Monument aux Fusillés de Vingré

An emblematic case from December 1914
On November 27, 1914, following a violent bombardment, a German patrol attacked a French trench. Surprised at "soup time", a half-section of the 298th R.I. occupying the trench withdrew, following the example of its second lieutenant. Shortly afterwards, it counter-attacked and regained its original position. However, this momentary retreat, which turned out to be quite trivial, was reported to the division. The corps general and the division general, very unhappy with the repeated offensive failures in this sector and eager to consolidate their new authority, since they had been appointed a fortnight earlier, wanted to set an example. The regiment?s special council of war met on December 3 and handed down its sentence at 7:30 pm. Of the 24 men accused of abandoning their posts in the presence of the enemy, 6 were sentenced to death. They were soldiers Blanchard, Quinault, Gay, Pettelet, Durantet and Corporal Floch.
The following day at 7.30 a.m., the 6 men were shot in the hamlet of Vingré.


Rehabilitation and remembrance of those shot for the example
The 298th Infantry Regiment was deeply shocked by these executions.
After the war, they succeeded in mobilizing public opinion, and their campaign was relayed by the Ligue des Droits de l?Homme and the newspaper l?Humanité. On January 29, 1921, the case was referred to the French Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation). It "quashed and annulled" the judgment of December 3, 1914, thus rehabilitating the memory of the 6 men shot.
The veterans of the 298th R.I. then had a monument erected and inaugurated on April 5, 1925, at the entrance to the hamlet of Vingré. The names of the 6 men who were shot, in the manner of a Way of the Cross, are also individually engraved on the houses in the hamlet of Vingré.
Next to each surname, the Association Soissonnais 14-18 has placed a photograph of the soldier who was shot, together with the text of his last letter written before his death. Opposite the monument is a cellar where the condemned men probably spent their last night.


"Les dernières heures des fusillés de Vingré" (the last hours of the Vingré shootings), a 1h15 walk, retraces the last moments of these 6 soldiers.


Free admission.

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