This card, dated 1984, follows on from the theme of yesterday's post of Remembrance Day or Poppy Day because Compiègne, just north of Paris, was the scene of the signing of the armistice. To be more accurate, it was signed in a clearing in the Forest of Compiègne.
A place was needed well out of the public eye to ensure peace and quiet during negotiations. Here, deep in the Forest, there were two parallel tracks where the the two trains, one for the French led by Maréchal Foch, the other for the Germans, could stop for the length of time needed. After two days of negotiations, the signing took place on 11 November 1918.
The clearing in the Forest was eventually made into a memorial and the carriage used for the signing was placed in a museum there. In 1940, Hitler had the museum demolished, the site destroyed, and the carriage replaced on the spot where the WWI Armistice had been signed. The next day, France signed its own armistice in the same place in the same carriage.
The carriage was taken to Berlin and later destroyed. After the end of the Second World War, the site was restored and a replica of the carriage put back in place. There is now a small museum there where visitors can see the carriage and many of the original objects associated.
This is a post for Postcard Friday, which is hosted by Beth Niquette at The Best Hearts are Crunchy.
I enjoy cards with multiple looks at a single scene. Lovely card of an important place.
ReplyDeleteHow interesting! It appears the Nazi's didn't see the Armistice in the same light that everyone else did...nor see even the slightest value of the artifacts and locations of that time.
ReplyDeleteLooks so peaceful now. Guess Hitler thought by destroying it Germany would never surrender again, he was mad they surrendered the first time, well I suppose really he was mad full stop.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting and the card is beautiful!
ReplyDeleteWhat a historically important place...Hitler could not destroy that.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I enjoy knowing the history!
ReplyDeleteThank you all for visiting and leaving comments. From what I've read, I understand that Hitler was furious about the memorial to the first Armistice. It was very triumphalist and he took his revenge by destroying most of it and by humiliating the French using the same carriage.
ReplyDeleteI really like your attention to blogposting, and blogreading from others...:)
ReplyDelete