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| Quatre Bras Farm (Source) |
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| The Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach tells the officers of his brigade to stand their ground at Quatre-Bras. Jan Hoynck van Papendrecht (PD) |
As of November of last year, the site looked like this -
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| (Source) |
Because every place will eventually have history attached to it. Maybe not world famous history, but history nevertheless.
Still, it saddened me to hear (and now see) the loss of this historic site.
Some years ago, as I recall, the entire Waterloo battlefield was in danger of being sold off to a group of developers. From what I remember, a number of organizations in the United Kingdom rallied and raised money to prevent that from happening.
I wonder how the Belgians felt about that? I mean it's their land, their country, what right do the Brits have to interfere in what perhaps is a local decision.
Well, the British did shed blood on that field, and one could make an argument that without that bloodshed, an independent Belgium might not exist. The Anglo-Allied and Prussian armies paid for those fields, in blood.
Still and all, I like the idea of preserving history as much as possible. Future generations should remember those who went before and sometimes gave their lives for what they hoped would be a better future.
Some preservation is good, but I reckon it can go too far. Very little preservation is also a bad thing, witness the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill -
Hard to believe a battle was fought there, innit?
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| The Bunker Hill Monument (Source) |
Of course Boston itself has grown past its old limits, I doubt Paul Revere would even recognize the place.
Progress, it has its good points and its bad.
Still, I'm really sad that the farm at the crossroads of Quatre Bras is no more ...
Just like all the rest of history they try to erase. The Alamo site is much the same. Most people think the battle was there at the church not hundreds of yards away along the walls. that no longer stand.
ReplyDeleteBear Claw
Yup, a mistake letting that happen.
DeleteI wonder if the people who lived in the area knew (or cared) that a battle happened there 200 years ago and that it was important to folks who live thousands of miles away?
ReplyDeleteYou have the memory of actually seeing the building plus a photograph you can look at and share.
Time marches on and things change.
They do and tourism in the area brings in a lot of money. But, well, tourists. They bring lots of money to Little Rhody but it's nice once the season is over. Time does indeed march on.
DeleteRob, for Bunker Hill? No, they do not care because nobody habla Ingles there anymore. The monument is mostly a place to bring your pitbull to do #2, for the locals. I went for a boat ride and had a walk around George's Island when visiting my old home in MA this past fall. The work involved in getting there keeps it intact.
DeleteIt's sad.
DeleteHate to be cynical but money talks.
ReplyDeleteIt always has.
DeleteYou touch one of my pain points, Sarge. I detest the destruction of historical sites, even as I admit that if it is private land, the owner has the right to do what they will with it. Like with Waterloo, the answer for such things may very well be private purchases and maintenance or even government ownership (one of the few times where government involvement seems to work).
ReplyDeleteLast summer we visited the Battle of The Brandywine state park. Even though a great deal of the battlefield is still privately owned, there is enough of it left to get a sense of what it might have actually looked like.
Of course, it also depends on people being taught about why such sites are important.
There's a fine balance between preserving the past and working towards the future. While the field of Waterloo is relatively intact, and the major farms from that time are still farms, civilization is not far away. Now, as then, a major highway runs through the battlefield, crossing that can be problematic at times, not to mention dangerous!
DeleteCrusty Old TV Tech here. Familiar lament. It's truly sad to lose history, most definitely. Sometimes there are bits prserved, but if you want to see the area the Confederates used to successfully defend Shreveport in 1864 (Forts Humbug and Turnbull, and associated artillery batteries), they're under a VA hospital and National Guard armory on Stoner Hill.
ReplyDeleteAt least Texas did the right thing, and made the area of the Battle of San Jacinto a monument and State Historical Site. That battle basically created the Republic of Texas. Of course, it didn't hurt that at the time TX did that (1939), there was mostly nothing around the site. It IS Pasa-getdown-Dena after all.
And, from my days in Rome, NY, that state did at least put a monument and small "interpretive center" at the site of the Battle of Oriskany (1777). But, as with Bunker Hill, it is a little patch of land on what was a rather extensive battlefield, so unlike Gettysburg, it's kinda hard to stand there and visualize the combatant armies.
