By Steven Trout, University of Alabama
In May 2024, assisted by my compact rental car, a reliable translation app, and a copy of the American Battle Monuments Commission’s World War I Battlefield Companion, I visited most of the places in France described by Major Harry Dravo Parkin, the battalion commander whose memoir, Serpents of War: An American Officer’s Story of World War I Combat and Captivity, I coedited with Professor Ian Isherwood. It was an extraordinary experience. The specific trenches, dugouts, and cratered stretches of No Man’s Land that Parkin describes are mostly gone, but the French countryside remains, in many respects, unchanged since 1918.
The Journey
My journey began in Burgundy, far from the western front, where Parkin’s unit, the First Battalion of the 316th Infantry Regiment (part of the 79th “Cross of Lorraine” Division), trained for six weeks before playing a central role in the deadliest battle in American history—the Meuse-Argonne. During this period of proverbial calm before the storm, Parkin’s headquarters were in the sleepy village of Percey-le-Grande, which is, if anything, even sleepier today. No one stirred as I explored the hilltop community.
I was far more fascinated by the nearby medieval castle, known as the Commanderie de la Romagne (now a fine bed and breakfast), where I stayed during my time in this out-of-the-way corner of Burgundy. In the third chapter of his memoir, Parkin describes an unforgettable visit to a local castle that seems to correspond with the Commanderie. Here, together with his adjutant Daniel Keller (who was later killed in the Argonne), he received a tour of the small fortress from its owner, an elderly “Count” who was a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War.
But was I in the right castle? With characteristic thoroughness, Ian, my coeditor, had studied maps of the area and concluded that the Commanderie was the most likely candidate. However, my host, Xavier Quenot, whose family has resided in the thousand-year-old structure for more than two centuries, had his doubts. Some details in Parkin’s story didn’t match up.
The Commanderie de la Romagne
The Breakthrough
Then, on the second morning of my stay there came a breakthrough. Parkin describes seeing cauldrons of oil, left over from the Middle Ages, once used as part of the castle’s defenses—a rather implausible detail, if one stops to think about it. Xavier suddenly realized that what the major actually saw were vats of oil produced by his family in the early twentieth century for the treatment of horse and cattle hooves. Xavier then proceeded to show me the very cauldrons viewed by Parkin in 1918!
One of the cauldrons used by the Quenot family in the early 1900s to process animal liniment
At the same time, we concluded that many of the details in Parkin’s narrative that seemed off could be explained as the results of faulty translation. The major spoke no French, and he relied entirely upon his adjutant, who was supposedly fluent, throughout his afternoon in the castle. Thus, errors slipped into his account. For example, the “Count” (Xavier’s great-grandfather) was not an aristocrat at all. Nor was he a widower, as Parkin claims. In fact, his extremely aged mother had recently died, a detail that likely became garbled in translation. He did, however, serve in the Franco-Prussian War, as Parkin notes.
As for the two sons that the “Count” lost during the Great War, Xavier confirmed that his great-grandfather did, in fact, have two sons in the conflict, but only one was killed—Xavier’s great-uncle. Among the family memorabilia that my kind and increasingly excited host showed me was a framed photograph of this fallen soldier, complete with his Croix de Guerre and other medals. Parkin remembers seeing a similar photograph (or perhaps this very one) during his visit.
Xavier’s great uncle, Émile Quenot, killed on the western front in 1915
The Battlefield
After a brief stay in Langres, the walled fortress town in Burgundy where Parkin received additional officer training, I headed to the center of the Meuse-Argonne sector, where the 316th Infantry went “over the top” on September 26, 1918. Visualizing the movements of Parkin’s battalion across this massive battlefield wasn’t difficult thanks to the Montfaucon American Monument, a nearly two-hundred-foot-tall observation tower that conveniently stands on ground captured by the major’s division. Looking south from the tower, one can see the fields and scattered woods that Parkin’s regiment passed through while supporting the 313th Infantry. To the north, with the Bois de Cunel in the distance, lies the deadly countryside where the 316th fought once it moved to the point of the spear.
