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Franco-Prussian War Museum – Loigny-la-Bataille

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©Musée de la guerre de 1870 – Loigny-la-Bataille

The Musée de la Guerre de 1870 invites you to discover the history of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). From the banks of the Rhine to the plains of Beauce, follow in the footsteps of the Prussian and Bavarian armies and grasp the importance of this conflict in French and European history.

The battlefield, the commemorative church of Loigny, its crypt and ossuary form part of the visitor trail.

 

> Remembrance Trail Battle of Loigny, 2 December 1870
Length of tour: 30 mins by car - 1hr30mins by bike - 4 hrs on foot

 

 

A century-old museum

 

 

The Loigny-la-Bataille museum collection was constituted in the days that followed the battle. General de Sonis, wounded in the fighting, spent his convalescence in the home of Abbé Theuré, the vicar of the village. Impressed by de Sonis’s account, Theuré began collecting objects found on the battlefield. Successive vicars opened a first museum in 1907, then a second in 1956. Over a century, the collection grew with bequests from the families of soldiers who fought in the battle.

 

A new interactive and immersive museum

 

Since September 2017, a new museum space of 240 sqm has been open to the public, divided into a history area and a remembrance area.

 

In the history area, the Franco-Prussian War is told through a series of objects that bear witness to the fierceness of the fighting:  helmets, uniforms, rifles, bayonets, shells, etc.
From Alsace to the Loire, visitors are able to retrace the steps of the armies on touch tables and re-enact the Battle of Loigny on the French or Prussian side. An immersive spectacle combining images and objects puts visitors among the soldiers on the Loigny battlefield, on 2 December 1870.

 

In the remembrance area, visitors are invited to follow in the footsteps of General de Sonis, whose sacrifice at Loigny saved the French army from annihilation. The story of General de Charette’s Papal Zouaves is also recounted: from their formation to defend the Pope in the 1860s, to their heroic acts on the battlefield in the Franco-Prussian War.

 

The visit proceeds with a tour of the church, crypt and ossuary, which holds the bones of 1 260 French and Prussian soldiers. Finally, this remembrance section gives visitors a sense of the decisive role played by a conflict that is often forgotten, yet which sowed the seeds of the world wars of the 20th century.

 

Virtual reality tour of the battlefield

 

The battlefield and its funerary and commemorative monuments are accessible to visitors.
As of 2019, virtual reality brings the battlefield to life.

 

The principle is simple: there are a series of terminals dotted around the battlefield, which visitors scan using tablets provided by the museum. Virtual reality then reproduces the battlefield and the village of Loigny, just as they were in 1870.

 

French, Prussian and Bavarian soldiers come alive and visitors relive the noise and fury of the fighting: skirmishes in the village cemetery (now no longer there), shells exploding in the fields, infantry charges across the plain.

 

Conferences and temporary exhibitions throughout the year.

 

The museum holds exhibitions, conferences and activities linked to the arts, history and French and European current affairs.

 

 

Programmation 2019-2020

 

Exposition « Guerre Miniature » : Soldats de plomb, Lego et Playmobil en première ligne

Exposition > 31 octobre 2019 - 5.50 €

 

Atelier LEGO - Lundi 26 août 2019 - 14h30-16h30 - 5,50 €

Atelier dans le cadre de l’exposition « Guerre Miniature » - Soldats de plomb, Lego et Playmobil en première ligne

 

Merveilles de l'art sur les chemins du pèlerinage de Compostelle

Conférence par Bernard de Montgolfier, conservateur honoraire du patrimoine       
Dimanche 15 septembre 2019 - 15h30 - 2,50 €

 

La bataille de Loigny en Wargame – Animation dans le cadre des Journées Européennes du Patrimoine
Samedi 21 septembre 2019 - 13h-18h30 - Gratuit


«  Atelier Lego Briques en vrac » – Animation dans le cadre des Journées Européennes du Patrimoine         
Dimanche 22 septembre 2019 - 14h30-18h30 - Gratuit

              

Un tigre chez le Roi-Soleil : Clemenceau et le traité de Versailles – Conférence par Samüel Tomei, Historien
Dimanche 13 octobre 2019 - 15h30 - 2,50 €

 

La fin d'un monde : La chute du mur de Berlin – Conférence par Clément Wingler, Historien

Dimanche 20 octobre 2019 - 15h30 - 2,50 €

 

Atelier LEGO - Lundi 28 octobre 2019 - 14h30-16h30 - 5,50 €

 

Le monde selon Napoléon III -  Conférence par Eric Anceau

Dimanche 9 février 2020 - 15h30 - 2,50 €

 

Le faste impérial – Conférence par Xavier Mauduit         

Dimanche 8 mars 2020 - 15h30 - 2,50 €

 

Napoléon III et Gambetta, la République contre l'Empire             
Exposition : 150 ans de la guerre de 1870 - Avril 2020          

 

4 août 1870 : Le drame de Wissembourg – Conférence par Abel Douay
Dimanche 29 mars 2020 - 15h30 - 2,50 €

 

Les raisons de la débâcle -  Conférence par Louis Delperrier        
Dimanche 26 avril 2020 - 15h30 - 2,50 €

 

L'héritage de l'aigle : 150 ans après, que reste-t-il du Second Empire ? Conférence par David Chanteranne
Dimanche 17 mai 2020 - 15h30 - 2,50 €

 

Les secours et soins aux blessés : de Crimée à Loigny. Conférence par le Colonel Pauchard
vendredi 7 juin 2020 - 15h30 - 2.50 € 

 

 

Sources : ©Musée de la guerre de 1870 – Loigny-la-Bataille

 

 

