Category: Miscellaneous

Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia, New Zealand and Tonga that broadly commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders “who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations” and “the contribution and suffering of all those who have served”. Observed on 25 April each year, Anzac Day was originally devised to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who served in the Gallipoli campaign, their first engagement in the First World War (1914–1918).

On this day I will hereby commemorate those Swedes who served in the Gallipoli Campaign, for the Australian Imperial Force, and New Zealand Expeditionary Force by telling their story.

Swedish-born soldiers on the front line.

In my research on Swedes who fought and fell on the Western Front in the Great War, I investigate the individuals and connect them to the different locations where they fought and fell, and where they are buried. As you can tell from the name of the project, the focus is Swedish-born soldiers who fell on the Western Front, but I also follow up those who fought on other fronts.

In this article, I will tell the story of some Swedish-born soldiers who fought and fell in the Gallipoli campaign. The focus will be on the individuals, not on the campaign itself. I am sure you can connect the details in this article with information about the campaign from other sources.

Swedes in the Australian Imperial Force

In my research, I currently have just above 600 Swedish-born soldiers, of whom about 60 are confirmed to have been born in Sweden and to have fought for the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). The first thing I think about when reading about these soldiers is what brought them to the other side of the world, only to later become soldiers in the Australian Army. One thing that stands out in the backgrounds of many of the Swedes who fought for the AIF is that they were sailors back home in Sweden. It is therefore easy to assume that they decided to stay in Australia when they passed through on their routes as they sailed around the world.

There were also many Swedes born in Australia to Swedish parents, and these second-generation Swedes also took part in the conflict as soldiers in the AIF. In this article, however, I will tell the stories of three men who were born in Sweden and later became naturalised Australians. I will also include the story of a Swedish officer from the Swedish Army who decided to join the French Foreign Legion. He was injured in fighting in the Dardanelles, but he is buried in France. The other three are buried in Turkey.

In the end of this article I will also mention other names of Swedish born soldiers who are believed to have fallen due to service at Gallipoli

437 Private Ernest Lindell

Ernest Lindell (Ernst) was born in Billeberga parish, near Helsingborg, Sweden, on 5 May 1882, and was raised by his parents: his mother, Elna Larsdotter, and his father, Olof Andersson Lindell. He had three siblings: Ivar, Gottfried, and Althea.

In the Swedish church records, it is noted that Ernest was absent between 1905 and 1915, and his date of death is also recorded. He died on 8 May 1915—one day after his 33rd birthday.

He was a sailor and belonged to the Helsingborg Naval Corps, but for some reason he left the corps in 1902, at the age of 20. There are no notes indicating whether Ernest completed his conscription period in Sweden. At the time, it was quite common for young Swedes to avoid conscription, and I see that pattern among many of the other Swedes in my research.

The naturalisation papers from Australia tell us that he arrived in Australia around 1904, at Fremantle near Perth in Western Australia, after travelling from South America. It appears that Ernest worked as a miner during his time in Australia.

Ernest completed his AIF attestation (registration) form on 20 September 1914.

He served with the 16^th Infantry Battalion. The papers do not tell us much about his circumstances in battle, but according to the unit diary, his unit took part in the raid on Gaba Tepe (the landing at ANZAC Cove) on 4 May 1915, which ended in failure. It is stated that he was wounded in the thigh by a bullet, and that he suffered a fractured finger in fighting during the days that followed, probably in the same area. He was transferred to H.M.H.S. “Gloucester Castle” and died of his wounds on 8 May 1915, on board the ship.

Ernest is commemorated on the Lone Pine Memorial in Turkey. He received the 1914–15 Star, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal, which were sent to his relatives in Sweden.

720 Private Frank Applequist

Frank Applequist (Frans Ludvig Appelqvist) was born in Landskrona parish, Sweden, on 14 July 1880, and was raised by his parents: his mother, Emelie Charlotta Karlsson, and his father, Ludvig Lindstedt Appelqvist. He had four siblings: Jenny Sofia, Carl Alfred, Augusta Mathilda, and Hulda Fredrika.

