Lonely Planet India - August 2016

treading through worms and mud and living off
meagre portions of stew and bread until some fool
of a general living mentally in the last century would
give you the order to go over the top. Then you’d hope
you wouldn’t die in these awful tactics mown down
by a machine gun or artillery or even the new threat
of aerial bombing and pray that you’d get a toe blown
off which would be painful but would let you go
home. If you blew off anything else you’d go back to
the trenches screaming and hope you wouldn’t die
of gangrene blood loss rat bites or the new influenza
pandemic. Or you’d simply get worn down by the vast
amount of death around you and lose all will to fight
and be branded a coward by those same generals and
imprisoned or shot. It was clearly fun. If you want
to show your kids the evil of violence forget taking
away their toy guns; just show them this instead.
On a more cheerful note it’s also intriguing and
you learn a lot – for example that the first camouflage

used here was not military green but sky blue

designed to mask French soldiers against the skyline

when they went over the top. Or that Sikh soldiers

(and yes there were huge numbers of Indians) had

a problem because they couldn’t fit their gas masks

over their turbans and so were badly exposed

to the chemical weapons being used in the war.

It’s all certainly pretty cool.

Further on is Amiens which has seen fighting

in both world wars but has survived to hang on to

its immense cathedral its weird little clock-statue

like a woman crossed with a pincushion and its

lovely neighbourhood by the river the Quartier

St Leu which feels almost Dutch or Danish with

its colourful dolls’ house-type buildings. It’s a great

place at which to hang out and have a drink and

absorb what might have been a somewhat unsettling

day. But it could have been worse – at least you have

Chantilly cream to come back to.

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1. Crème Chantilly isn’t
   just for kids – get a spoon
   and get stuck in!


2. Amiens’s Quartier
   St Leu district is a fun place
   along the river with plenty
   of restaurants bars
   and good cheer


3. Displays at the Somme
   Museum – shells with
   ball-bearing shrapnel
   designed to kill or maim
   dozens of soliders at one go


4. Amiens Cathedral is huge
   with plenty of its own stories
   to tell especially if you look
   down at the floor


5. If war and religion isn’t your
   thing may we tempt you with
   a crock of moules (mussels)
   and some chips?
   PHOTOGRAPHS: MAHESH SAGARI (1 2 4) © HEMIS/ ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (3) © MICHAEL VENTURA/ ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (5) FACING PAGE: © HEMIS/ ALAMY STOCK PHOTO