Nearby is the only Danish cemetery from the First World War. It includes 79 graves of soldiers from the province of Schleswig, which was annexed by the German empire in 1866 and returned to Denmark in 1920 following a plebiscite. These soldiers were enlisted in the German army against their wishes. At the request of their families, their remains were removed from the German cemeteries and brought to Braine in 1934.

The village of Braine was awarded the Croix de Guerre (War Cross) on 21 October 1920.

The Vailly-sur-Aisne National Military Cemetery is the final resting place for soldiers who gave their lives for France during the Chemin des Dames offensive in April 1917. Established at the same time as the battles, it was enlarged in 1924 and 1935 to include bodies of soldiers exhumed from nearby interim cemeteries (Allemant, Jouy, Laffaux, Nanteuil-la-Fosse, Sancy and du Bois-Morin). The cemetery contains the individual and collective tombs of 1,576 soldiers, including 1,559 French combatants from World War I and 17 from World War II.  It adjoins a British military cemetery where 676 soldiers, who primarily fell in September 1914, are buried.

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.

The fighting at Crouy, 1914-15

From the very first weeks of the conflict until the end of the war in 1918, the limestone plateau of Chemin des Dames, which dominates the Aisne valley to the south and the Ailette valley to the north, was bitterly disputed. This natural observation point was a strategic position dominating both the Reims and Soissons plains. On 12 September 1914, pursuing the enemy after its defeat on the Marne, the Allies crossed the Aisne. By mid-October, General Maunoury’s 6th Army held the Soissons sector. On 30 October, the Germans occupied Vailly-sur-Aisne, which lay at the heart of the fighting. By November, the plateau was in the hands of the enemy, who progressively transformed it into a veritable fortress.

To relieve enemy pressure on Soissons and secure a position on the road to Laon, on 25 December 1914, amid the floodwater of the Aisne, the French attacked in the Crouy sector. On 1 January 1915, they bombarded the enemy positions. On the 8th, after a series of mine blasts, the attack was launched. Despite taking the first enemy lines on the plateau, the men of General Berthelot’s 55th Division were unable to capitalise on their success, because of the speed of their adversary’s reaction. On 12 January came a violent counter-attack, which drove the French back across to the south bank of the Aisne. Fierce fighting ensued on the slopes of Hill 132. Mine engineer Albert Tastu, an officer of the 289th Infantry Regiment, lost his life in the fighting. Surrounded with his men in the Grotte des Zouaves, Tastu resisted valiantly, but was killed by enemy fire. Paris seemed under threat once again. On 13 January, the French retreated further south and the front became entrenched on the outskirts of Soissons. Exhausted and poorly supplied due to the flooding of the Aisne, the French suffered major losses. In just six days, 12 000 men, including 1 800 of the 60th Infantry Regiment alone, were put hors de combat. This defeat shook public opinion and became known as “the Crouy affair”, as described by soldier and writer Henry Barbusse in his book Le Feu (English title: Under Fire), which won the 1916 Prix Goncourt. Barbusse had enlisted as a volunteer with the 231st Infantry Regiment and took part in the episode.  The press was censored and a number of generals, including Berthelot, were punished.

The Chemin des Dames offensive, April 1917

Despite the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line in March 1917, General Nivelle maintained his attack on the Chemin des Dames in April. To carry the offensive, he deployed 49 Infantry Divisions and five Colonial Infantry Divisions, supported by 5 310 guns and, for the first time, 128 tanks. Altogether, more than a million men took part in the operation.

On 2 April, the artillery pounded the German positions, partly destroying them. Thus, on the morning of 16 April, the first waves came up against barbed wire and were mown down by machine-gun fire. The French nevertheless managed to get a foothold on the ridge. Despite the losses and difficult weather conditions, the attacks continued the next day. Nivelle’s authority crumbled. From 16 to 30 April, 147 000 men were put hors de combat, 40 000 of them dead. Each division lost on average 2 600 men on the Chemin des Dames.

On the verge of collapse, the French held on. During the summer of 1917, a series of operations and counter-attacks were launched for control over the Chemin des Dames’ key positions, from Craonne to Laffaux.

The infantrymen on both sides bore the most extreme hardships. In October 1917, the Battle of Malmaison took place, whose objective was to capture the old fort of La Malmaison, to the west of the Chemin des Dames. Having taken the plateau on 23 October, the Germans retreated to the north of the Ailette valley.

