Tranche de Calonne

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Tranchée de Calonne at the level of the first burial place of Alain-Fournier

The Tranchée de Calonne is a country road ( Route départementale 331 - before 1938 Ic Stratégique 3) in the Meuse department in Lorraine (northeastern France ). The approximately 25 km long road connects the village of Hattonchâtel, a district of Vigneulles-lès-Hattonchâtel since 1973 , in a north-westerly direction with Verdun , where it enters the A 4 between the Verdun-Le Rozelier airport and the Verdun-Saint Nicolas service area Route départementale 903 opens. It does not touch any other localities, but runs along its entire length through the wooded area of ​​the Côtes de Meuse . The street is named after its builder Charles Alexandre de Calonne . Since the road runs almost continuously in a straight line regardless of the terrain profile with its numerous transverse valleys, it is characterized by the constant alternation of uphill and downhill sections.

history

1786 had Charles Alexandre de Calonne, the then finance minister of Louis XVI. to create the road against the resistance of the surrounding villages. In August 1770, Calonne, then still director in Metz , had acquired the nearby lordship of Hannonville-sous-les-Côtes from the widow of the Marquis Michel de Dreux-Brézé . The construction of the road was, on the one hand, one of the numerous measures Calonne took to promote the economy; it was supposed to facilitate the transport of the wood felled in the vast forest areas to Verdun, where it was loaded for onward transport by ships on the Meuse ( Maas ). On the other hand, Calonne was pursuing personal interests; the road was used for hunting and made it easier to get to his castle in Hannonville or a planned new castle, which was no longer possible after Calonne's release in 1787 and his subsequent exile in England.

The Tranchée de Calonne (marked in red) at the Battle of St. Mihiel , September 1918 (black: German positions, green: American advance)

During the First World War , the Tranchée de Calonne gained military importance in the battles for Verdun. In the German attempts to enclose the Verdun Fortress, it was strategically important and hotly contested. In September 1914, German troops advanced south of Verdun to St. Mihiel , creating a bulge in the front, the St. Mihiel Arch. Since then, the front line has run across the Tranchée de Calonne; the southern part of the street was in German hands, the northern part in French hands. The bitter attempts by the French army, especially in the spring of 1915, to recapture the area around St. Mihiel Arch were unsuccessful. In the course of these fighting, the German troops pushed further north along the Tranchée de Calonne at the end of April 1915 and established a new front line at the level of the village of St. Remy (today Saint-Remy-la-Calonne), which remained essentially unchanged until 1918 . It was not until September 1918 that US troops succeeded in repelling the German army at the Battle of St. Mihiel . During the war, the Tranchée de Calonne was both an immediate combat zone and an important supply route for both sides, especially in the battles for the Combres Heights (Les Éparges) to the east .

Today the scenic route is used a lot by cyclists and hikers.

Trivia

On September 22, 1914, the French writer Alain-Fournier fell not far from the road and was buried there. The writer Jean Giono also fought at the Tranchée de Calonne.

The name of the street as tranchée (cut, ditch) does not go back to its role in the war, but is older. It is a common regional name for forest roads and paths.

In 2007, the French author Michel Bernard published a collection of historical essays entitled La Tranchée de Calonne , which was awarded the 2007 Prix ​​Erckmann-Chatrian .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Alain Fournier 1886–1914: la Tranchée de Calonne
  2. ↑ John Mosier: Verdun. The Lost History of the Most Important Battle of World War I, 1914-1918. Penguin, New York 2013, p. 143.
  3. ^ Alain Fournier 1886-1914: Alain-Fournier et Saint-Remy-la-Calonne

literature

  • Michel Bernard: La tranche de Calonne. Récit. la Table ronde, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2710329817 .

Web links

Coordinates: 49 ° 0 '  N , 5 ° 38'  E