The Battle of the Ourcq, 5-9 September 1914

On 25 August 1914, General Joffre ordered a retreat in order to place 500 000 men in a line of resistance spanning nearly 200 miles, from Verdun to the English Channel. His objective was to cut off the Germans’ access to Paris and push them northwards. For that purpose he created the 6th Army, to defend a line from Meaux to Senlis, as there was news of enemy patrols just eight miles from Paris. In conjunction with the British, the French troops made an about-turn. The Ourcq valley then became the scene of bitter fighting, its few hills constituting crucial strategic positions.

On 25 August 1914, General Joffre ordered a retreat in order to place 500 000 men in a line of resistance spanning nearly 200 miles, from Verdun to the English Channel. His objective was to cut off the Germans’ access to Paris and push them northwards. For that purpose he created the 6th Army, to defend a line from Meaux to Senlis, as there was news of enemy patrols just eight miles from Paris. In conjunction with the British, the French troops made an about-turn. The Ourcq valley then became the scene of bitter fighting, its few hills constituting crucial strategic positions.

On 8 September, the French took a battering from the German Army. A fleet of Parisian taxis requisitioned by the French command (the “Taxis of the Marne”) enabled the front line to be maintained, in extremis, by transferring five battalions (5 to 6 000 men) there. On the 9th, the Germans, contained in Champagne, gave way on the Ourcq and, fearing being cut off from their rearguard, retreated over the Aisne, to previously fortified positions. Chambry was one of the enemy’s most advanced positions in September 1914.

From 5 to 12 September, the Battle of the Marne, and more specifically the Battle of the Ourcq, turned around what was a severely compromised military situation and halted Germany’s planned invasion of France. Paris was saved, at a cost of terrible losses: 250 000 young Frenchmen died in August and September 1914. Exhausted, the British and French armies could not find the strength to drive back the invader across its borders.

In a final thrust, each of the belligerents made a frantic dash for the sea, in order to take their enemy from behind. But it failed, and both sides were stranded on the North Sea coast. So began a conflict in the trenches that was to last four years, until the Allied victory in November 1918.

Today, this national cemetery is home to 1,077 soldiers including 598 French soldiers, 120 of whom lie in an ossuary. One French soldier from WWII also lies in the cemetery.

This national cemetery also includes a German section with 478 soldiers who died in 1918 during the Ludendorff fourth offensive, which started on the Chemin des Dames on 27 May and led them to Château-Thierry in June 1918.

A mausoleum chapel was built in memory of the artillery and infantry officers who died in 1917 and 1918.

From autumn 1917 onwards, the village of Crécy-au-Mont was occupied by the Germans, who only left in March 1918. It was taken back from the French in May 1918, to finally be liberated on 30 August 1918. Close to the village, the Germans set up a firing platform for one of the six big SKL/45 naval cannons, wrongly thought to be Big Bertha. This long-range artillery equipment was capable of bombing Compiègne.

Among the soldiers buried here is a soldier who died for France in 1939-1945.

Next to this cemetery is a German cemetery created in 1920, containing the remains of 1,095 German soldiers, 388 of them in two ossuaries. Buried with these soldiers are four British soldiers, two of them officers from the Royal Air Force (RAF), and two French soldiers.

A German cemetery next to this site, created at the same time as the French military cemetery, contains 5,333 bodies, 3,802 of them in individual graves.

This war cemetery contains 1,333 French soldiers including 571 in an ossuary, 727 Germans, 25 Russians, two Italians and a Romanian who all fell between 1914 and 1918.

There are the bodies of three French servicemen and two civilians buried here from the Second World War.

Among the soldiers buried here, are the remains of a lieutenant of the 71st Infantry Regiment, Pierre de Raguenel de Montmorel, who died on 29th August 1914. Three of his brothers, also officers, also lost their lives during the conflict.

On the German side, also buried in this cemetery is Friedrich von Bismarck, Oberstleutnant, grandson of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who died on 5th November 1916.

The cemetery has several monuments in memory of both German and French regiments.

Also, 428 French soldiers and one Soviet soldier who lost their lives in the Second World War are buried here. The site lies next to a German cemetery containing the bodies of 2,332 soldiers, 911 of whom are buried in a collective grave.

A commemorative monument in the form of an obelisk stands in the French section, bearing the inscription Dulce Et Decorum Est, Pro Patria Mori (It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country).

At the beginning of 1916, there were riots in towns in the north caused by shortages in supplies. In April, the German authorities responded by sending workers to neighbouring areas. Faced with international criticism, this deportation was soon stopped. Some of the workers, including Arthur Jaspart, lost their lives. He was a worker from Valenciennes who died, aged 21, on 9 July 1918 in the isolation ward at the German military railways workshop in Guise. He is buried in Guise cemetery (Grave No.1236).

The necropolis contains 7,033 bodies, including 5,362 in individual or collective graves. Four ossuaries contain the remains of 1,671 unknown soldiers. The cemetery also contains the remains of one German, one Russian, one Swede, one Belgian and many Foreign Legion volunteers of various origins (including Denmark, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Spain) who died during the Great War. There are also many colonial soldiers, infantrymen from Senegal and Algeria, cavalrymen and also troops from Indochina, who were heavily involved in the fighting on the Somme.

From the Second World War there is just one soldier, Olivier Kohn, who died on 9th June 1940 and rests in grave number 3815.

At the entrance to the cemetery is a monument paid for by the Italian community in the region, a symbol of Franco-Italian friendship that was inaugurated on 11th October 1923.

Among these soldiers are buried General Janssen, commander of the 12th Motorized Infantry Division (DIM), killed on 2nd June 1940 during the aerial bombardments of the fort. There is a plaque at the entrance to Fort des Dunes, in remembrance of him and his men who fell alongside him during those first days of June 1940. A second plaque is dedicated “A la mémoire du Lieutenant Colonel Le Notre commandant les forces terrestres et aériennes de la première Armée des Officiers, Sous-officiers et soldats des F.T.A. tombés à leur poste de combat en ces lieux le 03 juin 1940 [To the memory of Our Lieutenant Colonel commanding the land and air forces of the first army of Officers, NCOs and soldiers of the FTA who fell at their battle stations at this place on 3rd June 1940].” In the fort, at the entrance to the Military Police building, a plaque honours the memory of the gendarmes of the Military Police of the 12th Motorized Infantry Division who died for France on 3rd June 1940. In the moat of the fort, there is a final plaque in memory of the eight resistant fighters who were shot dead on that very spot on 6th June 1944.