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My Trip to Verdun (Patreon)

Published:
2025-01-11 19:59:48
Imported:
2026-06
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I wanted an excuse to travel outside of Paris and had read about Verdun making my World War 2 video. I learned that some of it was preserved and decided to bundle a visit there into a trip to eastern France. I filmed a bit of footage, enough to make something for you guys, but then was a bit stumped about what to say about it. I sat on it for a while until I realized my struggle in finding significance in it was probably not going to change, in a sense, but also gave me perspective on our times now, and that was perhaps the best takeaway I could ask for. Once I realized that, I sat down and produced this.

I started making these private videos planning on only spending a couple hours on each one, nothing that would really interrupt my schedule. I basically made a little documentary here that obviously was quite a bit more work, but I still didn't want to disrupt my schedule with it. I decided to always work on my main channel video when I felt I was able to, and reserved working on this for quieter times, usually at night for a couple hours here and there. It was actually a quite enjoyable process, and I'd definitely think about doing something like this again.

Hope you enjoy!

 - Ryan

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Comments

Tactical Bagels

The conclusion feels so wrong to view such a human tragedy so reductively, but the logic makes a very good point. This was an interesting and difficult video to grapple with. Thank you for making it.

rchapman
>>161018476

I actually tried to imbue the battle with as much significance as I thought it could take without feeling forced

Mark Bernkopf

A poignant video. Thank you. It's worth contemplating how wars, such as the First World War, erupt. In early 1962, President John F. Kennedy read Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August," about the miscalculations leading to the outbreak of the Great War. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, Kennedy recommended his civilian and military advisers read Tuchman's book, to appreciate that rigid military planning should take a backseat to diplomatic flexibility. During White House deliberations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy reportedly remarked: "I am not going to follow a course which will allow anyone to write a comparable book about this time [and call it] The Missiles of October."

Anders Puck Nielsen

Battles are a strange thing. People will fight and die in a particular place, and then, once the war is over, they are often free to travel back and forth across the previous frontline. In that sense, battles can seem at once to carry extreme importance while also being strangely pointless.

rchapman
>>161022850

Haha I mean I think it's safe to say that it would not be easy to casually find someone more keen than me on studying and finding meaning in how wars started, but yes absolutely. But even that analysis, understood precisely, only goes so far in time. Do we care how the 100 Years War started? How comparable are the conditions now to the ones leading up to WW1? It was intensely studied after it happened, but I think most feel we've learned the lessons from it and moved on. That will probably only be more true 500 years from now.

Mark Bernkopf
>>161022850

I suspect there's still much to be learned from how certain wars developed, such as the two World Wars — especially in an age of thermonuclear weapons. Thank you for all your insight, research, creativity, and even the small "artistic touches" (e.g., background music) for your videos.

Tanner Hagen

I get the sense of self-reflecting on one’s own mortality in this video. It’s interesting on an individual level we form our identity on our emotional milestones (handling a breakup, creating a friendship, ect.). Could the same be said of a nation? When we avoid or numb our emotions we lose a chance of developing said identity. Perhaps in the case of a nation to pay respect to our past we create a healthy means of not just honoring but to cope.

Tactical Bagels
>>161018476

And I think you did that very well. It’s part of what made the video so difficult to grapple with. Which I meant as a compliment, by the way. I appreciate a video that really challenges me to think about the content. Explore its logic. Explore its emotion. Contrast it with my own logic and emotion. It made me feel uncomfortable, but in a way like I’ve just done an exercise.

Elizabeth

Reflecting on the battle of Verdun gives us a great framework for reflecting on the (ongoing) battle of Bahkmut in Ukraine. There are a number of parallels - Russia's aggressive assault on the territorial integrity of Ukraine is similar to Germany's assault on France, and its justification. Bahkmut is similarly symbolic to both Russia and Ukraine, and the enormous loss of life is similar. Bahkmut is actually of no strategic value to either side, it has simply become a symbolic place that both sides have decided is going to be where they display their tenacity, their line in the sand. I think there will always be Verdun's, because men (it is nearly always men, rather than women) will always go to war, and there will always be symbolic locations that the two sides decide will be their lines in the sand. Does it matter? Well, humans always place great value on the territory they hold, and those that they want to hold - it is human nature, it seems. Plus, we will always have our lines in the sand. Plus, we human beings live in symbolic worlds, and our symbols are very often far more important to us than mere material stuff. Symbols are everything to us, they focus and articulate our values, and how we understand our place in the world. Should we remember these places? Yes, because they, themselves, are symbols of our violence, the reason for our violence, and the cost of that violence to ourselves and the natural world. Of course, over the long course of time they will be gradually forgotten, because many more symbolic places and times will take up our concern, which is natural and, I think, acceptable. I have read an awful lot of quite good commentary on the battle(s) for Bahkmut, but none of them, I think, have offered up Verdun as a model for understanding what is going on in Bahkmut, which is too bad, imo. The image of Verdun would capture for readers very easily what is going on and what is at issue at Bahkmut.

