Clément Ader was the only son of François Ader, a carpenter. He had an inquisitive, inventive mind and took an interest in bird flight at a very young age. After the baccalaureate, he studied at the Institut Assiot in Toulouse, graduating in 1860. Ader joined the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer du Midi de la France railroad company in 1862 and worked there until 1866, when he started filing his first patents, in particular for the "rubber bicycle" in 1868. After 1873, Ader focused more of his attention more to aviation, building models, making many plans many drawings and trying to resolve the problems of manned flight: wing load, the propeller's effectiveness, etc. Meanwhile, he filed a patent for an invention that improved the telephone and invented the theatre-phone in 1881, enabling him to amass a comfortable fortune.

From 1885 to 1890, Ader worked on his prototype, Eole, a "winged device for aerial navigation called the Avion", which he patented on 19 April 1890 and experimented on 9 October of the same year on the grounds of the de Gretz-Armainvilliers château: the flight was 50 meters long. Ader continued his work in secret, improving the engine's performances. His goal was to build another aircraft, Avion 2, for which he signed a contract with the army. But high costs combined with military spending cuts in 1894 forced him to give up on the project.

Ader was able to finance his third prototype, Avion 3, which he finished in 1897 and tested in Satory on 12 and 14 October 1897; this time, the aircraft flew a distance of 300 meters. In 1902, however, Ader abandoned his aviation work because the army had withdrawn funding and he was unable to meet the costs alone. He retired to his Muret estate in 1905. The next year, when Santos Dumont took off in an aeroplane in Bagatelle, the French press hailed him as "the first Frenchman to fly", prompting Ader to leave retirement and bring his work to the public's attention. He published La première étape de l'aviation militaire (The First Step in Military Aviation) in 1907 and L'aviation militaire (Military Aviation) in 1909, in which he expounded his views on aircraft's role in future wars. His work's value and importance were recognised late in life, when he was named a Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1922.

Vincent Auriol was one of the most important figures in contemporary French history. a Socialist movement leader, negotiator at the reparations conference with Germany in 1918, fierce foe of the Vichy regime and one of the Fourth Republic's "founding fathers". Vincent Jules Auriol was born into a farm family in Revel (Haute-Garonne). He earned the baccalaureate in Latin and Greek in 1902 and a law degree in 1905, the same year that he joined the socialist federation of Haute-Garonne. Then he earned a doctorate in political science and became a member of the Toulouse bar. He wrote for the newspaper La Dépêche du Midi, founded Le Midi Socialiste with Albert Bedouce, minister of parliament and mayor of Toulouse, and maintained a steady correspondence with Jean Jaurès and Jules Guesde. In June 1912 he married Michelle Accouturier and the couple had two children: Paul (1918-1992), who organised the Tarn Resistance, and Jacqueline (1912-2000), who in 1952 broke the world jet-plane speed record.

From May 1914 to May 1936, Auriol was the Socialist representative of the town of Muret at the National Assembly, where he specialised in economic and financial issues. From 1914 he was a member of the definitive accounts committee. During the peace conference after the First World War, Auriol advocated limiting Germany's debt and reparations to war-torn areas and cancelling all interallied debts. In December 1920, he was among the 12 Socialist members of parliament who followed Léon Blum and refused to join the Communist International. Auriol was elected mayor of Muret in May 1925, joined the finance committee, which he chaired from June 1924 to July 1926, and became general councillor of the Haute-Garonne for Carbonne canton three years later. His parliamentary activity included many bills and continuous opposition to the financial policies of the Poincaré, Herriot, Daladier, Doumergue, Tardieu and Laval governments.

In June 1936 Auriol joined Léon Blum's government as finance minister. He reformed monetary policy by devaluating the Poincaré franc and creating the floating franc. In 1937 he became justice minister in the Chautemps cabinet and, the following year, participated in the second Blum cabinet as minister without portfolio as the prime minister's chief of staff. After Germany defeated France in 1940, Auriol refused to vote for the delegation of full powers to Marshal Pétain on 10 July. Because of his opposition he was imprisoned in Pellevoisin and, later, Vals-les-bains, with Paul Raynaud, Georges Mandel and Marcel Dassault. Auriol was placed under house arrest in Muret between 1941 and 1942, joined the Resistance and reached Free France in Algiers in October 1943, when he became a member of the provisional consultative assembly at its first meeting. His wife, who had taken refuge in Lyon, helped to decipher coded messages from Allied headquarters. After the Liberation, Auriol represented France at the Bretton Woods conference because of his skills and position as chairman of the Constituent Assembly's foreign affairs committee. On 21 October 1945, Auriol was voted back into parliament as the representative of the Haute-Garonne. Later, he became mayor of Muret and general councillor again. He chaired the Socialists' parliamentary group and in November General de Gaulle asked him to join his cabinet as minister without portfolio in charge of relations wit the Assembly.

As chairman of the Constituent Assembly in January 1946, Auriol presided over the return of the National Assembly and the foundation of the Fourth Republic, which elected him as its head. He became president of the French Union on 16 January 1947. When Auriol's term ended in December 1953, he went back to local and family life. He travelled, wrote his memoirs and published two books, Hier, demain, le Journal du septennat (Yesterday, Tomorrow, the Journal of My Seven-Year Term) and Dix années d'administration socialiste (Ten Years of Socialist Administration). At a congress in Austria in December 1954, he was elected honorary president of the World Federation of Resistance Veterans and Medal Holders. He campaigned for General de Gaulle's return to power in May 1958 and became a member of the Constitutional Council in March 1959. Auriol was in total opposition with the secretary-general of the Socialist Party and resigned in February 1959. As an eminence grise of the Republic, he continued to participate in public life, above party quarrels. For his political and military commitment, Vincent Auriol received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour and Grand Cross of the national orders of the 32 foreign states, the Rosette of the Resistance, the Cross of the Voluntary Resistance Fighter and honorary doctorate degrees from the universities of Columbia (New York), Laval (Québec), Oxford and Rio de Janeiro. Vincent Auriol died in Paris on 1st January 1966 in the aftermath of a broken hip suffered on his property in Labourdette.

