DESTROYED VILLAGE OF BEZONVAUX

Essentially rural, with a population of 149 inhabitants in 1913, mainly farmers, beekeepers, or small shopkeepers, the village of Bezonvaux still had a château at the outbreak of war in 1914. The German advance to the Meuse in 1914 initially led the population to desert the village.

However, as the front stabilized further north, they returned at the end of 1914 and in 1915, despite some sporadic German shelling from Ornes. They were joined by numerous military personnel passing through or stationed there, such as Sergeant André Maginot, the famous Minister of War appointed in 1922 and again in 1929, who set up his patrols there.

The villagers had to leave definitively shortly before the Battle of Verdun.

After the massive German attack launched on February 21, 1916, the French troops fighting in Ornes retreated to Bezonvaux on February 24. The next day, on February 25, the 4th Battalion of Chasseurs à Pied and the 44th Infantry Regiment, tasked with its defense, desperately buckled under the violent assaults of German artillery and then infantry, which took possession of the devastated village while the French soldiers retreated to Fleury.

The village remained under German control until mid-December 1916. Indeed, on December 15, 1916, a French attack by the 2nd and 3rd Zouaves and the 3rd Algerian Tirailleurs, advancing from the east of Fort Douaumont, assaulted Bezonvaux, where the front stabilized for the last two years of the war.

The village continued to suffer from more or less intense bombardments during this final period, which saw the destruction of both its imposing château and its modest houses.

In 1918, classified as a "red zone," it no longer allowed the reconstruction its inhabitants might have dreamed of after the war.

Its specific status as a destroyed village, decreed in 1919, enabled a new beginning solely dedicated to memorial work, notably with the construction of its Saint Gilles shelter-chapel and its war memorial.

During World War II, it once again witnessed violent battles on June 14, 1940, in its area where the 132nd RIF managed to halt the German invader's advance for a few hours, inflicting heavy losses.

Today, the memorial work conducted there has established a very interesting historical trail presenting the village's life in the past.

To see:

• The Saint Gilles shelter-chapel (commemorative stained glass windows by Gruber, immortalizing the liberation of Bezonvaux by the chasseurs of the 102nd BCP, later nicknamed "the glaziers of Bezonvaux," on December 16, 1916, and a fresco by painter Lucien Lantier)
• The destroyed village monument (obelisk engraved with the citation awarded to the martyred village. Bas-relief showing the village's main street before the war)
• The helmeted marker on the roadside through the village, marking the front line until the Armistice on November 11, 1918
• The Maginot patrollers monument
• Historical trail showing the locations of old houses and past activities.