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The Path of Peace: Walking the Western Front Way

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To support the “Western Front Way”-initiative the author in the late summer of 2021 set out to walk the whole length “from the Vosges to the sea” . Anthony Seldon’s moving analysis of The First World War was interrupted by his family issues, his physical afflictions on the walk, and what I felt were modern (superficial) intrusions such as an interview on Sky and a message on Twitter.

This described his dream of creating a commemorative path after the war, along no man’s land all the way from Switzerland to the Channel. Having to walk either along busy French roads or on non way-marked paths that invariably gave out and resulted in lengthy detours.

A combination of introspective diary, war diary and travel writing, I'm not going to lie, it's made me interested in doing this walk. But, in the afterword section, he assures us that the path is quickly becoming established, now fully way-marked in Belgium and ever more so through France, away from busy roads. From sumptuous towns in the east of France to the haunting trenches of the Somme and Ypres, the walk took in many important sites from World War I as well as some of Europe's most beautiful scenery. And I love the idea, first suggested by a First World War officer, Douglas Gillespie, to turn the entire Western Front into a Path of Peace.

His beloved wife, Joanna, had died of cancer and, after disputes with the board, Seldon decided to quit Buckingham, leaving him with “no job, no home, no wife”.

The route of his 1,000 kilometre journey was inspired by a young British soldier of the First World War, Alexander Douglas Gillespie, who dreamed of creating a ‘Via Sacra’ that the men, women and children of Europe could walk to honour the fallen. Touching on grief, loss and the legacy of war, The Path of Peace is the extraordinary story of Anthony's epic walk, an unforgettable act of remembrance and a triumphant rediscovery of what matters most in life.

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