Born in Argentina in 1900 to French parents, he moved to France following their accidental death. Already passionate about art and poetry, he went on to study at the Ecole Germain Pilon and later at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, in the Atelier Cormon. In the 1930s he moved to the Montparnasse district in Paris where he formed friendships with artists and writers such as Pierre-Albert Birot, André Derain, Jean Follain, Marie Laurencin and André Salmon. A realist painter of the French school, he painted and photographed figures, landscapes and still lifes.

The artist was particularly prolific during his five years in captivity in Stalag VII A in Moosburg, Bavaria. Sick and suffering from severe depression, he met the young sculptor Volti who helped him survive. In 1943, Volti returned to France with some of Alfred Gaspart’s drawings. That same year, his studio was bombed, destroying most of his artwork, but Gaspart's was saved and served as a testament to the panful years endured in the camps. In October 1944, under the pseudonym Timour, Alfred Gaspart was awarded first prize at the Concours de la Captivité organised by the YMCA in Geneva. Liberated in 1945, he became a recluse and never showed his work in public again despite persistent pleas from his friends and family and France’s National Federation of Prisoners of War. He continued to work away from the public eye. He died alone in 1993. The work accomplished by the artist is composed of 1,840 pieces (all techniques and sizes combined). The artworks are accompanied by diary entries (293 double-sided pages) that are a glimpse into how Alfred Gaspart lived, thought and suffered during his years in captivity. Correspondence between him and his sister Paule, his muse and his confidant, also provide a window into his life.

Margaretha Geertruida ZELLE was the only daughter of Adam Zelle and Antje van der Meulen. Her father, a rich milliner, lavished her with attention. The little girl, often mistaken for a Eurasian because of her dark skin, showed an early flair for invention and drama. The family "cocoon" was shattered in January 1889 when the Zelle Company went bankrupt. The family moved, Adam Zelle abandoned his children, and the couple separated on the 4th September 1890. The death of Mrs Zelle eight months later dispersed the siblings.

In November 1892, Margaretha began primary teacher training college in Leiden, where she was dismissed for having an affair with the headmaster. She then went to live with an uncle in La Hague. In March 1895 she replied to a classified advert posted by the captain of a royal army warship in the Indies: "Officer recently returned from the Indies seeks affectionate young woman for marriage". The officer, nineteen years her senior, was called Rodolphe MacLeod, alias John. He represented the father figure she had never had. They were married on the 11th July. On the 30th January 1897, whilst living in Amsterdam with one of Rodolphe's sisters, the pair had their first child, Norman John.
At the beginning of May 1897, the family left for Toempong (west of Java), in the Dutch Indies, where officer MacLeod was to take up his posting. The couple had a daughter there; Jeanne Louise nicknamed "Non". The young woman took an interest in Balinese dancing, and adopted the pseudonym of Mata Hari "Eye of the day" (name for the sun in Indonesian). Married life abroad was however proving difficult. Margaretha, intoxicated by the colonies, abandoned her family. The couple separated on grounds of adultery. Their son then died of poisoning. In 1900, after twenty-eight years of service, Rodolphe MacLeod left the army. In March 1902, the MacLeods returned to the Netherlands, and divorced five months later. In spite of the judgement made, Rodolphe refused his monthly visiting rights, and stole the child away from her mother's care.

In 1903, aged 26, the Dutchwoman went to Paris. Finding herself without employment, she returned to the Netherlands for a few months before embarking upon a career as an exotic dancer in the eternal city, in the character of a Javanese princess named "Lady MacLeod". She started working in the drawing room of Madame Kiréesky, then went on to other private drawing rooms, working under her Javanese pseudonym of "Mata Hari", finally finding herself invited by Mr Guimet, owner of a private theatre. Her performance on the evening of the 13th May 1905 as a totally naked Indian princess marked the start of her society life. She performed a variation of a "Hindu dance" in honour of the goddess Shiva, together with other artists. The show was a success and the actors were invited to perform before the great figures of the era: on the 18th August 1905 at the Paris Olympia, in January 1906 in Madrid; in Monte Carlo she played in the Roi de Lahore by Jules Massenet (1842-1912); in Berlin, the Hague, Vienna and Cairo. Her artistic talents were nevertheless fairly limited. Mata Hari was very probably the inventor of a type of choreography much-loved in the cabarets and by those for whom exoticism is synonymous with lasciviousness, and was more renowned for this than for performing Indian dances. Interviewed by journalists, the performer gave way to the actress: she liked to introduce her mother as an Indian princess, raised her father to the status of baron and added "I was born in Java, in the midst of tropical vegetation, and, since my earliest childhood, priests initiated me into the deep significance of these dances which form a real religion." This did not prevent her in 1907 however, from being outshined by other exotic dancers such as Colette, who was herself to be replaced by the Russian ballets soon after. Mata Hari, seeing her fame diminish, ended up moving in society circles, collecting benefactors, always on the lookout for new lovers.

