Students from Chauny, France and students from Auckland, New Zealand in a group photo at Vauclair Abby.
This Abby was a Cistercian abbey founded in 1134 by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. It managed to survive until the French Revolution in 1789, when it was finally demolished and sold as "national property". Its geographical location very near to the Chemin des Dames led to what was left of its buildings being almost totally destroyed in 1917 by direct artillery bombardment during the First World...
The village of Craonne is on the Californie plateau which was the site of bloody fighting on 16 April 1917 during Nivelle's failed 1917 Offensives. It was these disastrous offensives that pushed the French Army over the edge and led to the 1917 Mutiny. The village was immortalised in the song called La Chanson de Craonne (English: The Song of Craonne). This song was sung by the 68 divisions of French soldiers (out of 110 French Army divisions) who mutinied. The song was prohibited in France...
We visited the execution post in Pomeringe and then we went to the cemetery and found the graves of the soldiers who had been shot at dawn. This included a 17 year old Jamaican.
French students from Lycee Professionnel Jean Mace in Chauny, France and New Zealand students from Baradene College of the Sacred Heart in Auckland at the WW1 exhibition in the Imperial War Museum in London. The students looked at the exhibition together.
Students from Lycee Professionnel Jean Mace in Chauny and Baradene College of the Sacred Heart in Auckland, standing in front of the New Zealand War Memorial at Hyde Park Corner in London. A little wet from the rain but enjoying making friends on their first day together.
Today all of the students got to see the book. Everyone was excited to see the section they had written and to find thier name as an author at the back of the book. Our task today for the project was to post two copied to the National Library of New Zealand. This is called the "Legal Deposit" and is required under law in New Zealand when you get an ISBN number for the book. It means that two copies will be forever kept in the Bational Library for researchers to reference.
Another preview of our book. This time the pages show photos of Archibald Baxter and Mark Briggs (two conscientious objectors sent to the Western Front) and a great photo we sourced from Puke Ariki Museum of a NZ soldier on the duckboard at the front line. Briggs was dragged over this, the nails on it digging into his flesh and creating huge wounds. Baxter was marched to the front line in order to try to "break his will" to resist military service. In the end he got left there, and wandered...
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