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Practical information

Address

Place du 2 décembre 1870 28140
Loigny-la-Bataille
02 37 36 13 25

Prices

- Tarif plein : 5,50 € - Tarif réduit* : 2,50 € *6-17 ans, anciens combattants, étudiants, demandeurs d’emplois - Gratuité pour les enfants jusqu’à 5 ans inclus et pour les membres de l’association Les Amis de Sonis-Loigny - Tarif Pass Dunois : 2.50 € - Tarif CNAS : 4 €

Weekly opening hours

Du 1er avril au 31 mai et du 1er septembre au 31 octobre : Du mardi au vendredi : 14h30 – 18h30 - Le dimanche et jours fériés (sauf 1er mai) : 14h30 – 18h30 - Fermé le lundi et le samedi (ouvert le lundi de Pâques) Du 1er juin au 31 août : - Du mardi au vendredi : 10h-12 h & 14h30-18h30 - Samedi, dimanche et jours fériés : 14h30-18h30 - Fermé le lundi (ouvert le lundi de Pentecôte) - Ouvert toute l’année pour les groupes et les scolaires - Ouverture exceptionnelle le premier dimanche de décembre (commémoration de la bataille de Loigny)

Fermetures annuelles

Du 1er novembre au 31 mars * IMPORTANT * le Musée reste ouvert TOUTE l’année pour les groupes et les scolaires (sur réservation)

Site Web : www.museedelaguerre1870.fr
Email : contact@museedelaguerre1870.fr

Official opening of a French burial plot in Ethiopia

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© Ambassade de France en Ethiopie
© Ambassade de France en Ethiopie

On 16 December 2018, three cenotaphs in memory of Free French airmen were unveiled by ambassador Frédéric Bontems, in the French plot of Gulele military cemetery, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 

1919: honouring the combatants

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Contents

    Summary

    DATE: 14 July 1919

    PLACE: France

    OBJECT: The Victory Parade

    PARTICIPANTS: France and the Allies

    The French national holiday of 11 November, as everyone knows it today, has its origins in the 1919 commemorations and the dual significance that was to last for many years: remembrance of the dead, made imperative by the mass mourning of the belligerent nations, and the Allies’ shared desire to celebrate victory.

    As well as being a new type of conflict, the First World War is distinctive for the way in which French society built and preserved its public memory. The war memorials erected in the country’s 36 000 communes and responded to in Paris by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe, together with the Remembrance Day ceremonies held by local communities before their war memorials and by the most senior representatives of the French State before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, are so many elements of a coherent commemorative system. Established in just a few years, that system has made a strong mark on collective time and space.

    Equally noteworthy is how lasting an impact that commemorative system has had. The centenary celebrations have been a further testament to its mobilising power, despite the fact that the conflict’s last direct witnesses have died; or might it be said that First World War remembrance amounts to a dramatisation of the fight against oblivion, which the publicising of the deaths of the “last poilus” in the late 2000s contributed to rekindling?

    There is nothing straightforward about focusing only on the first year following the armistice. It is more usual to examine the establishment of the commemorations, up to the mid-1920s (when the main aspects of the commemorative system were firmly in place) or throughout the interwar years. Changing the chronological focus in this way, however, enables us perhaps to see something else. This memory under construction saw a multitude of projects and initiatives that were soon abandoned, in a process of trial and error that suggested other possible ways of remembering the war, pathways which, although ultimately not pursued, were nevertheless opened up at the close of the Great War. These served as a way of questioning the unambiguous nature of First World War remembrance. Furthermore, the relationship between a “celebratory” remembrance of victory and the victors, on the one hand, and the remembrance of loss and the dead, on the other, becomes particularly apparent from this standpoint.

    CELEBRATING THE VICTORS

    The signing of the armistice marked the beginning of a period of intense public debate about how the war should be commemorated. The memory of the war was inscribed in the stone of statues and steles, and in the public calendar through the establishment of a day of remembrance: a large proportion of the projects submitted and events organised in 1918 centred on the victors, the heroes, the soldiers who had returned from the front. In the French parliament, November and December 1918 saw a great many bills and draft resolutions proposed for discussion, concerning how those who fought in the war should be remembered. While the cult of the dead occupied a central place in those debates, it was not the only matter under discussion; also at stake was the broader issue of preserving the memory of the very meaning of the war and its conclusion, as these were understood at the time.

    On 11 November itself, French members of parliament began debating a bill concerning “a national tribute to the armed forces, prime minister Georges Clemenceau and Marshal Foch”, by means of a permanent inscription in all schools and town halls. Significantly, an amendment by the socialists Bracke and Renaudel proposing that, instead of the “architects of victory” mentioned in the original text, the inscription should mention the Republic alone, was rejected. The issue of the political exploitation of victory by a republican regime, whose ability to conduct a war had been continually questioned in the run-up to 1914, was set aside: the desire to prolong wartime political unity (the so-called “sacred union”) thus had a significant impact on this inaugural moment of remembrance of the conflict. The republican nature of the victory remains a blind spot to this day.

    The discussion of a second amendment by Bracke and Renaudel illustrates another characteristic of how public remembrance of the war, at the close of hostilities, seemed bound to develop: the central place of the Allies, indissociable from the widely held belief at the time that the end of the war signified the victory of democracy over imperialism. The amendment proposed for a second text, paying tribute to President Wilson, to be engraved on the walls of all schools and town halls across the country. The proposal, broadened to include the American nation and all the other Allies, was finally voted on 20 November. This has wider significance, as a very broad agreement on the importance of placing the collective figure of the Allies at the centre of the representation of the First World War that was to be passed on to future generations. It prefigured the plan, submitted a few days later, to make the 11th of November an inter-Allied commemoration to “glorify the victorious end to the war and celebrate the liberation of the peoples”. Like the many planned monuments in which the Allies took centre stage, this proposal, too, offered a glimpse of another possible way of remembering the Great War. A path destined to be abandoned from day one of the interwar years, as the exaltation of the Allies soon ebbed and the memory of the war was rapidly renationalised.