The Swedish church records note that Frank received permission from the King of Sweden to leave the country, as required by law at the time. It is also recorded that he left for Australia in 1908, after completing his conscription in Sweden in 1901, at the age of 21, with Norra Skånska Infantry Regiment. He belonged to the Landskrona Naval Corps but ended his service in 1898, and it may have been that experience that led him to a life at sea, which later became his profession.

The naturalisation papers from Australia state that he applied in 1913, having arrived from New Zealand in 1910, also at the port of Fremantle near Perth, Western Australia. He worked as a sleeper hewer and as a sailor before he enlisted in October 1914.

Frank enlisted in the AIF just a few days after Ernest, on 25 September 1914, and belonged to the same unit, the 16^th Infantry Battalion. The documents state that he was wounded on 28 April 1915, and the diary—which is very hard to read—indicates that the unit was around Gaba Tepe. He may have taken part in the First Battle of Krithia, which began on 28 April 1915, but it is impossible to confirm from the diary.

Frank was wounded in action, though the records do not specify how. After he died of his wounds, he was buried at Courtney’s and Steele’s Post Cemetery in Turkey. In his papers, he listed his mother, Emelie, as next of kin; at that time, she lived in Kristianstad, Sweden.

He received the 1914–15 Star, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal.

1350 Private Victor Grundstrom

Victor Grundstrom (Viktor Einar Adolf Grundström) was born in Söderhamn parish, Gävleborg county, Sweden, on 29 March 1883, and was raised by his mother. His father is unknown, and at the time this was a sensitive matter. He moved from Söderhamn and lived in Gräsmark, in the province of Värmland, when he left for Australia. From the very vague notes in the church records, I can see that he may not have had permission to leave the country, but there is also a large question mark beside the note, and he is listed among absent citizens.

On another page in the church records, there is a note stating that he fell in the war—in Egypt—and died in 1915. The notes are also very vague, but we know they are correct, and they link Victor Grundstrom in the church records to the military facts I have about him.

The first documents connecting him to Australia are his naturalisation application papers from 1911. He stated that he arrived from England in 1909 at the port of Fremantle, near Perth, Western Australia. He worked as an engine driver before he signed the AIF attestation (registration) form on 30 September 1914.

He enlisted in the 11^th Infantry Battalion, in the 2^nd Reinforcement, and the casualty papers state that he was killed in action on 19 May 1915.

The unit diary describes very difficult conditions. There are no dated entries between 15 and 20 May, only a narrative of activities: how the unit took over the trenches and how the enemy carried out raids during the night. There is also a note that the unit received reinforcements during this five-day period. The location Gaba Tepe is also mentioned in entries around 9 May.

Victor is buried in Lone Pine Cemetery in Turkey.

These three soldiers participated in the fighting at Gallipoli between February 1915 and January 1916, and they seem to have been involved in actions around Gaba Tepe on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

In addition to the soldiers mentioned above, I will also give a short account of a Swedish officer who fought in the Dardanelles with the French Foreign Legion.

French Foreign Legion at Gallipoli – The story of the Swede – 12284 Private First Class Pascal Bergman

Pascal Bergman (Paul Pascal Bergman) was born in a Stockholm parish, in a unit called the Finnish Department, but as far as I can see in the church records, his parents and family had no connection to Finland. He was raised by his parents: his mother, Hilda Thingvall, and his father, Paul David Bergman. He had nine siblings: Henrik Johan, David Fredrik, Henrika Paulina, Emanuel Frans, Elisabet Gilberta Sofia, Davida Henrika Ingrid, Carl Stephan, and Sally Johanna Teresia.

