The Fall of France, 1940, Explained

Marc Bloch, a French officer in WW2, wrote a book about the defeat of France. This book, titled "Strange Defeat" survived the war, although the officer did not. After the French surrender, he joined the resistance and was captured and killed by the Nazis a few weeks before France was liberated.

The Wikipedia entry for Marc Bloch has a link to a small Wikipedia article on the book "Strange Defeat". I found a much bigger entry for "Strange Defeat" on Wikipedia in French. I wrote a translation, which I have included below. (Disclaimer: Although I understand French well enough, I am not a translator, and for me this entry was a bit difficult to follow.)

A translation from Wikipedia "Etrange Defaite" or "Strange Defeat"

The analysis of the French Army by Marc Bloch starts at the bottom and goes to the top levels.

A Sclerotic Army

He denounces first the bureaucratic character of the army, attributing it to peacetime habits: in particular the "cult of beautiful stationery" [maybe "Desk Jockeys"?], and also the "fear of displeasing one with power, today or tomorrow.". These habits led to a dilution of responsibility between too great a number of hierarchies, as well as a delay in transmitting orders. He sees as a prime cause the the advanced age of the French Army's staff, little renewed, as opposed to a much younger German army.

This bureaucratic organization is also founded, according to him, in the training of the officers, which revolved around a cult of theory and tradition. The main source of this education is the "Ecole de Guerre", where Marc Bloch had refused enroll, which he pays for in not being allowed to be promoted past the rank of captain. Based on the experience of the First World War, the teaching of this school, in fact, advocated the superiority of infantry and artillery, as opposed to mechanized units (tanks and aircraft, among others), supposedly "too heavy to move". Similarly, education policy is based on theoretical rules of engagement, elegant and abstract, which do not pass the test of practice. This teaching is associated with a culture of secrecy, which slows the transmission of information, and a cult of command, in reaction to the questioning of authority that took place in 1916 and 1917.

The association between the bureaucracy and rigid training leads, on the field, to general disorder, with three captains who succeeded to his post in a few months, and especially serious shortcomings in the management of men and equipment. The soldiers are poorly housed and physically relocated regardless of their ability to move, wasting energy in marching forward and back again. Similarly, materials are in short supply, facing a well-equipped German army. The French army lacks in quantity, military budgets have been sunk in to the fortification of the east border (Maginot Line, among others), leaving open the north. It also lacks concentration, the tanks are scattered in many corps, which makes any concerted movement impossible. Soon this mess on the ground was found at all levels, with rotations too rapid for staff to have time to learn their duties, and a carelessness in upkeep of the premises and records, that in a bureaucratic context, completes the paralysis of the French army.

The incapacity of intelligence services [edit]

The army becomes exhausted, most often, not knowing where the enemy is, and Marc Bloch blamed the intelligence services. It is above all, he believes, due to poor organization. As a captain in charge of gasoline (supply of fuel and ammunition to troops), he will only receive low-level information bulletins, as important information was classified secret and communicated too high in the hierarchy. All information passes through excessively long reporting lines, and ends up being out of date by the time it comes to people who need it.

It becomes impossible to know how soon an order can be executed, which leads to other unforeseen delays in maneuvers, such as retirement of the armies of the Meuse and Sedan, which exposes the rear of the troops in Belgium. Faced with this situation, each corps and almost every officer, including himself, sets up its own intelligence operation, leading to a disastrous competition in services and the insufficient contact between the various levels of command, to the point that the officers often do not know where their own troops are.

The intelligence services have also seriously underestimated the scale and mobility of the German army, causing them each day to send the troops too late to the German advance. It highlights in particular a chronic inability to properly estimate the speed of movement and the number of German tanks and aircraft, by the French armed forces who are still obsessed by infantry and artillery. This inefficiency of information leads to great surprise in the French high command.

