The Battle of Arras Memorial was opened to the public on 1 March 2008. Erected in the former Wellington Quarry, it commemorates the Allied Engagement and the role this location played in the planning of the British offensive of April 1917 in Arras.

In spring 1917, the French General Nivelle, while preparing the Chemin des Dames offensive, requested that the commander of the British troops launch a diversion attack in the sector of Arras.

The main difficulty with this operation was gathering the troops in large numbers without attracting the enemy’s attention. The New Zealand fire brigade were commanded to dig tunnels beneath the enemy trenches in order to link together the old quarries used by stonecutters in the 15^th and 16^th centuries and create a huge underground network stretching 20 kilometres. It allowed the British troops to come out from nowhere, on the morning of 9 April, a few metres from the German front line.

This underground network was the biggest of its kind ever constructed by the British troops. The other purpose of these passages was to meet the basic needs of the 24,000 men billeted there prior to combat, the quarries providing a high level of security despite its close proximity to the Front with kitchens, showers and latrines installed as well as a military hospital. To facilitate their movements around the tunnels, the New Zealand and British troops named the quarries after towns and cities from their homelands. The main quarry was named Wellington.

A recent research programme carried out on these quarries by Arras’ archaeological department unearthed many traces of their former French and British occupants, the soldiers who lived and fought here during the war. In light of the interest these new-found testimonials hold in helping us to understand the everyday lives of the soldiers, a thorough inventory of the passages was made in the Wellington Quarry.

The town of Arras took the initiative to build this memorial, part funded by the Regional Council, the French Ministry of Regional Planning, the Urban Community, the General Council and the Ministry of Defence.

This place of remembrance comprises a remembrance garden and a wall dedicated to the British regiments who fought in this battle engraved with the names of all the soldiers. Documents about Arras dating back to the Great War are displayed in the half-buried reception hall.

Over 75 minutes, the tour pays tribute to the engagement of the Allied troops around Arras, focusing more on the soldiers’ everyday lives than the war itself. The quarry is open to groups of up to 17 people led by a tour guide. A glass lift takes the group 20 metres below ground to visit the 350 metres of tunnels that have been renovated.

This strategic network also housed the living quarters of thousands of soldiers billeted below ground. Drawings and graffiti, bas reliefs, crosses and other features can be seen on the walls, along with traces left behind by the soldiers such as helmets and rusted tins of food.

Each visitor is given an audio-guide that describes 10 sequences illustrated by visual projections and light shows on the surrounding walls: the discovery of the underground world; the traces left by the working quarry in the Middle Ages; the tunnel of history (the quarries up to 1916); the objectives of this unique military strategy in the context of the war; the tunnelling operation in 1916 and 1917; daily life in the quarries in April 1917; the construction of the network, and the Battle of Arras in April 1917. To conclude, a film about the Battle of Arras, based on archives from the Imperial War Museum, is shown in a room at the end of the tour. The memorial hopes to welcome 60,000 visitors a year.

Wellington Quarry

Rue Delétoile 62000 Arras

Tel: +(0)3 21 51 26 95

Office de tourisme d'Arras

Carrière Wellington

On the 22nd February 2008, the President of the Republic opened the Charles de Gaulle Historial at Les Invalides. This "audiovisual monument" is an avant-garde place of learning based on a strong preconceived museographical idea: using sound and images to retrace the route of a man whose own destiny became entwined with that of France.

