Tergnier

Tergnier
region	Hauts-de-France
Department	Aisne
Arrondissement	Laon
Canton	Tergnier
Community association	Chauny Tergnier la Fère
Coordinates	49 ° 39 ′  N , 3 ° 17 ′  E Coordinates: 49 ° 39 ′  N , 3 ° 17 ′  E
height	44-90 m
surface	17.98 km 2
Residents	13,456 (January 1, 2017)
Population density	748 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code	02700
INSEE code	02738
Website	www.ville-tergnier.fr
railway station

Tergnier is a French commune in the department of Aisne in the region of Hauts-de-France . It belongs to the Laon arrondissement . Tergnier is a typical railroad town .

On January 1, 1974 the parishes of Fargniers and Vouël and on January 1, 1992 Quessy were incorporated.

geography

The small town with 13,456 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) is located about 30 kilometers west of Laon , in the Oise Valley and is a railway junction . Three waterways also meet on site. These are the Oise side canal , the Sambre-Oise canal and the Saint-Quentin canal .

history

Late antiquity and the Middle Ages

The origin of the place remains in the dark despite research. The first reliable information can be found for the 17th century. There are various theories about the origin and meaning of the place name, but none of them could prevail.

In Vouël (today a district of Tergnier), rubble from the Gallo-Roman period was discovered along the Roman road Chaussée Brunehaut . It could be that it is the remains of a pagan temple, which was later used as the foundation for the first church.

Also in Vouel was a moth which Tombelle de Vouel was called, be determined. In 1239 the landlord Jean de Vouël is said to have waived all his rights. During the Hundred Years War the place was looted one after the other by all warring parties involved: around 1339 by gangs of the English King Edward III. , around 1410 by the Armagnacs and a little later by the mercenaries of the Duchy of Burgundy .

Modern times

In 1567, the local Huguenots under the leadership of François d'Hangest , Lord of Genlis and Prince of Condé , and the Governor of Picardy besieged Coucy Castle . In 1610 a temple was built in Vouël, which attracted Protestants to the area.

During the Thirty Years' War , the Spaniards invaded the Thiérache in 1637 and devastated Tergnier. It is almost certain that Seigneur de la Borde , Maréchal de camp , mobilized the inhabitants of the hamlets around Tergnier in 1638 to drive away the invaders. The Peace of Westphalia relieved the French army and King Louis XIV was able to take action against his adversary in the Franco-Spanish War . In September 1653 the marshals Henri de La Ferté-Senneterre and Henri de Turenne pitched their 16,000 men in the Oise valley and confiscated the grain they could find in Tergnier and the surrounding area. The local population fled, but soon returned, only to find that the situation had not improved. They then left the village again and did not return home until January of the following year. The workhorses had been confiscated by the army, the fields were uncultivated or devastated by the invasions of the Spaniards. So the population took what they could carry and sought refuge in the city of Laon.

On April 22nd, 1676 there was a scandal in the region: the Huguenots of Chauny and their surroundings complained that the Catholic priests and the population of Tergnier were disrupting their business.

The Abbey of Nogent-sous-Coucy had owned land in what is now Quessy since the 16th century, which the monastery had to give up during the Wars of Religion . After the Huguenots were marginalized in 1703, the property was returned to the monastery.

19th century

Population growth during the boom years

Tergnier		Quessy
year	Pop.	year	Pop.
1793	220	1791	154
1845	276	1841	516
1856	362	1861	738
1868	1750
1869	1806
1875	1572
1881	3079	1881	1010
1885	3536

During the six-day campaign in the coalition wars, Tergnier fell to the enemy after Napoleon's defeat . Requisitions and looting were the norm. After the defeat of Waterloo , Tergnier was reoccupied on June 25, 1815 and paid a heavy toll.

Between 1857 and 1867 the railway line from Tergnier via Ham to Saint-Quentin was built, a project that had been approved by King Louis-Philippe and by Napoleon III. was inaugurated with great pomp. At that time Tergnier was one big construction site that worked day and night. Paths were turned into roads and new roads were created. The city now attracted able people from everywhere, even Paris. In addition to new professions in the transport sector, modern businesses such as industrial spinning mills and weaving mills emerged under their leadership. Soon many farmers and servants gave up their traditional professions in order to take part in the economic boom.

During the Franco-Prussian War , Tergnier was occupied by the Prussian army on November 15, 1870 . Ten days later, the Germans took the area under artillery fire . In the winter of 1870/71 the population of Tergnier sheltered several thousand soldiers from the defeated French army. After the Peace of Frankfurt , Eastern France remained under German occupation until the reparations were settled . In May 1872 the last German troops were withdrawn from Tergnier.

Time of the First World War

At the beginning of the First World War , the Allied British Expeditionary Corps was stationed in Tergnier under the direction of Douglas Haig (Commanding General of the I. Corps ). After the Battle of Le Cateau , Tergnier was captured by German troops on August 27, 1914 . From September 25, 1914, all men of the city who were of military age were deported to the Altengrabow prisoner-of-war camp in Germany. In spring 1917, the infrastructure of Tergnier and other cities was deliberately destroyed during the German strategic retreat from the region ( Alberich company ) in order to make life as difficult for the enemy as possible. At the height of the trench warfare in 1917-18 Tergnier was repeatedly occupied by the one or the other warring party, the city was destroyed to 95%.

