Vouziers – rear-area town in the center of the Ardennes Department 1914–1918

Vouziers was passed through without a fight in the first days of September 1914 during the pursuit of the retreating French troops by elements of the VIII. Armee-Korps (VIII Corps) and VIII. Reserve-Korps (VIII Reserve Corps), which belonged to the 4. (württ.) Armee (Fourth Army). By mid-October 1914, Army High Command 4 had been established in Vouziers. After its transfer to the Flanders front, the units of the two corps came under the command of the Army High Command 3 (sächs.) then responsible for this sector. From October 1915 to January 1917, AOK 3 maintained its headquarters, previously located in Bétheniville, in the building of the present-day sub-prefecture of Vouziers. Until the Allied “Meuse-Argonne Offensive” in the autumn of 1918, it was then located in the “Château-Maison-Rouge” near Les Alleux.

Otherwise, over the course of the war, Vouziers housed changing rear area facilities, command units of various corps, individual divisions, and subordinate units.

Regiments and individual battalions were also temporarily quartered in the town. This was especially true in the large buildings of the former French cuirassier barracks and the basket factory located in the town, which was used as troop quarters on Rue Gambetta, then known as “Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße”. Today, the Cinéma Les Tourelles and the Bibliothèque Ludothèque Marcel Ortega are located on the site. Of the once imposing building, only the elaborately designed gateway has been preserved.

During the German spring offensives of 1918 and until the withdrawal during the allied “Meuse-Argonne Offensive”, the general command of the Perthes Group under General Adolf Wild von Hohenborn was located in the town.

As early as September 8, 1914, even before the climax of optical and actual operations of the Battle of the Marne, parts of the K.S. Landsturm Infantry Battalion No. 1 “Leipzig” (47th Landsturm Brigade, XIX Corps, 3rd Army) reached the town of Vouziers with the 1st and 3rd Companies. The other two companies followed a few days later.

The Saxon Landsturm was originally intended for rear area service behind the operational area of the 4th (Württ.) Army. For this purpose, “Mobile Rear Area Headquarters No. 9” was established in Vouziers. The first commander was Rittmeister (captain of cavalry) Dinglinger, K.S. LstInfB. No. 1 “Leipzig”. From October 1914 onward, following the reorganization of the troops on the Western Front, the higher authority responsible was Rear Area Inspection 3 in the rear area headquarters town of Rethel. The command there was held by the rear area inspector of the 3rd (Saxon) Army, GenLt. (major general) Adolf Graf von Westarp.

“Etappe” was the term given to the section behind the “operational area” of the fighting troops, which could not be reached by enemy artillery or could only be reached with difficulty. Over time, a very complex organizational and command structure developed, extending from the Quartermaster General at the Obersten (colonel) Heeresleitung (OHL) through the respective rear area inspectors of the individual armies and the rear area commands down to individual local commands.

Despised and discredited primarily in the final years of the war as “rear-echelon stallions,” the Landsturm soldiers had to organize the entire logistical communication with the fighting troops and their supply with everything necessary. Subordinated to the rear area administration were also the railway and light railway system in the relevant area, public order and jurisdiction for both civilian and military persons, as well as the supply and medical services. Locals were recruited or conscripted in large numbers. Prisoners of war were also deployed. These auxiliary workers were employed particularly in the construction sector and in agriculture.

The original task of the Landsturm was to secure the towns passed through during the advance as well as the road and rail connections. The supply of the fighting troops and the wounded was soon added. For the K.S. LstInfB. “Leipzig”, it is documented that after taking over rear area service in Vouziers alone from September 9 – 30, 1914, a total of 47,794 meals were issued to advancing soldiers and wounded returning from the front. In addition, during this period 2,457 injured persons were given first aid in provisional military hospitals before they could be transported further by rail to larger cities like Sedan or directly towards the Reich territory.

After the onset of trench warfare, the entire supply system had to be organized. In Vouziers and the surrounding area, still functional factory facilities and craft enterprises such as bakeries, butcher shops, sawmills, as well as entire agricultural operations, were also reactivated in order to accomplish the supply of the fighting troops from the resources of the occupied territory as well.

