Bezonvaux

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GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION		CLOSEST TOWNS
Town	Bezonvaux	Vaux-devant-Damloup at 3.4 km (3 min)
Insee code	55050	Damloup at 4.5 km (5 min)
Postcode	55100	Gremilly at 4.7 km (5 min)
Latitude	49.2356580	Maucourt-sur-Orne at 4.8 km (6 min)
Longitude	5.4708390	Dieppe-sous-Douaumont at 5.9 km (6 min)
Altitude	From 226 to 367 meters	Mogeville at 6.6 km (8 min)
Surface	9.23 km²	Azannes-et-Soumazannes at 6.9 km (7 min)
Chief town	Bar-le-Duc (at 70 km, 75 min)	Eix at 7.4 km (7 min)
Department	Meuse	Fleury-devant-Douaumont at 8 km (8 min)
Region	Lorraine	Search another town

LOCATION

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TOWN PRESENTATION

10 km east-northeast of Charny - 16 km north-northeast of Verdun.

1803: 199 inhabitants - 1851: 317 inhabitants - 1901: 173 inhabitants - 1911: 186 inhabitants - 1913: 149 inhabitants.

Largely rural, populated by 149 inhabitants in 1913, mainly farmers, beekeepers and small traders, the village of Bezonvaux still had a castle at the outbreak of war in 1914.

The German advance until Meuse in 1914, encourages people to desert at first. But stabilizing the front further north, it comes back, despite some sporadic shelling German at the end of 1914 and 1915, from binoculars to Ornes.

She rubs a large number of soldiers in transit or installing it, as did Sergeant André Maginot, the famous minister of war in 1922 and named in 1929, who installed his patrol ... Then she has to leave shortly before final Battle of Verdun.

After the massive attack German triggered February 21, 1916, French troops fighting in Ornes Bezonvaux fold to 24 February ...

The next day, February 25, the 4th Battalion of Light Infantry and the 44th Infantry Regiment, responsible for its defense, desperately bent on the violent assault of the artillery and the German infantry who takes possession of the village gutted while the Hairy fall back on Fleury ...

The village will remain in German hands until mid-December 1916. Indeed, December 15, 1916, a French attack in the 2nd and 3rd Zouaves and 3rd Algerian infantry, from the east of Fort Douaumont, up to attack Bezonvaux where the front stabilized for the last two years of war !

The village will continue to sink under the more or less intensive bombing during the final period that saw as much lost its imposing castle that his modest home.

In 1918, classified as "red zone", he no longer could dream of reconstruction that its inhabitants at the end of the war.

Its specific status of destroyed village enacted in 1919 allows him to take a fresh start which will be exclusively dedicated to the memory work including the building of the chapel Saint-Gilles shelter and memorial ...

During World War II, it is the theater, again, heavy fighting June 14, 1940 in his 132nd area where the RIF is able to halt the progression of several hours the German invaders, inflicting heavy losses.

Today, the work of memory that is made has established a very interesting historic journey with the old life of the village.

SIGHTSEEING

The Chapel of Saint Gilles-free (memorial windows Gruber, immortalizing the release of Bezonvaux by hunters of the 102nd BCP, later nicknamed "the glaziers of Bezonvaux" 16 December 1916 and fresco painter Lucien Lantier).

The monument to the destroyed village, obelisk on which is engraved the citation awarded to the village martyr. Bas relief showing the main street of the village before the war.

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