Limoges which was attacked by the Germans in WWII. It has been kept in its ruined state as a memorial to those who died there. Have you seen it?
I first learned of Oradour-sur-Glane through the opening and ending scenes of the 26 part TV series The World At War in the 70s, and it sent a chill right down my spine, and it still does.......
"Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours........"
Man, these get better and better, JD.
Thank you. That means a lot. Wish I had you there with me. I know that there was a lot that I missed.
It’s crazy to see these actual places. I learned about Verdun, among other WW1 battles throughout my school years. There is a vast difference with reading about these in text, then seeing them in person/video. Seeing the scope of these battlefields is absolutely bewildering.
I visited the Verdun battlefields in 1963 with a French family I was staying with. We also took in Fleurie - or rather saw the Town name on a small stone monument. Mme Joly said quite quietly, and without irony, "no more a place for people, only flowers" - in French, of course.
Most people will fortunately never know war . For people like me we will never not know it , it’s in us everyday. Not a single day goes by that I don’t think of the 9 years I spent in Iraq & Afghanistan. My brothers , sisters , friends and even my enemies . Be grateful for your freedoms, but never forget somebody suffered a toll for them .
Lol!
Please!
None of the pointless wars you mentioned had anything to do with the freedom of Americans.
Sadly for the soldiers involved (probably very tough and courageous guys, that's not the point), these wars did way more harm than good for America.
I can conceive than this might be hard for someone involved in these to admit, though (just like saying to a cop who spent his career fighting the "war on drugs" that he's completely wasted his time)...
The respect you show at these places is amazing. Somber music, if any, explanations, but not much more talking. One of the reasons I watch your videos.
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Really enjoyed it mate 👍⭐
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you.
This is heartbreaking.
The historical footage and photos are excellent
I never knew any of this about WW1. Thanks.
I literally had to pause the video and think for a while after the into, that is an angle of war the can be overlooked when war isn't on our side of the world.... great job with this Verdun series!
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How does this guy not have more sponsors and what not his channel is amazing he’s like the history teacher we all wished we had I’ve been watching for about two years now and thank you so much for not letting history be forgotten
JD keeps adding to my bucket list.. In fact it's no longer a bucket..It's a damn water tower.
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Great Video JD, Always learning from you! I can't even imagine what the towns people thought and the emotions they were going through coming back to that place. Wow! Your Filming, editing, music and use of vintage photos is awesome!
The picture of the french Adrian on the Lebel , has been used by Gun Jesus on a merch tee shirt, with the legend "Only dropped once" ,.
It moved me , cause he is the greatest defender of French military history.
You did an extremely respectful job, and let me tell you that we, froggies are very sensisle to your relentless work in France.
Excellent video and so emotive. Even under the rigours of war people were living their lives as best as they could only for it all the be destroyed possibly in an instant by industrialised carnage. So sad. Thank you for posting.
Your videos never cease to amaze me, reading history is one thing, seeing videos of the sites bring so much more meaning to the story.
JD this was a very good and thoughtful episode made with great respect. The one view I've held for decades is that the USA does not fully understand war. Not a single enemy bomb has fallen on an American town or city. No American soldier has ever left home wondering if indeed home will be there when he returns. Americans do not know what it is like to have a capable enemy threaten their cities and streets. The sheer luck of living on a continent that is almost impossible to attack has resulted in an overconfident military position. By showing this devastation on this town you have highlighted what the cost of war can actually look like. Great job!
Well Americans did know war in the 1860's. Pictures of Petersburg or Gettysburg show it wasn't much different in some ways than Battles 60 years later in WW1
Your opening is so powerful… have chills! Now to watch the rest.
Your work has gotten so much better since I first started watching. 😊 But it's always been good.
When I visited Fleury, it was on accident because you can walk from the museum right down to it. But it was haunting at how you can see pieces of metal and foundations of buildings with only markers or little pictures showing what it is. One of the most hauntingly beautiful places to ever visit.
