Rethondes clearing
| Clearance of Rethondes Clearance of / near Compiègne Clearance of the Armistice (French Clairière de l'Armistice ) |
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| The clearing prepared as a memorial: In the foreground the location of the French railway wagon marked by a stone slab , in the background the museum with a replica of the wagon | ||
| Basic data | ||
| place | Compiègne | |
| District | Rethondes | |
| Created | 1922 | |
| Buildings | Museum (French: Musée de l'Armistice ) | |
49 ° 25 '38.5 " N , 2 ° 54' 23.1" E
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The clearing of Rethondes , also called the clearing of or near Compiègne or the clearing of the armistice (French Clairière de l'Armistice ), is a former clearing in the Compiègne forest near the village of Rethondes near Compiègne in northern France . The place is significant because a ceasefire ( equivalent to a surrender ) between the French Republic and the German Empire was negotiated here twice, in World War I and World War II - but with opposite signs . The negotiations took place in a railway carriage , later the Compiègne carriage, famous for its symbolic significance .
The former clearing was transformed into a memorial after the First World War and still exists as such today.
location
The city of Compiègne is located about 90 km northeast of Paris in the Oise department . The Compiègne forest , in which the clearing is located, surrounds the city on its east side in a wide arc from southeast to northeast. The forest is cut by the river Aisne in an east-west direction. The clearing is on the south side of the river, south of the small settlement of Francport and west of the village of Rethondes.
The location near Compiègne was selected in 1918 because the French-Allied high command was based nearby during the First World War . The negotiations should take place undisturbed and unnoticed by the public, as far as possible away from settlements. Therefore, it was decided to use railway wagons parked on the open route as space. The railway tracks, which formerly ran across the clearing, came from a two-track branch line that was laid out in preparation for the Nivelle offensive specifically for the railway artillery (with a shooting curve ; French épi de tir ) during the First World War and which was built at the station branched off from the trunk line of Rethondes. Both the train station and the clearing are in the municipality of Compiègne. Both parties could pull up a train here and park their wagons next to each other, and since the route was not part of the public network, the wagons could stay here for days without disrupting regular rail traffic.
history
Armistice 1918 (First World War)
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After the failure of the German spring offensive in 1918 , the Allies ( Triple Entente ) finally gained the upper hand with increased support from US troops on the Western Front . At the same time, the situation for the German Empire worsened considerably on the Eastern Front due to the collapse of Bulgaria . The German Supreme Army Command (OHL) therefore came to the conclusion that the war could no longer be won militarily. When the Allies launched a final offensive against the German Reich on August 8, 1918 , the military leadership feared that the defense would collapse and enemy troops would advance into Reich territory. In order to forestall this, the OHL called on the German government to hold armistice negotiations with the Allies.
After weeks of correspondence about the circumstances, a German negotiating delegation headed by State Secretary Matthias Erzberger traveled to France on November 7, 1918 . For the reasons given, the clearing in the Compiègne forest was chosen as the location for the negotiations. The French delegation was led by the Allied Commander-in-Chief , French Marshal Foch . The negotiations ended after just three days; the Allies largely dictated the conditions, and although the Germans found them to be very harsh, Chancellor Friedrich Ebert, in consultation with the OHL , instructed the German delegation to accept the conditions.
Between the wars: construction of the memorial
A few years after the end of the First World War, in 1922, the clearing was designed as a memorial by the architect Marcel Mages. The initiative for this came from the Ligue des sections et anciens combattants , a nationalist association of war veterans under the leadership of the journalist and writer Jean-Auguste-Gustave Binet , better known as Binet-Valmer .
In the same year, 1922, the somewhat remote Alsace-Lorraine monument was inaugurated. It was designed and built by the blacksmith Edgar Brandt .
In 1937, a larger-than-life memorial was erected on the memorial for Marshal Foch, who had died eight years earlier.
Armistice 1940 (World War II)
At the beginning of June 1940, in the second phase of the western campaign ("Fall Rot") of the Second World War, the German Reich attacked France. The French defense was overrun by the technically and organizationally superior German Wehrmacht within 10 days in a blitzkrieg . In view of the apparent defeat, the French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud announced his resignation in mid-June. His successor, Philippe Pétain , asked the Germans for a ceasefire a day later.
As the location for the armistice negotiations, Hitler deliberately chose the same location as the 1918 armistice in order to humiliate the French and to avenge himself for the shame of 1918 and the harsh terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty . For this he had the original wagon from 1918 fetched from the museum building, for which the wall on the front had to be partially broken off.
After the negotiations were over, Hitler had the memorial stone in the center of the square and the nearby Alsace-Lorraine monument grinded . The French railroad car was brought to Germany, where it was destroyed in the final phase of the war under unknown circumstances.
