Laon – German Occupation 1914-1918
Locations in Laon (1914-1918)
Visible from afar, the steep sandstone cliff with the old town of Laon on its summit rises about one hundred meters out of the flat landscape of Picardy. Spanning a width of two kilometers, the elevated old town is enclosed by a city wall approximately seven kilometers long. Along the many mostly narrow alleys inside the imposing fortification system, countless medieval buildings surround the early Gothic Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Laon, telling the eventful history of the city. In the summer of 1835, the writer Victor Hugo raved in a letter to his wife Adèle:
I left Laon this morning, an old town with a cathedral that is another town within it, an immense cathedral that was supposed to have six towers and has only four, four almost Byzantine towers, openwork like the 16th-century spires. Everything in Laon is beautiful, the churches, the houses, the surroundings, everything…
Today, the old town of Laon is the largest contiguous and historically protected area in France.
Laon – First Effects of War in September 1914
World War I reached Laon starting in mid-August 1914 in the form of a growing number of Belgian and French civilians fleeing the German troops from the border regions. After subduing the unexpectedly stubborn Belgian resistance, the German war machine traversed northern France almost unhindered and drove the strategically poorly organized French units before it. France was on the verge of defeat.
Due to strict secrecy and a lack of more detailed information in the French press, the population was completely unprepared for the circumstances of the approaching war. Whoever managed to do so in time fled from the affected areas, often toward the French capital Paris or directly abroad. It was predominantly members of the bourgeois and administrative urban strata who possessed the actual means and financial resources to flee. The rest of the population—workers, craftsmen, farmers, but also the poor, the elderly, the sick, and the infirm—remained behind.
The population of Laon, which before the war—including the military personnel stationed there—totaled a good 16,000, decreased to about 9,700 by the beginning of 1915 and dropped to under 5,000 people by the end of the war in 1918.
After the French 5th Army under General Charles Lanrezac had suffered a clear defeat on August 23, 1914, at the Battle of the Sambre (French: Grande bataille de Charleroi) and thus nothing more seemed to stand in the way of the further advance of the German 2nd Army under General Karl von Bühlow, a state of alert was also declared in Laon. On August 25, 1914, German troops further north had already reached the city of Lille. On August 31, 1914, the last regular train left the Laon railway station, mainly occupied by members of the department administration and French soldiers still in Laon. The administrative seat of the Aisne department and also the prefecture had already been relocated a few days earlier to Château-Thierry, located south on the Marne. Individual members of the city administration and the city council remained in Laon with the then Senateur-Maire Georges Ermant. They gathered every morning in the Mairie and looked with concern toward coming events.
On August 29 and 30, 1914, in the course of the Battle of St. Quentin, there was a surprising French counterattack and heavy fighting for the Oise crossings. After critical moments, these ended victoriously for the German 2nd Army and the French retreat continued in a southerly and southeasterly direction. However, the German troops now followed hesitantly, especially since a rest day was ordered for August 31, 1914, by the army leadership due to excessive exhaustion. Reconnaissance patrols reported that both the fortified La Fère and the city of Laon with its citadel had been evacuated by enemy troops. The X. Reserve-Korps (X Reserve Corps) was to march past the city starting the following morning with the 2. Garde-Reserve-Division (2nd Guard Reserve Division) on the west and the 19. Reserve-Division (19th Reserve Division) on the east.
The vanguard of the 19. Reserve-Division was formed by the Reserve-Dragoner-Regiment Nr. 6 (6th Reserve Dragoon Regiment). In accordance with orders, the regimental adjutant, Leutnant (second lieutenant) von Alvensleben, went to Laon with a few dragoons on the morning of September 2, 1914, to carry out the formal takeover and a requisition. As the first German officer since the beginning of the war, he entered the Mairie. He declared that the city and inhabitants had nothing to fear as long as there were no hostile acts. With several carts, loaded mainly with bread, canned goods, and also 20 bottles of champagne, the small squad returned to their own units.
