VERDUN - Azannes - Romagne-sous-les-Côtes - Damvillers - La Grande Montagne, American Memorial - Consenvoye
- by Pierre Grande Guerre
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- 20 Mar, 2019
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Year of visit: 2009




Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof Azannes I.


























At that time the initial positions ran just 2-3 km south of Romagne. Consequently many men, fallen during the first days of attack, rest here at the cemetery. In addition to the wounded they were brought back from the front line by combat troops . The majority of them were killed in the Bois de Chapitre, before Souville and Fleury, or at Fort de Douaumont. Others died at Damloup and near Fort de Vaux. Even before the start of the offensive several hospitals and dressing stations had been established in Romagne. Many of the severely wounded succumbed here to their injuries and also found a grave in this cemetery. The French attack in August and September 1917 again demanded heavy sacrifices and led to the evacuation of Romagne-sous-les-Côtes, which was constantly under bombardment of French heavy artillery. This ended in August 1917. A small number of casualties from the first battles at Verdun in August 1914 were recovered from their graves in 1916 and were buried also in this cemetery. The soldiers, buried here, belonged to army units from Bavaria, Brandenburg, East and West Prussia, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Hanover, Hesse, Baden, and Lorraine.















On 26 February 1916 Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the tower for a panorama view over the battlefield. In October 1917 members of the Reserve.I.R. 7 pulled the tower down.










La Grande Montagne - Hill 378.






The Battle of La Grande Montagne (3 -7 November 1918)




















Read more about this in the History of the 316th Infantry Regiment itself and click HERE . Visit also the
Argonne Photo Impressions and
Montfaucon in particular for more info and detailed maps concerning the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
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Quite remarkable: the Memorial mentions 3.128 casualties and 78 officers casualties.































Inleiding: Franz Von Papen & Werner Horn; schaker en pion
Onlangs stuitte ik in een oud boek (1) van 1919 op een opmerkelijk verhaal over een Duitse Luitenant, die in begin februari 1915 een half geslaagde bomaanslag pleegt op een spoorbrug over een grensrivier tussen de Verenigde Staten en Canada. Ook al staat de bekentenis van de dader, Werner Horn, deels in het boek te lezen, de naam van zijn opdrachtgever zal Horn blijven verzwijgen. Na wat verder zoeken vond ik ook de naam van Horn’s opdrachtgever, Franz von Papen, een van de aangeklaagden van het latere Neurenberg Proces in 1946.
In een Grote Oorlog als de Eerste Wereldoorlog is Horn’s aanslag op de brug uiteraard slechts een bescheiden wapenfeit. Toch vermoed ik dat dit relatief onbekende verhaal, dat de geschiedenis is ingegaan als de “ Vanceboro International Bridge Bombing ”, nog interessante kanten kent. Het is onder andere een spionageverhaal over hoe in een groter plan een sluwe schaker zijn naïeve pion offert.
Beknopte situatieschets Canada en de Verenigde Staten in 1915

This trip we start at the Léomont near Vitrimont and we will with some exceptions concentrate on the Battle of Lorraine of August-September 1914 in the area, called, the “Trouée de Charmes”, the Gap of Charmes.
After the Léomont battlefield we continue our explorations to Friscati hill and its Nécropole Nationale. Next we pay a visit to the battlefield of la Tombe to go on to the Château de Lunéville. There we cross the Vezouze to move on southward to the Bayon Nécropole Nationale. At Bayon we cross the Moselle to pass Charmes for the panorama over the battlefield from the Haut du Mont. North-west of Charmes we will visit the British Military Cemetery containing 1918 war victims. From Charmes we go northward to the battlefield of the First French Victory of the Great War, the Battle of Rozelieures of 25 August 1914. North of Rozelieures we will visit the village of Gerbéviller. From there we make a jump northward to visit the ruins of Fort de Manonviller to finish with an interesting French Dressing Station bunker, west of Domjevin.


During this visit, we try to focus on the day that the momentum of the battle switched from the French side to the advantage of the Bavarian side: the day of 20 August 1914, when the Bavarians rapidly re-conquered the territory around Morhange , being also the day of the start of their rather successful “Schlacht in Lothringen”.
We will visit beautiful landscapes of the "Parc Naturel Régional de Lorraine", memorials, ossuaries, and cemeteries. Sometimes we will divert to other periods of the Great War, honouring Russian and Romanian soldiers, who died in this sector. We start our route at the border village of Manhoué, and via Frémery, Oron, Chicourt, Morhange, Riche, Conthil, Lidrezing, Dieuze, Vergaville, Bidestroff, Cutting, Bisping we will finish in Nomeny and Mailly-sur-Seille, where the Germans halted their advance on 20 August 1914, and where they constructed from 1915 some interesting bunkers.