In the church records, Pascal is described as an officer. In the Swedish Armed Forces photo collection, he holds the rank of lieutenant. He served with Älvsborgs Regiment in western Sweden, but there is very little information about when he left Sweden, or why he left the army and joined the Foreign Legion.

In digitised newspapers from 1916, I found information stating that he left the Swedish Army in 1911 and, in the autumn of the same year, joined the French Foreign Legion. He quickly stood out for his determination in difficult situations, and he appears to have had a clear path ahead of him for professional success and promotion.

He did not tell anyone what he was doing or where he was; he kept many things to himself.

He served with the 1^st Régiment de marche d’Afrique and held the rank of 1^re classe, which indicates that he had served at least ten months in the Legion.

The newspaper article also mentions that he wrote home to inform his relatives that he had a “minor” injury and that, for the moment, he was in Nizza (Nice), France. From the letter, his relatives understood that he was probably slightly wounded in battle, but he also wrote that he was quite sure he would return to the front again—without mentioning which front.

The article states that he died from wounds received in the Dardanelles, and it is possible that he took part in the fighting at Gallipoli. Some units from the French Foreign Legion went ashore at “Beach S” in Morto Bay, east of Sedd el Bahr, on 28 April 1915.

However, the form from his unit states that he died of “maladie” (illness) on 21 November 1915 in Toulon, France. He is buried in Toulon area, at the Lagoubran Cemetery.

It was—and still is—quite common for Swedes to join the French Foreign Legion, and many stories remain untold. Even today, Sweden and France cooperate closely in special operations, around the world.

Swedes in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force

In my database I today have three Swedish born soldiers who fought and fell in the Great War when they served in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF). However, there were more Swedish born soldiers who served and survived their time within the NZEF. There are data within documents in archives that states that they experienced service at Gallipoli, survived, and later went over to the Western Front to continue their service. One of the Swedes who I believe fought in Gallipoli, was Gustaf Stowe (Stone) with the former Swedish surname of Lagerlöf.

It is mentioned on his photo below that he was serving at Gallipoli. I will continue to research other Swedish born soldiers to try to find more facts about their service and may find data which points at that they served at Gallipoli.

Observation

One observation I make when examining the documents for each soldier in my research is that Swedes who became soldiers and fought for Australia or New Zealand often came from a shipping or naval background. If you read their health declarations, tattoos are very often mentioned, which fits the general image many of us have of sailors. In the case of Grundström, however, it is interesting that no tattoo is mentioned. That is very unusual.

Sadly, I also often find information in these documents indicating that some individuals had a poor attitude towards their superior officers, which often led to situations in which they were punished—either with prison or financially. I see a small pattern that those who joined the New Zealand forces often had a rougher background than those who joined the AIF, but these observations are my own and are not based on any empirical study.

It would be interesting to find out whether their backgrounds as sailors affected them on the battlefield, compared with other soldiers without that background. Did they act differently—in a positive or negative way?

Based on the information about Paul Bergman, the Swedish officer who joined the French Foreign Legion, it is easy to think that he wanted his battlefield experience to sound more dramatic than it may have been. In a newspaper article, I read that he seldom told his relatives about life in the Legion, and that he wrote about the minor injury he had received. The French documents state that the cause of death was illness or infection, and that he sadly died from it. Perhaps he thought the truth might affect how others viewed him if he told them?

We will never know whether it was like that, but it is interesting, because similar patterns can also be seen in modern military life today.

In the future, my intention is to continue to provide more information about the role Swedish-born soldiers played in the Great War (1914–1918), but that is another story.

