The Vauthier Borne Markers

Dedication of Marker #1 at Château-Thierry 
November, 1921

In our recent Lonesome Memorials #27 article (HERE) We mentioned that located across the road from the memorial is one of the demarcation stones that indicate Germany's deepest penetration in to France in WWI. One of our readers asked for more information on these markers, so this is what I discovered. By the way, the particular marker we referred to in the original article has a unique story.

These Vauthier Borne Markers (known in French as Bornes Vauthier or Bornes du Front) map out the Allied front line on 18 July 1918, marking the maximum German army advance before the final Allied counter-offensives. This network of landmarks was conceived in 1920 by French sculptor and war veteran Paul Moreau-Vauthier, who had served as a machine gunner and was wounded at Verdun. It gained sponsorship of the Touring Club de France.

Fort de la Pompelle (#50), Reims, Champagne

After a brief enemy occupation in August 1914, French forces, and later Russian, reoccupied the fort, protecting Reims for the entirety of the war.

The stones identify the army (Belgian, British, or French) that held that sector in 1918 and are engraved with the text "Here the invader was brought to a standstill 1918" in English, Dutch, and French. The stones were placed at locations selected by Marshal Petain and his staff and often occupy prominent positions usually on roadsides. Collectively, they delineate the line of 18 July 1918, the day French and American forces launched the first of the Allies 1918 victory offensives. The German Army gained no additional territory along the Western Front for the remainder of the war.  Needless to say, not all the markers were precisely located, especially where the front line experienced a series of attacks and counterattacks.  Moreau-Vauthier died in 1936 in a car accident at Ruffigny near Niort in Deux-Sèvres, and is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

 Stuivekenskerke (#11), Diksmuide, West Flanders

Site of an Important Belgian Army Observation Tower

Some Details:

Quantity: Originally, 240 markers were planned to stretch roughly 650 km along the Western Front from Nieuwpoort, Belgium to the Franco-Swiss border. Ultimately, 118 markers  were erected between 1921 and 1930 (96 in France and 22 in Belgium). Today, 93 survive after suffering damage during World War II.

Material & Size: Carved out of distinctive pink Alsace granite, standing about 1.3 meters (3.3 feet) tall.

Gear Engravings: The sides of each stone feature bas-relief carvings of standard infantry equipment, including a gas mask case, a water bottle, and hand grenades.

Design Elements: Each stone is topped with a military helmet resting on a laurel wreath. The helmet type varies depending on which Allied forces held that specific sector:

• French sector: Adrian helmet

• Belgian sector: Belgian Adrian helmet

• British/Commonwealth sector: Brodie helmet

At least two of the markers are particularly linked to the American War effort: 

Château-Thierry (#1)

On the banks of the Marne River, it signifies a major turning point during the Second Battle of the Marne. Located at the intersection of Avenue de Soissons and Avenue Jules. On 30 May 1918, machine gunners of the Third U.S. Division arrived on the opposite shore and prevented a crossing of the Marne River that would have threatened Paris. 

Flirey Marker (#68)
U.S. 89th Division Launched an Attack Here, 12 September 1918

This unique marker located in the Lorraine, on the south face of what was the St. Mihiel Salient. It stands .75 miles north of the village on D904. It is designated "Georges Washington" in recognition of the American service in the area. In the village proper is the Monument de la Lorraine à la Gloire des États-Unis symbolizing enduring Franco-American friendship.

I have thus far been unable to discover a comprehensive listing of the markers or a map.  If you know of such a resource, please post it in the comments below. 

Sources: American War Memorials Overseas,  Bassin de Pont-a-Mousson Tourisme; Wikipedia

A Dozen Photographs of Russia at War in 1916

Click on Images to Enlarge

The Dukhovshchinsky Regiment at a Performance at the Regimental Theater

A Hospital Nurse

Military Hospital Ward

 

Officers and Soldiers Leaving for the Front

In Memory of Military Service (Subject Unknown)

Captured Austrian Machine Gun

Transfer to the Southern Front

"At a Dugout. Wearing Gas Masks"

Rasputin's Corpse

Factory of the Russian Society for the Manufacture of Ammunition and Military Supplies