The NPS did better with Fort Stanwix. They bought up the land in the 1960's and reconstructed the fort and earthworks to their 1777 configuration. It's definitely worth a visit if you've not been there.
Fort Ticonderoga was also reconstructed, which is nice. Most of that area isn't too different from 200 years ago, the trees and the mountains remain, lot more roads though!
DeleteFort Ti is privately owned. They did a great job with amassing the artifacts, repairing/reconstructing the fort and doing living history programs. A similar outcome at Yorktown as well. Both well worth visiting.
DeleteBeen to Fort Ti, many times. Even remember the smell of the pencil factory when I was a kid.
DeleteI felt the same way when I visited the Alamo. And you're right about Boston, Dorchester Heights (where emplacing the guns from Ft. Ticonderoga forced the Brits to evacuate Boston) were leveled after the Civil War.
ReplyDeleteAs an historian, those kinds of things strike me to the quick. I understand progress, but damn!
DeleteIt is what it is. Shame that the building couldn't be saved or that the replacement building doesn't evoke the image of the original. But a building over 200 years old in war-torn Belgium, still mostly standing? With such history behind it? You'd think something would be done.
ReplyDeleteA group did try, but were ultimately unsuccessful. Nylon12 nailed it.
DeleteOn the other hand (there are 4 fingers and a thumb as Mrs. Andrew would say) there is some lack of space in a lot of places where famous battles were fought. What is historical and must be saved must also compete with "We can't save every damned thing."
ReplyDeleteThen there's the issue of maintaining old historical buildings. Do you save them using modern materials and just keep the feel or do you save them to a historically accurate level. There's whole wars being fought over the historic building designation here in the US of A as the requirements to refurbish and maintain designated historic buildings are insane, like restrictions on materials and processes that add expenses and often don't add value or maintainability. And who is fighting the designation? Often the owners of said buildings that others are fighting to designate.
Fine line between keeping everything and just developing everything.
My inner hoarder says keep everything, but I have a room of shame that needs to be unshamed that proves hoarding is a bad thing.
Historical societies can wind up like an HOA, filled with retired types with nothing to do but make rules and enforce them. It can go too far, maintain the look but don't bankrupt the owner, ya know?
DeleteFor fans of WWII in the Pacific, Kings and Generals channel on You Tube Is doing a week by week recounting of the war exactly 80 years later. They have active battle maps with showing all troop movements along with commentary. Except for Guadalcanal I haven't been as knowledgeable about the early ground war in the pacific as I should be. This is filling some holes.
ReplyDeleteI will have to check that out, thanks!
DeleteCrusty Old TV Tech again. I just noted a rather blaring modernistic note in the first image on this post. A 200+ year old historic structure, with a directional sign to the local Micky D's on it. Scandalous! Barbarians! Nekulturny!
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, whilst TDY to Belgium long ago, I did visit the very McDonald's in Waterloo pointed to by the sign. I might have driven by that very spot. Did it to say I have visited Micky D's in every country I visited. The fries in the "Cornet du Frites" with mayo were truly excellent compared to the US product, though the Florennes friterie's local product were much, much better. Apologies for the diversion, ah Belgian grub, good memories there.
Reminds of a story of The Missus Herself at the battlefield of Waterloo ordering "French" fries, in Belgium. An international crisis was narrowly averted.
DeleteHey Old AFSarge;
ReplyDeleteI get the same feeling when i was at the USS Yorktown, seeing the sad shape of the carrier a few years ago, knowing that the threat of "the breakers" was a possibility, and it was a bummer to see and that history wasn't so long ago. I know that you can't save all history because if you saved all history, there would be no room for the present and the future. Although seeing the USS Texas getting her hull repaired was heartening.
Yes, it's good to see Texas being repaired.
DeleteI'm fairly certain that in the UK a building of such historical importance would have been made a listed building, that is you can't do anything to it without official approval.
ReplyDeleteRetired
I'm still surprised that the attempt to save it didn't pan out.
Delete