Armistice
La Pierre d'Haudroy
7th November 1918
Half way between La Capelle and Haudroy on the D285 is a monument connected to the final days of the war.
On the 8th August 1918 Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig launched the Battle of Amiens which began a period known as the hundred days during which the German Army, now over extended and in short supply of men and supplies, was steadily pushed back towards the Belgian frontier.
On the right of the British Armies the French retook the Chemin des Dames, scene of their disastrous offensive in 1917, and fighting alongside the American Expeditionary Force, pushed ever northwards.
Trouble in Germany
On 4 November 1918 attempts by the German army to quell a mutiny by the sailors of the High Seas Fleet ended with the soldiers joining the sailors (who were declining the chance to have one last fight to the death with the British Royal Navy).
That same day at Ors on the Sambre Canal three notable victims to the fighting fell and now lay buried together in the village communal cemetery. The poet Lieutenant Wilfred Owen, Captain James Kirk VC and Lt Colonel James Marshal VC.
Wilfred Owen's grave at Ors Communal Cemetery
The German Delegation
The German government under Prince Max of Baden had corresponded with President Woodrow Wilson and had asked him to open the way for an armistice.
Certain general conditions had been imposed on Germany and they had been told to nominate their delegation to Maréchal Ferdinand Foch the Commander in Chief on the Western Front.
That done the Germans were given details of where to approach the French lines and the regiment concerned was warned of the delegation's expected arrival.
On the morning of 7 November 1918 the delegation under Matthias Erzberger one of the new political leaders arrived at the German OHL in the Belgian town of Spa.
Erzberger was a rather reluctant leader fully aware that the results of any negotiations would be laid at his doorstep and not the military's. His thoughts were quite prophetic, because on 26 August 1921 he was assassinated by fanatics.
Part of the rise of Hitler was borne on the idea that it had been the civilian government that had humiliated and betrayed Germany - not the Army, who had been unbeaten in the field and remained on foreign soil at the time of the Armistice.
At noon following the transmission of messages to Maréchal Foch the German deputation set out.
Thus the war was to come full circle. In 1914 General von Moltke had set things in motion. He was the nephew of the victorious Prussian general of the 1870 war against France. Now, General von Winterfeldt, the son of the man who had dictated the terms of France's surrender in 1870, was to act as the military delegate at his own country's armistice negotiations.
La Pierre d'Haudroy
The Germans had been told to approach Général Debeney's army along the front between Givet - La Capelle - Guise.
The delegation had asked for a provisional cease fire but this had been refused apart from the route leading into La Capelle.
At 2020 hours four cars, with full headlights, displaying white flags and carrying a trumpeter sounding the cease fire approached the French lines at La Pierre d'Haudroy. It was pouring with rain and a thick mist hung over the ground.
The party was met by the 25 year old Captain Lhuillier, the Commandant of the 1st Battalion of the 171è Régiment d'Infanterie.
A Bugler called Pierre Sellier replaced the German trumpeter on the duckboard of the first German car and the convoy set off again through the French lines to the Villa Pâques at La Capelle.
Here the German vehicles were left behind and the convoy continued on its way in French ones. The route was atrocious all the way down to Homblières near St Quentin where Général Debeney, commanding the 1st French Army, received them in the ruined presbytery.
He accorded them a soldier's meal before setting them off again towards the railway station at Tergnier.
There in the ruins of the town the Germans boarded their train at 0300 hours. The wagon was the former dining car of Napoleon III and still bore the imperial crowned N. The windows were covered and the Germans had no idea as to their final destination.
At 0700 hours the train pulled up alongside the carriage of Maréchal Foch. The ground was a quagmire and a walkway had to be placed between the two wagons to get from one to the other.
They had arrived in a clearing in the Forest of Compiègne near to the village of Rethondes.
The Armistice Negotiations at Rethondes
The 11th November 1918 was a cold, wet and miserable day. At La Pierre d'Haudroy, it was the same bugler: Caporal Sellier, who sounded the end of the war to end all wars. After 51 months of war France had lost 1,400,000 dead. Worldwide the figure is approximated at 8.6 million dead.
The Monument
Here, the tenacity of the Poilu triumphed
To mark the location a monument in Vosges granite was erected on 5th November 1925.
For the next 23 years until his death Pierre Sellier returned to sound the Cease Fire on the anniversary of the Armistice.
The monument was deemed offensive to the Germans and was one of the first things they blew up in 1940 - on 14th August.
The monument was reconstructed and inaugurated on 14 November 1948, and it is this that you can see today.
The inscription tells how:
1918, 7 November, 20:20 hours
Here, the tenacity of the poilu triumphed
At the base are tablets telling the story of the construction, destruction and replacement of the monument.
The Armistice Negotiations at Rethondes
Canada's last casualty of the war
France's last casualty of the war