Laon – The Forgotten Prussians of 1870
Leutnant von Alvensleben was a grandnephew of Oberst (colonel) Gustav Hermann von Alvensleben, during the Franco-Prussian War commander of the Schleswig-Holsteinisches Ulanen-Regiment Nr. 15 (15th Schleswig-Holstein Uhlan Regiment) and the 15th Cavalry Brigade. On September 9, 1870, Laon capitulated after negotiations between him and the commander of the fortress, General Charles Louis Théremin d’Hame. When General Théremin and the commander of the 6. Kavallerie-Division (6th Cavalry Division), Herzog Wilhelm von Mecklenburg-Schwerin, in the citadel had just signed the instrument of surrender and at that time many French soldiers of the Mobile Guard were in the inner courtyard to surrender their weapons, the French sentry Henriot Louis Dieudonné caused the fortress’s powder magazine to explode. Severe devastation occurred even into the nearby districts of Laon.
About 500 Frenchmen were wounded or lost their lives. On the German side there were nearly 100 soldiers, predominantly members of the 1st Company of the Magdeburgisches Jäger-Bataillon Nr. 4 (4th Magdeburg Jäger Battalion), of whom a good 50 died. Many of the dead were mutilated beyond recognition and could not be recovered. Also wounded were Duke Wilhelm of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and General Théremin. The latter died on October 4, 1870, and rests today in the civil cemetery of his home municipality of Bruyères et Montbérault.
118 Frenchmen and 29 Germans were buried in the garden of the Hôtel Dieu near the Eglise Saint-Martin. Further Germans and Frenchmen were buried in the Saint-Just municipal cemetery. The dead resting in the garden of the Hôtel Dieu were later reburied in adjacent mass graves at the Saint-Just cemetery. Alongside the French monument, which still exists today, there was also a German one, which was however destroyed in 1919. Both burial sites are preserved. The German mass grave is no longer recognizable as such today and the vegetation is in an overgrown state.
Following the explosion of September 9, 1870, Laon escaped only through the intercession of Oberst von Alvensleben the destruction already ordered by the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. When Leutnant von Alvensleben signed the requisition slip in the mairie on September 2, 1914, revealing his identity, Mayor Georges Ermant recounted to him the events of 1870 and admonished the young German officer in view of his great-uncle’s merits. With the further advancing German troops, the immediate impacts of war on Laon thus temporarily ended. The general order not to enter the city during the advance remained in effect. Occasionally, contemporary French accounts report further requisitions ranging up to larger looting for the following days. However, no objective evidence can be found for this.
Laon – Battle of the Marne and seat of Army High Command 7
In the following days of September 1914, the movements of the northern German army wing initially still seemed to proceed according to plan. In contrast, near Verdun on the Meuse, the units of the 4. Armee (4th Army) had already encountered strong French resistance at the end of August 1914. For support, the troops of the 3. Armee (3rd Army) had changed their advance in a southerly direction, creating an ever-widening gap with the 2. Armee (2nd Army).
This was the harbinger of the retreat of the 1. und 2. deutschen Armee (1st and 2nd German Armies) behind the Aisne from September 8, 1914 onward—known depending on perspective as the Marne Drama or the Miracle of the Marne—and thus of the failure of the German Schlieffen Plan. This led to the First Battle of the Aisne, during the course of which—brought up in forced marches from the direction of Maubeuge—the VII. Reserve-Korps (VII Reserve Corps) prevented an enemy breakthrough on the heights of the Chemin des Dames at the very last moment. The situation stabilized from September 14, 1914 onward through the insertion of the newly assembled 7. deutschen Armee (7th German Army).
After the fighting had abated, the front of the 7th Army ran from Noyon via Craonne, Berry-au-Bac, passing east of Reims toward Champagne and on to Verdun. Like all other sectors, it stiffened into trench warfare. Laon was now located on the border between the rear area and the operations area, about 12 kilometers behind the closest front lines on the Chemin des Dames and thus out of range of French or British field artillery. The city quickly became a major center of German logistics and military administration in the central sector of the Western Front.