They will also be remembered

• Erik Gustaf Alfred Blomqvist Bloom – January, 23rd, 1887 Kungsholmen, Stockholm – 2nd Battalion AIF, B Company – DOW August 9th, 1915 at Lemnos. Buried Portiance Military Cemetery, Greece.
• Gustaf Alfred Lauritz Lowe (Löwe) – October 13th, 1877, Carl Johan, Gothenburg, – 2/R Fusiliers, AIF – Death presumed July 26th, 1915 – commemorated at Helles Memorial, Turkey.
• Carl Johan Engelbrekt Miller (Möller) – November 10th, 1883 Haga, Gothenburg – 2nd Battalion, AIF – DOW June 10th, 1915 – Buried Alexandria (Chatby) Military Cemetery, Alexandria, Egypt.
• Oscar Alexius Hansson – October 22nd, 1885, Onsala, Halland – 13th Battalion, AIF (M.E.F) – Wounded on Gallipoli Peninsula, May 29th, 1915 – Transported home to Australia, via England. Died February 18th, 1974. Engadine, NSW. Australia.
• John Erikson (Eriksson) – March 7th, 1872, Färlöv, Skåne – 7th Battalion, 4/R, AIF – Wounded at Lone Pine, Gallipoli, August 9th, 1915, DOW Alexandria, August 13th, 1915 – Buried Alexandria (Chatby) Military Cemetery, Alexandria, Egypt.
• Frans August Welsh (Sjöström) – November 19, 1871, Västra Vingåker – 15th Battalion, AIF – Killed in Action, Gallipoli, August 7, 1915 – Commemorated at Lone Pine Memorial, Turkey.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. 
At the going down of the sun and in the morning 
We will remember them.

Lest We Forget.

(Article head photo: Imperial War Museum – Gallipoli, 1915)

Sometimes you will experience situations within your Great War research, that are a bit above your expectations. This is my small story about the first impression of the opportunity to take part of discovered documents from soldiers and their families, from the early period of the Great War.

My colleague at work asked me if I wanted to examine a box with some documents that relatives to his British born wife had found the garden shed from the family home in Dovercourt, Harwich, England. It turned out to be a very interesting box.

The main character in this story is Mrs Bowick was the Grandmother of my colleague’s wife. Mrs Bowick lived in the area of Dovercourt, west of the town of Harwich on the east coast of England. By reading the cards from the soldiers, to Mrs Bowick, I can understand that she sent a lot of gifts to the soldiers on front, but also kept contact with some of the soldiers families. The Bowick family themselves also has connections to the Great War, as I found the British War Medal of Benjamin John Bowick, Mrs Bowick’s husband, who seems to have been connected to the Mercantile Marine.

Below the medal of Benjamin John Bowick, that I found in the box.

I have now sorted the documents found in the box, and there are mixed letters and notes, some of them from the year 1801 and 1837, but most of them from the period of 1914-1916. An amazing piece of history, but also hard to transcribe, due to the style of the handwriting, but also due to the fading text.

There is a lot of information to read in the cards and letters, but I will try to make a short summary, and in the future try to develop the context written by the soldiers and their families.

The Bright family

The very interesting, faded photo of the children in the post title, is from the, as I understand, the Bright family. It is so nice to see the names of the children on the back of the card, and the text which is written by their mother, but also the wife to Mr Bright. I wonder what the family do today? In my opinion a very nice and interesting piece of history.

Most of the letters between the Bowick family and the Bright family are written by the wife of G W Bright, who, which I believe, served on the H.M.S Thames, in 1915. H.M.S. Thames was completed in 1888 as one of four second class protected cruisers and served in the war as a submarine depot ship. At the moment I haven’t been able to find out who Mr G W Bright was, but I will try to ask some of my UK friends. All I know is that he served in the Royal Naval Barracks in Chatham, which is mentioned in the letter further down below. If you know more, do not hesitate to take contact with me.

As I understand the family lived on 46 South Grove, Highgate, in London. Below some snippets from the one of the letters between Mrs Bowick and the Bright family.

The soldiers who didn’t make it

Among the quite many cards from the soldiers to Mrs Bowick, I found cards from soldiers which I could confirm through different archives, did not survived the war.