Covering about 2,500 m², the Historial is a real "audiovisual structure" whose objective is to convey both the history and the memory of General de Gaulle. Created by the architects Alain Moatti and Henri Rivière, the Historial is housed in a concrete structure, invisible on the surface, beneath the Valeur courtyard of the Hôtel National des Invalides. There are no objects here, only still and moving images. In addition, the Communication and Audiovisual Production Company for the Department of Defence (ECPAD) has provided more than thirty minutes of archive films, allowing the production company special access to the original material so that it could make high definition copies. Conducted by the army museum in close liaison with the Charles de Gaulle Foundation, this production is part of the museum's large-scale modernisation programme.
Visitors are greeted on arrival by a mosaic of eighty portraits of Charles de Gaulle, before making their way into the heart of the monument, which is fixed in the ground by an inverted wooden dome. This self-supporting structure contains an enormous spherical auditorium with seating for 200 people, where five screens show a biographical archive film lasting twenty-five minutes and in eight languages. Directed by Olivier Brunet with a commentary written by Maurice Druon and read by actor Francis Huster, this film is an opportunity to find out more about the figure and his actions, set in a historical context. All around this multimedia auditorium there is a permanent exhibition divided into two areas: the history loop and alcoves. The loop is a place for wandering around, made of curved, fluted glass; visitors pass through an area filled with images and sounds recalling the major events of the 20th Century, from the Belle Époque up to the first man on the moon. The three alcoves are fitted with interactive equipment and are designed to allow those who wish to expand their knowledge of history to learn more about its complexity and consequences. The first is dedicated to the man of the 18th June; the second to him as liberator; the third as the founder of the 5th Republic, from the Constitution of 1958 until the events of May 1968.
In addition, all along the route, the bilingual French/English audio guide provided to visitors is an aid to interpreting the subject matter and the meaning of the images. A temporary 350 m² exhibition hall and a teaching workshop complete the collection. The originality of the Historial is in its use of audiovisual and sound archives to bear witness to a century on which Charles de Gaulle made his mark. The general public can personalise their journey through this innovative complex, where the emphasis is on interactivity. A spectacular journey that is both a scientific and artistic way of following De Gaulle's career.
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Located some twenty kilometres southwest of St. Mihiel Cemetery in Thiaucourt (Meurthe-et-Moselle department) and some fifteen kilometres from the town of St. Mihiel, the Montsec American Monument, built on a 270-metre hill, overlooks Madine Lake.

Produced by sculptor Egerton Swarthout, the monument, built with Euville limestone in 1930, commemorates the attacks carried out by the American Army from 12 to 14 September 1918 and from 9 to 11 November 1918 to take the St. Mihiel salient.

A large walkway leads to an open-air colonnade made up of fluted Doric columns supporting an entablature bearing the names of the towns, alternating with laurel wreaths.

At the centre of the colonnade is a bronze map illustrating the location of the St. Mihiel salient fronts. Damaged during fighting in 1944, the structure was restored four years later. Access to the monument is free.

Montsec American Monument Head toward Saint-Mihiel.

At Loupmont, continue toward Apremont-la-Forêt and then "Massif Fortifié de Liouville".

Montsec Town Hall

8 rue de l'Eglise - 55300 Montsec

Tel.: +33 (0)3 29 90 42 83

The speed at which Strasbourg fell, on 28 September 1870, after 46 days of siege, prompted the German High Command, under the authority of General Von Moltke and Von Kameke, to formulate a defence plan for the Empire’s western borders that planned to turn the towns of Cologne, Metez, Thionville and Strasburg into fortified camps, protecting their perimeters by a ring of armed forts.

The defensive ring around Strasbourg

Strasbourg was thus protected by a ring of detached, half-buried, heavily fortified and armed structures, even before the construction of the new urban line of fortifications that would be started in 1876 after the commissioning of the first forts. The works began in 1872, under the direction of the engineering officers Hauptmann Stephan (Fort Rapp) and Volkmann (on the Rhine side in the northeast to pass over to Kehl on the right bank via the southeast).

Fort Reichstett (Moltke) was inaugurated on 26 September 1874. Eleven structures were built in Alsace covering a perimeter of nearly 35 kilometres and three structures around Kehl (in Germany) covering a perimeter of 18 kilometres. The line included forts with dry and wet ditches. The masonry, in dressed standstone from Vosges and bricks manufactured in Rust (Germany) and Achenheim (Alsace), puts these monuments in the Neo-Prussian style. Two to three thousand workers were employed, including Italian bricklayers.

Fort Rapp-Moltke

The outpost covered 4.5 hectares and was made up of some 220 rooms and facilities. The fort comprised: an entrance with a place of arms, guard house, large powder store and guard quarters during peace time; a dry ditch surrounding the fort fitted with a covered way supplemented by a barbed-wire fence; barracks on two levels housed the troops quarters and services (HQ, kitchen, bakery, infirmary, sleeping quarters, washing facilities, etc.) and were equipped with a defence system of the ditch by flanking; an entrance into the fort composed of a gate, draw bridge and reinforced door; a central corridor leading to the casemates; casemates composed of alarm rooms, powder stores, munitions assembly rooms, goods hoist for moving munitions into artillery positions at the top of the fort; front and side parapets surmounting the fort, reserved for artillery pieces.

The outposts were protected by: sheltered corridors, a reinforced observation turret made it easier to keep watch of the front; a double caponier above the front ditch, converted in 1885 to a front battery was built in the counyterscarp with a system of countermines and sewers completing the frontal defence system; adjoining batteries to the left and right. Each fort was defended by 18 cannons (90 to 150 and even 220 mm) in firing position; 18 reserve pieces of artillery in the interior courtyards (cannons and mortars). The short-range defence was assured by 90-120 mm cannons which were later replaced by Hotchkiss 37-mm revolver cannons and 53-mm rapidfire machine guns. The fort could hold 800 men (infantrymen, pioneers, artillerymen and guards) under the command of 15 officers.

