Memorial du Linge - Alsace

 My wife's family hails from the Alsace region. We visited there back in 2015 and only just managed to return this year. As a speaker of both German and French, and as a lover of history I find this area especially interesting. For added context, my history learning journey through school led to me learning about the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic, then the rise of Nazism - ending just before the outbreak of WW2. That was my GCSE. In 6th form I ended up learning about the rise of Fascism in Italy; the failure of the rise of Fascism in Britain - Mosley and his failure; the birth of the KKK in America; and an even more in-depth look at the rise of Nazism. I had no choice in any of this, excepting for the part where I opted to learn History. Thus: my interest in the Alsace region comes from many places. 

This holiday I was given advice regarding various historical sites to visit in the area. One of them was the Memorial du Linge - a mountaintop set of well preserved WW1 trenches. At this point, this region was technically part of the new Germany. With the outbreak of war, the French pushed in and then they sat in a stalemate at this place for the rest of the war. Thus the trench system (German) is incredibly well fortified and well preserved. 

Here are a few snaps from the museum. A high recommend from me. The museum itself is open in the morning and then closed for 2 hours, then opens again in the afternoon. They play a film about the history on a cycle switching between French, German, English. The trench system is actually free to look at, which we hadn't realised at first until no-one came to kick us out once the museum closed for lunch. It was so big we are pretty sure we didn't see it all, and we were wondering around it for a good couple of hours.