For me it is very sad to read words from a soldier, who served in the Great War, who was in some moments very happy when he received the gifts from the Bowick family, but later on paid the highest price, to fall in the war.

8150 Pte Thomas Henry Brewin

It took awhile before I could decipher the surname in the card which I later found out was written by the soldier in the British Expeditionary Force, Pvt Brewin. I can see him in front of me, when he received the package, which contained some tobacco.

Pte Brewin served in the 1st Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment, when he was killed in action on May 23rd, 1915. He may have been one of the four ORs who, according to the unit war diary, who was killed on the specific day.

Pte Brewin is today buried at the Spoilbank Cemetery, west of the Bluff area, south west of Ypres in Belgium. On my small tour in May this year, my colleague who lent me the box with all these documents, will join me. We will bring the card with us when we, among other sites, will visit Pvt Brewin’s final resting place.

Acting Sgt 9668 Edward Ernest Paddick

I was able to find Edward through his service number, when searching through different archives. It is a very special feeling to see the text on the card, now knowing that that he sadly is missing in action after been serving in the Gloucestershire Regiment on the Western Front during the war.

On the card he only stated that he belonged to “D Company” in the Regiment, but according to some documents I understand that he served in the 8th Service Battalion. He wrote the card in December 1914, which was quite early in the war.

Pte Paddick also wrote some small letters to the Bowick family.

When looking in the war diary of the 8th Service Battalion in Gloucestershire Regiment, I can see that they were on the Front line on the stated date of his death, September 6th, 1918.

Today Edward Ernest Paddick can be found on the Loos Memorial at Dud Corner Cemetery in France.

More soldiers

Below you will find documents from other soldiers I found in the collections of Mrs Bowick. At the moment I am still looking up information about these soldiers but I will give you some information to look through, as you may know more about them.

Pte William Patrick Tierney

Quite a lot of documents is from the soldier W Tierney. It took quite a while until I managed to decipher the handwriting from his letters and cards, but I think I have managed to find the correct individual.

He belonged to the 1st Lincolnshire Regiment, the same regiment as Pte Brewin. Pte Tierney has written both cards and some small letters to the Bowick family. He mentioned how he struggled with his transport equipment to support the soldiers in the front, and is a really nice snippet from the period in the beginning of February of 1915.

Below you can see some documents from the collection.

Spr Frank Albert Piff

Frank belonged to the 1st Gloucestershire Regiment, the same regiment as Pte Paddick. Frank wrote a card to the Bowick family, but I have also managed to find other related documents of Sapper Piff.

Pte Harry Prosser

Harry Prosser seems to have served in North Somerset Yeomanry Dragoons. He wrote a small letter to Mrs Bowick in which he signed as Corporal No 718 Harry Prosser, C Squadron, North Somerset Yeomanry, BEF. The small letter is dated February 14th, 1915.

I have at this moment found some other documents connected to Harry.

Rifleman Harry Lee

It has been quite hard to find information about, who I assume is, Harry Lee. He wrote that his service number was 2236, but so far I haven’t been able to find any more information which will lead to that I can confirm that the individual who wrote the small letter, is the soldier of Harry Lee. If you know more about this soldier it would be great to be informed.

Below some snippets of the letter.

In the end of this small post I will give you some snippets of cards from two soldiers who I will continue to research.

Below you will find the card from W Evans, who wrote a card when he was a Prisoner of War in the german POW Camp of Hameln Weser in Germany. As I understand this could be interesting information to the site of wartimememoriesproject.com which seems to not having this name on the list, even if I understand they have a quite large backlog to take care of when it comes to information sent in from others. I will try to send this information to them and then we will know if this will be new to them or not.

I only have one card from the soldier, which I think had the surname of Sims. He seems to have been a Corporal in the 1st Rifle Brigade, but it is hard to read his initial letter of his name. If someone know more about who this Sims can be, among quite many Sims, please feel free to inform me, it would be very interesting to know more about him.

