Despite the French push across the Marne in September 1914 and the efforts to outflank one another, the armies advanced little and the front stood still. The “Race to the Sea” was a failure. To protect themselves from artillery fire, the belligerents dug in. This was the start of the static war. A place marked by the military presence, the Mourmelon military camp then became a major centre of military activity in the Great War.

The battles of Champagne in 1915

In the winter of 1915, General Joffre launched a series of attacks in Champagne intended to chip away at the German lines. Located in the sectors of Souain, Perthes, Beauséjour and Massiges, these were very bloody operations. Yet despite these attacks, the front didn’t budge.

In the summer, to break the deadlock and provide support to the floundering Russians on the Eastern Front, Joffre decided to conduct a fresh offensive. Supported by another operation in Artois, it took place on the vast, arid chalk plain of Champagne, on a front spanning 15 miles, from Auberive to Ville-sur-Tourbe. It was carried out by the 2nd and 4th Armies, against the Germans of the 3rd Army, who were dug into solid trenches. Further back, on the opposite slope, was a second position, hidden from aerial reconnaissance and out of range of the artillery.

After an artillery bombardment lasting three days, the attack was launched on 25 September. The bombardment left the first lines in total disarray, making it easy for the French to take them. Despite a few points of resistance, namely at the Butte du Mesnil, progress was rapid. But the momentum was broken by the second position, which remained intact. The entire front became a bloodbath. The exhausted troops had to go on fending off powerful counter-attacks, during which the two armies lost 138 000 men. By November, disastrous weather conditions and the sheer scale of the losses forced Joffre to abandon the idea of carrying out further attacks. Aside from a handful of limited operations in 1916, the front saw a period of relative calm.

The Battle of the Hills of Champagne (17 April to 9 May 1917)

Launched to the northeast of Reims, between Prunay and Auberive, this operation supported the French offensive carried out on 16 April 1917 at Chemin des Dames. The aim was to take the chalk massif of Moronvilliers, which rose to a height of 260 metres above sea level. Since 1914, the Germans had occupied the massif, from where they were able to observe behind the French lines.

At dawn on 17 April, with slush under foot, the French attempted to take this stronghold. But the massif remained in German hands. With a great deal of effort, the French troops liberated the village of Auberive and took Mont Sans Nom, Mont Cornillet, Mont Blond, Mont Perthois and Mont Haut. Unfortunately, they failed to take two other strategic positions: Le Casque and Le Téton. By 20 May, the French had secured a partial victory with this offensive. This hard-won sector would be strategically evacuated on 15 July 1918.

The German offensive of July 1918 put this front once more at centre stage. Reims, under continuous fire from German artillery, came under threat once again. But General Foch, engaging all of his forces from the Meuse to the North Sea, conducted a broad manoeuvre to circumvent the Aisne front. In Champagne, supported by the Americans, General Gouraud’s 4th Army took many positions in the Navarin sector and at Sommepy. Pressing on towards Mézières and Sedan, the Franco-American forces made rapid progress to the Ardennes, where they broke through the enemy lines. On a front of 250 miles, Foch’s armies went in pursuit, hounding the enemy until 11 November 1918.

Today, the Suippes-Mourmelon area preserves the memory of this bitter fighting in the Marne, through the ruins of the villages of Perthes, Hurlus, Mesnil, Tahure, Ripont, Nauroy and Moronvilliers, along with 18 cemeteries.

Located in what is known as Le bois du Puits (“The Wood of the Well”), Aubérive National Cemetery is home to soldiers who died for France during battle in Champagne from 1914 to 1918. This cemetery, which dates back to 1920, was redeveloped between 1923 and 1926 to house bodies exhumed east of Reims, in the hills of Champagne and Aubérive. It now holds almost 7,000 bodies, including nearly 2,900 buried in three ossuaries.

Aubérive National Cemetery is adjacent to a Polish cemetery with 129 graves. In 1954, a Polish memorial of the two world wars was erected at the centre of this cemetery. There is also a German cemetery with over 5,000 bodies near the Aubérive cemetery.

