VILLAGE DÉTRUIT DE BEZONVAUX

Essentially rural, with 149 inhabitants in 1913, mainly farmers, beekeepers and small shopkeepers, the village of Bezonvaux still had a château when the war broke out in 1914.
The German advance to the Meuse in 1914 prompted the population to desert the village at first.
But as the front stabilized further north, the population returned, despite sporadic German bombardments from the Ornes twins at the end of 1914 and in 1915.
She rubbed shoulders with a large number of soldiers in transit or who settled here, as did Sergeant André Maginot, the famous Minister of War appointed in 1922 and again in 1929, who set up his patrol boats here?
She had to leave for good shortly before the Battle of Verdun.

After the massive German attack on February 21, 1916, the French troops fighting at Ornes withdrew to Bezonvaux on February 24?

The following day, February 25, the 4th Battalion of Chasseurs à Pied and the 44th Infantry Regiment, in charge of its defense, bent desperately under the violent assaults of artillery and then German infantry, who took possession of the gutted village, while the Poilus retreated to Fleury?

The village remained in German hands until mid-December 1916.
Indeed, on December 15, 1916, a French attack by the 2nd and 3rd Zouaves and 3rd Algerian Tirailleurs, coming from the east of Douaumont Fort, stormed Bezonvaux, where the Front stabilized for the last two years of the war!

The village continued to sink under more or less intensive bombardment during this final period, which saw the disappearance of both its imposing château and its modest houses.

In 1918, the village was classified as a "red zone", making it impossible to rebuild the way its inhabitants had dreamed of at the end of the war.

Its specific status as a destroyed village, decreed in 1919, enabled it to make a fresh start, which was devoted exclusively to the work of remembrance, notably with the construction of its chapel-shelter Saint Gilles and its war memorial?

During the Second World War, the village was once again the scene of violent fighting on June 14, 1940, when the 132nd RIF managed to halt the advance of the German invaders for a few hours, inflicting heavy losses.

Today, the memory work carried out here has led to the creation of a very interesting historical trail presenting the village?s life in days gone by.

Attractions
- The Saint Gilles chapel-shelter (Gruber?s commemorative stained-glass windows, 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 monument to the destroyed village (obelisk on which is engraved the citation awarded to the martyred village. Bas-relief showing the village's main street before the war);
- The helmeted marker on the side of the road running through the village, marking the front line until the armistice of November 11, 1918;
- The monument to the Maginot patrolmen;
- Historical trail showing the location of old houses and activities of bygone days.

DATAtourisme France