    FROM “HOMECOMING CELEBRATIONS” TO “VICTORY CELEBRATIONS”

    Aside from discussions about long-term remembrance projects, 1919 was marked by many celebrations in honour of the troops, at the crucial moment of their return home. Whereas, as Bruno Cabanes has pointed out, 11 November 1918 constituted the apogee of the feeling of distance experienced by the soldiers towards a home front accused of indifference and ingratitude, their reintegration into civilian life was a major aspect of demobilisation.  The demonstrations of gratitude that flooded the public sphere were supposed, in the context of the “moral economy of demobilisation”, to constitute symbolic repayment – clearly always insufficient – for the sacrifices made by the soldiers, and to avert division.

    Ceremonies to celebrate the “return of the regiments” thus took place in step with the process of demobilisation, the troops retracing the route which, in August 1914, had led them from their barracks to the local railway station, from where they had departed for the front. It was a symbolic means of bringing the war years to a close, while also indulging the dream of a “return to normality”. These commemorations were also a way of making the scattered return of the troops into a collective experience, which also enabled civilians and local communities to pay tribute to them. This largely fictitious moment of “homecoming” of the regiments also provided the newly founded veterans’ associations with the opportunity to take their first initiative, by organising a commemorative event. In so doing, these associations asserted their role as guardians of the memory of the sacrifice made by both the survivors and the dead.

    The summer of 1919 was the high point of the symbolic demonstrations of public gratitude towards the soldiers. The signing of the Treaty of Versailles, on 28 June, was an occasion for further collective celebrations and marked a crucial step in the end of the war. The demobilisation process resumed, having been interrupted in April in readiness for a possible advance into Germany in the event that it refused to accept the terms imposed on it at the peace conference. All the conditions were fulfilled for a “victory celebration” to be held in Paris on 14 July, during the homecoming celebrations. The event’s symbolic programme was itself a means of creating a remembrance narrative for the war. French and Allied troops led by marshals Foch and Joffre crossed the French capital from Porte Maillot to the Place de la République, passing under the Arc de Triomphe before marching down the Champs Élysées, crossing the Place de la Concorde and parading along the main boulevards. Between one and two million people watched the parade. Discretion in the republican references (the only mention was in the parade’s finishing point: Place de la République), the omnipresence of inter-Allied symbolism (with contingents from all the Allied nations) and the central place given to honouring the dead – which we will discuss further on – were its main characteristics.

    Three weeks later, the Fête de la Reconnaissance Nationale (Day of National Gratitude), organised by the Union des Grandes Associations and the French government on 2 and 3 August – the anniversary of the start of the war – was in the same vein. On the 2nd, in the main lecture theatre of the Sorbonne, hundreds of schoolchildren listened, in the presence of wounded and maimed soldiers, to speeches from the French President, the Prime Minister, Marshal Foch, Ernest Lavisse, and other political and cultural figures. On the 3rd, the message of the previous day was spread throughout the country. The departmental authorities circulated a template for the ceremonies, which seems to have been widely taken up by communes: a speech by the mayor, a public reading of the speeches given by the President and Prime Minister at the Sorbonne ceremony, and the award of certificates to the families of those killed in action.

    Even more than the speeches, the way the ceremony at the Sorbonne was staged made its meaning clear: showing the country’s gratitude to the troops also required an assurance from the civilian community that the memory of their sacrifice – hence the presence of wounded and maimed soldiers – would be preserved by future generations – signified by the presence of the children. The ceremony was nothing less than a representation of the act of preserving the memory of the conflict or, more precisely, the sacrifice. The requirement of gratitude and the symmetrical feeling of a debt to be repaid were such that they needed, from the outset, to be lasting: celebrating the victors already amounted to constructing the memory of their sacrifice. Jay Winter notes that, after 1914, “commemoration was an act of citizenship. To remember was to affirm community, to assert its moral character”.

    HONOURING THE DEAD

    Remembering the dead was at the heart of the demonstrations of gratitude towards the victorious returning troops, to the point that the survivors themselves tended to be eclipsed. Addressing the French parliament on 11 November 1918, Clemenceau attributed the main credit for victory to “our great dead”. A few months later, the organisers of the Fête de la Victoire of 14 July 1919 were confronted with the very practical difficulty of not allowing the tribute to the dead to detract from the celebration of the victors. The solution chosen was to install a mobile cenotaph beneath the Arc de Triomphe, where crowds would gather on the night before the parade to pay their respects to the dead; the next morning, the cenotaph would be moved aside to allow the triumphal procession to pass. At one stage, the idea was even mooted for the troops to parade in silence before a war memorial set up on the Champs Élysées.

    On 3 August 1919, the “Day of National Gratitude”, many local ceremonies gave pride of place to the dead. In the municipality of Amiens, for instance, 5 000 of the city’s schoolchildren processed before a temporary monument in memory of the war dead. At the very heart of the tribute to the living, then, was a clear tendency for First World War remembrance to become mixed up with the cult of the dead. The dead came at the top of a hierarchy of combatants, which military decorations determined in only a secondary way, beneath the supreme sacrifice. At the Parisian leg of the Day of National Gratitude, on 2 August 1919, Léon Robelin declared: “the dead [...] more than the living, have ensured the survival of the motherland”.