An evolving system

In 1885, the discovery of picric acid and the manufacture of torpedo shells triggered a huge crisis in military constructions. High Command decided to take the artillery outside the fort to form the adjoining batteries, reinforce the top sections of the forts with “special concrete” and granite blocks, convert windows in the barracks into fire stands, turn the double caponier into a front-facing battery offering greater protection and equipped with revolver cannons, fit out the walls with counterscarps of metal gates and build the entrance via the ditch, install blast-proof doors at certain access points, and reinforce the fort’s defences with two marine artillery pieces, 150 mm on rails.

From 1890, intermediate structures were built between the forts to block up any gaps; these included infantry, artillery and munitions buildings to complete the defence system. In this year, the fort in Strasbourg lost its strategic importance due to the stronghold erected in Mutzig (1893-1914) that had the capacity for up to 6,500 men with artillery in turrets and armoured shields.

Between 1914 and 1918, the fort was used as a munitions and equipment store then a camp for Russian and Italian prisoners. Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France following the Treaty of Versailles and the site was integrated into the Maginot Line as a rear base for the 226th Infantry Regiment of Strasbourg and a rest centre for the fortress troops based in the fortifications along the Maginot Line along the Rhine. Marine artillery pieces were placed on top of the fort around 1937.

The Ney-Rapp intermediate structure occupied by the 155^th Fortress Artillery Regiment, was damaged by an explosion in June 1940. From 1940 to 1944, the German army used the stronghold as a warehouse. It was occupied by the FFI and the first French and American troops during the Liberation. Between 1946 and 1968, the fort was used as a munitions store.

After being decommissioned, the site was allocated to the civil protection department of the French Ministry of the Interior. In 1993, the Friends of Fort Rapp Association was tasked with rescuing, preserving and restoring this military structure. After three years of work, the fort was opened to the public.

Fort Rapp-Moltke

Rue de Lorraine 67116 Reichstett

Contact: mjg.schuler@evc.net

Tourisme 67

Le musée franco-américain du château de Blérancourt, unique musée consacré à des relations entre deux pays, et plus spécifiquement à la France et aux Etats-Unis d’Amérique, est situé à 120 km au nord de Paris et à 15 km de la gare de Noyon.

Construit en 1612 sur les plans du célèbre architecte Salomon de Brosse, le Château de Blérancourt fut la demeure de la riche famille des Potiers de Gesvres, avant démantelement pendant la Révolution. En ruines à la fin du19ème siècle, il est confié en 1917 par l’Armée française à Anne Morgan, fille du fameux banquier et collectionneur américain John-Pierpont Morgan. A la tête d’une association d’aide aux populations des régions sinistrées par la guerre, le Comité pour les Régions Dévastées, elle poursuit jusqu’en 1924 son action humanitaire et participe à la reconstruction de la région Picardie grâce aux missions suivantes : service d’infirmières-visiteuses, ravitaillement, aide à la lecture publique, foyers et jardins d’enfants, scoutisme, sports et fêtes. Grâce à,un parc automobile de Ford-T, les volontaires peuvent ainsi desservir 130 villages à partir de 5 centres établis à Blérancourt, Coucy-le-château, Anizy, Vic-sur-Aisne et Soissons. Au plus près des populations sinistrées, elles participent activement à une reconstruction morale et sociale et apportent la joie de vivre dans une région détruite à 90 % lors du conflit mondial.

Au lendemain de la guerre, Anne Morgan rachète le château (1919), fait restaurer en 1924 les deux pavillons d'angle pour y installer le musée de la coopération franco-américaine, puis en 1930 l'aile nord du Château, suivie par l'aile sud en 1938.

A l’origine dédié à la participation française à la guerre d’Indépendance et surtout à l’aide américaine durant la Première Guerre mondiale, le projet culturel du musée s’est ensuite étendu aux relations artistiques franco-américaines, présentées dans le pavillon Gould construit en 1989 par les architectes Yves Lion et Alan Lewitt.

Le musée fait actuellement l’objet d’un chantier de complète rénovation afin d’augmenter la surface d’exposition et de valoriser les vestiges archéologiques majeurs (maison-forte médiévale) découverts pendant les fouilles réalisées avant travaux.