When war was declared, Margaretha Zelle lived in Berlin with a former lover, Alfred Kiepert, a hussar, anxious to perform in the Metropolis. Her language skills made it possible for her to return to the Netherlands then to set up in Paris where, living at the Grand Hotel, she continued to make a living from her looks and charms. At the beginning of 1916, during a trip to Germany (Cologne, Frankfurt), Mata Hari, in debt due to her lavish lifestyle, was contacted by Cramer, a German Consul in The Hague. He offered to settle her debts, to give her 20,000 crowns in exchange for information on France. This is how she came to be agent H 21. Back in Paris in July, she entered into contacts with allied officers, and fell in love with a Russian army captain. When he was wounded, he was sent for treatment in Vittel. Mata Hari then began scheming to get the authorisation to go to his bedside. She entered into a relationship with captain Ladoux, officer of the French counterespionage. In exchange for this favour and a million francs (never paid), he offered her a mission to spy on the Kronprinz, one of her ex-lovers. The Frenchman distrusted her however: he had her followed throughout the whole mission. Her work complete, Mata Hari was then sent to Belgium in August, followed in November by Spain, the centre of the secret war, with no money or detailed instructions. The British secret services, thinking that they were dealing with the spy Klara Benedix, placed her under arrest at the port of Falmouth as she was travelling back to Holland in order to reach Germany, before subjecting her to hard interrogation. Captain Ladoux telegraphed his counterpart, Sir Basil Thomson, in order to clear up the confusion about her identity.

Once freed, Mata Hari returned to Madrid on 11th December 1916 for three weeks. She made contact with the military attaché of the German embassy, Arnold von Kalle, and provided the French services with a list of agents, a procedure written in invisible ink and a the name of a place of arrival in Morocco - this "harvest" of information was in fact to benefit the head of communications, Denvignes, who took credit for the work. In the meantime the British secret services intercepted and deciphered the telegrams sent by the German attaché in Berlin. They had mixed up the identities of agent H 21 and Mata Hari (due to a lack of vigilance on the part of the lieutenant von Kroon), thus supposedly proving that she was a double agent. One of the messages, concerning the accession to the Greek throne of the heir prince Georges mentions that "agent H-21 proved very useful". Another version of events claims that von Kalle, suspicious of Mata Hari, himself prompted the inquiry by sending these radio messages to Berlin in a code that could easily be deciphered by the Allies. Mata Hari returned to her lover in Paris in January 1917, in the hope of a reward and a new mission... She was arrested on 13th February at the hôtel Élysée Palace by Captain Bouchardon, the examining magistrate, "accused of spying and complicit intelligence with the enemy, in the aim of furthering their enterprises".

She was held in the women's prison of Saint-Lazarre. For four months, subjected to fourteen interrogations (from 23rd February to 21st June), Bouchardon ended up by concluding that she was H 21 - she denied having had relations with the head of German intelligence in Madrid, even if she admitted having received money from the German consul Cramer in the context of his society life. Carried away by his overriding chauvinism, Bouchardon did not take the services rendered by the accused into account - indeed, he disbelieved her: "feline, slippery, artificial, without scruples, without pity, she was a born spy", he wrote in his memoirs. The hearing, held in camera, started on the 24th July 1917, in front of the 3rd military council at the High Court in Paris. The Court was presided over by the lieutenant-colonel Somprou and the government commissioner, lieutenant Mornet - who was to declare several years after the hearing: "it was no big deal." Her lawyer, Master Clunet, a former lover, was a reputed expert in international law.

Besides Jules Cambon, Vadim Maslov, and the diplomat Henri de Marguérie who swore never having broached the subject of the military in her presence and guaranteed her integrity, none of her former lovers agreed to stand witness in her favour. The trial, as the interrogation, made no distinction between her society life, judged to be immoral, her suspicious cosmopolitanism, and her intelligence activities. They merely reflected French and Allied public opinion which was calling for guilty verdicts for all the deaths, mutinees and other war crimes. Meanwhile the press, maintaining the idea of an enemy plot in their reports, only served to further fuel the witchhunt for collaborators from both sides. Margueritte Francillard was the first French national shot for spying on the 10th January 1917. Mlle Dufays met the same end in March of the same year. The Mata Hari affair, in part due to the character's ambiguous behaviour, was just one more occasion to strengthen national unity - the British archives even show that she never gave the Germans any crucial information (Léon Schirmann).

At the end of the trial, the court found her guilty of collaboration with the enemy and sentenced her to death by firing squad - other women were also tried and sentenced for spying during the last years of the war: Augustine Josèphe, Susy Depsy, Régina Diano, etc. On the morning of the 15th October 1917, at 6h15, her pardon having been rejected by the President of the Republic Raymond Poincaré, Margaretha Zelle, who had recently converted to Protestantism, was driven by armoured car to the Vincennes firing range where soldiers and onlookers awaited her. Mata Hari refused to have her eyes covered. A cavalry officer delivered eleven bullets, the final one fatal: "her death reasserted the authority of a country bled dry by the bloody war of which the futility was becoming apparent" (J.M. Loubier). Her unclaimed body was donated to the medico-legal institute for research.

Son of François Queuille and Marie Masson de Saint-Félix, Henri was born into a bourgeois family in the provinces.