    Equally significant is the fate of a proposed resolution tabled in the French parliament in November 1918, for the publication of a special book containing all the citations awarded during the war. When its proposers suggested that the citations awarded during the war should be included in a planned record of France’s war dead, the Livre d’Or des Morts pour la France, the rapporteur replied: “We felt that the finest citation was also the most egalitarian: ‘Died for France’. We do not wish to add anything further to the Livre d’Or than this simple, moving phrase.” In First World War remembrance, death levelled not only the military hierarchy (distinctions of rank on commemorative monuments were less present than after earlier conflicts), but heroism itself. The Law of 1 October 1919 establishing a memorial to the Great War in each commune determined that the State would provide the communes with a record of the names, citations and wounds of all those who fought in the war. That law was still based on the idea of a commemoration that included all servicemen “who took part in the operations of the 1914-18 war”, and did not focus only on the dead. Significantly, it was destined to scarcely be implemented.

    “LABORATORIES OF COMMEMORATION”

    The ceremonies of gratitude held for the returning soldiers in the context of the demobilisation of 1919 in fact amounted to laboratories of commemoration. The cenotaph of the Fête de la Victoire of 14 July 1919 prefigured the war memorials, just as the organisers’ hesitancy over the place to be accorded to silence in the commemorations resonates with the importance which the minute’s silence would assume in the liturgy of the Remembrance Day ceremonies in the 1920s.

    Of course, homecoming celebrations and legislative discussions were only the most visible part of a deeper movement that was also rooted in the provinces with the emergence of local ceremonies. Indeed, 1919 saw the unveiling of a great many war memorials on the initiative of mayors or other personalities and public subscription.

    The mobilisation was all the greater since the memorials amounted to a kind of substitute grave for the hundreds of thousands of dead whose bodies could not be identified. The ceremonies to unveil these memorials, many of which took place on 11 November 1919, were a first draft of the commemorative rituals that would be held across the country, around these same memorials, on the anniversary of the armistice, throughout the interwar years and beyond.

    Yet at the close of 1919, an annual date for national commemorations of the war had still not been set. The creation of a commemoration on 11 November had certainly been considered since November 1918. But at that time, it was victory that was being commemorated – not of course with militarist exultation, but an inter-Allied celebration of the triumph of democracy. A year later, the date of 11 November seemed to have been abandoned by the legislator. Cautious not to create too many public holidays in what was a delicate economic situation, parliament decided that on 1 or 2 November (All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day), the communes would hold a ceremony devoted to “the memory and glorification of the heroes who died for the motherland [...] organised by the municipality with support from civilian and military authorities.” It was not until 1922 that veterans succeeded in having 11 November declared a national holiday. Yet it was to have an altogether different meaning from that envisaged in 1918. The veterans’ 11 November – the one that prevailed – was to focus on preserving the memory of their dead comrades.

    Nearly a year after the end of the fighting, the “Law on the commemoration and glorification of those who died for France during the Great War” was passed, in response to widespread concern across French society since at least 1916. The text provided for records containing the names of all those who died for France to be admitted to the Pantheon; the State to provide each commune with a special record listing the names of those killed who were born or lived in the commune; a national war memorial to be erected in or near Paris; funding to be allocated to the communes to support initiatives to glorify those who died for France; and a ceremony in memory of the dead to be organised by municipalities every 1 or 2 November, as mentioned previously. A number of provisions would not be implemented, a sign that the “cultural work” (Daniel Sherman) of the construction of memory had yet to be fully accomplished. But there was already a clear trend of public remembrance of the First World War being reduced to remembering the dead alone.

    Between the possible paths of extolling the nation’s great deeds, giving political legitimacy to the republican regime and meaning to the fighting, and providing contemplation and consolation to mourners, the general orientation of First World War remembrance had already been established.

    Author

    Victor Demiaux, phD in history, executive assistant to the chief executive, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)

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    The Lauenburg 9th Jäger Battalion at Gravelotte, by Ernst Zimmer (1864-1924), 1910. Source: Kreismuseum Ratzeburg

    The Franco-Prussian War, 1870-71

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    Defence of the Gate of Longboyau, Château de Buzenval, 21 October 1870, Alphonse de Neuville, 1879

    The Franco-Prussian War, between the German Confederation and France, lasted six months from 1870 to 1871. The immediate consequences for the belligerents were considerable: on the one hand, the fall of the Second French Empire, the civil war of the Commune and the advent of the Republic; on the other, the creation of the German Empire under the aegis of Prussia.

    A booklet in honour of the Salonika Front and the poilus of Salonika, for the Armistice Centenary

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    The first armistice of the First World War was signed on 29 September 1918, on the Salonika Front, in the Greek town of Thessaloniki (Salonika). A century on, a ceremony was held in Greece to commemorate the armistice, attended by Geneviève Darrieussecq, state secretary to the Minister for the Armed Forces.

    The Moroccan goumiers: testimonies

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    © Hamid LAGRINI
    © Hamid LAGRINI

    On 3 and 4 October 2018, a special tribute was paid to a delegation of three one-hundred-year-old goumier veterans - Moroccan soldiers of the French army who won renown in the liberation of Corsica in 1943 - at the different ceremonies held on the island. The event was given considerable coverage by the French media, which contributed to developing the rich shared memory that unites the two countries.

