Louise, the "Joan of Arc of the North", was the daughter of Julienne Mabille de Ponchevillle and Henri de Bettignies, an old Walloon noble family from Hainaut which established imperial and royal earthenware manufacturing in Tournai in the XVIII century. Her great-grandfather, Louis-Maximilien, opened a china shop at the "Moulin des Loups" in Saint-Amand-les-Eaux. Due to financial difficulties, Henri de Bettignies sold the business shortly before his daughter was born. Despite being penniless, the young girl was taught the values and given the education of her peers. She completed her secondary education in Valenciennes, finding in education an escape from her poverty and the death of her father in 1903. Following in the footsteps of her priest and sister, she then went to Carmel before using her intellectual abilities to become a housekeeper to English and German families, so as to learn their languages and discover Europe. In 1914, German troops invaded the north of France. In October, Louise, together with her sister, participated in the defence of Béthune, providing the besieged with fresh supplies.

During a visit to Saint-Omer in February 1915, the young woman was contacted by a French officer from the 2nd Bureau, who suggested to her that she serve her country as an intelligence agent. This proposition was again put to her shortly thereafter, but on behalf of the British intelligence service, by Major Kirke. After receiving the consent of her spiritual adviser, father Boulengé, who nicknamed her "Joan of Arc of the North", she put in place, in the Lille sector, and under the guidance of the duke of Charost, the bishop of Lille, the foundations for the future "Service Alice" or "Service Ramble". Travelling through Belgium and the Netherlands, the now Alice Dubois passed on information to Great Britain. From the spring of 1915, she was assisted in her duties by Roubaisienne Marie-Léonie Vanhoutte, alias Charlotte Lameron. Ms Vanhoutte, who had worked on the installation of ambulances since August 1914, used her status to procure information. She used her trips to Bouchaute-Gand-Roubaix, where she would pass on news to families of soldiers and deliver mail, to inform the English of troop movements and strategic locations. The Alice network had eighty people, and was so effective that information was collected and transmitted within twenty-four hours. It consisted of two divisions. The first kept an eye on the Belgian border and the movements of German troops. As such, it was made up of observers and couriers placed at strategic locations: level crossing-keepers, station masters and local members of the Resistance, such as Mr. Sion and Mr. Lenfant, the police commissioner of Tourcoing. The second division was made up of people who lived in the region of Lille, Frelingues, Hellemmes, Santes and Mouscron who could justify frequent movement to the occupying authorities. These people, who included Comboin a.k.a. José Biernan, Madeleine Basteins, Mrs. Semichon, Mrs. Paul Bernard, Mrs. de Vaugirard, Victor Viaene and Alphonse Verstapen, provided information on sensitive areas (artillery battery areas, storage areas, TSF posts, etc.) and occasionally served as couriers. The team was complemented by a chemical laboratory provided by Mr. and Mrs. Geyter which was used to reproduce maps, plans and photographs. Information gleaned was retranscribed on thin sheets of Japanese paper and transported to the Netherlands mainly by Louise de Bettignies and Marie-Léonie Vanhoutte, mainly on foot, between Gand and Bruxelles, then Beerse.

From May 1915, Alice Dubois worked sporadically with the 2nd Bureau of Commander Walner under the pseudonym Pauline. Through her actions, the Allies were able to wipe out two thousand pieces of artillery at the battles of Carency and Loos-en-Gohelle. In the summer of 1915, a new information network was put in place in the sector of Cambrai-Valenciennes, Saint-Quentin and Mézières. In autumn 1915, it provided information on preparations for an attack on Verdun. After creation and administration, Louise de Bettignies had to withstand a counter-offensive by the German intelligence services. Moreover, Alice and Charlotte felt they were being followed. After a meeting at Lion Belge (Brussels), Marie-Léonie Vanhoutte was arrested at the boarding house of the Adriatiques on 24 September 1915 and incarcerated at Saint-Gilles prison. The circumstances surrounding her arrest are vague. At first, Charlotte was asked, at the insistence of Messrs Lenfant and Sion, to return to Brussles to deliver a letter. She then missed the planned rendez-vous, but became aware of two postcards addressed to her at the boarding house. One was from Alice while the other, from a person called Alexandre, contained a message which read as follows: "Come as soon as possible, tonight or tommorow, around 8h to Lion Belge. Paper in hand; it is about Alice". The German police follow her, without success, in the streets of Brussels and ask her to identify Louise de Bettignies from a photograph. Louise, at that time in England, returned to France to direct operations.