Ruins of the “Sailly” refinery, after the First World War

After the initiation of the armistice negotiations, several motor vehicles with the German negotiating delegation headed by State Secretary Matthias Erzberger drove from La Capelle via Homblières near Saint-Quentin on impassable roads on November 7, 1918 . Erzberger was accompanied by Commander De Bourbon-Busset , head of the Deuxième Bureau (secret service) of the French 1st Army . The French did not tell the Germans the destination of the journey. There was no house far and wide, only one ruin after another could be seen. The destroyed houses made a ghostly backdrop in the shimmer of the moonlight. No living being far and wide, only a track could be seen. The car stopped suddenly at 3:45 a.m.

"Where are we?" Asked Erzberger.

" In Tergnier, " replied Bourbon Busset.

Erzberger looked around. "But there isn't a single house here," he remarked.

"Quite right, but there used to be a city here , " replied Bourbon-Busset.

The delegation then boarded a special train that drove them from Tergnier to the clearing of Rethondes near Compiègne . Marshal Foch was waiting there in a railroad car to negotiate the 1918 armistice .

Second World War

The area around Tergnier was again exposed to a German invasion in May / June 1940. In their western campaign , the Wehrmacht crossed the Saint-Quentin Canal near Liez and pinched Tergnier on both sides. The city was also exposed to air strikes. Many residents fled, but some returned and joined the Resistance . Tergnier became a center of resistance. Acts of sabotage, especially carried out on railway facilities, were supposed to make life difficult for the occupier. The retaliatory actions of the Wehrmacht followed quickly and were relentless and often disproportionate. Many activists - but also bystanders - were shot dead or taken to concentration camps.

Before the liberation of France in late summer 1944, Tergnier came under fire again as a railway junction, this time by the Allies. After the war, the city was awarded the Cross of Merit Croix de guerre 1939–1945 . The accompanying letter states that the city lost 58 inhabitants in the massive bombing of the Allied air forces. In addition, 407 buildings were completely destroyed and 1,041 partially destroyed. Eleven residents were deported to concentration camps by the Germans; only four of them survived this ordeal.

economy

The old train station in Tergnier

• The construction of the Canal de Saint-Quentin dragged on from 1730 to 1843.
• 1852: The concession for the railway line from Tergnier to Reims is granted.
• 1855: Tergnier's first railway workshop for the construction and maintenance of locomotives is established.
• 1859: The Compagnie des chemins de fer du Nord railway company decides to develop Tergnier into one of its nodes.
• 1860: M. Mention builds a sugar factory that employs 60 to 80 workers and refines 6,000 tons of sugar per year.
• 1867: The Tergnier - Amiens railway goes into operation.
• 1868: The Franco- Belgian faience manufacturer A. Mongin employs 200 workers.
• 1876: Large-scale embroidery takes on many workers who previously worked as maids in agriculture, mainly on a seasonal basis.
• 1885: The Tergnier-Fargniers foundry, managed by M. Maguin, is opened. (destroyed today)
• 1893: The foundry of the Lebois brothers is founded. (destroyed today)
• 1901: The M. Berlemont foundry is founded. (destroyed today)
• 1918: After the First World War, around 50% of the track systems in Tergnier were destroyed.
• 1944: During the liberation of France, Tergnier, which is still occupied by the Germans, is bombed. The train station, railway depot, railway workshops and shunting tracks are almost completely destroyed.

coat of arms

Blazon : Squared : In the first field on azure blue a golden bishop's staff; in the second field divided into five bars of red and monkshood in blue and silver; in the third field a black lion on gold ; in the fourth field an ermine bar on top of gold .

Population development

year	1936	1946	1954	1962	1968	1975	1982	1990	1999	2009	2016
Residents	4,357	3,370	5,002	5,827	5,949	11,736 1	12,032	11,698	15,069 2	14,373	13,541

¹ For the first time with the incorporations of Fargniers and Vouël
² For the first time with the incorporation of Quessy

Attractions

• The reconstruction of the district of Fargniers, which was 95% destroyed in the First World War, was planned on the drawing board in 1920 by the architects Paul Bigot and Henri-Paul Nénot and implemented in 1922–1928 with the support of the Andrew Carnegi Foundation. The result is a central square (called Place Carnegi ) around which the buildings were built concentrically. The streets run radially towards the square. In the inner circle are the public buildings and green spaces, on the outer circles the residential and commercial buildings and other green areas. The ensemble has been a French cultural monument since 1998 .
• Cité-jardin de Tergnier is the name of a garden city and railway settlement in the Fargniers district. It is shaped like three locomotive wheels and was built in 1921 by the Chemins de fer du Nord railway company.
• Also in the Fargniers district is the Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation de Picardie , which commemorates the Resistance movement and the deportations in the Picardy region during the Second World War .
• Tergnier is on the Via Francigena pilgrimage route .

Town twinning

• Wolfhagen (Hessen, Germany), since 1981

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ Today the district of Tergnier
2. ↑ Nicholas Best: The Greatest Day in History , Chapter 5. PublicAffairs, New York, 2009.
3. ↑ Entry no. PA02000018 in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)

Web links

Commons : Tergnier  - collection of images, videos and audio files