Due to its favorable transport location and large railway station with a direct connection toward the homeland, Army Headquarters 7 was already relocated to Laon on September 14, 1914. The 7th Army Headquarters (Armeeoberkommando 7 – A.O.K. 7) under the command of General Josias von Heeringen moved into the Hôtel de la Préfecture on present-day Rue Paul Doumer. Initially, Mobile Rear Area Command 64 was established in the Hôtel de Ville on present-day Place du Général Leclerc and in various outbuildings.
Laon – Daily Life Under Occupation 1914-1918 – La vie quotidienne sous l’occupation 1914-1918
The lawyer and regional historian Jean Marquiset, who lived in Laon during the First World War, begins his chronicle on the period of German occupation, published in January 1919 under the title “Les Allemands à Laon 1914-1918”, with the following drastic words:
Preface
There is no bloodier insult to the Germans than to call them barbarians. Nevertheless, there is no more apt characterization, and I know of none that would be more justified.
It corresponds to their nature. They are still the grandsons of Hermann and Thusnelda, the descendants of the Germanic peoples whose customs Tacitus described to us: plunderers, drunkards, the cruel. Like them, they coveted the treasures of wealthy nations, drank to excess, and, like the hordes of the Gepids and Cherusci, spread bloodshed and conflagration with the same fury. Doubtless they defend themselves against this accusation, and I admit that there are some differences between them and their ancestors. Today’s officers are no longer as hairy as the tribal leaders of the 5th century, they wear suits with trousers and refrain from smearing rancid butter in their hair, that is something at least. But their temperament has not changed. Heredity cannot be changed so easily. (…)
In contrast, war correspondent Gustave Babin describes his impressions on October 14, 1918, immediately after the recapture of the city of Laon by French troops, in his article “Une heure dans Laon libre“, which appeared on October 19, 1918, in the French weekly magazine L’Illustration, as follows:
[…] The arrival through the Semilly suburb, along the beautiful national road lined with centuries-old trees, all standing, not even branched, not even splashed with bullets; the crossing of the suburb, with its intact houses, save for the windowpanes and furniture, is already a surprise. It is indeed the first time in this war that we have had this impression, and we cannot believe our eyes. […]
Finally, here we are in a living city, barely wounded, here and there; only a few houses, a beautiful, venerable church, Saint-Martin, gutted by shells. All this damage is repairable. […] There is joy everywhere since yesterday morning. Women are smiling on the thresholds of doors; men are greeting; children are holding out their little hands to shake. […] To be fair, it must be acknowledged that the Germans were not as ferocious in Laon as in many other places. […]
[…] The arrival through the Semilly suburb, along the beautiful national road lined with centuries-old trees, all standing with all their branches still intact and not even hit by bullets; the crossing of the suburb with the houses remaining intact except for the windowpanes and furniture, is already a surprise. It is the first time in this war that we see something like this and we cannot believe our eyes. […]
Finally we are in a living city that was only injured here and there; a few houses, a beautiful, venerable church, Saint-Martin, were hit by shells. All the damage is repairable. […] Everywhere joy has prevailed since yesterday morning. Women are standing at the doors and smiling; men are waving; children are shaking hands. […] Fairly speaking, one must admit that the Germans in Laon were not as cruel as in many other places. […]
The circumstances of the occupation of a city by enemy forces are subject to very different assessments in any military conflict, depending on whether one views them from the perspective of the occupying or the occupied side. For the French civilian population of the city of Laon, the nearly four-year presence of the German army was far more than just a military administration. It was perceived as a strictly dictatorial regime. The German military administration systematically subjected all urban life and that of the inhabitants to its own needs. The severity of everyday occupation life in Laon was significantly harsher from the beginning than in other French cities. This was essentially related to the proximity to the front and the fears regarding the possibilities of espionage and sabotage by the civilian population and the French forces.