In October 1920, the ruins of Crouy, which had been the scene of bitter fighting in 1915 and suffered the hardships of occupation, received an army citation.

Among the 76 civilian victims is Estelle Allain, née Berhamelle, aged 49, who died on 24 June 1915 in Soissons (grave n°15). She lived in an apartment in Soissons, rue Sainte-Eugénie, and her building was bombed by the Germans in June 1915. She did not have time to hide in the cellar, which had become a shelter, and was seriously wounded. She died as a result of her injuries, and was recognised as having died for her country.

In 1954, the bodies of 561 French soldiers who died for France during the Second World War were also brought here.

Among the soldiers buried here lie Roger Turpaud, a soldier in the 276th infantry regiment (IR), a legal journalist at the Figaro and later editor of the Police Commissioners' Newspaper and Financial Administration (plot 1, grave no. 71) and Jean-Louis Coqueton, a corporal in the 278th IR, head of office at the Creuse prefecture, who was wounded and taken prisoner on 21 September 1914 at Moulin-sous-Touvent. He died at the German lazaretto in Chauny on 1 October 1914 (plot 2, grave no. 14).

The combatants include several soldiers from the combined Pacific battalion. These men from French Polynesia died during the fighting to take Vesles, Caumont and the farm of Le Petit Caumont on the Marlois plain in the Aisne.

Among these soldiers is a Chinese legionnaire, MA YI PAO (plot F, grave no. 59). A Muslim, Ma Yi Pao had left his country, then in the midst of political instability, to escape religious persecution. At 24 years of age, he joined the Foreign Legion. Although most of his countrymen were employed as workers, he is the only Chinese soldier now recognised to have died for France, on 2 September 1918, of his wounds, in the Jaulzy ambulance, in Oise.

Built in 1918, this cemetery was developed from 1921 to 1934 to include bodies exhumed from temporary cemeteries in the department and again from 1941 to 1951 to rebury the bodies of soldiers who died during WWII. Nearly 2,600 bodies are buried there, including over 2,500 French soldiers in two ossuaries. In WWI, 56 British soldiers were buried there and in WWII, 41 French soldiers were buried in individual graves.

The Battles of the Oise, 1914-18

In August 1914, as set out in the Schlieffen Plan, German troops entered Belgium and marched on Paris. They crossed the Oise and the Aisne before being stopped by the French counter-offensive on the Marne. The two armies then established a front from Verdun to Dunkirk; the right bank of the Oise was occupied by the Germans, while fierce fighting took place on the left bank, with the zouave regiments particularly distinguishing themselves.

For three years, from September 1914 to March 1917, the front didn’t budge. Noyon came under one of the strictest occupations, and the Oise saw no major military operations; it was a “quiet” sector. The French and German troops consolidated their positions, occupying underground quarries, which they decorated and carved.

At the end of 1916, the German command wanted to strengthen the front, and therefore decided to abandon the Noyon sector. Applying a scorched earth policy, the Germans retreated to the Hindenburg Line, which they had just established, thereby limiting the effects of an Allied offensive in this sector. By mid-March 1917, the area was liberated, but in ruins: the houses had been dynamited, the fields flooded, and the bridges and junctions destroyed.

However, the respite was short-lived. Less than a year later, 27 German divisions broke through the British front across 80 km and swept towards Noyon which, on 25 March 1918, found itself occupied once again. Entrenched on Mont Renaud, overlooking the town, the French drove back 23 German attacks, and for over a month shelled the enemy positions. Spared up until now, Noyon was completely destroyed.

On 9 June 1918, the German command ordered a fresh offensive. The Oise then became the scene of a bitter struggle, known as the Battle of Matz, during which the two enemy armies employed heavy artillery and tanks without reserve. Over the first few days, the German army made rapid progress. But due to major losses, their advance was halted at Compiègne. Led by General Mangin, the French army regained the initiative, liberating the Thiescourt massif and crossing the River Divette. On 30 August, Noyon was liberated for good.

The first department on the front line to come back under French control, the Oise has preserved the memory of that bitter fighting and, with the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918 in the forest of Rethondes, it remains one of the symbols of the Great War.