She was arrested in Tournai on 20 October, as she attempted to cross the Franco-Belgian border using false identification documents. Her driver, Georges de Saever, suffered a similar fate. The German authorities then organised a confrontation and search and the Geyter residence. On the ground, British intelligence services, dependent on the information collected by the Alice network, continued their activities in the organisation of "La Dame Blanche", which was led by the Tendel women. Louise was reunited with her friend at Saint-Gilles prison from 26 October, where they communicated by tapping on the pipes. The sentence was handed down by judge Goldschmidt. During six months of questioning, Louise de Bettignies never wavered: "like a fox in its hole, she never showed signs of faltering, saying little and denying everything". Unable to establish with certainty the relationship between Louise de Bettignies and Alice Dubois, the Germans used stratagems to collect numerous pieces of information to support their case. It was in this way that Louise Letellier, a "compatriot" also apparently subject to questioning, ended up obtaining a confession from Louise de Bettignies and five letters. With the first phase of his plan complete, judge Goldschmidt used the information contained in the letters to try to convince Marie-Léonie Vanhoutte to betray her companion, but in vain. On 16 March 1916, the German war council based in Brussels, which included General Von Bissing and war advisor Stoëber, sentenced Louise de Bettignies to death for espionage without being able to prove that she was the head of the network. Her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, probably due to the notoriety of the de Bettignies family. Marie-Léonie Vanhoutte and Georges, initially sentenced to death, were given fifteen years' forced labour for treason during wartime by aiding espionage. This revision of the ruling was probably the result of the statement made by Louise de Bettignies to the judges hearing her case - the only time she spoke in German during the whole case - in which she acknowledged her role and sought mercy for her companions. From April 1916 onwards, the condemned prisoners served their sentences at Siebourg prison, near Cologne. On 20 April, Marshall Joffre granted Louise de Bettignies a mention in dispatches. At the end of January 1917, Louise de Bettignies was imprisoned for refusing to produce arms for the German army and having instigated an uprising by her fellow prisoners. Louise de Bettignies died on 17 September 1918 as a result of a complications during an operation on a pleural abscess. She was buried at Bocklemünd cemetery in Westfriedhof. Her body was rapatriated on 21 February 1920 on a gun carriage. On 16 March 1920, the Allies organised a tribute in Lille in which "Joan of Arc of the North" was posthumously awarded the Legion of Honour, the Croix de Guerre 14-18 With Palm medal, the British military decoration for oustanding bravery and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Louise de Bettignies, a.k.a. Alice Dubois, is buried at Saint-Amand-les-Eaux cemetery. On 11 November 1927, on the initiative of Marshall Foch and General Weygand, a statue was inaugurated in Lille on Boulevard Carnot. In Notre-Dame de Lorette, a display cabinet houses the cross on the tombstone that marked the grave of Louise de Bettignies at Cologne cemetery, as well as the mention in dispatches.

Edith Cavell was born in 1865 in England. She was the daughter of an Anglican pastor. She studied first in Brussels then in Switzerland, and finally in Dresdes and Aix-la-Chapelle where she learnt German techniques in medicine and hygiene. Returning to England in 1895, she worked first as a governess, before obtaining her nursing qualification at the 'London Hospital' before returning in 1906 to work at the Institute of Surgery and directing the Berkendael medical institute in Brussels. In 1914, the Red Cross built a hospital in her establishment, which rapidly became a refuge for French, Belgian and English soldiers wishing to rejoin the front by passing through the Netherlands. Miss Cavell thus became an important link in this ?escape network? from the north of France to Holland via Belgium.