     

    Teaching about and commemorating French overseas operations

    Teaching about and commemorating French overseas operations

    Salon européen de l'éducation, 2013

    A subject of history, overseas operations are - like the remembrance of earlier conflicts such as the two world wars - becoming an increasingly important part of passing on the memory of those who took part in them, particularly to the young. A living memorial, the servicemen and women deployed on overseas operations embody and impart to young people the values that drive them. Another important aspect is defence education, which French youngsters receive at collège, lycée or, later on, at university. A final aspect is remembrance rituals and practices, as part of national commemorative and remembrance days in honour of those killed in overseas operations, which offer an opportunity to raise public awareness about the spirit of sacrifice of our servicemen and women. The memory of those deployed on overseas operations is a memory still under construction, which the French Ministry of the Armed Forces is anxious to honour and value in the present. Overseas operations then become a history to be taught, memories to impart.

    Studying French overseas operations

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    M. Riehl/ECPAD/Défense

    While overseas operations may have a regular place in the current affairs of the Ministry of the Armed Forces today, this does not make them any less an object of history and therefore an object of study. As France sees an exceptional operational commitment, 2017 is the time to put that military involvement in historical perspective, highlighting the place occupied by France in the world for more than 50 years. External operations today form part of the history of contemporary conflicts. Since the 1960s, France has been involved militarily in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. Everywhere, it participates in a wide range of missions: assistance to the civilian population, humanitarian intervention, the fight against terrorism, peacekeeping, etc. Following a brief overview of the current situation, this section sets out to chart, over a longer, uninterrupted period, the proud history of the engagement of the French armed forces in overseas operations.

    Explaining French overseas operations

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    Sangaris, Serval, Chammal, Barkhane... Regular media coverage in recent years has meant that these names have become familiar to French people. Overseas operations occupy an important place in current affairs, sadly all too often when a member of the armed forces is killed in action. From the decision being taken by the head of State to deploy our armed forces to a theatre of operations, up to the return of the troops, there is a long chain of command and a series of services that are mobilised to ensure compliance with international law, the protection of service personnel and the efficacy of the mission entrusted to them. Before charting the history of France’s operational involvement since the 1960s, this first section therefore sets out to explain overseas operations, by specifying their legal basis, revealing the different stages of command, and also recalling the reasons for the particularly strong involvement of our armed forces over the last five years.

    Bibliography and list of multimedia and online resources

    Bibliography and list of multimedia and online resources

     

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    KITSON Simon Vichy et la chasse aux espions nazis. 1940-1942 : complexités de la politique de collaboration, Paris, Autrement, 2005.

    LELEU Jean-Luc, PASSERA Françoise, QUELLIEN Jean & DAEFFLER Michel (Dir.) La France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Atlas historique, Paris, Fayard / Ministère de la Défense, 2010.

    LIAIGRE Franck Les FTP. Nouvelle histoire d’une résistance, Paris, Perrin, 2015.

    LOMBARD Maurice «L’Abwehr à Dijon» (1940-1944) in Annales de Bourgogne, 68, 1996, p. 69-78.

    MALOUBIER Bob Agent secret de Churchill, Paris, Tallandier, 2011.

    MENCHERINI Robert Résistance et Occupation (1940-1944), Midi rouge. Ombres et lumières. Une histoire politique et sociale de Marseille et des Bouches-du-Rhône de 1930 à 1950, tome 3, Paris, Syllepse, 2011.

    MEYER Ahlrich L’Occupation allemande en France, 1940-1944, Toulouse, Privat, 2002.

    MIANNAY Patrice Dictionnaire des agents doubles dans la Résistance, Paris, Le Cherche Midi, 2005.

    NAVARRE Henri (Général) Le Service de renseignements 1871-1944, Plon, 1978.

    NEVEU Cédric La Gestapo en Moselle. Une police au coeur de la répression nazie, Metz, Éditions Serpenoise, 2012

    PAILLOLE Paul Services spéciaux, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1975.

    PEAN Pierre & DUCASTEL Laurent Jean Moulin, L’ultime mystère, Paris, Albin Michel, 2015.

    PENNETIER Claude Les Fusillés (1940-1944), Dictionnaire biographique des fusillés et exécutés par condamnation et comme otages et guillotinés en France pendant l’Occupation, Paris, Éditions de l’Atelier, 2015.

    PERQUIN Jean-Louis Les Opérateurs radio clandestins, SOE, BCRA, OSS, Paris, Histoire et Collections, 2011.

    SANSICO Virginie La Justice déshonorée, 1940-1944, Paris, Tallandier, 2015.

    THIERY Laurent «L’ange gardien des V1 face à la Résistance» in La répression allemande dans le Nord de la France (1940-1944), Lille, Septentrion, 2013, p. 239-256.

     

    LIST OF MULTIMEDIA AND ONLINE RESOURCES

    DÄNZER-KANTOF BORIS Les avocats agréés auprès des tribunaux militaires allemands in La Résistance en Île-de-France, CD-ROM. Paris - AERI, 2004.

    DÄNZER-KANTOF BORIS Notices biographiques individuelles des 7 résistants du Procès de la Chambre des députés, in La Résistance en Île-de-France, CD-ROM. Paris - AERI, 2004.

    MINISTÈRE DE LA DÉFENSE : WWW.DEFENSE.GOUV.FR

    Publie sur son site le Bulletin officiel des Armées, dont l’édition méthodique (BOEM) présente l’architecture des grandes familles de résistance et les dispositions applicables à leurs membres ou agents. On s’y reportera avec intérêt, notamment pour toute question relative au statut des FFL, FFC, RIF, DIR, CVR, réfractaires au STO et passeurs bénévoles.

    Le texte intégral du décret 366 du 25 juillet 1942 et celui de sa circulaire d’application sont consultables sur : www.bo.sga.defense.gouv.fr/boreale_internet (accès BOEM/le personnel/dispositions générales/combattants de la Résistance)

    WWW.CHEMINSDEMEMOIRE.GOUV.FR Retrouvez votre revue en ligne.