This concentration of information, on what was not the spearhead of the German Army, is the sign of a rigid and outdated strategic thinking from the French command. Rather than respond to the errors in estimation, the senior officers are continually surprised that "the Germans simply had advanced more quickly than what appeared to conform to the rule", the rule in question is based on the study Napoleonic campaigns and the previous war. Similarly, officers are often locked into basic plan that they knew to be obsolete, not having been trained to adapt to new situations. "In a word, because our leaders, amid many contradictions, argued, above all, to redo the war of 1915-1918. The Germans were doing the war of 1940."

This neglect naturally had a serious impact on the morale of the troops, beaten down both by a feeling of helplessness and fear, the enemy was never where they were expected by the army command. A man can better endure an expected danger, than the sudden threat of death at a bend in a supposedly secure road.

Command responsibility

"We have just suffered a tremendous defeat. Whose fault was it? The parliamentary system, the troops, the English, the fifth column", say our generals. Everyone, in short, but them. "

Marc Bloch's indictment against the French General Staff was particularly heavy. He first noted a crisis of authority. The big chiefs were reluctant to change collaborators, resulting in a "divorce" between command and those who carry out the orders. He noted especially the inconsistencies within the command, where leaders have a near-total impunity despite major deficiencies, while subordinates are harshly punished for little mistakes. This impunity leads to less accountable leaders who are able to dodge the necessary solutions, as long as they to buy into the thought patterns of the War College. Promotions based on age over competence, which makes it even more difficult because of the [high?] average age of officers. Coordination of command also disappears in turf wars between chiefs, and rivalries between multiple offices and between various army corps.

The Allies

Because of his position, Marc Bloch is often in communication with allied forces, and he draws a gloomy assessment. He first pointed out the difficulties with the soldiers and people.

Although professional soldiers, the British apparently have a disastrous "rape and pillage" behaviour. This reinforces among the peasant population, whom they despise, a latent historical Anglophobia. This feeling is again reinforced when one realizes that the British have turned tail and are fleeing first, and are jockeying to be evacuated, blowing up bridges to cover their retreat without worrying about the French troops remaining behind. "The British refused, naturally enough, to commit themselves to a disaster for which they felt they were not responsible." The British, meanwhile, judge the inadequacies of the French army harshly ("our prestige had outlived itself and they did not try to hide it from us"), and the French command in turn resorts to Anglophobe propaganda to hide its own failures.

On several occasions, as with the breakthrough to Arras, the British did not provide promised aid, seeing the faults of the French strategic plan. These failures led to an abandonment of collaboration between the staffs, a failure of the alliance. The armies were no longer coordinated by common authority following the encirclement of the GHQ (General Headquarters). Without effective linkages, or camaraderie, the French army remains ignorant of the weaknesses of the British army. In the United Kingdom, subsequently, the population welcomed the French, but for the authorities, a "a stiff bit of suspicion" remained.

Examination of Conscience by a Frenchman

Bloch does not attribute responsibility for the defeat solely to the army. He connects the shortcomings of the former with the unpreparedness and the myopia of the French people as a whole.

The State and the parties [edit]

His first target is the State and parties. He denounced "the absurdity of our propaganda, its irritating and rude optimism, his timidity, and above all, the impotence of our government to honestly define its war aims." The inertia and the softness of the ministers are stigmatized, and the abandonment of their responsibilities to technicians, recruited on the same corporate basis (Ecole Polytechnique and Sciences-Po, above). All these petty functionaries are advancing in seniority in a shared culture of contempt for the people, of whom they underestimate the resources.

Political parties are also stigmatized in their contradictions. Thus, the right-wing parties, who forget their Germanophobia, bow to defeat and to pose as defenders of democracy and tradition. Similarly, the left votes down the military budget and preaches pacifism, but calls for guns to Spain. Bloch accuses the unions of philistinism, obsessed by their own immediate interests to the detriment of their future or the interest of the country as a whole. Similarly, he condemned pacifism and internationalism as incompatible with the worship of the country, criticizing in particular their pacifist preaching that war is a matter of rich and powerful that the poor have no power to interfere (a Marxist interpretation of the conflict)

Workers and citizens [edit]

In the population as a whole, he denounces back to back, workers and bourgeois. He accused the former of seeking "to provide the least possible effort, in as short a time as possible for as much money as possible" in disregard of national interests, resulting in delays in war production.