Her group's activity intensified with the retreat towards the Marne of the French and English forces. Wounded soldiers remained stranded in the field hospitals of Northern France and the Ardennes, whilst others lost contact with their units. The soldiers who managed to avoid attracting the attention of the German forces were taken care of by princess Marie de Croÿ at the château de Bellignies, before being taken to Edith Cavell from whom they received clothing and forged documents before rejoining their armies. This continued from November 1914 to July 1915, enabling two hundred people to escape the German occupied zone.

Eventually the ring was denounced and the sixty-six members of the underground network were arrested during the summer of 1915. The French spy Gaston Quien was accused of denouncing the network, but he was acquitted due to lack of evidence. Edith Cavell was arrested on the 15th of July, attempting to smuggle allied prisoners over the Dutch border, and she was incarcerated in Saint-Gilles prison. During her interrogation, she did not deny the facts: "I considered it my duty to do this for my country", she said; an attitude which would lead to her being accused of being a traitor and held responsible for the collapse of the Belgian intelligence service. Edith Cavell was imprisoned in solitary confinement. The German authorities pretended to yield to diplomatic pressure and allowed the lawyer Sadie Kirsten to defend her, however they did not allow him to speak to her or consult her case notes. The court hearing for the spying ring took place on the 7th September to the 8th October 1915, under the authority of general Ströbel. The case was highly publicised and was designed to serve as an example. The death penalty for conspiring with the enemy was therefore called for. On the 11th October 1915, Edith Cavell, the countess Jeanne de Belleville and Louise Thuliez, a schoolteacher, were condemned to death. The American legation secretary attempted to obtain a pardon for Edith Cavell, but his efforts were in vain. The sentence was carried out on the 12th October 1915, at seven O'clock in the morning.

Her co-conspirators were sentenced to forced labour for life. This execution provoked a storm of protest in England and the United States, just after the Lusitania had been torpedoed. Anti-German propaganda begun to circulate and volunteers started to sign up. After the war, on the 7th May 1919, the remains of Edith Cavell were repatriated to England. A ceremony was held in Westminster abbey. A column was erected in Trafalgar Square (London), near to the National Gallery in memory of this trans-national heroine. A bas-relief, destroyed in 1940, was also dedicated to her in the Museum of Jeu de Paume (Paris).

Born on the 28th September 1841 in Mouilleron-en-Pareds (Vendée), Georges Clémenceau, after a typical Vendeen childhood, followed in his father's footsteps to become a doctor, studying first in Nantes then in Paris in 1865. He had already begun to show a fledgling interest in politics in the Latin Quarter. At 24, he became a doctor of medicine and subsequently left for the United States to study the American Constitution. He stayed there for five years where he married. On returning to France, he participated in the Parisian uprising against the imperial regime. Elected mayor of Montmartre at thirty years old, followed by a post as deputy for the Seine region, he also held office as a Parisian city councillor, as president of the city council in 1875, and as deputy of the Var region in 1880.

The Tiger

Clémenceau, who was head of the extreme radical left from 1876, violently opposed the colonial politics of Jules Ferry and was responsible for the fall of several governments, hence his nickname of ?Tiger?. Defeated in the elections of 1893, he subsequently returned to his first love, writing, and in particular, journalism. He worked on various newspapers including the Aurore in which he was responsible for publishing the article ?J'accuse? written by Emile Zola in favour of Dreyfus.

Elected senator of the Var region in 1902, he was to become Minister for Interior Affairs followed by President of the City Council from 1906 to 1909. He created the Ministry for Work and passed laws on weekly rest days, the 10-hour working day(!), worker retirement?he also harshly repressed strike action, however. When he was voted out of office, he joined the opposition and founded a new newspaper: ''The Free Man'' which became ''The Chained Man'' in 1914 due to censorship.