Over time, the German command issued countless regulations. Signs known as “pancartes” had to be attached to residential buildings, listing who lived there and how many rooms and beds existed. Freedom of movement was restricted. There were curfews, and it was forbidden to stand or walk on the street in groups of more than three people. The compulsion to salute was humiliating. Male civilians had to greet German officers and tip their hats when passing by. Furthermore, under threat of imprisonment or fines, it was prohibited to even speak to French prisoners of war, who were frequently led through the city to demoralize the population, or to slip them food.
Everything useful was systematically confiscated: food, wine, furniture, clothing, mattresses, etc. Citizens were forced to make detailed lists of their private property. Clothing was strictly regulated; men were only allowed to keep three shirts and two pairs of shoes. Everything else had to be surrendered. Private living quarters were also affected. Many residents had to vacate their homes, or at least the best rooms, for German soldiers and officers. The quartered troops often treated the inventory and the owners ruthlessly. Thefts, plundering, and disrespect were the order of the day.
Starting in 1917, all metals in the city were requisitioned for ammunition and weapons production. Private items such as cutlery, candlesticks, art objects, caskets, and even door handles had to be handed over. The bells and organ pipes of the two large churches, the cathedral and the Eglise Saint-Martin, were also dismantled and smashed in June and July 1917 with the help of Russian prisoners of war. Only the oldest bell was spared upon the intervention of Sénateur-Maire Georges Ermant and Curé-Archiprêtre Henri Maréchal. From the cathedral bells alone, 8,630 kg of bronze/copper was recovered, a metal indispensable for the manufacture of artillery shells.
Due to the confiscation of food, supplies, and a large portion of the harvests, the urban population suffered from hunger. At the beginning of 1915, after much pleading, Georges Ermant had received permission from the command to travel via Switzerland into unoccupied “Free France” in order to negotiate humanitarian aid deliveries by the American-English “Commission for Relief in Belgium” (CRB). Originally, this charitable project in the US had been developed exclusively for the Belgian occupation zone, but was later extended to occupied France. As promised, Georges Ermant actually returned a few weeks later with a binding supply commitment. The survival of the civilians was subsequently secured largely by the humanitarian aid deliveries of the Americans and English, who from mid-1915 regularly supplied the inhabitants of Laon with staple foods such as flour, bacon, beans, and later also clothing.
Men, women, and children were drafted into forced labor. Children had to harvest stinging nettles or pick lint (charpie) under supervision. Young male youths swept streets and squares, and girls cleaned confiscated civil and military buildings. Adults were deployed for harvest work, the construction of railway lines, the reinforcement of roads, and other partly heavy construction work in the rear area. Boys and males were frequently assigned as beaters for hunting trips by German officers into the forest- and game-rich surroundings.
The school system in Laon was severely impaired under the German occupation. The city’s large school buildings were converted into military hospitals and troop quarters. Only in May 1915 did the command provide substitute premises. School operations were constantly interrupted by the forced conscription of children, and later also by Allied bombardments and air-raid alerts. Generally, the German authorities hardly interfered in school operations. However, there were individual disciplinary measures against teachers. It is documented that in the summer of 1915, a German school inspector appeared unannounced in a class and forbade the reading of passages from the standard French history book by Ernest Lavisse. In his view, the former Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and the topic of Alsace-Lorraine were treated inappropriately.
For all residents of Laon, the strict isolation was particularly burdensome. There was no contact with relatives or friends in other parts of France. Furthermore, there was no free press from which one could obtain objective information about the war events or otherwise. Instead, various French-language propaganda newspapers such as the “Journal de Guerre” or later the “Gazette des Ardennes” were published. In the “Gazette des Ardennes”, name lists of French prisoners of war were regularly published, which immensely increased its circulation.