TheManWithoutQualities

Wow, this is not only good historical insight but also great film making !

rchapman
>>161026299

I think the battles of World War 2 would give a much stronger parallel there. We hadn't developed the concept of territorial integrity and the right to self-government, at least in not such a strong and clearly codified way that we have now, back when WW1 started. So the French didn't have such a clear concept of the right to those things, and would have (I think) potentially pressed into Germany had those concepts not codified by the end of the war (largely thanks to Woodrow Wilson). But WW1 did give a strong insight to the world, that especially strengthened after WW2, that certainly informs the situation in Ukraine today.

rchapman
>>161022850

I think the idea that there is more to be learned is kind of interesting, since so much effort has already (seemingly exhaustively, I think most of us think) been put into it. But I'd be interested to see that proven wrong. A fresh take on what there is to learn. And thanks! I see it as all connected, in a sense. The music, the visuals, the history, the theory. They all complement one another, and dropping one hurts the others.

Nicolas Salliou

As a French I can say that Verdun is still a very important place. Obviously, because its further away in time, it has less significance than WW2 and D-Day where my grands-parents were involved in. Verdun is also still active in French politics where extreme-right politician like Eric Zemmour are trying to rehabilitate Pétain who was the "hero of Verdun" and later collaborated with Nazi Germany, under the argument that he tried to save some French Jews. Ultimately, if you want a deeper perspective on ww1 I can strongly recognized the book "Sleepwalkers" by Christopher Clark. It made me realize that while France was the "winner", it went to war to protect a crime (the murder of Franz Ferdinand). A too often unknowm part of history, and a part that no French likes to hear ^^

rchapman
>>161033300

Well the French certainly have their own problems. It reminds me of how they've also somehow convinced themselves that the line in their national anthem about watering fields with 'impure blood' is actually referring to French blood, and not the blood of who they go to war with. With Verdun's significance, I wasn't questioning whether it existed or not in France. I was questioning the extent to which your average French person still cared about it.

Livio Accattatis

Hi Ryan Thank you for yet another poignant and thought provoking video. Just a question from my side: I noticed that in the video (and also in the YouTube version), there are quite a few moment of black screen, no video and voice-only moments, for example between 3:50 and 4:23 (about 33 seconds). I am not sure these are intentional, to lend a more dramatic and 'dark' tone to the narration, or a glitch in the film making. Glad if you could comment on that. Thank you.

rchapman
>>161071918

I planned on supplementing it with other footage, like b roll around Paris when talking about Paris, and filming myself talking back in a studio about it. But once I sat down to edit it, I decided that approach would overpower or take away from the Verdun footage. So I just used a black screen to make the Verdun footage pop more. I ended up using a lot more black screen than I originally thought I would, but I think it also helps you sit there and think about what I'm talking about.

Dan

Ryan, a instructive, beautifully illustrated, reflective commemoration of the past. Reflection is something we fail to do adequately in our phone filled lives, where we dream about tomorrow, but hardly consider yesterday. Verdun was over a century ago. For France that was an existential moment. But unless you were there at the time, or in the immediate aftermath, it is not necessarily of obvious significance, after all the good guys won the war in the end, so do the details matter? It does to you and me it would appear. We learn in school to begin with and then with the seeds obtained there grow our understanding. I suggest that not many Verdun seeds are spread in schools today. This video is a delight. Enjoy your time in Europe. Dont forget to visit the UK sometime.

Nicolas Salliou
>>161033300

In that sense you're probably right that the symbolic significance of Verdun is getting lost in most French minds

Niko Grivas

I would like to believe that in times of trouble between two nations and their people, they would look at Verdun and similar places and pause to ponder the despair and the devastation that an armed conflict could entail. In this sense, I don’t think people should care about Verdun in times of peace and prosperity, but only if the question arises whether something similar could take place again.

Paradigm Gauge

I think when it comes to decisive battles like this, it's the sentiment that often fades but its impact remains unnoticed. So while people in time shrug it off, the event steered history in some way. A battle is won, history goes in one direction, a battle is lost, it goes in another. In that history, that canvas of time on which culture and civilization grows, depends largely on these decisive events, whether we remember them or not.

Connie L Waddell

If you're in the US, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument on the Crow Agency in Montana is very well done. You hike trails overlooking the battlefield, with markers for both the Indian and cavalry soldiers, with placards on the trail explaining what happened in the many skirmishes as well as the names of the men who died on both sides at each location. The battle was June 25-26, which happens to be a good time to visit in that part of the country. Not something to rush through. Because it's jointly funded by the Federal government and Indian Tribal governments it's a very accurate representation of what happened. Years later I still think about it.

michelle4711

One of my paternal great grandfathers died on the Somme and his memorial is in Gordon Dump Cemetery, and I've recently been studying literature for my degree and reading some WW1 memoirs so it feels quite recent for me strangely. It's a little horrifying how quickly each new generation completely forgots the horrors that went before and rushes to repeat the same mistakes.

FRANK TODD

“We do not care arbitrarily about things…we need reasons” This statement grows more profound to me the more I think about it. On its face, there is much to agree with, and at the same time much to take issue with. The word that carries so much weight is “Reasons”. We could write books about how reasons are….developed.