Conversely, he accuses the bourgeoisie of selfishness, and blames them for not having informed the man of the streets and fields on the challenges of the country or even in providing a basic education (reading problem). It depicts a bourgeoisie living off investments, studying only for for their own pleasure and thinking only of having fun. He thus describes "the great misunderstanding of the French, who are facing a bourgeoisie whose investment income declines, threatened by the new social strata, forced to pay for themselves and finding that workers work less and less, and people are poorly educated, unable to understand the gravity of the situation. It highlights in particular the sharpness of a bourgeoisie which has never recovered from the Popular Front. Away from people, the bourgeois "unintentionally deviate from France as well."

In the more immediate level, Marc Bloch describes a people poorly prepared. Propaganda maintains a sense of security, although we have known since Guernica there is no more "sky without threat". Despite the image of Spain in ruins, "we had not said enough to make us afraid, and not enough so we would accept the inevitable new or renewed war."

The class of 1940 had hardly been prepared, and as we did not want war, we went with no zeal, with resignation. Bloch suggests instead that, faced with national peril, no one should have immunity, even women can fight the war. But the politics were to avoid the death and destruction of the previous war: "We thought it wiser to submit to anything rather than accept, again, this type of loss." In this context, the outflow is from a common cowardice, especially the lack of effort by the people to understand, who prefer to return to the rural life and refuse modernity.

Conclusion

Marc Bloch notes therefore a shared responsibility, which leads to a surrender, too quickly, of a war that may have been continued. Few people are blind, but one dares not speak up and denounce the deficiencies before they are revealed by the conflict and, therefore, no one dares to question conventional wisdom.

Picture: Hitler in Paris 1940.

A List of French Military Victories

It seems that in the last few years, many Americans cannot get enough of this joke: "List all the French military victories? Answer: There are None!" (or some variation of that.) This seems to have gotten started when the French refused to join Bush's war against Iraq.

It goes to show what a lack formal education in world history at the high school level can do to an entire country. Even university level world history in America is very one sided, if their view of Canadian history is any example.

Anyone with some understanding of Canadian history will know that this very topic comes up a lot in wartime in Canada, because our country is officially both French and English. Being an ex-history teacher, and half English and French myself, I feel that I can answer the question at least as well as most Americans.

List some of the more notable French Victories:

732 A.D.: Tours, the French hold off the Muslim invasion of Europe

If the French had not won that one, we all might be speaking Muslim today and this entire discussion would end here.

1066: French soldiers under William (the conqueror) invaded and conquered England. If Americans are not aware of this date, they should ask an English person for confirmation.

1427 Joan of Arc leads French armies in a series of military victories to save France.


1690 Battle of Quebec. This is the first major face off between the Americans and the French in the colonies. William Phips, Governor of the British Colony of Massachusetts, led an invasion against the Colony of New France (today Quebec). The French colonists won, despite the greater population of the American colonies.



1781 Two battles in one offensive: The Battle of Yorktown (American/French land siege) and the Battle of the Chesapeake (French naval victory) These two battles, one on land an one at sea set the stage for the British surrender in the American War of Independence, leading to the formation of the United States of America. Many Americans have decided that the French were of little or no help in these battles. Take a look at the casualties. Most were in the Battle of the Chesapeake, and I am guessing none of those were American.


France under Napoleon had a series of military victories in Europe. At the peak of their empire, they controlled more of Europe than Nazi Germany did in WW2, and similar to the Nazis, the French were defeated when they tried to conquer Russia in 1812. After the losses on the Russian front, a weakened French army was finally defeated.

