Streetscapes: Town

Albert, France

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La Place d’Arme — The Arm Place.  Guerre 1914-19
c.1919


Guerre 1914-1918
ALBERT (Somme) — La Place d’Armes après le bombardement.
The Arm Place after the bombardment.
c.1919

Google Maps.

La place d’armes d’Albert: images of destruction of Albert during WWI (in French, but mostly images).

Albert was founded as a Roman outpost, in about 54 BC. After being known by various forms of the name of the local river, the Ancre, it was renamed to Albert after it passed to Charles d’Albert, duc de Luynes. It was a key location in the Battle of the Somme in World War I . . . The German army recaptured the town in March 1918 during the Spring Offensive; the British, to prevent the Germans from using the church tower as a machine gun post, directed their bombardment against ‘imaginary’ trenches the other side of the basilica as orders specifically stopped them from targeting buildings in the town; the line of fire took the artillery through the basilica, thus it was destroyed. The statue fell in April 1918 and was never recovered. In August 1918 the Germans were again forced to retreat, and the British reoccupied Albert until the end of the war. Albert was completely reconstructed after the war, including widening and re-orienting the town’s main streets.
Wikipedia.

Brühl’s Terrace, Dresden, Germany

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Treppe zur Brühl schen Terrasse

Steps to Bruhl’s Terrace. Google Street View

This is older postcard. It’s got the space for a message on the front and an undivided back, so before 1908, but I can do a bit better on the image at least.

First a brief history of the stairs (from WIkipedia because it gives the best summary I’ve so far come across).

After the Saxon defeat at the Battle of Leipzig and the occupation by Russian troops, military governor Prince Nikolai Grigorjevich Repnin-Wolkonski ordered the opening [of the terrace] to the public in 1814. He charged the architect Gottlob Friedrich Thormeyer with the building of a flight of stairs at the western end to reach the terrace from Castle Square and Augustus Bridge. The Brühl Palace was demolished in the course of the building of the Saxon Ständehaus in 1900.

The ensemble was totally destroyed in February 1945 when the city centre was heavily hit by the Allied Bombing of Dresden during the end phase of World War II. Today, it has been rebuilt; the precise amount restored is difficult to say as a percentage, but in general one can say the emsemble looks very much the same today as it did in the past.

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Chartres-de-Bretagne, France

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CHARTRES-de-BRETAGNE (L?et V.) Le Bourg? Rue Principale vers RENNES

This card is damaged in places (see unedited version below) so it’s hard to read. I think it says
“Chartes-de-Bretagne — the Town. Main street to Rennes.”

This is the church and, as far as I can work out, the same street, Rue de la Poterie, Chartres-de-Bretagne, Brittany


The writing on the front says, I think, C’est ma pauvre petite maison (This is my poor little house?)

There’s a note on the back:

C’est un bien triste Village. (It is a sad village??)