In this post I haven’t mentioned the old documents from between 1801 and 1837, as they are very brittle, and I will let any museum or archive to take care of them, but it has been very interesting to have been able to read them, even if they are very hard to decipher due the old handwriting.

Even if this collection is not connected to any of my Swedish soldiers in my research, it has been great to have the opportunity to look them through. It is a very special feeling to hold a card which is written by a soldier who participated in the Great War, to hold documents which are over 100 years old, and especially sad to hold the cards in my hand, from the soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the War.

Lest we forget.

When reading the book by the Swedish author, Nils Fabiansson, “Historien om Västfronten – I spåren av första världskriget” , I find a really interesting story about the rebuild of the village of Craonne, north-west of the French city of Reims, in the Aisne-Marne area.

After an email from a great American fellow battlefield explorer friend, Paul Osman, I decided to look more into the Swedish connections to the village of Craonne.

In the townhall of the Craonne, there is a black Memorial plaque placed, with the following text:

The text translated to english:

Sweden
who, in memory of its sons
who fell while serving France
near Craonne
donated this town hall
to the heroic city of Craonne.

In 1918, the Swedish-French friendship association L’Amitié Franco-Suédoise was formed. As early as November 1918, the “Swedish colony in Paris”, as they called themselves, began collecting funds “for the devastated cities and villages of France”. When a call for the collection was circulated in Sweden in early January 1920, the Paris Swedes had already collected 50,000 francs. The call was signed by 84 people, including Hjalmar Branting, Carl Eldh, Selma Lagerlöf, Ellen Key, Torgny Segerstedt, Hjalmar Söderberg and Nathan Söderblom. (fabiansson.blogspot.com)

Another very well-known Entente friend at the time and interesting person for this book had signed the appeal, the author and Baroness Marika Stiernstedt, who had already initiated collections for Belgium’s homeless and fatherless in the autumn of 1914.

Marika Stjernstedt – A cousin to Foch´s Chief of Staff!

In the Swedish newspaper of “Stockholmstidningen” from December 2nd, 1915, I read about the Baroness Stjernstedt, who visited the frontline as one of very few women at that time, who had the opportunity to do that. In the text I can read the text about his relationship to the Chief of Staff in the staff of French General Ferdinand Foch, but I haven’t done any more research about that at the moment.

For a couple of months in September–November 1915, on the advice of the then Swedish envoy in Bern, Count Albert Ehrensvärd, she had travelled by train via Germany and Switzerland to France, where she had met French soldiers and visited prisoner-of-war camps and even been shown trenches at the front for three days. Returning to Sweden, in December 1915, she had given four lectures entitled “A Lone Woman at the Front” at the KFUM (YMCA) and “Folkets hus”, Citizen Hall, in Stockholm and one at the KFUM in Uppsala. The emphasis of the lecture had been on the three visits to the front in Champagne. (fabiansson.blogspot.com)

She had also written about the trip in several articles in, for example in the Swedish newspapers, “Dagens Nyheter” and “Social-Demokraten”. In addition to the lectures, she had held a “photography exhibition” in Stockholm in December 1915. She had also shown her “unpretentious ‘war museum’”, as she called it, at a war exhibition that the Swedish newspaper “Svenska Dagbladet” had arranged in Stockholm.

During her lectures from the trip to France, she had had the tricolor hanging behind her. According to the newspaper reports, she had been constantly interrupted by applause, but about twenty people had also left the room the first evening when she raised the issue of German “horrible things”. French had been spoken in every row of seats and in the audience, among others, Hjalmar Branting (Swedish Prime Minister in 1920) had been noted, and he had not been one of those who left.

Two years later, in the spring of 1918, Stiernstedt’s small work from France, “the fourth year of the war“, had been published after a second trip to France at the turn of the year 1917–1918, a trip that had also been followed by lectures in Stockholm, Uppsala, Gothenburg and a number of cities in, among others, Dalsland, Värmland, Mälardalen and Småland during February and March 1918.