When his father, a chemist, died in 1895, the Queuilles moved to Tulle where the teenager attended the lycée starting in 1896. The young graduate studied medicine in Paris, where he made friends with Maurice Bedel and Georges Duhamel, before moving back to his home town in 1908. In 1910, he married Margueritte Gratadour de Sarrazin, with whom he had two children – Suzanne and Pierre. He rapidly rose in politics: member of the town council in 1912, mayor and general councillor of the Corrèze department the following year, and member of Parliament in 1914.

During the First World War, his service as a doctor with various ambulances on the Eastern Front earned him the Croix de Guerre 14-18.

A moderate member of the Radical Party, he entered the government of Alexandre Millerand in July 1920 as Undersecretary for Agriculture. Recognised by his peers, he held many ministerial portfolios (Agriculture, Health, Post, Public Works, Supplies), being appointed minister nineteen times between 1920 and 1940. He was the main driving force behind French agricultural policy between the wars (creation of rural engineering, creation and organisation of agricultural education, technical development of the countryside, etc.); he notably presided over the Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité et de la Coopération Agricole (National Federation of Reciprocity and Agricultural Cooperation).

He nationalised the railways and created the SNCF (French National Railway Company), and headed the Office National des Mutilés, Combattants, Victimes de Guerre et Pupilles de la Nation (1937). In 1939 he published Le Drame agricole: un aspect de la crise économique.

A staunch supporter of the Republic who worked with the Socialists, he became close with Edouard Herriot, but refused to vote to hand over full powers to Maréchal Philippe Pétain on 10 July 1940. He was then removed from his functions as mayor of Neuvic. His son Pierre’s membership in the Resistance made his contacts with Free France easier. Hettier de Boislambert convinced him to leave for the United Kingdom.

He reached London in April-May 1943, along with Astier de la Vigerie, Daniel Mayer and Jean-Pierre Levy, despite his distrust of de Gaulle. In May, he sent out a call to the French peasantry over the BBC, and was then appointed President of the landing commission in charge of developing the measures to be taken upon the Liberation of France. Two months later, the Vichy government issued a decree stripping Henri Queuille of his French nationality and his mandate as Senator. In August, he left for Algiers, where de Gaulle, bringing together the political parties, brought him into the Comité Français de Libération Nationale (CFLN - French Committee of National Liberation) in November 1943. Queuille asked to be relieved of his functions in September 1944, when the government moved to Paris, to return to his political career. He was elected mayor in October 1945, then member of Parliament in the legislative elections of 1946.

The war memoirs written by this recipient of the Médaille de la Résistance were published in Journal 1939/1945.

Loyal to Edouard Herriot, he headed the government of the 4^th Republic between July 1948 and June 1954. He was President of the Council (Premier) three times, curbing social unrest, the rise of Gaullism and government instability, applying a policy people called “immobilism”; he did not hesitate when it came to using force (October-November 1948) and postponing elections. But this policy enabled the Republic to survive.

His foreign policy activities led to the signature of a Franco-Vietnamese agreement in March 1949, practically recognising the colony’s independence, made France a member of the Atlantic Alliance and implemented the Marshall Plan the following month.

Defeated in the legislative elections of 1958, Henri Queuille returned to life in local politics. He transformed his town into a leisure resort, set up an agricultural high school and a technical school. Pursuing work on his memoirs that he had started in 1944, he gathered archives, documents, eye-witness accounts and objects from the Second World War and the Resistance, thus comprising the main collection of the Museum that bears his name.

From the citation for the Concours Général au Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur

Louis Auguste was born in 1859 into a modest Catholic family in Metz, to Jean Louis (a gas-board employee) and Cornélie Joseph. The defeat of 1871 forced the Adrian family into exile, firstly in Saint-Omer, then Bourges and finally Tours (5 rue Sully). A brilliant scholarship pupil at the lycée Descartes, he passed the Ecole Polytechnique entrance exam in 1878. Attending the school inn 1880, he chose Engineering and took a year at the Applied Engineering School at Fontainebleau before being commissioned as a lieutenant with the 3rd Arras Regiment. Here is his physical description from the École Polytechnique former students' register: "Light brown hair - Ordinary forehead - Average nose - Blue eyes Average mouth - Rounded chin - Oval face - Height 170cm"

While a Captain in1885, he joined the General Staff in Cherbourg to work on the building programme for new barracks in the Manche area as well as the coastal defences. Garrison life took him to Saumur, Rennes and Granville, where in 1889 he married Marguerite Pigeon. In 1885 he organised and took part in the sending of the expeditionary corps to Madagascar. There he co-ordinated logistics: improving the road network, building bridges and camps. Exhausted by the climate and his service, he was repatriated in 1895, before being awarded the Croix de Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, aged 36, for acts of war.

Reformer of the Supply Corps

Adrian was seconded to the General Staff of the Paris right bank, then took the preparatory course for admission to the Supply Corps. In March 1898, whilst a quarter-master 3rd class, he oversaw the stores at Valenciennes as section head. He wrote articles for the Supply Corps review, on research and on the use of resources in the North and published an instruction manual for deputy stores officers. In 1900, he was appointed to the first supply depot in Paris as part of the Relief Service. The following year, he verified the accounts of the troop corps at the second stores in Vincennes, and taught trainee Supply Corps officers. Now 2nd class, he returned to Arras in July 1904. Appointed deputy director of supplies at the War Ministry, Adrian was then put in charge of tracking down fraud and corruption among army suppliers. To combat this, he put forward a new Supplies guide, which led to an improvement in living conditions for servicemen. This work earned him promotion to first class in December 1908, as well as his registration, on 20th July 1911, for consideration for the rank of Officier de la Légion d'Honneur for "outstanding service on the return to State control of Military Bed Suppliers" - he received his decoration on 31st December 1912. Accepted for early retirement at his request in 1913, he moved to the family home at Genêts (in the Manche département) before using his expert knowledge to assist cattle-rearers in Orinoco (Venezuela) with the production and conservation of beef. For this, he developed prefabricated huts that could be dismantled.