Tsar Nicholas II With His Family at the Train Station in Mogilëv 

Commander-in-Chief General Alexei Brusilov

Source: The Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow

Lonesome Memorials #28: World War One Memorial in Agawam Park, Southampton, NY

Click on Images to Enlarge

The Southampton Memorial Looking North

By James Patton

The village of Southampton, NY (2020 pop. 4,550, 1920 pop. 2,891) is located in the toney East End of Long Island. It’s a well-to-do community; the median household income is $214,032, and the median property value is over $4 million. For well over a hundred years, it has been a summer playground for the glitterati and the Wall Street wunderkinds. It has long been awash with old money, and lasting traces thereof endure, such as: (1) the imposing Gothic-style Catholic church that the robber barons built over a hundred years ago for their Irish household help, and is designated as a basilica, (2) The art museum, endowed in 1898 by Wall Street lawyer Samuel Parrish (1849–1932), which has over 3,500 works of art, (3) the 1879 Episcopal "summer chapel," situated on the dunes and featuring original Tiffany stained glass and (4) the imposing and atypical WWI memorial. Located in Agawam Park, it’s made of Indiana Limestone, features extensive stone carving, and was dedicated on 19 August 1923.

Battle Detail

The Art & Architecture Quarterly East End describes the memorial thusly: ‘[It]… consists of a platform slightly raised above its surroundings, the central portion three steps up and the side two steps.  In the center has been erected a temple of simple Corinthian style with nautical trophies–the dolphin, the trident and the anchor–for ornament, as suggested by the ocean setting of this ancient village.  The temple is roofed for shelter and on its interior walls are carved the names, rank and service of the Southampton men and boys who made the supreme sacrifice.  Here are also carved the shields of the various allies and on the exterior great eagle panels with the shields of Great Britain and France. In the center, on a platform of stone, on which is cut compass points, stands a commemorative altar of victory carved with the symbolic oak and laurel supported by rods and capped by conventional tin hats.

Tribute to Two of the Fallen of Southampton

The eight who gave their lives served in the 1st, 27th, 77th, 78th, and 79th Divisions, plus a sailor and a member of the British Royal Flying Corps. What is atypical are the wing panels, which bear the  names of all of the 325 men, women, and boys who served, although some of these names are now illegible.

Part of the Roster of Sotonians Who Served in the War

Other carved details include: the shields of the United States and New York State, the names of all of the major battles fought by Americans in the war, and daisy-chains of poppies. The sight lines were chosen so that in the south elevation, the temple colonnade frames both Lake Agawam and even the more distant Atlantic Ocean, although today mature trees block that far vista. The fountain and flagpole structures in front of the WWI Memorial were added later as the village’s monument to its fallen in WWII.

Altar of Victory

Elsewhere in the same park, there is also a Civil War memorial, which is a nautical-style flag mast, flanked by two naval cannons, two naval mortars and stacks of cannonballs. Across the street from Agawam Park is an additional monument to all of Southampton’s service members: The Veteran’s Hall. Built in 1911, for many years it housed the American Legion Post 432. The village acquired the property in 1985.

Recent State of the Memorial
Looking to Southeast

Although $284,000 of overdue repair work was performed on the WWI Memorial site in 2012, just six years later the structure had significantly deteriorated, and eventually had to be fenced off. A survey by an engineering firm estimated that $400,000 of new work was needed. Fundraising efforts began in 2021, but repeated grant requests were turned down. Ultimately, in December 2025, a “great Christmas present for the village,” was the award of a $675,000 preservation grant from the state to help fund the restoration. Through other efforts, the village has raised another $500,000, including both a $129,500 donation from the Southampton Association (which seeks to “foster the preservation of the character of our historic Village”), and $100,000 that was mostly raised at a gala. The village is “probably a little bit short still” of the current estimated cost of $1.2 million, but is close enough to proceed with the project, as donations are still coming in, and the village mayor has pledged that “the village can allocate more money for it”. We certainly hope so.

A Special Thanks to Dr. Susana Patton for these photographs.

Sassoon's Letter to The Times

Siegfried Sassoon was born into wealth and had led a privileged life before the war, with much hunting and cricketeering and some literary dabbling to pass the time. War brought something else out in him, though, and he fought with distinction with the 38th Welsh Division at the Somme. He earned the nickname "Mad Jack." In 1917 while on convalescent leave in England, advised by Bertrand Russell, he turned defiantly against the war. He tore the Military Cross ribbon from his uniform, tossed it in the River Mersey and sent this letter to The Times, where it was published:

Lt. Siegfried Sassoon.

3rd Batt: Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

July, 1917.

I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them and that had this been done the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops and I can no longer be a party to prolonging these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. 

On behalf of those who are suffering now, I make this protest against the deception which is being practised upon them; also I believe it may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share and which they have not enough imagination to realise

Sassoon was saved from a court martial for insubordination by the intercession of fellow Royal Welch Fusilier Robert Graves and was sent to Craiglockhart military hospital in Edinburgh to be treated for shell shock. There he met and encouraged fellow poet Wilfred Owen. Both Owen and Sassoon would return to the field, but their subsequent writings would emphasize the sufferings and sense of betrayal felt by the common soldiers of the war. 