French Victories during the Napoleonic wars:

1796 Battle of Lodi drove the Austrians from Italy

1805 Battle of Austerlitz, defeated a coalition of Russia and Austria

1806 Battle of Jena defeated Prussia (today Eastern Germany)

1809 Battle of Wagram French defeat Austrians


Now just for some balance, lets look at the historical French Defeats, as told by an American humour website.

Basically, as most of the arguments go, any French victory was either led by a foreigner, or a woman, or was too long ago, or they won a battle but lost the war, or had help from somebody else, and therefore doesn't count. Therefore, the French are cowards. Just a reminder, it is battles, not wars that are usually won or lost on bravery or fighting skill. The winning of wars also depends on depth of resources and strength of the economy, and geographic issues.

One of the most famous French defeats was the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The U.K. and their allies (most of what is Germany today) vs. France.

Even worse was France defeated by Nazi Germany in 1940. At the end of this battle, France was fighting alone against Nazi Germany. Their allies Belgium and Holland had surrendered. The Soviet Union had signed a peace deal with Hitler. The British had evacuated their troops back to England. America was neutral, or helping any side that could pay for it. Italy joined in on the side of the Germans following the British withdrawal. At the end of the war, Americans found out that it was tougher than they thought to beat the Germans. Most of the heavy work was actually done by the Soviet Union in forcing Germany to surrender.

By comparison to the defeat of France, the Russians did not surrender when the German Army invaded. However, in stopping the Germans, they had 800,000 soldiers killed and 3,000,000 injured. The Russians also had the advantage of a large territory to retreat into, and a long hard winter to slow down the Nazis.

A major recent French defeat was in Vietnam. The French asked the US for assistance, but instead the US decided they could do better and went at it alone after the French withdrew. Most people agree today that the US did not do any better than France in the Vietnam war.

Here, from an American writing on a Chinese website (I'm guessing, see for yourself on the link), is a quote

"But there are two things I hate more than I hate the French: ignorant fake war buffs and people who are ungrateful. And when an American mouths off about French military history, he's not just being ignorant, he's being ungrateful."

http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/bayonet_battles.htm#hatefrance


Further reading: French Army 1600-1900

http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/FRENCH_ARMY.htm

What Lessons Did We Learn From the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk?

While reading about World War 2, one of the puzzling things from a Canadian perspective, is the Nazi attack on Russia, while they had England and France down. Then, another puzzling development, the war against Russia, where the initial German advance was turned back after its defeat at Stalingrad. In the final analysis, it seems it was the USSR that beat Germany, judging from the number of German soldiers they killed. Although statistics vary, the Soviet Union probably accounted for more than 70% of German casualties.

As I was reading about this struggle between Germany and the USSR in WW2, I kept coming across references to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. If I ever heard about this treaty before, I promptly forgot about it. It only took effect for about a year, and was torn up when Germany lost WW1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was the peace treaty signed between Germany, and the Soviet Union. Basically, it was a complete surrender by the Communist Soviet Union, which at the time had just been formed after a civil war where the Czar was deposed.

In the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Germans (and their allies, including Turkey and Austria) demanded a huge amount of territory from Russia, including the Ukraine. The Soviet Union lost a quarter of its territory and people, and 90% of its coal mines.

The Russian delegation at the peace talks, in the face of such outrageous demands, broke off negotiations on February 10, 1918. The Germans renewed their military offensive, and in two weeks took most of Belarus, the Ukraine, and the Baltic countries. By March 3, 1918 a new treaty was signed, officially giving these territories their independence, but Germany began appointing aristocrats to new thrones in the newly independent countries, and began sending in troops to occupy these areas.

The quick victory of the Germans was a big disappointment to the Communists. At the time, they were quite idealistic. They believed that they represented a fresh new world-wide movement of freedom and equality for the common man. They had hoped that the workers of Germany would support them in their quest for peace and economic justice. However, the German workers did not rise up to disrupt the Kaiser's war machine. After this humiliating defeat, the Communist movement was taken over by far more cynical leaders, who had lost all their belief in the power of noble ideas, and from that time on the Communists in Russia were pretty much a power hungry dictatorship with a sugar coating of egalitarian idealism, reinforced with brainwashing and propaganda. If that failed, the Communist program continued with mass imprisonment or executions.