At the armistice, she had once again been in France and the following year she had published, together with Anna Lindhagen, the work “Témoignages suédois 1914–1919“, a kind of assurance by several Swedish intellectuals that they had been on the right side during the war.

For the French Swedes who fell in the War

On October 8, 1920, the mayor of Craonne received 555,000 francs from the Swedish collection, which would be enough for a new town hall. Barely a year later, on August 23, 1921, the mayor was able to receive a further 162,101 francs from Sweden.

The reason to give the specific money to rebuild the village of Craonne was described as follows:

“The intention is to donate the collected funds to the small town of Craonne, which now lies in ruins and this place has been chosen especially because the Swedish volunteers who participated in the war received their baptism of fire there and also several of them fell there. The funds are intended primarily for the construction of the town hall, on which building a memorial tablet should for the future commemorate both the Swedish volunteers who fell there and the sympathy for France’s heavy suffering during the war, which has been expressed in this collection.“

Swedish foreign legionnaires were near Craonne in the spring of 1915, more precisely in the neighboring village of Craonelle, but the Swedes probably never fell at Craonne. The forces from the Foreign Legion that fought with the Moroccan Division, and to which the Swedish foreign legionnaires belonged, were at the time of the Nivelle Offensive in 1917 in Champagne, just over fifty kilometers from Craonne.

The 38-year-old August Sporre Wend Pettersson from Förkärla parish in the landscape of Blekinge fell on April 24th 1917, “au secteur d’Aubérive (Marne)”, as it is very briefly stated in the army archive index, i.e. during the diversionary offensive east of Reims, which began a couple of days after Chemin des Dames.

The photo of Petterson that I have received through a Danish connection:

At least one more Swede in the Foreign Legion died in 1917. It was the 39-year-old Gustave Wirén from Nyköping, who, according to his registration card, died in a military hospital in Chaumont-sur-Aire south of Verdun on September 5, 1917. When and where he received his injuries is not clear, but the legion also fought at Verdun in August 1917. His grave is in Rembercourt-Sommaisne, in a war cemetery that was established after the war half a mile from Chaumont. I visited his grave in the summer of 2023.

In total, 16 Swedes, who fought for the French Foreign Legion, fell during the Great War.

The 40-year-old road and bridge contractor Johan Malm from Hässleholm made a slightly longer visit to the famous village of Craonne when he visited the Chemin des Dames as a battlefield tourist in March 1923. (fabiansson.blogspot.com)

He wrote:

“The towns are generally not rebuilt on their former site. They were all situated on the slopes of the Chemin des Dames ridge, nestled among forests and vineyards and orchards. But in these now inhospitable surroundings, the new towns are not built, but are located on the adjacent, cleared plain near the former location. The town of Craonne, which was the largest of them, was thus rebuilt a couple of kilometers south of the ruins.

The new city now consists of a couple of hundred temporary wooden shacks regularly placed along wide avenues and future boulevards, which, however, still consist of grassy pastures. The wooden shacks will gradually be replaced by stone houses, and the streets will be prepared when there is time and money. […] A large part of the Chemin des Dames ruin field will not be repaired. The destruction is so extensive that it is not considered possible to afford it. […] At a place on a hill near the ruins of Craonne, a granite monument has been erected, the inscription of which reads, “that the ruin fields will remain for all time, as monuments to the devastation and criminal madness of war and the brutal advance of the Germans”

He mention the villages as towns and cities but were probably just villages.

I really hope I will have the opportunity to visit the village of Craonne on trips to the battlefields in the future.

The two books from Nils Fabiansson about the Western Front, “Swedes in the First World War” and “The history of the Western Front” are among the best Swedish books about the specific subject, that I have read. His books made me look into the Great War, and have been a great inspiration to my own research about the Swedes who fell in the Great War.