Editor's Note:  We have published over a dozen articles over the years on Sassoon and his writings. [He's just a fascinating subject, who produced a lot of material about the war.] If you are interested you can find them HERE.

Meet the First American Produced Tank, the Model 1917 (M1917) – Video

Matthew from the American Heritage Museum at Hudson, Massachusetts, here gives an excellent introduction to the first American produced tanks, the M1917, a  U.S. licensed copy of the French Renault FT, a compact World War I tank that pioneered the classic turreted layout still used today. The US Government placed an order for 4,440 tanks to be built, but only 950 were produced before the order was cancelled. A handful of them arrived in France just after the Armistice.

Horrible Histories: The Frightful First World War

By Terry Deary & Martin Brown 

Scholastic, 2007

Commentary by Esther MacCallum-Stewart

Nonfiction books for children deal more explicitly with historical events and are often more subversive than their literary counterparts. The former are seen as having a duty to represent history accurately.  The desire to reappropriate history through the best stories spawned a revisionist history trend in children’s writing. Pioneered by Terry Deary’s Horrible History  series, these books aims to present “history with the nasty bits left in!”

Deary’s titles include The Rotten Romans, The Cut-Throat Celts, The Vicious Vikings, and, of course, The Frightful First World War. The series is immensely successful, appealing to the prurient sense of humor of young readers. The subversiveness of these texts lies in their deliberate attempt to provide alternative readings of history. In fact, the books are well-researched and carefully themed to coincide with Great Britain’s National Curriculum modules. They are informative while overemphasizing the “horrible” aspect of each book. For example, The Frightful First World War describes the army order instructing soldiers to urinate on their socks and then breathe through the material during a gas attack, but there is also an amount of more traditional detail, thinly disguised as terrible events.

Alfred Leete’s famous recruitment poster of Lord Kitchener is drawn next to the entirely prosaic information that he died by drowning when the HMS Hampshire hit a stray mine on 5 June 1915; the famous slogan has been changed to read “Your country needs YOU! But I need a lifeboat”. 

Order HERE

This irreverent approach has done much to encourage the study of history in younger readers and the books are popular with schools and libraries. The Frightful First World War is particularly interesting because it presents such an uncompromising view of the war. Deary says that “the truth is pretty nasty” and this no-nonsense approach does much to provide a realistic account of the war. At the same time, the need to present interesting and unusual facts means that the book is naturally alternative in its approach.

Source:  "If they ask us why we died", Children's Literature and the First World War, 1970-2005; The Lion and the Unicorn, April 2007

The French Military Mission to Poland

Charles De Gaulle in Poland, 1920

Following an April 1919 agreement, Marshal Foch dispatched a military mission to Poland in an effort by France to aid the nascent Second Polish Republic after it achieved its independence in November 1918, at the end of the First World War. The aim was to provide aid during the Polish-Soviet War (1919–1921) and to create a strong Polish military to serve as a useful ally against Germany. It was an advisory body consisting of about 400 French officers attached to staffs of Polish units at various levels. Although the French mission was small numerically, its effect was substantial in improving the organization and logistics of the Polish army. The French staff worked in parallel with a smaller British mission to Poland.

Its first commander was General Paul Prosper Henrys, previously the commander of French forces in the Balkans. The French mission commanded considerable respect and influence through the activities of its 400 officer-instructors. These men were entrusted with the task of training the officer corps in the art of military science and in the use of French army methods. Among the French officers was a future president of France, Charles De Gaulle, who was an advisor at the Polish infantry school and received Poland's Virtuti Militari for his service. 

French-Trained Polish Cavalry During the Soviet War

The French-Polish interface, however, was not without tensions and problems.  President Józef Piłsudski generally viewed the French Military Mission to Poland with a mix of  pragmatic necessity and professional skepticism, while publicly maintaining that Poland must rely on its own self-sufficiency rather than foreign strategic dictation. During the critical 1920 Battle of Warsaw, Piłsudski rebuffed attempts by Western advisors to take strategic control, preferring his own operational plans and famously appointing General Maxime Weygand [who was part of an Allied diplomatic mission, not the military mission] only as an advisor to the Polish Chief of Staff rather than placing him in command of Polish troops.

Some of the mission's most important accomplishments include:

• Unifying the Polish Army's disparate types of units, training methods, and equipment from the former German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian origins into a single cohesive force.