Following this lightning victory of the eastern front, and the final Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Germany moved to reinforce the western front against France, England, and now the USA, and had some initial success in this attempt. Their hope was now to go all out to win the war, but it was only a few months later, they ran out of steam and surrendered in November, ending the war, and at the same time ending the Treaty of Brest Litovsk.

At this point, much of the Russian Empire was either adrift or nominally independent. In this power vacuum, the Communists then began a war to regain their lost territory over the next few years, and they succeeded in annexing the Ukraine, which I guess would have been the biggest prize in the struggle. They also waged a bitter war against Poland.

How did the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk set up the Second World War? For one thing, the USSR had a lot of Russian Jews in its hierarchy, and so the idea that German Jews had betrayed their country took hold. Hitler believed this, and eventually Nazi propaganda convinced most of Germany. The second point is that Germany had, through a quick military victory, actually taken the Ukraine and most of Eastern Europe, so it was easy for the Germans to imagine that this territory could be retaken just as easily, and probably even belonged to them. For Germany and the Nazis, WW2 was all about punishing the Jews for WW1, and retaking the lost territory of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

On the west, the Germans never really had any illusions about permanently occupying England or France. If Britain and France had not interfered, the second world war would have been between Germany and the USSR alone.

Picture: From left: From Communist delegation Lipski, Trotsky, unknown person, Joffe from this web page.

How to Live Through A Bombing

I have never lived through a bombing in Canada like the one on 9/11 in New York. But I do know someone who lived through the World War 2 bombing in England, and she does not seem to be anywhere near as crazy as some right wing extremists in the USA. This person is my mother, and until recently I had not taken much interest in her experiences in WW2. So I asked her to fill me in on what happened the day they were bombed out of their house, and I thought I would put this in my blog, because it's kind interesting.

My mother, Joyce, was the second youngest of 7 children, and 15 years old at the time their house was hit by a bomb. Her family lived on Humberstone Road in Leicester, a city in the middle of England. The bomb did not make a direct hit, and they were in the basement, so nobody in the family was killed. But many other people were killed by the bombs that night and the next.

The main Leicester blitz was two nights, the 19 and 20th of November, 1940. This was a major offensive against this particular city. The rest of the war, bombing of Leicester was more scattered.

The night of November 19, the family was sitting around the table having supper, and her brother Ray had just returned from a day of work at a munitions factory. He was a bit late and started supper just as the rest were finishing up. Her older sister Kitty, who lived a few streets away, arrived, asking why they were not in the basement, as there was real air raid going on. They were not paying much attention as there had been a lot of false alarms so far during the war. Everybody quickly moved downstairs to the basement, and not long after, a series of three bombs struck the neighbourhood in a straight line pattern, one after the other. One of these bombs destroyed a factory behind their house, and sent brick rubble crashing into the room where they had been sitting just before they ran to the basement.

The next day, they discovered that the house was shaken badly enough to put all the windows and doors out of alignment, and to knock off the roof over the back bedrooms upstairs. The family would have to move, at least until the house could be repaired. The family had a guest staying with them. She was a friend named Mrs. Rodwell from Frisby on the Wreake. The morning after the house was bombed, Joyce was delegated to take Mrs. Rodwell to her son who also lived in Leicester. It should have been a 15 minute walk, but they kept coming across streets that were closed due to unexploded bombs, so the walk ended up taking over two hours. Mrs. Rodwell was elderly and it was about all she could do to get there.

No one was home when Joyce returned four hours later, and she then had to start off to find her older brother Jack's house amid all the rubble and people running around. This also took a few hours because of more closed streets.

Although several factories were largely destroyed, the biggest damage caused by an explosion (as opposed to fire), was a parachuted land mine that hit the building of Messrs. Steels and Busks Ltd. On St. Saviour's Road, the next night (the 20th). The factory made ladies corsets, which seems to not be mentioned in any of the historical records I saw. However I guess if you know the word busk means a part of a corset, then it's obvious.

