August 15, 1944 was said to have been the worst day of Adolf Hitler’s life. Well, worst up to then, anyway. Certainly, he had cause to be depressed. The Russians were at the gates of Warsaw, where the resistance uprising was at its most tense. Meanwhile, the Allies were landing in Provence.

And, in Normandy, his madly-conceived counter-attack - Operation Lüttich - was unravelling. Some 300,000 of his finest troops were trapped between Mortain, Falaise and Argenton. Only the hesitancy of the Allied pincer movement allowed tens of thousands to escape east. Even so, by mid-August 1944, 100,000 retreating German soldiers were all but encircled in the upper Dives valley. Allied forces set about bombing, shelling and shooting them into submission. Around 50,000 managed to get away; 40,000 were captured and 10,000 killed. Ten thousand horses also died.

According to C-in-C “Ike” Eisenhower, the Falaise Pocket, was “one of the greatest killing grounds that any sector of the war has ever experienced... forty-eight hours after the closing of the gap, it was literally possible to walk for hundreds of yards at a time stepping on nothing but dead and decaying flesh.”

Understandably, World War I commemorations are overshadowing other anniversaries. We may also have the impression that we’ve done the 70th anniversary of the Second World War’s battle of Normandy, what with Obama, Putin and the rest showing up in France on June 6 last. But the battle for Normandy blasted on for 77 days beyond D-Day. Finally it crashed into the almost unbearably bucolic Dives valley for four days of decisive slaughter. With the Germans crushed here, the road to Paris - and, ultimately, the Rhine - was open. It was the beginning of the end of the war, according to Montgomery.

Seventieth anniversary events to mark the game-changing victory focus on the weekend of August 23 and 24 (see memorial-montormel.org for details). They are lowish-key but significant. If you’re in the area, don’t hesitate. If you’re not, you might consider going, using the weekend as a peg upon which to hang a Norman break. The green, cider and double-cream landscape is as relaxing today as it was hellish and bloody seven decades back.

Going against the advice of his generals, Hitler’s counterattack was crazy. He should have been retiring to the Seine to consolidate defence. Instead, he sent his army out on a limb to Mortain. They were almost begging to be encircled. US forces, having broken out of the Cotentin peninsular, were flowing south and east, below the Germans. British, Canadian and Polish troops arrived from the north. The 100,000 Germans were caught in a trap whose exit narrowed continually until it measured but the two miles between the villages of Chambois and St Lambert-sur-Dives. St Lambert was a vital hold for the Germans: it had the only bridges over the Dives river.

^{Bucolic bliss in the Dives valley today (Photo: Alamy)}

Things should have been over when, on August 19, the 1st Polish Armoured Division captured the renowned Hill 262 in the middle of the bottleneck escape route. In theory, this sewed up the pocket. In practice, fewer than 2,000 Poles found themselves isolated among 100,000 Germans - some desperate to get out of the pocket, others who had got out, equally desperate to return in their tanks to help their comrades. Short of water, food and munitions, the Poles held on for two days and nights, often fighting hand-to-hand. Finally, there were four officers left from an initial 60, 110 men from 1,500. Lieut-Colonel Aleksander Stefanowicz, himself wounded, addressed his remaining officers: “Gentlemen, all is lost [...] but we fight all the same. [...] Tonight we shall die for Poland and for civilisation.”

But relief came, in the shape of artillery, air-drops and, finally, Canadian troops. Stefanowicz, at least, survived what was certainly one of the war-time Poles’ finest hours. (He died in 1985 in Toronto). So the noose tightened, and Germans became increasingly panic-stricken. Men unable to get to the bridges over the Dives tried to use the ford in the hamlet of Moissy (“Gué de Moissy’’). Today, a couple of adult-sized bounds take you across. The Dives is a ridiculously small river. But, in mid-August 1944, it was clogged with abandoned armour, wrecked machinery and corpses. “Men were bayoneting one another out of the way,” said Nicolas Fank, a veteran I met on one trip to the site some little time ago.

Mr Fank was born in Alsace. After the German invasion of France, he was - like many other Alsaciens - enrolled in the Wehrmacht against his wishes. They were dubbed the “Malgré Nous”. In the summer of 1944, he was serving with a tank regiment in Normandy when he became embroiled in the Falaise Pocket. His was a tale of miracles. He showed me the farm track along which his tank - one of the very last to escape the pocket - made its way, buffeting trucks, buses, other tanks and bodies out of the way. Artillery and the RAF pounded the valley ceaselessly. Once finally out of danger, the tank stalled. Mr Fank climbed out to investigate. “There was an unexploded British shell in the oil sump. If that had gone off, I wouldn’t be here.”

Mr Fank read the omens. Shortly, he deserted, ditching his German uniform for clothes borrowed from a farmer. Behind him, the trap clanged shut on his comrades on August 21. (Mr Fank himself lived until 2009.) The victory was “definitive, complete and decisive,” said our own Field Marshal “Monty” Montgomery. It was also outstandingly foul. As a local said, the landscape was “literally covered by blackened corpses and disembowelled horses.” The stench of death took two months to clear. Abbé Launay, a local clergyman, said: “For a year I couldn’t eat eggs, after I’d seen hens pecking worms from corpses.” Twenty years later, they were still handing out contracts for the removal of scrap metal.

Now, obviously, the Dives valley is as calm as scenes of former carnage invariably are. But the extreme tranquility - with grazing cattle, hedges and birdsong and sleepy afternoons - remains arresting, as if, in compensation, time and nature had excused the district further tension. It is, in truth, almost hallucinatory - so much war, so much peace.

To make some sense of it, head for Coudehard and the Mémorial-de-Montormel. The first-class museum slots into the hillside almost exactly where the Poles held on so tremendously (memorial-montormel.org). A vast picture window overlooks the entire valley, the villages taken and re-taken by both sides, and the hills from where the British harried the German rear. Later, there’s a 20-kilometre (13-mile) circuit taking in the key battle sites - and, brand new this summer, an app (“Agata”) to lead you round.

With interest assuaged and respects paid, you might seek light relief elsewhere - in the nearby hamlet of Camembert where François and Nadia Durand at the Ferme-de-la-Heronnière are Normandy’s only remaining farmhouse producers of the cheese. Or at the Haras-du-Pin, France’s national stud centre. It’s an equine Versailles (haras-national-du-pin.com). For memories of earlier violence, Falaise château - birthplace of William the Conqueror - is just up the road. This very weekend, August 9 and 10, it is hosting a Fête des Jeux, with medieval games, shows, food and what-have-you (chateau-guillaume-leconquerant.fr). Who knows? Perhaps in 1,000 years, they will consider our Second World War as colourful folk lore, ripe for re-enactment.

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