Even though Laon was not directly in the combat zone during the first half of the war, the population lived in constant danger. Alongside occasional aerial bombardments by the French air service, which was clearly superior at the beginning of the war, there were repeated assaults and firearm incidents involving German soldiers, mostly due to excessive alcohol consumption. On May 4, 1916, a depot containing ammunition and explosives exploded in the citadel due to carelessness. As a result, a large section of the eastern ramparts and the civilian buildings located below were affected. Approximately 80 German soldiers died, and another 120 were wounded. Three French civilians lost their lives. In contrast to the catastrophe during the Franco-Prussian War on September 9, 1870, aside from a few isolated photographs, hardly any reports can be found on the recent explosion event in 1916.
As the front moved closer to Laon from April 1917 onwards during the spring battles on the Aisne and in Champagne, the city increasingly became the target of French artillery fire. On April 14, 1917, at 08:00 the first shells struck. The attacks were directed against military and infrastructural targets such as the railway station, bridges, and barracks facilities. During the Battle of the Laffaux Corner between October 17 and 22, 1917, Laon came under massive French cannon fire. The bombardments again concentrated on the railway station as well as on the southern and western city districts of Semilly, Leuilly, La Neuville, and Ardon. However, stray shots also frequently hit the center. The mentioned districts were exposed to the shelling to such an extent that they were forcibly evacuated. Since the military hospitals on the western part of the plateau were now also exposed to constant shelling, a large portion of the inmates was relocated and the cathedral was unceremoniously converted into a hospital.
Laon – The Life of the Occupiers 1914 – 1918
While the locals starved, the German troops made themselves comparatively luxuriously comfortable. The medieval-picturesque and well-maintained character of the city formed a clear counterpart to the accommodation situation in the surrounding villages, the forest camps, or simple bivouacs. They created a deceptive form of home in enemy territory.
The Etappen-Inspektion 7, housed in the prefecture building, ensured a strict military organization in order to establish the city as the rear center of the 7th Army. The German commercial enterprises operating under the supervision of the Kommandantur located in the Mairie, at times up to 32 different establishments, served the supply and moral strengthening of the troops. As in every war, the goal was to securely accommodate the soldiers, feed them adequately, and keep their spirits up.
Central meeting points for enlisted men and Unteroffiziere (NCOs) were the soldiers’ and Unteroffizier homes. In “Soldatenheim II”, housed in the medieval merchant house “Hôtel du Petit-Saint-Vincent”, a lunch was served daily for 50 pfennigs.
For the officer corps, more exclusive officer homes were created, such as the “Trierer Weinstuben” in a representative city palace on Rue St. Martin. In addition to spacious dining halls and comfortable living and bedrooms, there was also a frequently visited beer garden. Another officer’s home right at the railway station spared officers arriving at night the arduous climb to the upper town.
The commercial cityscape transformed due to the steadily growing number of German shops. Many merchants from the German Empire saw their chance for good business and relocated their headquarters to the larger cities of France. Main traffic arteries such as the Rue du Bourg and the Rue Châtelaine turned into thriving commercial streets with a home-like flair. The troops supplied themselves with reading material at the “German Bookstore”, used the “Reading House”, visited either the “German Confectionery”, the “German Fine Bakery”, the “Sweet Corner” coffeehouse, various beer halls for their physical well-being, or supplied themselves for their time in quarters at various cigar and spirits sales points. The soldiers used the services of hairdressers, barbers, watchmakers, photographers, colonial goods dealers, and army goods dealers. The somewhat self-sufficient urban infrastructure also included field post offices, currency exchange offices, and military bathhouses.
Cultural recreation was also provided for. The municipal theater was equipped with electric light and served, alongside regular theater and musical performances, as a modern “cinema”. The cathedral and St. Martin’s Church were used for demanding organ concerts and vocal performances, while military bands regularly performed march music and catchy folk and soldier songs at “Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz” (today: Place du Général Leclerc).
