Battle of Vrigne-Meuse

The Battle of Vrigne-Meuse was an attack led by the French infantry against German positions, between the 9th and the 11th November 1918 in the Ardennes. It was one of the last battles of the First World War.^[1]

On 9 November 1918, the 415th Infantry Regiment (RI) attempted to cross the Meuse river between Dom-le-Mesnil and Vrigne-Meuse. Footbridges were installed by the divisional engineers. The next day, the three battalions of the 415th Infantry Regiment which amounted to 700 men, were outnumbered by the German forces when they were confronted.^[2]

On 11 November at 10:30a.m. the fog lifted. The courier, or estafette Augustin Trébuchon, carried a message to his captain. Augustin Trébuchon of the 415th Infantry Regiment, was the last French soldier killed during World War I.^[3][4][5] He was killed between 10:45a.m. and 10:50 a.m.^{[N 1]} He was mowed down by a burst of machine gun fire 15 minutes before the ceasefire set for 11 a.m. came into effect. It was in his capacity as liaison officer for the 415th regiment, that he ran towards the front on the edge of the Meuse (Bois Charlemagne), carrying a message ordering the fighters to withdraw to the rear (Dom-le-Mesnil) for the soup scheduled for 11:30 a.m.^[6] His body was found by liaison officer Georges Gazareth and bugler Octave Delaluque, when they were crawling towards the hole which served as Captain Lebreton's command post.^[7]

According to the historian Georges Dommelier, Trébuchon died between the dam footbridge and the front line which was located along the railway line as he was going towards the front line troops, in front of Vrigne-Meuse.^[8]

Some historians have disputed the identity of the last fallen soldier.^[9] According to Belgian historian Jean-Emile Andreux, another soldier died five minutes before 11 a.m. from a German shell.^[10] According to Jean-Dominique Merchet, this could have been Jules Achille (born in 1893 in Mayenne), who was serving in the same regiment.^[11] According to historian Jean-Yves Le Naour, a number of soldiers who were killed on 11 November 1918, with their deaths being transcribed on the registration cards for the 10 November 1918 because it was too difficult to confess and tell the families that their son, their husband, their brother had been killed on the very day of the armistice.^[12]

Concerning the exact time of Trébuchon's death and the location of the place where he was killed, there are at least two theories, whether near the railway line or in the cover of the Epine massif.^[13]

On 11 November 1918, bugler Octave Delaluque sounded the Armistice at Vrigne-Meuse. He was the only bugler to have sounded the armistice on the frontline in the middle of combat. On 11 November, before 11a.m., he was brought back from a shell hole by crawling under machine-gun fire by a fellow soldier, André Gazareth, to the front line at Dom-le-Mesnil where Captain Lebretton ordered him to sound the ceasefire. He no longer remembered the call he had learned in 1911.^[14] Earlier the corporal Pierre Sellier, originally from the Territoire de Belfort, and whose bugle still rests in the Army Museum, sounded the ceasefire on the evening of 7 November, to allow the German plenipotentiaries to cross the French lines at La Flamengrie in the Aisne.^[15]

According to the historian Jean-Emile Andreux, who studied the log of the march and operations of the health service of the 415th regiment, he discovered this sentence: "on 11/11 at 11:00 Armistice bell. The last shell was fired at 11:05 (11:05 or 11:00 minus 5?) near the main aid station, installed at Dom-le-Mesnil and killed a man. The identity of the man is unknown, but a name is sometimes mentioned, Jules Achille, born on 14 September 1893 at La Poôté in Mayenne".^[16]

According to historian René Richard, from the association "Bretagne 14-18", another theory exists. It asserts that another man died a few minutes after Trébuchon at exactly 10:58 a.m. This was Auguste Joseph Renault, born on 6 December 1897, in Saint-Trimoël, near Lamballe, in the Côtes-du-Nord.^[17]

The men of the 415th Infantry Regiment were not given time to bury their dead compatriots and their commander was sent to Lebanon and Syria. The 415th Infantry Regiment was not represented in the grand victory parade of 14 July 1919. Ten years later, in April 1929, a war memorial was unveiled at the site of the fighting, in the presence of veterans.^[18]

• List of battles involving France in modern history
• Second Battle of Mons, fought 9–11 November 1918