In the days that followed, everyone found a longer term place to stay. Joyce, who was working at the time, was offered a room to share by a co-worker. The various other sisters and brothers moved off to live with relatives, while Veronica, the youngest, stayed with her parents. My grandparents owned a cottage with a garden plot just at the edge of the city where they grew vegetables. They would use it as a make-do shelter until they could buy something else. It had a sink, an outhouse, and a wood stove.

Everyone went back to work, but Kitty didn't like what she saw. Near her office was the burned skeleton of a night watchman still at his post. I personally find some of these stories kind of shocking, possibly stretching belief at times, but hey, it was a war and people really did die. Stranger things have happened.

It took a few months for my grandparents to find another place to live, during which time their damaged house was looted of rugs and curtains, and the water pipes burst.

By January, the family finally was able to buy a new home in the village of Kilby, it was the 300 year old pub called the "Dog and Gun". The day they moved in, Joyce showed up at the pub, looking forward to seeing all her family again, but met her mother in the middle of unpacking, who impatiently asked her if she couldn't have stayed a few more days in the city while she got the house/pub ready to live in. My mother said she was somewhat put off by the welcome, but it was understandable. The first night at the Dog and Gun, it snowed, and water leaked on to the bed she was sharing with Veronica. Some of her sisters hated living at the Dog and Gun, but Joyce did not mind, although it was a seven mile bicycle ride to Leicester. Her father did not have enough petrol ration coupons to drive to the city, so he sold the family car and bought a pony and trap in order to bring supplies to the pub, which they continued to run as a business.

It took two years to finally get the house repaired and moved back to Humberstone Road in Leicester, but the repairs were not good enough and finally the house was pulled down entirely.

Near the end of the war, my mother married a French Canadian soldier, and moved to Canada. Her father died a few years later. She is now the only living member of her family, and is 85 years old.

According to this website, surprisingly, the corset makers Steels and Busks are still in business in Leicester. The last time I was in Leicester, in 1989, I visited the "Ladies Underwear Museum", which I suppose I don't need to add was very interesting.


Picture 1: Back in 1939 when this picture was taken, both my uncles rode Rudge Ulster motorcycles, made in Coventry. The motorcycle on the right has my uncle Ray and my mother at 14 years old. This was just before the war started, and a year before they were bombed out. Alf, on the other motorcycle died of a brain tumor before the bombing. The picture is taken behind their house on Humberstone Road.

Picture 2: Taken from a book "Leicester Blitz Souvenir", shows Humberstone Road on Nov. 20th with the family's house outlined in a red pen. Click on the picture to zoom in.

Some first hand accounts of the Leicester Blitz:

http://www.wartimeleicestershire.com/pages/memoirs.htm
http://www.wartimeleicestershire.com/pages/memoir_files/48.htm
http://www.wartimeleicestershire.com/pages/memoir_files/43.htm
http://www.wartimeleicestershire.com/pages/memoir_files/35.htm (Steels and Busks Engineering Factory?)
http://www.wartimeleicestershire.com/pages/memoir_files/33.htm
http://www.wartimeleicestershire.com/pages/memoir_files/30.htm

Soul Eater Maka Albarn History

Maka's soul (left) and Soul's soul (right)

Maka was born around the same time Black Star was taken in to the DWMA, which was approximately thirteen years prior to the series's beginning. Her mother, Kami, was an esteemed Scythe Meister, and her father was Spirit, Kami's Weapon partner who became a Death Scythe under Kami's hand. Spirit often read books to her, which led to her love of reading and books at her present age. However, since she was small, Maka was constantly aware of Spirit cheating on her mother, which resulted in her dislike for her father and men in general. She can still remember all the instances in which Spirit had cheated on Kami. Kami divorced Spirit one month prior to the start of the series, and Maka vowed to make a Death Scythe like her mother, one that was even stronger than Spirit.
One day she met Soul playing the piano and the Demon Weapon played her a strange dark song on the instrument, stating that this song was what he was. Maka, however, liked his song and felt that he was an interesting person to get to know, also the first boy that she felt she could trust. The two agreed to become partners and have been a Weapon and Meister team since then.