    WWW.LACOUPOLE-FRANCE.COM Site Internet lié aux armes "V".

    WWW.SERVICEHISTORIQUE.SGA.DEFENSE.GOUV.FR Le site du SHD.

    WWW.FMD.ASSO.FR Fondation pour la mémoire de la Déportation.

    WWW.FONDATIONSHOAH.ORG Fondation pour la mémoire de la Shoah.

    WWW.FONDATIONRESISTANCE.ORG Fondation de la Résistance. Retrouvez notamment Les réseaux Action de la France combattante (édition 1986 et 2008 pour la version électronique) et les chapitres téléchargeables sur le site de la Fondation.

    WWW.FRANCE-LIBRE.NET Fondation de la France libre.

    WWW.MONT-VALERIEN.FR Le Mont-Valérien - Haut lieu de la mémoire nationale.

    Glossary

    Glossary

    2nd, 3rd, 5th BUREAU Within the French military command structure, the 2nd Bureau is traditionally responsible for intelligence, the 3rd for action planning and the 5th for counter-espionage.

     

    ABWEHR Intelligence, action and counter-espionage service of the German army, from 1925 to 1944.

     

    AGENT O, AGENT P1, AGENT P2 Occasional (O), regular but not underground (P1) and underground (P2) agents, as defined by Decree No 366 of 25 July 1942.

     

    ARMÉE SECRÈTE Secret Army. The Armée Secrète resulted from the merging of the paramilitary branches of the three main movements in the southern zone: Combat, Libération-Sud and Franc-Tireur. Favoured by Jean Moulin, it was approved in London in October 1942, entrusted by General de Gaulle to General Delestraint in November, and extended to the northern zone the following spring.

     

    AST Abwehrstelle. Local branch of the Abwehr installed in a regional capital, under the authority of the central services in Paris and Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

     

    AUSWEIS Authorisation, pass or travel permit issued by the German authorities.

     

    BATAILLONS DE LA JEUNESSE Youth Battalions. Active from summer 1941 to March 1942, they were the armed wing of the underground Jeunesses Communistes (Communist Youth) movement.

     

    BCRA Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action (Central Bureau of Intelligence and Action), from June 1942.

     

    BCRAA Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action d’Alger (Algiers Central Bureau of Intelligence and Action), from late 1943.

     

    BCRAL Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action de Londres (London Central Bureau of Intelligence and Action), from late 1943.

     

    BDOC Bureaux de Documentation (Documentation Bureaux). Successors to the Bureaux de Sécurité Militaire (Military Security Bureaux – BSMs), the BDOCs  were set up in 1944, in each military region, to investigate individuals guilty or suspected of having collaborated to some degree with the occupier.

     

    BdS Befehlshaber der Sipo und des SD (see below). National commander of the security police and security services. Central command of the German police forces in France.

     

    BND Foreign intelligence service of the Federal Republic of Germany.

     

    CHANTIERS DE JEUNESSE Youth Works. Compulsory civilian service introduced by the French State for young people living in the Free Zone who, in view of events, were discharged from their military obligations. The key legislation instituting the Chantiers de Jeunesse were the laws of 30 July 1940 and 18 January 1941.

     

    CNR Conseil National de la Résistance (National Council of the Resistance). Established and convened for the first time on 27 May 1943, under the chairmanship of Jean Moulin, General de Gaulle’s representative, the CNR marked a crucial stage in the unification of the Resistance. In 1944, its work and programme heralded major reforms, in particular economic (nationalisations) and social

    (social security), in the postwar era.

     

    COLLABORATIONISM Term used for the first time by Marcel Déat in November 1940, to describe those who campaigned or acted, including militarily, to promote the victory of the Reich. Collaborationists pressed the Vichy government to commit more fully to the path of collaboration.

     

    CNCR Commission Nationale Consultative de la Résistance (National Consultative Commission on the Resistance). Commission established by Decree No 70-768 of 27 August 1970, under the authority of the Minister for National Defence, to issue opinions on the official recognition of movements, ranks and services, and all other matters relating to the Resistance.

     

    COMPAGNONS DE LA LIBÉRATION Companions of Liberation. Title given to members of the Order of Liberation, created by Order No 7 signed by General de Gaulle on 16 November 1940, in Brazzaville, to reward civilian or military authorities and individuals who distinguished themselves in the struggle to liberate France and its empire. The title of “Companion” underlines the cohesion and unity of the group thus created.

     

    EINSATZKOMMANDO Task force.

     

    FELDGENDARMERIE Field gendarmerie, installed in rural areas and coming under the authority of the Feldkommandant. Not to be confused with Geheime Feldpolizei (see GFP below).

    As the Feldgendarmes wore a metal gorget around their necks, they were nicknamed “chained dogs” or “prize cattle”.

     

    FFI Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur (French Forces of the Interior). Originally consisting of the Armée Secrète (AS) and Francs-Tireurs et Partisans Français (FTPF), with the incorporation of the Organisation de Résistance de l’Armée (ORA) the FFI comprised the majority of the Resistance’s military formations.

     

    FRANCE LIBRE Free France. Organisation set up by General de Gaulle following his call to arms of 18 June 1940. In the summer of 1943, it was absorbed into the Comité Français de la Libération Nationale (French Committee for National Liberation), which comprised both Gaullists and Giraudists, but the name went on being used.

     

    FTPF Francs-Tireurs et Partisans Français (French Irregulars and Partisans). The FTPF was born in spring 1942 out of the merging of three armed branches of the French Communist Party: Organisation Spéciale,

    Bataillons de la Jeunesse and Main-d’œuvre Immigrée (MOI).

     

    GAULEITER Governor of a province or region (Gau) under the Nazi regime.