After many successful colonial campaigns, in particular in Tonkin, General Henri Van Waertmeulen led, throughout the summer of 1914, commanded a colonial regiment. Brigadier General in 1917, he commanded the 165th Infantry Division. Seriously wounded by shrapnel, he died on 16 July 1918 at the 13/20 ambulance stationed at Sept-Saulx.  Without any other distinction, and thus respecting the quality of grades when faced with mass deaths, his body is buried here next to those of his men (grave 2478). Commander of the Legion of Honour, he is one of 41 Generals who died for France during the First World War and the last general officer to have been killed in 1914-1918. His name features on the war memorial erected in the church of the soldiers of Saint-Louis des Invalides (Paris).

Dedicated to graveless soldiers, a chapel-mausoleum was erected at this military cemetery. This idea was supported by the Abbé Fendler, priest of Sillery and president of the Comité du Mausolée des Batailles de Champagne. Presented in 1925, at the International Exhibition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris, this monument was erected thanks to an international fund and was designed by the architect Adolphe Proust. Framing the forged iron gate created by iron craftsman Marcel Decrion, the sculptures were created in fresh concrete, by Edouard Sediey. The window is by the master glassmaker Jacques Simon. Inside the mausoleum are three commemorative plaques provided by the families.  The first stone of this building was laid on 19 September 1926 during the ceremony to commemorate the battles of Fort de la Pompelle and Sillery.

At the end of the fighting in Courgivaux on 6 and 7 September 1914, civilians were frequently required to bury the dead lying around the village. Over several days, they were buried in mass graves while the officers were buried in individual graves. Collective graves were used until 1915, but the use of individual graves also spread. Furthermore, the law of 29 December 1915 allowed soldiers who died for France to be buried in individual graves. The Courgivaux cemetery is typical of military cemeteries from the beginning of the First World War, and also of the way French military authorities dealt with death.

The remains of Sergeant Gustave Valmont lie in the ossuary. He was a student at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris, and went on to become a philosopher and poet, yet only wrote one volume of poetry, L’Aile de l’Amour (1911). At the time of the French mobilisation of 1914, he abandoned a novel he had begun to write, and joined the 274th Infantry Regiment. On 6 September, he died during a reconnaissance mission.

Sergeant K.H. Harris is also buried there, who was killed on 13 June 1940 at 23 years of age.

One of the most emblematic monuments of this conflict is erected here, a place that symbolises the second French assault on the Marne: the ghosts of Oulchy-le-Château. The work by the French sculptor of Polish origin, Paul Landowski, depicts ghosts keeping watch over a landscape that today is at peace. Seven dead soldiers, with empty eyes, in the middle of whom appears the naked figure of a hero and martyr, are a reminder of the suffering of the soldiers who died in July 1918.

In May 1918, General Foch turned to Pershing in order to quickly avail of military support from the United States, which had joined the war in April 1917. Two divisions were deployed in the Château-Thierry region in order to contain the enemy advance. For most of these men, it was a baptism of fire. On 4 June, at the cost of significant losses, the movement was halted and, on 6 June, the 2nd American division (DIUS) took over, in the Bois Belleau in particular.

At Château-Thierry, an imposing memorial, Rock of the Marne, was inaugurated in 1933, in memory of the offensive of 18 July 1918 during the second battle of the Marne. Built by the architect Paul Philippe Cret, assisted by Achille-Henri Chauquet, it is a reminder of the commitment of the Americans alongside the French during the second battle of the Marne, notably on Hill 204.

Only two soldiers from the Second World War are buried here: Charles de Rouge, officer cadet with the 1st tank battalion, who died on 10 June 1940 (grave n° 1378) and lieutenant Pierre Charles Pain (grave 585).

In the hills above the town, a memorial to the sacrifice of the French and allied troops who fought in the two battles of the Marne was erected between 1921 and 1931 thanks to the backing of Madame de la Rochefoucauld, the Cardinal of Reims, the Bishop of Châlons, the military authorities and many donors. With the Douaumont ossuary, the basilica of Notre-Dame de Lorette and the Hartmannswillerkopf memorial, this was one of four national monuments erected by subscription after the Great War. The Gothic construction is based around two commemorative chapels illustrated by patriotic stained-glass windows. Outside is a “lantern of the dead” recalling the sacrifice and losses of many families. An ossuary contains the remains of nearly 1,500 soldiers, mostly unidentified. In 2014, the Ministry of Defence decided to provide the Dormans municipal council, owner of the site, with support for the restoration of the entire memorial.