I got a very small picture of how a returning villager must have felt when we returned to Joplin. We had moved away a year before the tornado, and came back to visit a couple years later. All the rubble was gone, but rebuilding had not been completed. It was really eerie driving around and seeing that so many of our landmarks were gone. The grocery store we had shopped at was a vacant lot. The Joplin tornado cut a big swath through the city, but it would have been so much worse for someone who had lived here to see that the ENTIRE TOWN had literally disappeared!
Always a good learning experience with your videos
I don't know, really, how to thank you for your work there... Merci beaucoup and well done for our beloved ones, fallen for our present ❤️🇫🇷
I visited Fleury a little over a year ago and it was quite impactful all on its own. I had never seen pictures from before though. Seeing those hits differently alltogether. Thanks for including those! (And you are correct- the depths of the shell craters don't translate all that well to video, but that doesn't mean it's not worth showing)
on *its own
Banging out content fr
We're maintaining a rather aggressive tempo right now :)
How incredibly sad. There has always been and will always be war until Eternity begins. We human beings really have a thing about control, don't we? A sweet little rural village in France that gave up its life because somebody needed to have that control. 😢 Thank you for this very sobering walk thru history, JD. Excellent video, as always!
Would love to have you come to Corregidor and to Old Manila JD... drive down through the Bataan Peninsula where the PhilAM forces held up the Japanese invasion armies... the destruction.. and the terrible exposure of not only troops but civilians to uncontrolled violence is just extraordinary!
I would love to get over there.
we have similar interest in history.. I love to live it... let me know if you could come over at some stage... would love you experience some of the Asian theatre one day... I rely on you and your travels for the European and Civil War experiences.!
@@TheHistoryUnderground
This WW1 content is fantastic. I’m dual American/Canadian citizen and for obvious reasons WW1 is much better remembered in Canada. We will soon be sporting plastic poppies in deference to John McCrae’s poem and remembrance of Nov.11.
Very sensitive and respectful video. Thank you for bringing these French experiences to English speaking audiences.
Perhaps you might consider returning to these battlefields woth Professor Mike Neiberg of the US Army War College? He's an acknowledged WWI French military expert and fluent French speaker. He could go back through the area with you and give you an expert military historian perspective with proper pronunciations and full context. Since Elizabeth Greenhalgh passed away in 2018, and with Bob Doughty's ('Pyrrhic Victory') semi-retirement, Professor Neiberg is the most prominent English speaking French WWI expert available. If you were able to make a series in conjunction with the US Army War College, it'd be a wonderful set of pedagogical videos.
This video really hit me emotionally. I had seen pictures of war devastation before but you usually think that eventually things are rebuilt and life moves on. With the wars being fought in the news every night it is so heart wrenching to think this is what may happen to the townspeople of today. Being a refugee is devastating enough but to think you will not have any home to go back to. Thank you JD for your in depth stories. 😢
I just commented the same on the previous video, (I wasn’t caught up yet lol) that it’s frustrating to see slow views roll in. These deserve a minimum of 500k views, the quality is fantastic and you’ve really honed your craft to these levels. If UA-cam won’t allow your videos to be pushed more, maybe a cable network could pick you up? You are the channel JD. Not the content. You could make a video showing the history of McDonald’s and walking around the busy drive thru and I would watch. Thanks for all you do, there will be a windfall someday soon that finally forces the algorithm to acknowledge you.
One golden way to look at it, all of these views are most likely loyal fans like myself. That’s 30k+ people that will always be here, now we just wait for the rest of the company. Flash!
Give us a break, "this video deserves more views" brigade!
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Fabulous effort.
Thanks!
Thanks JD for another great video.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Essential visit for Verdun and probably the most important IMHO. Nice opening walking from woods and intro
Thank you JD. This work is, in my opinion, the best content online.
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Annihilation! Thanks JD, and to Chris Mowery for recommending visiting this site. We have missed out her in the United States with experiencing Total War. Perhaps the closest we have come to this is the burning of Atlanta. At least there, the streets were still there after the embers cooled. This place was pulverized to gravel. The closest I have come to seeing this is the ghost lumber communities in northern Michigan, but that was an economic calamity. The community losses France experienced in 2 world wars is unimaginable.