     

    GEHLEN Set up in 1946, the Gehlen was the predecessor of the BND, which replaced it in April 1956.

     

    GFP Geheime Feldpolizei. Secret military field police. Operational branch of the Abwehr. Not to be confused with Feldgendarmerie (see above).

     

    GROSS-PARIS Greater Paris. Territorial division under the authority of the German military command, encompassing the departments of Seine, Seine-et-Oise and Seine-et-Marne.

     

    HITLERJUGEND Hitler Youth. German National Socialist youth organisation.

     

    KdS Kommandeur/Kommando der Sipo und des SD. Regional commander of the Sipo-SD (see below) / Regional command of the German police forces. The KdSs came under the authority of the BdS (see above).

     

    MOUVEMENTS DE RÉSISTANCE Resistance movements. Organisations set up on French soil on individual initiative, which developed into cells, then larger and larger groups. At their inception (1940-41), the movements had practically no contact with Free France.

     

    MOUVEMENT SOCIAL RÉVOLUTIONNAIRE Social Revolutionary Movement (MSR). Collaborationist party founded by Eugène Deloncle in 1940. Many of its members were former activists of the Organisation Secrète d’Action Révolutionnaire Nationale (Secret Organisation for National Revolutionary Action – OSARN; also known as “Cagoule”), in 1935-37, and long-established supporters of fascist theories.

     

    NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. German National Socialist Workers’ Party, or “Nazi” for short.

     

    PIANIST Radio operator.

     

    PPF Parti Populaire Français (French People’s Party), founded in 1936 by Jacques Doriot. Of fascist inspiration, it was France’s main collaborationist party, with Marcel Déat’s Rassemblement National Populaire (see RNP below).

     

    RNP Rassemblement National Populaire (National People’s Rally). Collaborationist party founded by Marcel Déat in February 1941. Its leaders mostly issued from the ranks of the pacifist left and the neo-socialist movement.

     

    RSHA Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Central office for Reich security, bringing together all the German law-enforcement services during the Nazi period.

     

    RÉSEAU Network. In the Resistance, a réseau was a military organisation with a command structure, specialising in action (in particular, aerial operations and sabotage), intelligence, and infiltration and exfiltration.

     

    SECTION ACTION Action Section. Created in the spring of 1941 as part of Free France’s Intelligence Service (SR; later becoming the BCRA), it was responsible for liaising with Resistance members wishing to set up paramilitary units. Most of the agents sent to France on behalf of Free France were from the Action or Intelligence sections.

     

    SECTION ACTION / ÉTUDES ET COORDINATION Action Section / Research and Coordination. Created in March 1942 as part of the BCRA, it was responsible for drawing up the sabotage plans to be carried out by the Resistance organisations in support of the future landings in France.

     

    SECTION ACTION / MISSIONS Action Section / Missions. Created in March 1942 as part of the BCRA, it was responsible for the practical organisation of action missions in France, in cooperation with Britain’s Special Operations Executive (recruitment and training of agents, sending them to France and supporting their work on the ground).

     

    SECTION CONTRE-ESPIONNAGE Counter-Espionage Section. Created in December 1941 as part of Free France’s Intelligence Service (SR; later becoming the BCRA), it was responsible for protecting agents and organisations in France against the actions of the occupier’s and Vichy’s law-enforcement services. The section interrogated volunteers and escapees from France on their arrival in North Africa or London, to build up its records of those who were hostile or sympathetic to the Resistance in France.

     

    SECTION ÉVASIONS Escape Section. Section of Free France’s Intelligence Service (SR), and later the BCRA, responsible for establishing escape networks in France in collaboration with Britain’s MI9.

     

    SECTION RENSEIGNEMENT Intelligence Section. Section of the BCRA responsible for agents, from their recruitment to their departure on missions. It also ran the intelligence networks, organised aerial and maritime operations with Britain’s SIS (MI6), and handled correspondence addressed to agents on the ground. Most of the agents sent to France on behalf of Free France were from the Action or Intelligence sections.

     

    SIPO-SD The Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo) was the German security police, comprised of the criminal police (Kripo) and political police (Gestapo). In 1939, it was combined with the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Nazi party’s security service (see above).

     

    SONDERKOMMANDO Commando trained for special missions.

     

    SS Schutzstaffel. The Nazi party’s protection troops.

     

    STASI Created in 1950, the Ministry of State Security had the roles of political police, intelligence, espionage and counter-espionage in the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

     

    VERGELTUNGSWAFFE Retaliation weapons. Nicknamed “V-weapons”, they were used mainly against Britain in 1944-45. There were two types: the V1 flying bomb, an aircraft without a pilot; and the V2 rocket.

     

    WUNDERWAFFEN “Miracle weapons” intended to turn the tide in the Wehrmacht’s favour towards the end of the war.

     

    ZONES During the German occupation, France was divided into “zones”. In June 1940, there was the “occupied zone” (north of the demarcation line) and the “free zone” or “unoccupied zone” (south of that line). From 11 November 1942 onwards, when the occupation was extended to the whole of France, the terms “northern zone” and “southern zone” were used.

    From the BCRA to the DGSE

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    Les Tourelles in 1954. © DGSE

    Every era has its own threats, and the intelligence services have continually adapted to cope with them. Evoking the genealogy leading from the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action (BCRA) to the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) is a means not only of paying tribute to the actions of our predecessors, but also of recalling our steadfast and meaningful commitment to the security of France and French nationals.

