Now it was time to head southwest to the Franco-German border to start my battlefield tour, the prime object of the trip. When I was studying GCE ‘O’ level history at school, I was blessed with a very good teacher who really knew how to bring the events to life, and the first part of the syllabus included the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. This war and its battles have fascinated me ever since, but it is difficult to really comprehend a battle unless you have visited the location and walked the ground. And as well as the benefits of being able to assess the ground with a soldier’s eye, it gives a lot of pleasure simply to be present at the places where the events, great and small, unfolded.
The war began on 19 July 1870. The French emperor Louis Napoleon (a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte), goaded by Bismarck, declared war on Prussia. On 2 August, French troops crossed the border into Saarbruecken, sweeping aside the thin Prussian defence. That, however, was to be the full extent of this vainglorious adventure; no further advance was made, and on 5 August General Frossard withdrew in the face of the advancing Prussian forces and arrayed his corps in defensive positions on the French side of the border.
Saarbruecken therefore seemed a good place to start the tour. On a day of bright sunshine, I drove through the glorious Eiffel region with its rolling hills, woods, vineyards and open fields. There are various reasons why I do not use a GPS device to guide me to my destination. Firstly, I like to exercise my own grey cells and keep up my map reading skills (including memorisation). Secondly, I don’t really trust the GPS to guide me to the right route. Thirdly, stops along the way to ask directions lead to contact with other human beings instead of with a machine. Finally, I don’t much mind getting a bit lost if I have the time, as this can take me to new and unexpected discoveries. And so it happened that I took a wrong turn and drove for about 30 miles along the slow roads instead of the motorway, which gave me the opportunity to relax and enjoy the scenery.
On arrival in Saarbruecken, I found a place to park and made contact with Loa, a Facebook friend who lives in the area. We have known each other via Facebook for just over 2 years and it was nice to finally meet face to face and spend some time talking together. Internet contact is no guarantee that you will get on well with a person in real life, but in this case the relationship was strengthened and we greatly enjoyed each other’s company as we drank coffee in the old town centre. Then it was time to retrieve the car – my 3 hours of free parking behind the station had run out – and look for a hotel.
This was the start of a frustrating adventure, the kind you laugh about later but don’t want to happen too often. Saarbruecken centre has a vicious and confusing one-way system and a distinctly limited number of parking spots. I drove around, inside the town and sometimes in nearby villages, for about two hours until I was rescued, back in the town centre, by a kindly German couple who drove ahead to guide me to Motel One on the Schillerplatz. (You have probably guessed it: they had GPS!) Motel One is quite good value for money and a handy place to stay, being in the heart of the city. The staff are also extremely pleasant and helpful. The only drawback was that this ‘motel’ didn’t have nearly enough parking for all its guests; I would have to park on the road outside, get up early and find somewhere else to park at 08.00 hours.
Tired, hungry and striving against an impending sense-of-humour failure, I dropped my luggage in my room and then found a decent restaurant just around the corner. After a steak and a couple of beers, consumed at an outside table in the warm evening air, things were feeling decidedly more positive as I browsed my ‘bible’, my key book on the battlefields.
Published in 1993 as part of Osprey’s Campaign Series, “Gravelotte-St-Privat 1870” contains details of that decisive battle and the preceding ones. As it includes battle maps, it was indispensable to my tour. A few photos of Saarbruecken by night would be a good idea, I decided, so I paid up and left… leaving my ‘bible’ behind at the restaurant. The omission wasn’t discovered until I was back at the motel, by which time the restaurant had closed. At this point, various options ran through my head, all yelling and shouting and vying for attention. ‘Crying’ made quite a good case for itself, closely followed by ‘manic laughter’ and ‘throwing things at the wall’. I thanked them and asked them to wait in the lobby while I interviewed the other candidates. In the end ‘rational thought’, though less flamboyant than the others, made a case that might actually get my book back. On the internet, I found a telephone number for the restaurant in question and left a message. Within 5 minutes, a gentleman returned my call to say that the book was safe and that I could collect it at 9.15 the next morning. It would mean feeding the parking meter for an hour or so in the morning, but that was a small price to pay. Relieved, I went to bed and fell asleep in no time.