Unlike rear-area locations situated further back, in Vouziers very little of the original townscape, which was frequently captured in soldiers’ photographs, has survived except in photographs. Especially the center around the market square (Place Carnot) was heavily destroyed at the beginning of the “Meuse-Argonne Offensive” by French and American artillery. In late October 1918, during the “Battle of Vouziers“, German troops were supposed to recapture the heights located on the eastern bank of the Aisne as part of the Brunhild-Stellung. In the process, German artillery also shelled Vouziers, which had been reoccupied by the French. Renewed destruction occurred during the French campaign of the German Wehrmacht in the early summer of 1940.

Regarding the development of the “Landsturm”, a contemporary article from the trade journal “Archiv für Buchgewerbe”, 51st volume, part 2, year 1914, page 279 f., offers interesting details:

“Der Landsturm is the name of a newspaper that appears in the French town of Vouziers and, according to the remarks in the title, represents the only German military weekly newspaper on French soil. There are four Leipzig book trade workers, namely the gentlemen: Berger, Rauch, Vogt, and Ludwig, who are stationed in Vouziers with the 3rd Company of the Royal Saxon Landsturm Battalion No. 1 Leipzig and have undertaken there to make the publication of the paper possible in the former Livoir printing shop. Previously, the newspaper L’Impartial de Vouziers was published right there, Journal de L’Arrondissement, Politique, Litteraire, Agricole, Commercial & D’Annonces, which appeared on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays; this has now been superseded by the Landsturmblatt.

The newspaper is edited by the officers of the 3rd company. Battalion commander is Major Rühle, the further officers are Oberleutnant (first lieutenant) Schrömbgens, attorney at the Reich Court in Leipzig and leader of the 3rd company; Oberleutnant Meyer, attorney, Leipzig; Leutnant (second lieutenant) Singer, authorized signatory of the banking firm Meyer & Co., Leipzig; Leutnant Ostwald, son of the well-known Leipzig professor.

Our illustration shows the printing office building and the sketch located below it shows the arrangement of the rooms. The building is about 6 meters wide and 17 meters deep, has a shop window in the front in which all kinds of patriotic writings and pictures, including one of the 42-centimeter shell, are displayed. The members of the Landsturm company are standing in front of the store entrance, specifically from left to right: typesetter Vogt, typesetter Berger, foreman Rauch, and printer Ludwig.

A description sent to us shows that the sanitary conditions there are thoroughly poor, such as they must not be with us. The selection of type as well as decorative material is very small; brass rules are practically nonexistent, instead lead strips are available which must be planed to size. The print shop contains a high-speed press measuring 78 x 55 centimeters from the factory of Marinoni, Paris. The machine has table inking and is poorly maintained; the roller spindles are bent so that the rollers jump when passing over the forme. It is all the more commendable when, despite these unfavorable machine conditions, such a clean printing of the newspaper was made possible. A platen press named: LaMinerve, originating from the firm S. Berthier & Dewey, Paris, is in a slightly better condition. It has various practical features, and a number of smaller job printings have been produced on it, which were also sent to us and from which it can be seen that the Landsturm company also accomplishes commendable and directly useful work in this field by producing, among other things, necessary printed matter for the rear area command. We also reproduce in miniature an announcement by Commander Dinglinger, which deserved to become generally known and from which it can be seen that the population, badly battered by the war, is being cared for as much as possible, for it is announced that starting Sunday, November 15, at 22 rue Gambetta, 1st floor, a sale of all kinds of clothing and other items will take place at cheap prices against immediate payment.

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Saxony had, as communicated in the last issue, expressed the hope that it might succeed in continuing to have our newspaper appear even if our company were relocated away from Vouziers. Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of His Excellency Herr Generalleutnants (major general) Mueller, commander of the 47th Mixed Landwehr Brigade, and thanks to the helpful support by Rear Area Inspection 3 (Etappen-Inspektion 3), the editorial staff is enabled until further notice to publish the newspaper from its current location as well and to produce it through our Landsturm printers.

We hope that to our previous contributors, on whose continued support we can count, quite a few new ones will be added, whose contributions we request be sent to one of the undersigned members of the editorial staff (3rd Comp. 1st Saxon Landsturm Infantry Battalion Leipzig, Rear Area Inspection 3). The further issues of our newspaper, like the previous ones, will also stand under the motto:

With God for King and Fatherland.
With God for Emperor and Empire !

Pont Faverger, November 29, 1914.
Schroembgens, Meyer, Singer,
Oberleutnant. Leutnant. Leutnant.