The "Head of Section for Improvisation"

Recalled at his request in 1914, he was drafted as an auxiliary civil servant to the Supplies Department in Beauce and Touraine. As deputy to the Supply Corps Director at the Ministry of War he was responsible for clothing and equipment, facing severe shortages. Responsible from September 1914 for recovering textiles from Lille, he managed to keep over 4,000 tonnes of sheets, fabric and wool from falling into German hands and organised the reprocessing of fabrics. After completing this mission, he planned the replacement of uniforms, reorganising textile production, and requisitioning uniforms from the fire and postal services. Fully aware of everyday events at the front, he took the initiative in supplying soldiers with sheepskin capes to ward off the rigours of winter. In 1915, he put forward a design for trench boots and his system of huts - proven in Venezuela - went on to replace the conical military tents. In August 1915, the construction of huts was transferred from Engineering to the Supply Corps. Adrian, anticipating the winter campaign, decentralised hut production and brought in contributions from more than two hundred businesses in order to manufacture 50 units per day.

The quartermaster and his helmet

The name Adrian will always be associated with the helmet worn by the Poilu. Trench warfare was fought using shrapnel shells. Three quarters of the wounded suffered head injuries of which 88% were fatal. Soldiers thus had to be issued with a light, protective helmet. Adrian thus developed a 0.5mm thick metal skull cap, to be fitted inside the képi to protect the skull from splinters of stone, bullets, etc. But this model, of which over 700,000 were made and distributed at the end of the winter of 1915, was judged to be insufficiently effective, despite protecting against 60% of shrapnel. On 21st February 1915, the Ministry of War, on the recommendation of General Joffre, decided to adopt a steel helmet for the infantry. Less than a month later, the "Dragon's Helmet" design put forward by military artist Georges Scott was chosen, but its overly complex manufacturing method delayed production, to the benefit of Adrian's prototype. To increase ballistic protection, Adrian looked a helmet based on a new concept that combined ease of production with effectiveness. In April 1915, the helmet comprising 700g of sheet steel was presented and accepted. 1,600,000 were ordered on 5th June 1915. Over 7 million were made in the first year alone. The helmet was so successful with the military that western armies ordered it en masse (Italy, Belgium, Serbia, Romania, Holland and Russia). In October 1915, Adrian was promoted to Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur, in recognition of all his work.

An inventor at the service of soldiers In the Autumn of 1915, Adrian designed an abdominal protector against barbed wire and bayonets, and fitted back-pack straps with a stop to spread the load better and reduce wear from the belts. The quartermaster was also one of the men behind the Taxis de la Marne. Joffre and Gallieni would take up his idea of using automobiles to transport troops rapidly to the front.

Back to active service, the "saviour of Paris", the Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur In April 1916, a law on Supply Corps recruitment meant that quartermasters that took early retirement in peacetime and who had given outstanding service in wartime could be recalled. Thus appointed by the Decree of 17th May 1916, Adrian aroused resentment and jealousy. Among other things, the inquiry report accused him of illegal market dealings and of having patented his military inventions. At the end of 1916, Adrian's service was terminated and the construction of huts reverted to Engineers. In February 1917, Adrian was seconded to the testing, research and technical experimentation department of Under-Secretary for Inventions. Here he continued his work on protective armour, shrapnel goggles, the armoured turret for aircrew seats and the use of solar power. A second report stressed the importance of his service record and justified his actions given the exceptional circumstances. Appointed quartermaster on 26th June 1917, he was called upon by the Président du Conseil, Clemenceau, to lead the General Inspectorate of Quarters for the Government's Under-Secretary of State. The quartermaster controlled the army's supply services and, from April 1918, handled the department for Evacuees, Refugees, and Repatriated Deportees. His popularity increased still further when he used triangulation, based on shell impacts on Paris, to locate "Big Bertha" in the forest at Compiègne. The quartermaster was placed on the reserve list in 1918 by the Commission for Corps Rejuvenation. But the counter-enquiry led by Abrami, under-secretary of State, overturned the Commission's decision in December 1918, and reinstated the quartermaster to his duties as Inspector General in 1919. Louis Auguste Adrian was promoted to the rank of Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur on 16th June 1920. Unwell, he retired to his Normandy residence at Genêts and died in Val-de-Grâce hospital in August 1933.

François-Joseph was brought to power in Olmütz on the 2nd December 1848 following the revolutionary uprising of 1848, succeeding his uncle Ferdinand the Ist. He was the eldest son of the archduke François-Charles and princess Sophie of Bavaria. He married Elisabeth of Bavaria in 1854. The victories of his chancellor, prince Schwartzenburg and general Radetzki was to re-establish Austrian domination over the Hungarians and Italians (1849). Allied by Russia, he was to impose an authoritarian military regime, hostile to national minorities, however he was to lose this support in 1855 because of his hesitation during the Crimean War. The emperor was overthrown in 1859 by the troops of Victor-Emmanuel and Napoleon III (during the battles of Solferino and Magenta). He was forced to give up Lombardy as part of the Zurich treaty (10th November 1859). The rivalry with Prussia over the domination of the dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein, seized from Denmark in 1864), gave the latter a reason to declare war in 1866. Defeated at Sadowa on the 3rd July 1866, he made peace with Prussia (Prague treaty, the 23rd August 1866), thus relinquishing his rights in Northern Germany to the victor and renouncing all involvement in the unification of Germany - the government of Vienna having crushed the "Little Germany" movement inspired by Prussia. He was also forced to give up Venetia to Italy, via France (treaty of Vienna, 3rd October 1866), who were allied to Prussia following the secret meeting between Napoleon III with Bismarck in Biarritz (October 1865).