• Assisting with the transit and subsequent integration of General Józef Haller's "Blue Army" (a 70,000-strong force formed in France) into the main Polish armed forces in 1919.

• Reorganizing the Polish general staff with the French system with standard section for operations, intelligence, and logistics.

• Advising on Polish strategy during the victorious war over Soviet Russia.

Piłsudski Decorating Foch

In gratitude, Polish leader Józef Piłsudski personally unpinned his own Virtuti Militari medal from his uniform to award Marshal Foch in 1921, who had unstintingly supported Polish independence. Foch was later awarded the prestigious Order of the White Eagle and, in 1923, was named a Marshal of Poland—becoming the only foreign national to ever hold that rank. France would maintain its mission to Poland through 1939.

What Are the Most Significant Finds of World War One Archeologists?

Last week, the wife and I were watching the excellent 4-part docudrama The Mummy of Tutankhamun that tells the story of archaeologist Howard Carter's long search for the Boy King's tomb. It was particularly engrossing for me since I had visited the Valley of the Kings site in 1989 and subsequently got to view much of the collection at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.  Given my interest in the First World War,  I naturally started asking myself:  "What about WWI + Archeology = ?"   I have a little feel for this since I've taken my WWI  battlefield tour groups to a few such sites over the years, but I've decided to do a little fresh "digging" myself.  Here's what I came up with. Of course, people have been exploring and excavating the war's battlefields probably before the Armistice came. What I've focused on here are fairly recent efforts.

Western Front

1.  The Carspach "Pompeii" Kilianstollen (Kilian tunnel)  (Alsace, France)

The Underground Shelter

The Discovery: In 2012, archaeologists excavating ahead of a road project near Carspach uncovered a collapsed 1918 German underground shelter. 

Significance: Often called the "Pompeii of the Western Front," the anaerobic, oxygen-deprived conditions preserved the remains of 21 German soldiers exactly where they sat when an Allied shell collapsed their tunnel. Personal items, boots, leather gear, and newspapers were left intact alongside the soldiers. The soldiers were reburied at the Illfurth German War Cemetery in Alsace.

2.  The Fromelles Mass Graves (Nord Department, France)

Sites of Original Burial and New Cemetery

The Discovery: Excavations led by archaeological teams at Pheasant Wood in Fromelles exhumed eight mass pits containing the remains of 250 Australian and British soldiers. 

Significance: Supported by over 5,000 recovered artifacts, modern forensic archaeology and DNA profiling successfully identified hundreds of previously "missing" soldiers, closing generations of uncertainty for families. The soldiers were reburied nearby at the new Pheasant Wood Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery in 2014.  A museum is also included at the new site. Roads Article

3.   Yorkshire Trench Systems (Boezinge, Flanders)

What the "Diggers" Found

The Discovery: In 1992, Amateur researchers, known as the "Diggers" working on an industrial site near Ypres Canal site in Boezinge uncovered remarkably preserved wooden duckboards and wall supports buried deep beneath agricultural fields.

Significance: The woodwork and structural integrity of this Flanders trench system survived better than almost any other site on the Western Front, revealing improvised engineering details overlooked by standard military records. Remains of 200 soldiers were discovered during the digs.  The Yorkshire Trench can be visited today, as it is fully restored and open to the public

4.  Dig Hill 80 Project (Wytschaete "Whitesheet", Flanders)

A Century Later, the German Strong Point Had Been Long Forgotten

The Discovery: In 2018 in anticipation of a new housing project,  a team
 of archaeologists discovered a well-preserved German strongpoint at a ridge top near the village.

Significance: The archaeologists had stumbled upon was unique; a piece of the formidable trench fortress that had remained virtually untouched since that the end of the war. Farm buildings had been incorporated into the defensive trench system to create an almost impregnable redoubt that was taken only in June 1917, in the Battle of Messines.

5. The Glory  Hole Tunneling Site (La Boisselle, Somme)

A British tunnel at 80 feet depth  (Iain McHenry/La Boisselle Study Group)

Discovery: In 2011 a three-year investigation was conducted  in an area of intense mining and counter-mining operations near the enormous Lochnagar mine crater.

Significance: Researchers mapped and explored approximately 7 kilometers of WWI tunnels and trenches buried between 12 and 30 meters deep. Several remains of fallen soldiers were discovered and turned over to their nation's authorities for identification and reburial.

