VILLAGE DÉTRUIT DE ORNES

Ornes was a real market town, larger than the other destroyed villages, but in the end, after the Great War, it found itself in the same position as them, or almost, under their stones.

In the course of its history, the castle of its lord suffered the same fate, in February 1653, when it was taken, then destroyed, by Catholic Lorraine troops, while he had been firmly defending Protestantism like his ancestors since 1563.
Already in 1587, a bloody battle had taken place between his troops and those of the Catholic Duke of Lorraine.

By the middle of the 19th century, it had a population of 1,367, dropping to 750 by 1914, mainly as a result of the rural exodus that fed the growing industrial centers of the late 19th century.
Nevertheless, the town had a textile and processing industry well adapted to local agricultural production and that of the neighboring Woëvre plain.

But its geographical location, close to the border with the annexed Moselle, and then to the front line stabilized after the Battle of the Marne, did not favor it, as it would very quickly find itself in the front line in the event of an enemy offensive.
The population was therefore asked to evacuate the village on August 25, 1914.
But not everyone left, at their peril, as bombardments and German patrols making incursions into the village intensified.

In September 1914, two children were killed by shrapnel. In October 1914, some of the departing villagers were captured and taken prisoner by the Germans?
In 1915 and until February 1916, French troops held the village, where units were positioned in the 2nd line facing the front, when the great German offensive began.

But from February 21 to 24, the German push was so strong that the village of Ornes was taken by their infantrymen on February 24, 1916, after violent bombardments that destroyed all the village?s houses and buildings.
It was not recaptured by our poilus until August 23, 1917.

Classified as a "red zone" at the end of the war, it could never be rebuilt.

Its status as a destroyed village nevertheless allowed the construction of a war memorial in the old cemetery and the Saint-Michel chapel-shelter, which was inaugurated on August 14, 1932.

Finally, the moving remains of its church, still standing, bear witness to both the existence of a prosperous past and the bitterness of the fighting that took place on this ravaged ground?

What to see
- The moving remains of the former church;
- The Saint-Michel chapel (commemorative stained-glass windows);
- The war memorial (depicting France defending a mother and her children, with soldiers defending them in the background, and featuring photos of the village before 1914 and in 1918 on its sides);
- The old cemetery.

DATAtourisme France