To quell nationalist movements in his empire, he passed a statute in 1867 which effectively transformed Austria into a dualist, essentially federalist monarchy (Austro-Hungarian). The territories of the former Austrian empire were separated into two parts either side of the Leithasont to make up Cisleithania around Austria and Transleithania around Hungary. Cisleithania was made up of Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Gabissia, Slovenia, Istria, and the territories along the Dalmatian coast. Universal suffrage was granted to men. Eastern Transleithania was formed of Hungary, Croatia, the territories around Temesvar, and Trans-sylvania. There was no male right to vote here, fact which gave the other people under the domination of Budapest an advantage. The emperor was still torn between an authoritarian rule (inspired by Germany), and the federalist politics of Ministers Taaffe and Badeni. François-Joseph accepted this situation of interior political deadlock.

The policy of rapprochement with Prussia led by Andrassy resulted in a rallying towards Bismarck's politics: in 1873 the alliance of the three emperors (Germany, Russia, Austria), who were to become the Dual Alliance in 1879 (Germany and Austria), and finally the Triple Alliance in 1883 when Italy joined - this is even spoken of in terms of "diplomatic subordination of Germany", from 1892-1893 onwards. Austria occupied (in 1878) and annexed (1908) Bosnia-Herzegovina in order to limit the Russian influence in the Balkans which since leaving the alliance had led to Pan-Slav politics, intensifying and thus becoming involved itself in the affairs of the Dual Monarchy. The annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina resulted in an international crisis. The problem with Bosnia appeared to be linked to that of Serbia and the situation of the southern Slavs under the domination of Budapest, who tended to be turned more towards Belgrade. Torn therefore between Pan-Slav and a dominant Pan-German politics, François-Joseph failed in his attempt to embody the middle way in central-eastern Europe. His long reign of 68 years saw him endure the execution of his brother Maximilian in Mexico in 1867, the suicide of his son Rodolphe in Mayerling in 1889, the assassination of his wife in by an anarchist in Geneva in 1898 and that of his nephew and presumed heir, François-Joseph, on the 28th June 1914 in Sarajevo, the event which triggered the first world war. The dual monarchy was thus relatively stable politically when it entered the war. His sovereign succeeded in imposing a certain dynastic sense of loyalty on most of his subjects and also among the army and other institutions. Austro-Hungary had suffered far heavier losses due to the war and its million victims than the antimonarchist movements by the time its founder passed away.

Jean-Marie Degoutte enlisted on the 7th March 1887 in the 31st artillery regiment and got into Saint-Cyr in October 1988 with the class of "Great Triumph". He graduated 9th out of 435. Having chosen to join the "Zouaves", he served in Tunisia for four years. A key player in the French colonial venture He asked to take part in the Madagascar expedition in 1895. To get around the refusal of his superiors, he requested three months' leave and joined a Jesuit mission on board a civilian ocean liner. As he was already there when the French expeditionary corps landed, he offered his services to General Dechesnes, who put him under arrest for thirty days. Young officer Degoutte owed his salvation to Colonel Bailloud, the Head of the expedition, who convinced his superiors of the usefulness of his experience and Madagascan language skills. He returned to Tunisia in March 1896 for three years. In 1899 he was admitted to the Upper War Academy, from which he graduated. In 1900, Baillaud included him in the China expeditionary corps. He was cited twice on the corps' order of merit. Returning to North Africa, he became the ordnance officer to the Major General of the Algiers division in January 1905, and then, the following year, to the Major General of the 20th corps.

At the end of 1906, he returned to the Zoaves as Head of Battalion, before joining the headquarters of the Algiers division three years later. From February 1911 to December 1912 he took part in the operations in western Morocco as Head of the Expedition.
On his return to France and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, he took a course at the Centre for Higher Military Studies. As second in command and then chief of staff of the 4th corps between February and March 1914, he distinguished himself in battle and was appointed Colonel on the 1st November the same year, before becoming an Officer of the Légion d'Honneur on the 10th April 1915. He was appointed Chief of Staff following the attacks of September 1915 in the Champagne region and made Brigade General on the 25th March 1916. In August he took command of the Moroccan troops. The corps distinguished itself in the Somme, in Champagne and at Verdun, feats that earned him two citations and the cravat of Commander of the Légion d'Honneur. As Division General in September 1917, he ran the 21st corps of General Maistre's 6th army. He took part in the Malmaison offensive, which resulted in the fall of the Chemin des Dames, earning him another citation on the Order of the Army. On the 10th June 1918, leading the 6th army, he halted the German advance on the Marne and on the 15th July 1918 he embarked with General Mangin on the attack that marked the start of the French campaign. He liberated Château-Thierry, holding back the Germans on the Marne and the Ourcq and at La Vesle. In September he was designated Major General to the Belgian King. He then led the offensive of Flanders, capturing the Passchendaele crest and taking back the south of Belgium with Belgian, British and French troops. Once the war was over and promoted to Great Officer of the Légion d'Honneur, he was given the responsibility of writing the clauses of the Treaty of Versailles under Foch's supervision.
He was appointed commander of the army of the Rhine in October 1919 and in January 1920 he became a member of the Upper War Council. In 1923 he carried out the occupation of the Ruhr until its complete evacuation in 1925. His qualities helped him reach the rank of Great Cross of the Légion d'Honneur in 1923. He received the military medal in 1928. Remaining active, he influenced the strategic options for the defence of the country at the Upper War Council. The establishment of the line of defence of the Alps occupied his final years.