    Repression of the Resistance

    Repression of the Resistance

    Résistants français fusillés par les Allemands, sans date

    French Resistance fighters executed by a German firing squad (undated) The repression of the Resistance was particularly effective. Its results can be measured through the number of arrests, deportations and executions. The Service Historique de la Défense archives help us to understand the process and identify the different actors involved. They shed new light on this issue by focusing on the organisations and men tasked with carrying out the repression. For example, the Abwehr and Sipo-SD files seized at the end of the war offer an insight into the techniques used to penetrate Resistance organisations, teaching much about the use of double agents and the role they played. The German archives kept by the SHD also record the sentences handed down by the German military tribunals in France, complementing what is known about the occupier’s judicial system.

    Germans, auxiliaries and collaborators

    Germans, auxiliaries and collaborators

    Membres de la SIPO-SD de Paris photographiés rue des Saussaies en 1943

    Germans, auxiliaries, collaborators: there is no shortage of terms to describe the enemy and those who worked for them. All are omnipresent in the special services archives: every piece of information about dangerous and harmful individuals, whether of French, German or other nationality, was recorded in several thousand individual files. That intelligence, which began to be collected from the outbreak of the war, came from a wide variety of sources: open documents (press), information from correspondents, reports from the networks, interrogation reports, inquiries, seized documents, etc. The services also took an interest in the collaborationist movements and organisations, hence laying hands on a set of archives of the Legion of French Volunteers (LVF), including member and applicant files. After the war, they would similarly seize and exploit the German archives, such as the files of Abwehr agents in Paris or the archives of the German consulate in Marseille. The latter provided exceptional intelligence that bore witness to the daily collusion of some French people with the occupier: requests for intervention, requests for passes, denunciations, information, applications for travel permits to Germany, etc.

    Free French agents and Resistance fighters

    Free French agents and Resistance fighters

    Évasions par l'Espagne : passeurs du réseau Andalousie photographiés à Chèze (Hautes-Pyrénées)

    In September 1944, the Directorate-General for Special Services (DGSS) was installed in Paris. The archives, which up until then had been kept largely in London and Algiers, were returned to France. Part of the documentation, no longer of operational or administrative interest, was deposited in the National Archives, while part of it was kept by the special services that succeeded the Central Bureau of Intelligence and Action (BCRA). These archives reflect the activities of the networks and, more generally, of the services of Free France. They consist of two series, comprising thousands of individual files of BCRA agents: the first, compiled in London, is in alphabetical order by agent’s surname; the second, produced later in Paris, contains documents listed by network. The BCRA archive comprises reports of interrogations carried out by the counter-espionage section, collections of telegrams and cables exchanged with agents working in France, and all of the BCRA’s financial and accounting records.

    The special services in wartime

    The special services in wartime

    Le colonel Passy, chef du BCRA, photographié en Bretagne en 1944

    The archives kept by the Service Historique de la Défense shed light on the structure and activities of the French and German special services during the Second World War. As well as core documents (official texts, organisational charts), activity reports and mission reports, the archives contain the kinds of document concerned with the methods of action and investigation of counter-espionage organisations (interrogation reports, transcripts of tapped phone calls, intercepted documents). It is also possible to study the special services through the information they gathered about one another. The archives contain a great deal of information about the German services, such as files of the Directorate-General for Studies and Research (DGER) Special Section Germany (SSA), whose mission it was to reconstruct the order of battle of the Abwehr and Sipo-SD. The services monitored one another, trying to find out the secrets of each other’s practices, and if the Central Bureau of Intelligence and Action (BCRA) studied its adversaries, the French services were similarly the focus of keen-eyed attention from their German counterparts. Evidence of this is found in certain documents of the occupier that were seized at the end of the war and incorporated in the archives.

    Background and introduction to the archives

    Background and introduction to the archives

    Die Archivräume der Nachrichtendienste in Schloss Vincennes. SHD/Dominique Viola

    The special services archives kept by the Service Historique de la Défense (SHD) form a documentary ensemble of nearly 500 linear metres. The collection, long unknown but which has largely been opened up since 2014, has a turbulent history, taking it from London to Algiers, then Paris, from the cellars of “La Piscine” to those of the Château de Vincennes. It provides evidence of the activities of a number of intelligence and counter-espionage services between 1930 and 1945. It contains some of the archives of Free France’s Central Bureau of Intelligence and Action (BCRA), those of Vichy’s Rural Works (TR) and Bureau for Anti-Nationalist Manoeuvres (BMA), and those of the Directorate for Military Security (DSM) and Directorate-General for Studies and Research (DGER). Altogether, nearly 15 years of secret operations. The history of this documentary ensemble – what it tells us not only about the activities and positioning of the services that produced it, but also about the events involving them – constitutes a subject of study in itself. Unless otherwise stated, the record numbers quoted are those of the archives kept by the SHD, which can be consulted in the Louis XIV reading room at Château de Vincennes.

    A teacher’s view: interview with Régine Phisel

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    Photo taken at the former Natzweiler-Struthof camp by Jean Plugia, a student of Collège Marie Marvingt. © J. Plugia

    Régine Phisel teaches history and geography at Collège Marie Marvingt in Tallard (Hautes-Alpes). In an educational project that received support from the Ministry of the Armed Forces Directorate for Heritage, Remembrance and Archives (DPMA), she taught her students about the memory of deportation, by inviting them to think about the traces left behind by history in the former Natzweiler-Struthof camp.

    A teacher’s view: interview with Jackie Pouzin

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    View of the remains of the former Montreuil-Bellay camp. © B. Renoux / DRAC Pays de la Loire

    Jackie Pouzin teaches history and geography at Lycée Vadepied in Évron (Mayenne). For a number of years, he has been teaching his students about the history of the gypsy internment camp of Montreuil-Bellay, in Maine-et-Loire.