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172 17 Pilgrim or tourist? in the years immediately following the First World War, the ground over which visitors journeyed still reflected unprecedented carnage and devastation previously unknown in warfare. David Lloyd describes one traveler’s testimony upon seeing the battlefield for the first time: “We could barely conceive how thoroughly the agents of death leveled the ground . . . leaving nothing emerging more than a foot or two above the surface except for a few former tree trunks bowled over sideways and shattered and splintered until they mimicked ghoulish stalagmites.”1 Human curiosity was piqued rather than deterred by the grim spectacle as tourists eagerly joined commercial tours to northern France that began as early as 1919. travel companies and guidebooks directed the inquisitive to shell craters, buildings in ruins, and countless ravaged towns. They enticed them with offers to “view the sites of woods, chateaux , villages and even a cemetery of which no vestiges exist, all blown away by shell fire!”2 Many of the more affluent Americans had, by the mid- to late 1920s, already traveled to the former war zone.3 some went overseas to view the reconstruction taking place there, while others had ulterior motives. Despite the War Department’s restrictions, it was not uncommon to hear of Americans who chose to sail to europe independent of the government, to locate and retrieve the bodies of their deceased. Years after the remains of the war dead had been returned to the United states and the number of visitors to the former war zone had greatly diminished , General Pershing publicly expressed his concern over the lack of national interest in the ABMC’s commemorative project.4 The American sector of the battlefield did not comprise the most attractive region of France, and even in the mid-1920s evidence of the war was disappearing rapidly. Consequently, it was feared that the new memorials would fail to attract tourists. With the help of architects, the commissioners therefore Pilgrim or Tourist? 173 decided to place the monuments on well-traveled paths “as nearly as was consistent with the military operations” and “of such outstanding significance that travellers would go out of their way to see them.”5 The ABMC’s concern prompted a resounding invitation to all Americans in the commission’s Guide to the American Battle Fields in Europe, published just in time for the American Legion pilgrimage in 1927: “No American who travels in europe should fail to visit them [cemeteries].”6 since cemeteries were easily located, the implication here is that tourists would not be inconvenienced in their efforts to pay their respects. Anxiety over the potential neglect of American graves was not completely unwarranted. Although it seems a rather indecorous aspiration, ABMC members were guileless in their efforts to ensure that visitors had “something” of beauty and magnificence to draw them to the graves of the war dead. if people could be lured to the site, members were optimistic that the memory of war’s hard-won victories and sacrifices would be kept fresh rather than lost to time. Pershing undoubtedly recalled the immediate postwar years when the number of visitors to the cemeteries was noticeably lower than anticipated , particularly in August 1920, when the American red Cross was forced to discontinue its bus service. The transport had been established in 1919 to carry relatives of American soldiers buried in France from adjacent railway stations to the cemeteries. one year later, the red Cross commissioner explained that when the service was first initiated, it was believed that a large number of relatives would wish to visit the cemeteries during 1920. However, those visitors taking advantage of this service was from the beginning “far below anticipation.”7 Practical considerations such as the high cost of overseas transportation in 1919 undoubtedly prevented many Americans from visiting France, still too disrupted for tourism to develop.8 Fuel shortages, poor roads, and lack of suitable overnight accommodation near the former American battle zones similarly discouraged all but the most determined travelers. in some instances, tourists near the verdun sector were seen sleeping in the streets before hotels could be built.9 Those who did venture to the battlefields and cemeteries by independent means would ordinarily have done so with the aid of a driver familiar with the terrain. Although figures fluctuated dramatically during these years, British trends seem to mirror those of American tourists, according to David Lloyd. He explains that, in 1919, British travelers who could afford [18.221.165...

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