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, wie die Augen vor Hunger leuchten und der Durst sie verblassen lässt

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, wie es ist, seine Mutter sterben zu sehen und keine Tränen zu haben

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, wie sehr man am Morgen sterben möchte, und am Abend nur noch Angst hat

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, dass ein Tag länger dauert als ein Jahr und eine Minute länger als ein ganzes Leben

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, wie die Beine keinen Schmerz mehr empfinden, die Augen und Nerven immer schwerer werden und unsere Herzen schwerer sind als Stahl

Wisst ihr, dass die Pflastersteine nicht weinen, dass es keine Worte gibt für dieses Grauen, keine Worte für diese Angst

Wisst ihr, dass das Leiden und der Horror keine Grenzen kennen

Wisst ihr das

Ihr, die ihr alles wisst

Charlotte Delbo, aus Keiner von uns wird zurückkehren, Verlag Gonthier, 1965

Charlotte Delbo wird am 10. August 1913 in Vigneux-sur-Seine, in Seine-et-Oise, als Tochter von Charles Delbo, Maschinenbauer, und Erménie Morero geboren. Sie ist die älteste von vier Kindern.

Nach abgeschlossenem Abitur studiert sie Philosophie an der Sorbonne und schließt sich den jungen Kommunisten an. Dort lernt sie Georges Dudach kennen, den sie dann am 17. März 1936 heiratet. 1937 unterbricht sie ihr Studium und wird 1939 die Sekretärin des Comedian und Regisseurs Louis Jouvet. Im Mai 1941 begleitet sie die Truppe von Jouvet auf deren Tournee durch Südamerika. Ihr Ehemann bleibt in Frankreich und schließt sich dem kommunistischen Widerstand an.

Im September 1941 erfährt Charlotte in Buenos-Aires von der Hinrichtung ihres Freundes Jacques Woog, verurteilt wegen „kommunistischer Propaganda“. Voller Wut und bereit für den Widerstand, kehrt sie nach Frankreich zurück. In Paris tritt das Ehepaar dem Widerstand bei. Charlotte schreibt die Mitteilungen von Radio London und Radio Moskau mit und arbeitet für die von Jacques Decour gegründete französische Zeitschrift Les Lettres.

Am 2. März 1942 werden Charlotte und ihr Mann von fünf französischen Polizisten des Sonderkommandos verhaftet. Sie wird ins Gefängnis von Santé gebracht, wo sie am 23. Mai von der Hinrichtung Georges am Mont Valérien erfährt. Am 17. August wird sie in die Festung von Romainville verlegt, wo sie auf zahlreiche andere Frauen trifft, insbesondere Kommunistinnen. Eine Woche später wird sie nach Fresnes verlegt.

Sie ist eine von 230 Frauen, die Compiègne am 24. Januar 1943 in Richtung Auschwitz verlassen. Als diese Frauen am 27. Januar in Auschwitz ankommen, singen sie die Marseillaise. Die zunächst dem Block 14 der Frauen von Birkenau zugewiesenen Frauen, werden dann isoliert von den anderen zu schweren Arbeiten gezwungen, insbesondere in den Sümpfen. Viele von ihnen starben an Typhus. Am 3. August waren nur noch 57 von ihnen am Leben. Auch sie kommen unter Quarantäne. Am 7. Januar 1944 wird Charlotte Delbo mit sieben anderen Deportierten ins Lager Ravensbrück verlegt. Sie kommt nach Furstenberg, ein Arbeitskommando des Hauptlagers.

Die meisten der Überlebenden des Konvois wurden im Sommer 1944 nach Ravensbrück deportiert. Dank des Roten Kreuzes gelang es ihr mit anderen Frauen, das Lager am 23. April 1945 in Richtung Schweden zu verlassen und im Juni 1945 nach Frankreich zurückzukehren. Von den 230 Frauen des Transports vom 24. Januar 1943 haben 49 überlebt.

Nachdem sie in der Schweiz Fuß gefasst hatte, verfasste sie mit dem Buch „Keiner von uns wird zurückkehren“ ihr erstes literarisches Werk über die Deportation und die Transporte von Frankreich in Richtung Auschwitz. Das Buch wird erst im Jahr 1965 vom Gonthier Verlag veröffentlicht.

Nach Kriegsende arbeitet sie bei der UNO und dann im Französischen Zentrum für Wissenschaft. Sie stirbt im März 1985. Zuvor hatte sie zahlreiche Werke verfasst: Berichte über ihre Erfahrungen in den Konzentrationslagern und den Transport am 24. Januar (1965), Une connaissance inutile (1970), Mesure de nos jours (1971, Minuit-Verlag) und Qui rapportera ses paroles (1974, Verlag P.J. Oswald).