Réouverture du musée franco-américain de Blérancourt après complète rénovation, automne 2017.

Visites et ateliers pédagogiques :

https://museefrancoamericain.fr/activites-pedagogiques

• Centre de documentation et contact(s)

Bibliothèque franco-américaine : La bibliothèque franco-américaine est consacrée aux relations entre la France et les États-Unis. Située dans le cadre exceptionnel d'un pavillon du XVIIe siècle, elle comprend plus de 6 000 ouvrages.

• Ouverte aux lecteurs sur simple demande écrite.
• Service pédagogique et contact(s)

Catherine Assous Tél : 03 23 39 14 72 mail : catherine.assous@culture.gouv.fr

• Visite gratuite : Uniquement lors des événements nationaux

https://www.coordonnees-gps.fr/communes/blerancourt/2093

Sources : ©Musée franco-américain du Château de Blérancourt

Le Linge ridge is located in the Alsatian Vosges mountains.

At a height of 1,000 metres, it separates the Orbey and Munster valleys, some twenty kilometres west of Colmar.

Designated a historic site by decree on 11 October 1921, it was one of the deadliest battlefields of World War I. During the conflict, the Germans had organised their defences along the crestline of Le Linge ridge to keep the French troops from advancing toward Colmar.

From 20 July to 15 October 1915, the Chasseurs Alpins, often between the ages of 19 and 20, launched an assault against this impregnable bastion. Gas shells and flamethrowers were used.

Some 10,000 Frenchmen and 7,000 Germans died during this period before the troops reached a standoff and remained facing each other until the end of the war in November 1918. The site that is visited today is a large rocky knoll, land with scattered shelters and crisscrossed by a network of fortified trenches, covered with heath and a few trees. The barbed wire of the period has not been removed and the whole is very well preserved.

It is hard to imagine that his superb site, with the northern tip of the knoll forming a rocky outcropping affording a magnificent view, was witness to such a slaughter. And yet hundreds of soldiers from both sides still rest here.

The Memorial Museum exhibits French and German objects found on the site: arms, munitions, relics and personal objects.

The showcases present of French and German fighters, models of the battlefield, period photographs, letters written by soldiers, and maps indicating tactical operations. Visitors can also view a video projection of period photographs.

Le Linge Memorial Association

86, route du général de Gaulle 68370 Orbey

Tel.: +33 (0)3 89 77 29 97

Fax: +33 (0)3 89 71 31 61

info@linge1915.com

Access

The Memorial Museum and the Le Linge battlefield at Orbey are located near the Col du Wettstein "Nécropole Nationale française" on highway D11V1.

Opening hours

From Good Friday to 11 November: 9.00 am to 12.30 pm and 2.00 pm to 6.00 pm

Admission price

Adults: €3

Group (over 10 people): €2.50 / person

Under 16 years of age (accompanied by an adult) and military personnel in uniform: free admission

Primary and middle school students: €20 per class: free for two accompanying adults

High school students: €2.50 / person, free for two accompanying adults

Reservations are required for school groups, and an educational dossier can be downloaded at www.linge1915.com

Tourism 68

Le Linge World War I Memorial Museum

In his collection of short stories, Solitude de la pitié (“The Solitude of Compassion”), Jean Giono evokes his friend Yvan Kossiakoff, who lies in this national cemetery (tomb 372). According to him, this fighter was shot in July 1917 at the Chalons camp. But there is no evidence that any Russian soldiers were executed at that time. In all likelihood, Jean Giono imagined this execution with reference to the Russian uprising in La Courtine (Creuse).

On 16 May 1937, the French Front Veteran Officers Association, founded in 1923, together with Veterans of the Moroccan Division, opened a memorial chapel dedicated to the 4,000 Russian soldiers who died in France and Salonika (now Thessaloniki). The chapel, designed in Orthodox style by architect Albert Benoît, was built near the cemetery, which also houses a monument in homage to the Russian infantry of the Second Special Regiment.

Marshal Joffree was born on 12 January 1852, in Rivesaltes. In honour of the soldier who was made a Marshal of France in 1916, the commune acquired Joffre’s birthplace and turned it into a museum.

It was officially opened on 10 January 1987, by the then state secretary to the Minister of Defence, Jacques Boyon.

On the ground floor, formerly the stables, cooperage and entrance hall, the display presents the key moments in Joffre’s life. There are two sculptures of the Marshal, 30 panels of 200 photographs charting his career and a display presenting the main battles of the First World War.

