***Antonio Wednesday’s Wonders ***
The Verdun French Commemorative Medal.
Once again, I will be showing today another Commemorative Medal only this time, from the other side. A friend of mine sent it to me as present. Thank you Jordi for your friendship.
I have been very interested about this battle, this is why I have made many entries in this wonderful site about Verdun, mostly from the German Side and one about a French pilot:
The City of Verdun issued a non official wearable medal on the 20th of November 1916. It was given to all of the members of the French and allied armies, who served in this Front (St. Mihiel or Argonne included) between 1914 and 1918.
About the Medal itself, as you can see, it is a not wearable one (sometimes refered as a table one) and it comes with the whole lot, including a small document both in English and French. The medal was made in bronze, measuring 26 Mm and with a weight of 10 Gr. It was a vastly produced medal.
In the Front side, we can read the Verdun Moto for the French soldiers: “On ne passe pas”, which it comes to mean: “won’t get through”. And the reality is, that the Germans didn’t. Other Topic to be discussed is, did the Germans have the chance to achieve their plans. My answer is, definitely, YES, but it is too easy to do things, when you have read the “tomorrow’s Paper”.
At the back we can see the Porte Chaussée or Old Town Gate in Verdun.
“If you didn’t fight in Verdun, you haven’t seen the war”. Sentences like this have been often written in the books or listened in Podcasts, which at the same time, affirm, that they were said by the own French “Poilus”. And who know, they may have been right. It is also right to say that more thant 75% of the French troops active for fighting in 1916 were sent to Verdun in the famous “noria” or “wheel”. It consisted in a rotation of the troops in the Verdun Front, meaning that every few days, they were staying in one forward line, and then passed to a second line and so one. This was a big contrast if we compare it with the German Troops. Most of the times, the only way to be taken out of the line was, if the unit was in bits.
But his is one of the many other commemorative medals made for the French veterans of the battle of Verdun. I attach to the articles a couple of pictures, taken from the Auktionhaus Künker (see white background)
It is not a long article today, next time.
Sources:
de.frwiki.wiki
2 Fotos from Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co. KG.