Supra-regional renown was achieved by the “Laon Men’s War Choir” under the direction of the well-known musicologist and church musician Prof. Dr. Fritz Stein. The choir arose rather spontaneously from an impromptu concert on the organ of the Laon Cathedral and from initial vocal performances of an initially haphazardly assembled group of Feldgraue. Stein, who had actually volunteered for the medical service and initially served in one of Laon’s military hospitals, established the widely famous “Musical Devotions”. Laon was referred to as “little Leipzig” because music was made in the city at a very high level.
Over time, highly demanding four- and eight-part works from the repertoire of classical European music were practiced and performed. Fritz Stein organized the entire operation, played the organ, or conducted. The program featured composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach or Antonín Dvořák, pieces like Franz Liszt’s “Papal Hymn” from the oratorio “Christus” or many other masterworks of classical music.
Over time, particularly talented soldier-soloists as well as civilian vocal artists, instrumental musicians, and conductors from the Empire joined them. Among them were personalities such as nurse Agnes Braunfels, the Armierungs-Gefreiter Reinhold Gebhardt and his wife Elena Gebhardt, the Royal Saxon Music Director and conductor Max Feiereis, the musicians Wilhelm Kempff, Georg Kulenkampff, Eva Katharina Lissmann, Ruth Wangenheim, and many more. Individual artists performed with the Laon Men’s War Choir throughout the rear area, not only in cities and larger towns, but also in troop camps and occasionally even in the large sandstone caves near the front on the Chemin des Dames.
Even the journey from the German Empire posed a difficult task in the strictly monitored and tightly controlled occupation zone. Since the rail network was primarily reserved for troop, ammunition, and wounded transports, civilians often had to endure days of travel in Spartan and overcrowded compartments. Alternatively, one had to travel individually by motor vehicle. At that time and given the distances to be covered, that was an adventure. Once arrived in Laon, appropriate accommodation had to be found. The city was already militarily overcrowded. Better quarters were reserved for officers. They were only rarely willing to share their accommodation with “civilians” or even vacate it for them. The later tours up into the direct front area were organizationally even significantly more demanding and also more dangerous.
Locally, the actual logistics of performances under wartime conditions were a challenge, such as finding suitable costumes, props, and instruments. Unlike performances in the peaceful territory of the Reich, artists could not transport their equipment to the front line. Much had to be improvised or “organized” from afar. Almost all participants in mobility and theatrical performances were active-duty soldiers. They were subject to military command authority and could at any time, regardless of their artistic function, be detached back to their unit or redeployed to hospital service. Nevertheless, given the importance of such performances for the morale of the troops, those affected were largely spared. Financially, the performances were purely honorary positions. The proceeds served exclusively for wartime welfare purposes, in particular supporting the families of fallen soldiers.
For the personal hygiene and relaxation of the troops, several permanent hygiene facilities were created in Laon alongside open-water swimming spots on the Ardon River, such as the bathhouse up on the citadel. To ensure the orderly operation of prostitution—a hitherto little-researched topic—the headquarters maintained strictly regulated brothel operations controlled by sanitary police. Rates were strictly prescribed, separated and graded according to the “quality” of the facilities for enlisted men, Unteroffiziere, and officers. The duration of stay for ordinary soldiers was strictly limited, often to a few minutes, to cope with the enormous rush.
Alongside a few locals, German women and prostitutes from major cities, frequently from Berlin, were recruited on a large scale, transported to France, and deployed along the entire front. For young women from impoverished big-city quarters, this activity offered an escape from misery at home, from hunger, disease, and illegality. The Imperial Army guaranteed fixed food rations, regular pay, security, and medical care. The military leadership preferred Reich-German and professional prostitutes in the officer brothels, as the risk of espionage or transmission of diseases was assessed to be significantly lower with them.
Chemin des Dames, Laon, burial of a French aircraft crew shot down in an air battle over the city on March 31, 1916 (Leutnant Jean Moinier and Corporal Frédéric Quellenec)
were AI-edited (notice pursuant to Art. 50 Regulation (EU) 2024/1689).