On the first floor of the family apartment, visitors can see Joffre’s study, complete with its original furnishings, together with historical paintings and gifts from Spanish and South American Catalans. On display in the antechamber are objects (kepi, sword and bicorn hat of the French Academy) and mannequins dressed as infantry soldiers from 1914-15, as well as the Marshal’s own uniforms. The kitchen and the bedroom in which Joffre was born have been recreated.

The top floor, which served as a hayloft, is devoted mainly to the Battle of the Marne, with an animated relief map and projections recreating the key moments. A 50-minute film charts the main events of the First and Second World Wars. Outside, at the edge of the path, is a statue of Marshal Joffre on horseback.

Musée Joffre

11, rue du Maréchal Joffre - 66600 Rivesaltes

Tel.: +33 (0)4 68 64 24 98 or (0)4 68 64 04 04

Fax: +33 (0)4 68 38 50 88

Opening times

Open daily, 8 am to 12 noon and 2 pm to 6 pm, except weekends.

June to September, 8 am to 12 noon and 2 pm to 6 pm; weekends, 2 pm to 6 pm.

Closed on bank holidays. Free admission.

In 1697, in accordance with the Ryswick treaties, France had to give back all those towns situated on the right bank of the Rhine, including Brisach. She was thus to lose her foothold in Germany and leave the centre of the Alsace undefended. In 1698 Vauban was despatched to the town and started to build three projects, of which the third one, the most complete, was retained by Louis XIV on 6 September 1698. The highly experienced Vauban, closely following the layout already achieved in Landau, designed a town with a double defensive main front part to increase its resistance to attack and make it less vulnerable to ricochet fire, which he himself had invented.

The town, a perfect octagon, comprises an internal fortified "secure" part, whose fortified defensive walls are flanked by fortified towers and an outer "fighting" area. This is made up of two defensive levels. The first consists of counter-guards serving as an artillery platform, which conceal the fortified towers and tenailles to protect the defensive walls. The second level is made up of half-moons in front of the tenailles, of which only those above the doors have a reduit, and of a covered walkway that encircles the whole town. Within the walls, Neuf-Brisach is arranged into 48 areas around the Place d'Armes. This ias how Neuf-Brisach came to be built from scratch on the left bank of the Rhine a short distance from the old town of Brisach. Construction work, which began in 1700, was carried out quickly so that by March 1702, the town could be used as a defence.
However, the return of Brisach to French rule in 1703 was to be the death knell for Neuf-Brisach. This is why, due to lack of funds, the crowning work that featured in Vauban's plans was abandoned and the first stone of the church of Saint-Louis was not laid until 1731, while the construction of the governor's hall would not be started until 1772. Only a small amount of modernisation work was carried out in the middle of the 19th century to compensate for some defects, in particular the lack of casemates. It was also a question of adapting its defences after the construction of the canal between the Rhone and the Rhine that runs along the slope to the east, by adding a lunette covering a floodgate. After a few alarms in 1814 and 1815, it wasn't until 1870 that Neuf-Brisach was to witness its first siege: besieged from 6th October 1870, it was subjected to violent artillery fire between the 2nd and 10th November before capitulating on the 11th November.
However Neuf-Brisach's military purpose was never to be fulfilled. The Germans would significantly alter the ramparts, as well as the urban layout of the ancient fortified town, turning it into a key constituent of the Neuf-Brisach bridgehead, intended to protect an important crossing point on the Rhine using several very modern fortifications. In June 1940, the breaching of the Rhine by the Germans in the Neuf-Brisach area was to be marked by intense fighting, before the town temporarily became the largest prisoner of war camp in France. Neuf-Brisach was to be severely bombarded once more, this time by American troops at the end of the Second World War.
Tourist Office Point I Neuf-Brisach 6, place d'Armes 68600 Neuf-Brisach Tel. 03 89 72 56 66 Fax: 03 89 72 91 73 E-mail: info@tourisme-rhin.com

This cemetery is located beside the N44 towards Berry-au-Bac at La Musette. Of the 564 bodies in the cemetery (563 British and 1 from New Zealand, and additionally a British pilot and a French soldier from the Second World War), 413 have not been identified. The cemetery was constructed after the Armistice by bringing together the graves, isolated or in small cemeteries, of soldiers killed in 1918.

The village of La Ville-au-Bois was captured in April 1917 by French troops during the bloody Chemin des Dames offensive. The sector was held by the British 50th Division on 27 May 1918 when the Germans launched their third spring offensive, which brought them to Château-Thierry. During the battle, the 2nd Devons and the 5th battery of the 45th Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery were wiped out and received the Military Cross for their sacrifices.