After the Second World War
After the end of World War II, in 1950, the memorial was restored at the behest of President Charles de Gaulle . The parts damaged or destroyed by the Germans, the Alsace-Lorraine monument, the memorial stone in the center and the museum, were rebuilt with the same design.
Since the original wagon from 1918 had been destroyed in World War II, a wagon of the same series was placed in the museum instead of the original. Every year on November 11th, the anniversary of the armistice of 1918, a memorial service is held in the clearing. For the 100th anniversary, the museum was redesigned, on November 10, 2018, President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel met at the memorial .
layout
The clearing was transformed into a square after the First World War. This round square has a diameter of about 100 m.
The two parallel railway tracks run across the square in a wide arc at a distance of 50 m. Stone slabs mark the former locations of the wagons of the French and German negotiation delegations. There is a lawn between the two tracks, in the middle of which there is a large stone tablet with an inscription:
| Inscription of the plaque in the center of the square | |
|---|---|
| French (original) | German translation) |
| Ici le 11 novembre 1918 succomba le criminel orgueil de l'empire allemand vaincu par les peuples libres qu'il prétendait asservir. |
Here on November 11, 1918, the wicked arrogance of the German Reich succumbed , defeated by the free peoples it had claimed to subjugate. |
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary, the plaque was supplemented by two memorial stones unveiled by Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel in French and German:
| Inscriptions on the plaques | |
|---|---|
| French | German |
| A l'occassion du centenaire de l'armistice du 11 November 1918, Monsieur Emmanuel Macron, Président de la République Française, et Madame Angela Merkel, Chancelière de la République Fédérale d'Allemagne, ont réaffirmé ici la valeur de la réconzilande franco-allemande au service de l'Europe et de la paix. |
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the armistice of November 11, 1918, the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, and the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Angela Merkel, affirmed the importance of Franco-German reconciliation in the service of Europe and peace. |
On the southwest side of the square, as an extension of the western French tracks, a small museum (fr. Musée de l'Armistice ) was built after the First World War . The original French car from 1918 was in it until 1940. Since the original was destroyed in World War II, a largely identical car was installed in the same place on September 16, 1950 after the war, in which President Macron was on November 10, 2018 and Chancellor Merkel in the museum and memorial's guest book. Next to the wagon, the museum is showing a small exhibition on the First World War, which was completely redesigned in 2018.
In front of the museum there is a Renault FT tank and a 75 gun from the First World War.
On the northeast side of the square is a statue of General Foch, the French negotiator in World War I.
A little away from the square, on the country road 250 m northwest of the square - but connected to it by a visual axis , there is a monument in honor of the French reclamation of Alsace-Lorraine . The memorial, which was demolished during World War II on Hitler's orders and then rebuilt, shows the fallen German imperial eagle in front of a tall French sword .
Front of the museum
Renault FT tank
Foch statue
German-French Brigade , in the background the Alsace-Lorraine Monument
literature
- Mémorial de L'Armistice (Ed.): 1918 and 1940. The signing of the Armistice in the forest glade of Compiegne . Compiègne 2013.
Web links
- Memorial website: Le mémorial de l'armistice
Individual evidence
- ↑ Two capitulations were signed in the Compiègne forest: in 1918 by Germany, in 1940 by France. In: Schwäbisches Tagblatt. October 4, 2014, accessed May 28, 2015 .
- ^ Clairière de l'Armistice. In: www.webmatters.net. Retrieved June 27, 2016 .
- ^ (Former) railways in Sundgau / Alsace & Territoire de Belfort. In: www.schweizer-festungen.ch. Retrieved June 27, 2016 .
- ↑ a b c Loretana de Libero: Vengeance and Triumph: War, Feelings and Commemoration in the Modern Age (= contributions to military history . Volume 73 ). Walter de Gruyter, 2014, ISBN 978-3-486-85490-9 , p. 230-231 .
- ↑ Hitler's Blitzkrieg. In: Der Spiegel. March 30, 2005, accessed June 27, 2016 .
- ^ Compiègne (Clairière de l´Amistice monument), Oise department, France. In: www.denkmalprojekt.org. Retrieved June 27, 2016 .
- ↑ Macron and Merkel inaugurate the memorial plaque near Compiègne . German wave . November 10, 2018. Retrieved November 10, 2018.
- ↑ Jean de Cars: Sleeping car. International Express Trains: A Hundred Years of Travel and Adventure . Stuttgart 1984. ISBN 3-613-01028-3 (here: Chapter 9: From one war to another. The armistice car ), p. 154.
- ↑ Memorial of L'Armistice (ed.): 1918 and 1940. The signing of the Armistice in the forest glade of Compiegne . Compiègne 2013, p. 29.
- ↑ Reconciliation in the Forest of Retribution. ZDF from November 10, 2018. Accessed: November 10, 2018.
- ^ Site officiel du musée de l 'Armistice. Retrieved June 27, 2016 .
- ↑ Four companies of the supply battalion, flag delegation and the music corps Versailles