Who are the soldiers buried in the military squares?

the essential
The commemorations of November 11 are an opportunity to pay homage to the “Dead for France”. However, buried for more than 100 years, some of our “hairy” graves are falling to shreds. The French Souvenir tries to save them.

Time is a murderer of memory. With nearly 1.4 million dead, the First World War literally amputated part of the living forces of our villages. The Armistice, signed on November 11, 1918, gave way to the fear of the victims of the conflict. France mourned her dead as much as she paid homage to them. Across the country, monuments in honor of the “hairy” flourish on the rubble of the battlefields. The time for mourning and meditation had come. Faced with the scale of these fields of death, the State created memorials and “military squares” (see box below). It is difficult for families, bruised by the loss of a son, a father or an uncle, to mourn.

300,000 repatriated bodies

In the aftermath of the war, many of them demanded the return of the bodies in order to bury them in their villages. 300,000 “Dead for France” would thus have been returned to their relatives. When the body is moved, “the family loses the right to perpetual maintenance of the burial at the expense of the State. The bodies cannot then be reburied, neither in national necropolises or military squares”, emphasizes Maxime Saint-Germes , director of the departmental service of the National Veterans Office.

However, for nearly a century, many families have disappeared or moved away, leaving graves completely dormant. The rural exodus of young people has notably completed the forgetting of their illustrious ancestors. Writings erased by time, mosses covering graves, weeds, broken plaques, etc. many graves of our hairy people today look pale.

It is for the sake of preservation and memory that the French Souvenir, an association created in 1887, tries as best it can to maintain these abandoned graves. With in his charge a sector going from Molières via Caylus and Montricoux, Thierry Beylier, 60, covers a quarter of the department, that is to say nearly 120 cemeteries. Seeing the last home of soldiers who sacrificed their lives for France in this state “doesn’t give a damn. My father was a soldier and some friends died in the war. I can’t accept that.”

Tombs without families

Notebook in hand and camera slung over his shoulder, basing himself on the war memorials in villages, he frantically searches for the words “Death for France” in cemeteries. “My wife tells me that I am more in cemeteries than at home”, laughs this former soldier, “some go fishing or hunting, I give of my time by doing that”. When he discovers a stele, he first tries to decipher the name written on it before looking for it on the Mémoire des hommes * site. If it is indeed a “Death for France”, this volunteer then undertakes to contact the family.

A real investigation led by Thierry: “The families have often left the village so I go see the elders so that they can direct me. The young people don’t care, the transmission did not take place”, regrets he. Because before restoring a burial, the French Souvenir must obtain the agreement of the family or the town hall when this is not possible.

In the cemetery of Saint-Vincent-d’Autejac, the volunteers of the French Souvenir thus restored color to a handful of soldiers’ graves including that of Baptiste Grimal, who died on December 7, 1918 as a result of his injuries. For three years, Thierry has identified nearly 70 graves of soldiers in his area, restored fifteen but of which twenty are still in poor condition.

Besides the risk of seeing part of our history disappear, these graves, when they are illegible and lost, end up irreparably in the mass grave. A sad fate for these men who are part of our national memory.

Grouped together in military squares, the graves of “Morts pour la France” soldiers, mentioned in 1915, are maintained by the State via the National Office for Veterans and War Victims (ONACVG). It is he alone who finances the renovation of these tombs when necessary. In Tarn-et-Garonne, only the towns of Montauban, Moissac and Castelsarrasin have military squares where the soldiers who died during the various conflicts are buried (First World War, Second World War, Indochina and Algeria).

But, contrary to popular belief, the soldiers of the First World War did not come from the department. “From the first fighting, the health services of the armies are overwhelmed. They must quickly adapt and take care of a large number of wounded or sick soldiers”, recalls Maxime Saint-Germes, director of the departmental service of the National Office veterans. He continues: “After the first aid received near the battlefield, the soldiers are sent to the rear by medical trains. Hospitals then face a massive influx of wounded. Due to the lack of infrastructure, Public buildings are requisitioned becoming temporary hospitals. Civilian or religious volunteers then come to assist the medical staff “.

134 German prisoners’ graves

In addition to soldiers, “foreign workers, mainly from colonies or neutral countries, who contracted a disease in the rear are also treated. Hospitals also accommodate German prisoners of war. These are treated equally in accordance with in Article 1 of the Geneva Convention of 1906 “. This is why there are today, in the urban cemetery of Montauban, 134 graves of German soldiers from the First World War.

Many soldiers are therefore sent to the city of Ingres for treatment. Some, unfortunately, will not leave her alive. “The soldiers who died, despite the care given, are buried in the cemeteries of the municipalities concerned. After the war, these graves will be grouped together in what is called a military square”, concludes Maxime Saint-Germes.

Our soldiers from Tarn-et-Garonne who died during the conflict, when they were not repatriated by the families, are buried in the various cemeteries of the country.

These hairy graves