Travelling to a Small Town in Ontario, Canada, in 1914

In the last year, Mary Ann and I have made efforts to discover our local area in day trips by car, motorcycle, walking or bicycling. Yesterday, we found one of those places that I would put near the top of the list. It's a place I pass by every time I go to Port Dover, or almost anywhere actually, called Doon Pioneer Village. I did visit the place about 30 years ago, and have not been back since then. In fact I used to enjoy visiting pioneer villages, and have seen several including Drummondville Quebec, Upper Canada Village, and Black Creek Pioneer Village in Ontario. 

But the occasion yesterday was much better than I remember, and possibly hard to match at any time. First of all, it was free for us yesterday. The new Waterloo Region museum will be opening soon on the site of the village, and this is actually quite a big museum, of the size you might normally only find in larger cities. So the museum held an open house for the Historical Society and their guests, and lo and behold it appears that Mary Ann got invited and that was extended to include me. Not only free admission, but free punch and snacks at the museum, and free access to the Pioneer Village.

At some point Mary Ann and her friend were talking shop, and I decided to go outside to check out the steam locomotive parked at the edge of the outdoor cafe patio. I am somewhat interested in trains, I guess part of my mechanical interest that also draws me to motorcycling. When I finished looking over the engine, I noticed a restored train station beside it. It looked like there was no one around, and the door to the main waiting room was unlocked so I decided to poke around. I went in and was looking at some of the posters on the wall when I was startled by a voice behind me asking "Would you like to purchase a ticket to somewhere?" I recovered enough to look around and found that there was actually a woman behind the ticket counter, dressed in an old fashioned costume. I said "Maybe, where does the train go?". Then she showed me a map of the Grand Trunk railway tracks in Canada in about 1914, and a similarly dated schedule of passenger services and fares. It seemed like I could probably get to Vancouver, British Columbia for about $5, which I had in my wallet, and this price was quite a bargain.

After we talked for a while about the history of the Grand Trunk railway, I made my way back to Mary Ann and told her the strange tale of this women trying to sell me a ticket on the train. According to Mary Ann it was nothing supernatural, it was merely one of the tour guides for the pioneer village. I said there is nobody in the village, I think it's closed today. So the three of us decided to go out and stroll about the village, and although we didn't see any other tourists, every building was fully staffed with costumed guides. All we needed to do was walk in to a building and talk to them. All three of us were interested in history so we had lots of questions. For example, I was asking about the unusual electric light bulbs in the general store. Apparently, they were supposed to look like they dated back to about 1914, which was about the time that this area first started getting electricity. I'm pretty sure they were not original pieces, as they were all working, and all turned on.

Another place we visited was "Peter McArthur House". He was apparently quite a famous writer for the Toronto Globe in 1914, and lived in this house near Appin, Ontario. The house was moved to Doon Pioneer Village some time ago. I never heard much of this Canadian writer, but I took a look at some of his work, and I like his style, which was a blend of Stephen Leacock-like humour and serious political commentary. He tried to promote farming as a way of life, and was an informal spokesman for the "back to the land" movement, at a time when farmers were heading for the cities in droves. Looking back from 2010, he was apparently not that successful in his quest to stem the tide.

I found a long article about him here.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3683/is_200704/ai_n19432203/

It was like a trip back to 1914, the target date set by the pioneer village. I'm not sure how much I would like visiting the village again with bus loads of schoolchildren around, but it is a place we will go back to see again, especially if we have some out of town visitors staying with us. Or maybe even some in-town friends or relatives (like my grandchildren maybe, except they keep saying they have already seen everything I take them to - they have been on many class trips).

Picture: The Stanley Steamer club photo, when they visited Doon Pioneer village in 1999.