This was great to watch and a lot more interesting than I thought it was going to be. It’s mad how something like this can happen. Can’t even begin to imagine what I must have been like for the residents coming back to something like this. Great video!
Got a lot more on this Verdun series. 🙂
I am in love with your work. I found your channel looking up videos of Jenkins Ferry (my home town area) and now I am hooked. Your voice reminds me of home. I recommend you to my teacher friends as you really get to the emotional parts of history, not just names and dates.
Thank you! I really do appreciate that.
Lovely done as always.
"Mort pour la France". Fleury epitomizes the loss that that phrase conjures. I was there five years ago, and JD's description of the feelings one has when visiting there matches my own.
Once again you show us the true cost of war.
Fascinating. I’ve read about this. thanks so much for bringing it into colour for me. Nice work
JD. The way you described that town / village was awesome , it sounded like a commercial for a war movie staring John Wayne ! Great video my friend. THANK YOU FRANK FROM MONTANA.....
This is just a heart wrenching story about common people losing their homes to the all familiar topic of war. History seems to repeat itself these days; doesn't it? :( On another note, these craters remind me of my personal tour of Vimy Ridge in the Pas-de-Calais region of northwestern France.
It is crazy to think it would still look like that over 100 years after the war ended. Can't wait to see your series on the Argonne Offense.
This series has been insightful, informative and incredibly well made. Props to yourself and all involved in these series
Well done JD. It breaks my heart.
Missed opportunity for a "Foxholes and Foxes" Episode 😄
This is a great series JD, I think each episode is better than the one before. I can't wait for the Memorial/Ossuaire episode, guessing that will be the climax of your Verdun series.
Great video as always!
Merci pour ce travail de mémoire sur une triste période.
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That was hard to watch. I can’t imagine what you were feeling as you walked through the long lost village.
It is almost unfathomable to think what man can do to one another. So sad.
Awful.
I've been in Verdun and its battlefields more than once. It's quite depressing. My first visit was when 3 yo. My father took me into fort Vaux, and immediately I got scared as hell, just by entering the lobby and seeing the grenades at display.
French writer George Blond, who wrote a book titled "Verdun", wrote: "when tourists visiting the battlefield today, even their loudest children become suddenly quiet...."
I‘ve been there some years ago - I didn‘t dare to talk to loud so nobody could identify me as a German… It was so impressive to see the craters and the signs of the entrences.
Thank god Germany has evolved and France has evolved and you are now friendly rivals in a larger world
Aloha! Great video, JD. Thank you for sharing your knowledge on our history, lest we forget!
All US history classes should be playing your videos. Keep up all your hard work, Bruddah.
Aloha, Mahalo and Much luv🤙
I absolutely love your videos mate.
Glad you like them!
As you said, very sad. The lives lost, the people having been moved elsewhere. Their daily lives obliterated. TY, JD.
Another amazing episode……your documentary and research skills continue to grow…you are already the benchmark! Thanks, Andrew
Excellent work JD. There was a remake of song sung by the Temptations about war. I forget the song title, but one of the lines goes like this, "War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing....." Loss in war is always tragic. Your video eloquently describes that town's tragedy.
Once again you've out done yourself jd. Outstanding video
Thanks 👍
I absolutely love your content j.d.! It's amazing what you do, while there may be other history focused channels on UA-cam, non of them are anywhere near as entertaining as yours are....I love this!
I remember as a kid in the 1970s my dad was in the Air Force and we lived in Germany. We took a trip to Verdun in Spring, think 1977. We stopped at the Ossuaire de Douaumont Monument and I remember looking in the windows and seeing the bone piles, freaked me out, I was 9.
Amazing as always. Always a great day when a video shows up. Makes my day.
12:40 Actually it’s the same word in 3 languages, so it‘s an „anonymous“ farm
Wow, we have never had to experience that kind of devastation!
JD, A masterful video and whetting my appetite for places to visit on my next visit to Verdum. Thank you.
Awesome!