The father of victory

On the 20th November 1917, Poincaré appointed him as President of the City Council once again. He took some unpopular measures, however he made himself popular by fighting in the trenches, cane in hand (at 76 years old!). He completely trusted Foch's judgement, against the advice of his deputies. After the Armistice, acting as Chairman of the Peace Conference, he showed himself to be unmoveable with Germany. He was never completely satisfied with the treaty however, finding fault within it. Clémenceau ran as candidate for the President of the Republic in 1920, but was beaten by Deschanel. He then retired to his little fisherman's house in Saint Vincent sur Jard in the Vendée, where he continued to write, voicing his dismay at the rearmament of Germany. He passed away on the 24th November 1929, at his home in rue Franklin in Paris.

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.

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.

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.

King of Sardinia then of Italy (Turin, 14 March 1820 - Rome, 9 January 1878)

Victor Emmanuel's life mirrors developments in the Italian Peninsula through most of the 19th century. He was the son of Charles Albert and of Queen Theresa, the daughter of the Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany. Italy's two most prominent families, in other words, bequeathed him their combined influence. His marriage to Maria Adelaide of Austria bears witness to the weight that the Hapsburgs of Vienna had had since the days of Charles Quint. This alliance served him well when his father abdicated in his favour on 23 March 1849, while the war with Austria was raging. Victor Emmanuel was constrained to sign the Treaty of Milan on 6 August 1849, but remained true to his father's promises and to the dynasty's plans to build a unified and free Italian state. He preserved the Piedmont's constitutional status (the Proclamation of Moncalieri) in defiance of Austria's demands - even if doing so entailed consenting to Imperial troops occupying part of that region. He championed freedom, and was nicknamed the re galatuomo (gentleman king). He chose his advisors wisely. He appointed one of them, the Count of Cavour, Prime Minister in 1852.

His foreign-policy agenda involved cementing Italy's identity and its presence in the concert of nations. Sending General La Marmora to Crimea in 1855 earned Italy a seat in the Congress of Paris. The July 1858 interview at Plombières between the Count of Cavour and Napoleon III, and the ensuing January 1859 military agreement, earned him an ally in his ongoing conflict with Vienna and ushered in a new dynasty (Clotilde married Napoleon III's first cousin, prince Jerome). Victor Emmanuel excelled in Palestro (one of the 1859 war battles), won the battle of Solferino, entered Milan as a liberator and went on to unify Italy's armed forces in spite of Napoleon's defection (he had signed an armistice with Austria in Villafranca by then). Sardinian troops annexed Parma, Modena and the Romagnas in 1860. In exchange, Victor Emmanuel agreed to hand over Nice and Savoy to France in the 24 March 1860 Treaty of Turin.

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies fell to Garibaldi's "Thousand" expedition, which the Piedmont government secretly endorsed. Italy was unified from a military standpoint, and the Italian Senate acknowledged Victor Emmanuel as that country's king by 129 votes for and 2 against shortly thereafter.

He thus became Italy's constitutional king on 14 March 1861. His policy was one of moderation: he cooled the ardour of Garibaldi's partisans, moved to ease tension with the Holy See, and backed Cavour's work on the economic and diplomatic front. Napoleon III's mediation at the October 1865 Biarritz Interview allowed him to form an alliance with Bismarck's Prussia in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War. He then incorporated Venetia as a result of the Prague and Vienna treaties. The defeat of France - a difficult ally - in 1870 opened up an opportunity to occupy Rome that year, and to enter it on 2 July 1871. He spent his last years on the throne consolidating Italy and - especially - cementing the territory. That led him to conduct an "offensive" border occupation and control policy. Hostility to France's Third Republic materialised in the Alps, with the fortification of Tende in response to the Séré de Rivières system.

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.

"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"