The town of Compiègne in the Great War

A town emblematic of First World War remembrance, where the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918, from the early days of the war, soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force were stationed at Compiègne. Occupied temporarily by the Germans, the town was abandoned at the end of the Battle of the Marne. Located 12 km from the front, Compiègne became a vital link in the chain of medical attention provided to French Army casualties. A major hospital complex in the battle zone, it had many of its public buildings requisitioned, including Saint Joseph’s boarding school and the barracks of the 54th Infantry Regiment at Royallieu. The newly built barrack buildings could accommodate large numbers of wounded. Evacuated in June 1918, this medical complex was re-established and went on to function until the end of the war.

Threatened with enemy bombing from the air, in 1917 Compiègne became home to the French General Headquarters. In March 1918, due to the last major German offensives, the town came under threat once more and most of its population left. A strategic point on the route to Paris, the pressure from the enemy was entirely lifted from Compiègne in June 1918.

The Battles of the Oise, 1914-18

In August 1914, as set out in the Schlieffen Plan, German troops entered Belgium and marched on Paris. They crossed the Oise and the Aisne before being stopped by the French counter-offensive on the Marne. The two armies then established a front from Verdun to Dunkirk; the right bank of the Oise was occupied by the Germans, while fierce fighting took place on the left bank, with the zouave regiments particularly distinguishing themselves.

For three years, from September 1914 to March 1917, the front didn’t budge. Noyon came under one of the strictest occupations, and the Oise saw no major military operations; it was a “quiet” sector. The French and German troops consolidated their positions, occupying underground quarries, which they decorated and carved.

At the end of 1916, the German command wanted to strengthen the front, and therefore decided to abandon the Noyon sector. Applying a scorched earth policy, the Germans retreated to the Hindenburg Line, which they had just established, thereby limiting the effects of an Allied offensive in this sector. By mid-March 1917, the area was liberated, but in ruins: the houses had been dynamited, the fields flooded, and the bridges and junctions destroyed.

However, the respite was short-lived. Less than a year later, 27 German divisions broke through the British front across 80 km and swept towards Noyon which, on 25 March 1918, found itself occupied once again. Entrenched on Mont Renaud, overlooking the town, the French drove back 23 German attacks, and for over a month shelled the enemy positions. Spared up until now, Noyon was completely destroyed.

On 9 June 1918, the German command ordered a fresh offensive. The Oise then became the scene of a bitter struggle, known as the Battle of Matz, during which the two enemy armies employed heavy artillery and tanks without reserve. Over the first few days, the German army made rapid progress. But due to major losses, their advance was halted at Compiègne. Led by General Mangin, the French army regained the initiative, liberating the Thiescourt massif and crossing the River Divette. On 30 August, Noyon was liberated for good.

The first department on the front line to come back under French control, the Oise has preserved the memory of that bitter fighting and, with the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918 in the forest of Rethondes, it became one of the symbols of the Great War.

Catenoy, military hospital no 36

For the duration of the war, the village of Catenoy was a key site for the stationing of troops by the French Army. The writers Roland Dorgelès and Charles Péguy stayed here before going to the front. 

However, in January 1918, the 3rd Army, which had its command in Clermont and the headquarters of its medical service in Nointel, decided to install a military hospital there.  Ever increasing numbers of wounded were arriving each day, and required triage, treatment and evacuation to more appropriate care facilities. From 8 April 1918, the village was home to a military hospital with 1 500 beds (900 for the wounded, 400 for the gassed and sick, and 200 for the lame). The proximity of the N31 road and the Beauvais-Compiègne railway line made for the efficient treatment and rapid evacuation of the wounded who flooded in from the front. By the end of May, the hospital was up and running. Within less than ten days, it had received some 2 500 sick and wounded men, and contributed to 15 ambulance trains.

During the Battle of Matz, from 9 to 14 June, Catenoy hospital, with its 12 surgical teams, received a continuous stream of ambulances from the battlefield. Stretchers piled up in the triage shelters. Surgical staff worked tirelessly, attending to each of the wounded in turn and carrying out more than 700 serious operations in the two operating wings. Over 5 000 soldiers passed through the hospital, which was the 3rd Army’s largest. Owing to the dedication of chaplain Père Fonteny, some of the soldiers who did not survive their wounds are laid to rest in Catenoy National Cemetery.

Among the 2,237 soldiers who lie here are the bodies of Major Bouquet, Captain Speckel and the infantrymen Lena Faya and Aka Tano, who were summarily executed in June 1940 in the Bois d'Eraines. The remains of the liner Meknès were also brought to the Cambronne-lès-Ribécourt cemetery. On 24 July 1940 this ship was torpedoed at sea, leaving 430 dead - including Christian Werno.

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.