As seen from the top of the Montfaucon Monument, looking south: ground crossed by Parkin’s regiment as it advanced in support of the 313th Infantry
As seen from the top of the Montfaucon Monument, looking north: ground crossed by the 316th Infantry as it led the attack
Behind the monument stand the ruins of Montfaucon church, the center of a once picturesque village nearly leveled by artillery fire. Here, Parkin spent a miserable night sleeping atop rubble before leading his battalion into the killing fields to the north. Some of the men who died under his command are buried in the nearby Meuse-Argonne cemetery at Romagne-Sous-Montfaucon, the largest American military cemetery in Europe.
Church ruins at Montfaucon with the American memorial in the background
Traces of the Past
Signs of the 316th Infantry’s presence near Troyon, the area of the St. Mihiel sector where Parkin’s shattered unit was sent following its initial participation in the Meuse-Argonne battle, have long ago disappeared. However, the 79th Division is recognized along with every other unit that served in the region within the stunning St. Mihiel American Memorial. On the day I visited the memorial, I was surprised to see a number of French young men in American muscle cars—Dodge Chargers and Ford Mustangs—ascending the steep hill, apparently to pay their respects. As it turned out, however, they were there to use the memorial as a backdrop for their vehicles, which they photographed in an elaborate V-shaped formation.
The Mont Sec Memorial
At the St. Mihiel American Cemetery (here, too, are graves marked of men from the 316th Infantry), I had a more solemn experience. By closing time, I was the only visitor in the cemetery, and the docent, a young French woman, asked me if I would like to help her take down the pair of American flags flown outside the chapel. I said yes and was quite moved as we silently folded each flag into a perfect triangle, with nothing showing on the outside but stars and a blue background and placed it near the chapel’s altar.
Going Underground
In early November 1918, Parkin’s regiment reentered the inferno of the Meuse-Argonne, this time on the far eastern side of the battlefield, at Hill 378. But first the major spent a memorable night in the citadel, a vast underground fortress within the city of Verdun. Today, a small electric train takes tourists through the complex of tunnels. Each visitor wears an augmented-reality headset that reveals a group of computer-generated phantoms—three poilus who have been summoned from the frontline in order to attend a subterranean ceremony led by French President Raymond Poincaré. I expected this Disneyesque attraction, for which one must purchase tickets days in advance, to be completely ridiculous, but it proved surprisingly eerie and poignant.
A tunnel within the citadel at Verdun
No such ghosts haunt Hill 378, a gently sloping upland located miles from anything else that hosts a single memorial: an obelisk (created in defiance of the American Battle Monuments Commission’s prohibition on unit-specific monuments) dedicated to the memory of the 316th Infantry. On the afternoon of my visit, the only other reminder of past violence was a six-inch-long shell fragment, flecked with rust, laid at the base of the memorial like an offering.
Professor-on-the-Spot
I had a windy, hauntingly quiet spot to myself until a van full of Belgian tourists made its way up the dirt track. Their leader turned out to be a member of the Belgian army whose perverse idea of a vacation was nearly identical to mine. He was taking his friends on a pilgrimage to every war memorial in the area, and he wanted to know all about the 316th Infantry and its attack on this hill. I enjoyed a rare opportunity to be the professor-on-the-spot.
The 316th Infantry Memorial on Hill 378
A piece of battle at the base of the 316th Infantry Memorial
Since the French portion of Parkin’s war experience effectively ended on Hill 378—he was taken prisoner by the Germans on November 4, 1918—my expedition reached its conclusion here as well. After returning my rental car to the office in Verdun, I took the train to Paris, met my wife who had just arrived (so that we could enjoy two weeks of non-battlefield-related travel together), and rejoined the twenty-first century with a new appreciation of what Harry Dravo Parkin experienced over one hundred years ago.