Dardanelles

6.  The Gallipoli Anzac Sector Battlefield Survey (Turkey)

A New Zealand Representative Marks a Battlefield Trench

The Discovery: A five-year (2009–2014) joint Turkey, Australia and New Zealand Historical and Archaeological Survey of the Anzac Battlefield mapped thousands of meters of intact trenches, collapsed tunnels, and dugouts that were previously unrecorded or known only through flawed wartime maps. Hundreds of artifacts have been discovered, so far.

Significance: It proved that large-scale non-destructive battlefield surveys can map close-quarters combat environments (where trenches were often only 10 to 20 yards apart) without disturbing sensitive war graves. An interesting discovery was that Ottoman frontline kitchens were much closer to the trenches than Allied kitchens, meaning Turkish soldiers often had access to fresh hot meals.

Italian Front

Dead Italian Soldier Exposed by Melting Snow

7. Melting Alpine Ice Discoveries (Dolomite Alps)

The Discovery: Receding glaciers and melting ice in the Italian Alps have exposed high-altitude Austro-Hungarian and Italian frontline positions.

Significance: Archaeologists have found exceptionally preserved wooden barracks, clothing, snow goggles, personal letters, and even perishable organic waste like food rations and latrine contents, offering a direct window into brutal high-altitude mountain warfare. Roads Article.

Eastern Front

8. Veretyičiv Hill (Carpathian Mountains Slovakia)

2017 Survey Defining the 1915 Battlefield

Discoveries:  Researchers surveyed high-altitude combat zones like Veretyčiv Hill and Kobyla Hill. Metal detection and geophysical surveys here successfully mapped hidden Austro-Hungarian and Russian rearguard firing lines, foxholes, and shell impacts in heavily forested terrain.

Significance: Because of the scale of WWII fighting, WWI-oriented archeology is still quite rare.

A Monumental Tribute to Tommy—The Hauntings—Is Visiting Albert

 

A new "Tommy" statue recently arrived in Albert, France. It is a magnificent, 6.5-meter-tall (23-foot) scrap-metal sculpture officially named The Hauntings. It was installed in June 2026, on the Place d'Armes, directly in front of the famous Basilique Notre-Dame de Brebières.

Created as part of the town's commemoration of the 110th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme by artist Martin Galbavy and blacksmith Chris Hannam of Dorset Forge & Fabrication, the statue is meticulously crafted from hundreds of pieces of scrap metal. The installation is temporary for Albert. In 2027, it will be transferred to Arras for the commemoration of the 1917 battle fought in that sector.

My Favorite French War Poem

Relief

By Charles Vildrac (Trans. Christopher Middleton)

Poilu
Charles Huard

In our place

Fresh Troops have come

Sent up the line

As bait for death

Met face to face.

We needed all night to make our escape

All night and its darkness

Sweating, frozen, to cross

The martyr forest and its swamp 

That shrapnel scourged.

All night in which to crouch,

Then to run line the wind,

Each man picking his moment,

Trusting to nerve and instinct

And his star.

But beyond the last entanglement,

Out of it all, on the firm road,

Met together, with no delays,

In the glow of the first pipes lit,

Then, mates, O lucky winners, 

Then what stumbling voluble joy?

That was the joy of shipwrecked men

With hand and knees upon the shore,

Who laugh with an agonized happiness

As they recover their treasure again;

All the treasure of the vast world,

And of memory unplumbed,

And of the thirst that can be quenched,

And even the pain you feel

In the shoulders since all danger passed.

And the future! Ah, the future!

Now is smiling, in the dawn:

A future of two long weeks ahead,

In a barn at Neuvilly.

All the apple trees in blossom!

I'll put blossoms into my letters.

I'll go and read in the middle of a field.

I'll go and have a wash in the river.

The man who is marching in front of me

Whistles a song that his neighbour sings

A song that is far away from the war:

I hum it too, and savour it.

Yet: to think of those killed yesterday!

But the man who has tripped

Between death's legs and then

Recovers himself and breathe again,

Can only laugh or only weep:

He has not the heart to mourn.

Today's first light makes all too drunk

The man who finds himself alive;

He is weak and is amazed 

To be dawdling so along the the road.

 

And if he dreams it is of the bliss

Of taking off his boots to sleep

In a barn at Neuvilly.

 

________________________ 

Charles Vildrac (1882–1971), born Charles Messager, was a prominent French poet, playwright, and essayist. Before World War I, he was celebrated for his humanistic philosophy and his role in co-founding the Abbaye de Créteil, an utopian community of artists and writers. Despite his pacifist convictions, Vildrac reported when he was mobilized in August 1914. He was sent to the front lines as an infantryman and stretcher-bearer and witnessed the horrors of front line combat, while losing close family members, including his cousin.