Georges Dudach:
_Zum Zum Gedächtnis der erschossenen Männer von Mont-Valérien 1939−1945

Name: Dudach. Familienname. Vornamen: Georges Paul. Geburtsdatum 18.09.1914. Geburtsort: Saint Maur des Fossés. Département des Geburtsorts: Seine. Geburtsland: Frankreich. Beruf: Journalist. Wohnort: Paris 16. Département Wohnort: Seine. Land des Wohnsitzes: Frankreich. Ort der Inhaftierung. Anklage: Geiselnahme. Prozessdatum. Ort der Hinrichtung: Mont Valérien. Datum der Hinrichtung: 23.05.1942.

"Beyond the specious turning point called death, how do we catch up with the soul that was never entirely with us, that has slipped through our fingers like a foolhardy, dreamy shadow on the terrible road where it fled from us? "Perhaps I am not a completely real being."

This statement by Benjamin Constant deeply moved Alain-Fournier the day he read it; suddenly he applied it to himself and, I recall, solemnly asked us to remember it whenever we would have to explain something about him in his absence. I clearly saw what was in his mind : "Everything I do is missing something to be serious, obvious, unquestionable. But also, the plane I move on is not exactly the same as yours; it allows me to go where you see an abyss: perhaps there is not the same discontinuity between this world and the other for me as there is for you."

Excerpt from Jacques Rivière's foreword to Miracles (1924), a posthumous collection of prose and poems by Alain-Fournier.

Henri-Alban Fournier was born in La Chapelle-d'Angillon, in the Cher, on 3 October 1886. His father, a schoolteacher, was appointed to the primary school in Epineuil-le-Fleuriel in 1891 and Henri was his pupil until 1898, when he enrolled in the Lycée Voltaire in Paris. In 1901, Fournier, who dreamed of becoming a sailor, pursued his studies at the high school in Brest with the aim of entering the Naval Academy. But he soon dropped the plan and enrolled in the high school in Bourges at the end of 1902, graduating six months later.

In September 1903, he enrolled in the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux to prepare for the competitive entrance examination of the École Normale Supérieure teacher's training college. That is where he met Jacques Rivière, who became his best friend (their correspondence, which is among the most beautiful in French literature, was published between 1926 and 1928) and his brother-in-law when Rivière married Isabelle Fournier, Henri-Alban's younger sister, in 1909. In 1906, Fournier failed the École Normale Supérieure entrance exam. In 1907 he tried one last year of preparatory courses at the Lycée Louis Le Grand but failed the test again.

A decisive event in Fournier's romantic and literary life occurred during this period. As he was leaving the Grand Palais on 1 June 1905, the 19-year-old spotted a very pretty young woman and followed her from a distance to her home on boulevard Saint Germain. He returned on 11 June, accosted her in the street, and whispered, "You are beautiful." Yvonne de Quiévrecourt did not respond to his advances and walked towards Saint-Germain des Près church, where she attended mass. After the service, the two young people had a long conversation at the end of which Yvonne told him that she was engaged and that her destiny was already laid out before her. Yvonne de Quiévrecourt married in 1907 and became Yvonne de Galais in Le Grand Meaulnes.

Fournier did his military service the next year. He graduated from the officers' school in Laval before being assigned to the 88th Infantry Regiment in Mirande, in the Gers, with the rank of second lieutenant. Haunted by Yvonne's memory, he took his first steps in literature, writing a few poems and essays, which Rivière had published posthumously under the title Miracles (1924). In April 1910, after Fournier had completed his military service, he started working at Paris-Journal, writing a "literary column" on a regular basis. At the same time, he began an affair with Jeanne Bruneau, a milliner on rue Chanoinesse whom he had met in Bourges, which lasted until April 1912. She was probably the basis for the character of Valentine in Le Grand Meaulnes.

This is the period when Fournier, who was living on rue Cassini, started writing an autobiographical novel, Le Grand Meaulnes. In 1912, he left Paris-Journal to enter, thanks to Charles Péguy, the service of Claude Casimir-Perier, a politician and the son of a former French president. The young man started a stormy affair with his employer's wife, the actress Pauline Benda, who went by the stage name of Madame Simone.

In February 1913, Fournier spoke for the last time with his first love, Yvonne de Quiévrecourt (whose married name was Vaugrigneuse), now a mother of two. From July to November 1913, La Nouvelle Revue française published Le Grand Meaulnes, which he had finished early that year. Later in 1913, Émile-Paul published it in book form. That is when the writer decided to go by the name of Alain-Fournier. Le Grand Meaulnes was nominated for the prestigious Goncourt Prize, but Marc Elder won it by a very narrow margin for his book Peuple de la Mer (People of the Sea). In early 1914, Alain-Fournier starting writing a play, La Maison dans la forêt (The House in the Forest), and another novel, Colombe Blanchet, both of which remained unfinished. The reason is that he was mobilised as soon as war broke out in August 1914. He joined the front as a lieutenant with the 288th reserve infantry regiment of Mirande. After fighting just a few weeks, on 22 September Alain-Fournier was killed in action south of Verdun. Reported missing with 20 of his comrades-in-arms, his body was found in 1991 in a mass grave where German soldiers had buried him. In 1992, the remains of the 21 men from the 288th infantry regiment exhumed from Saint-Rémy Wood, including those of Alain-Fournier, received a proper burial. Henri-Alban Fournier's final resting place is now Saint-Remy-la-Calonne National Cemetery in the Meuse.

"I do receive your letters, my dear little Isabelle. Some have even reached me in the middle of fighting. I am very healthy. I hope to see Jacques soon. I am now assigned to the general staff on horseback. I have great confidence in the outcome of the war. Pray God for all of us. And you have confidence, too. I tenderly squeeze you and your Jacqueline in my arms for a long time. Your brother, Henri"