War Diaries Talk

Doulers or Dourlers

  • erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be by erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be

    The company starts its march at Sars-Poteries, but when the author discribes the route towards Donstiennes, the first intermediate point is Doulers. I can't find a village called Doulers between Sars-Poteries and Beaumont (the second intermediate point) but I do find a village called Dourlers 6km to the west of Sars-Poteries. This would mean that they first went westwards before going eatswards, being the right direction.

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    I've looked but I can't find any place called Doulers between Sars-Poteries and Beaumont, either.

    I've seen this before, probably in another 1st Division diary, so I think there are three possibilities to explain it. One would be that their maps had an error, but it doesn't seem likely that this is the case here, because I can't find any place with a name that is close to Doulers. There is a Rue Douillet running north out of Grandrieu, but it's hard to say if that's the right place.

    Another explanation is that it simply doesn't exist any more. A small village could now be part of one of the larger towns along that route. A third possibility is that it was the name of a farm. If the farm is still there, it may not show up on Google maps or it may also now be part of a town. Or it may not exist any longer either.

    You should still tag it as a place name, though.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    I'm tending towards it probably being somewhere which no longer exists. It's tempting to think it could just be a misspelling of Dourlers, given the relative proximity, but I think it's unlikely they marched westwards and then retraced their steps in the opposite direction. I haven't got the trench maps in front of me, so I don't know how much the roads around that area have changed, but even if the main D962 wasn't around at the time, it looks like there would still have been other ways around.

    Posted

  • marie.eklidvirginmedia.com by marie.eklidvirginmedia.com

    Dourlers near Sars Poteries appears on this map – Seems Doulers is mis-spelt.

    Link: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.1584313,4.0033281,12z

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator in response to marie.eklidvirginmedia.com's comment.

    Yes, Erik mentioned he had found Dourlers but it is in the wrong direction. The field company was moving east into Belgium and Dourlers is to the west of their starting point.

    Posted

  • David_Underdown by David_Underdown moderator

    Units did sometimes take surprisingly circuitous routes (I've a feeling we've discussed this before somewhere), a division took up a lot of road space (figures are given on the Long Long Trail website) so often a wide range of routes were used, particularly as each unit type had its own movement speed.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Thanks, David. Quite possibly they did take some roundabout route, but it does look extraordinarily inefficient to me. I think the best option in this case would be for Erik to tag the place name as spelled in the diary.

    Posted