„Only German military weekly on France’s soil“ called itself „Der Landsturm“ in field issues 1 (October 11, 1914) to 7 (December 31, 1914). Later, the self-bestowed title was „First, formerly only German military weekly on France’s soil“.

Already the statement pointing to uniqueness was no longer applicable at the time of publication of the military newspaper. This applies all the more to the later qualification as „first, formerly only“ medium of its kind. As early as September 1914, many such soldiers’ press works were produced in various units, albeit initially in small print runs, and distributed to the soldiers.

Military newspapers existed not only in the German army, but also in most other belligerent nations. They are documented from the 16th century onward. They emerged increasingly from the end of the 18th century onward. For example, a German copy from the era of the Wars of Liberation named „Zeitung aus dem Feldlager“ is known. This appeared for the first time on September 23, 1813, at the Lüneburg headquarters of the Russian general Baron Friedrich Karl von Tettenborn.

Initially, these small works of military press work were created outside the sphere of influence of higher command authorities. In mid-1916, however, the Oberste Heeresleitung (O.H.L.) took notice and recognized the possibility of using them to steer moods and opinions within the troops and influence them propagandistically. The „Feldpressestelle“ was created under the General Staff of the Field Army, which until the end of the war centrally influenced the flow of information in the front and rear areas. Gradually—often only under corresponding command pressure—the independent soldiers’ newspapers with their astonishingly open, critical, and partly also frivolous articles disappeared. They were replaced by professionally produced newspapers at the division, corps, and above all army level.

The field newspaper „Der Landsturm“ escaped this forced end, even if not successfully in substance. As the accompanying editorial notice from the 21st field issue published on October 31, 1915, announced, this was to be the final issue. The 3. Kompanie (3rd Company) of the K.S. Landsturm-Infanterie-Bataillon Nr. 1 „Leipzig“ (K.S. Landsturm Infantry Battalion No. 1 “Leipzig”) had already been transferred from Vouziers to Pont-Faverger in November 1914. Nevertheless, the printing and publication of ide paper with a publishing location in Vouziers could be maintained with difficulty. By the end of October 1915, however, most of the officers and men involved had been transferred to various units. Further publication of the „Landsturm“ proved no longer practicable.

Oberleutnant (first lieutenant) Schrömbgens (1874–1956), like his fellow officer and editor Oberleutnant Meyer, was a lawyer in civilian life. After his studies, Schrömbgens worked in Cologne for a considerable time and was last admitted to practice as a lawyer at the Cologne Higher Regional Court. Already during their shared university years, a close friendship had developed with the notary, later Lord Mayor of Cologne and first Federal Chancellor Dr. Konrad Adenauer.

Schrömbgens moved to Leipzig in 1912 and became one of the few lawyers explicitly admitted as such to the local Reichsgericht. Despite this prominent position, at the outbreak of the war he went into the First World War as leader of the 3rd Company of the K.S. Landsturm-Infanterie-Bataillon Nr. 1 “Leipzig” (1st Saxon Landsturm Infantry Battalion “Leipzig”).

After the end of the war, Dr. Heinrich Schrömbgens resumed his legal practice at the Leipzig Reichsgericht and practiced until the suspension of court operations in 1944 caused by the Second World War.

Although Schrömbgens had acquired Jewish landed property on a larger scale during the National Socialist era, after the war he was initially admitted as an attorney at the Obersten Gerichtshof für die Britische Zone in Cologne and subsequently at the Bundesgerichtshof in Karlsruhe. In addition, he was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1954. At the age of 79, he was and remains to this day the oldest attorney at the BGH.

Dr. Heinrich Schrömbgens was active, among other things, as a victims’ lawyer in one of the most curious post-war trials of the still young German republic, the so-called VW-Sparer-Prozess.

Although the current design of the military cemetery, as the Volksbund correctly states, dates back to the work of French and German authorities after the end of the First World War, the grounds of the war cemetery were already being used intensively for burial purposes by the troops starting in the war year 1916.

In addition to individual graves, collective graves were created starting in 1916 in all parts of the cemetery and also at the site of today’s comrades’ grave. The names of hundreds of soldiers buried there were recorded on white marble slabs. The stone cross, which still exists, was already in place, but was painted white during the war.

The history of the origins of the war cemetery Vouziers begins in the adjacent civil cemetery. German soldiers had already been buried here before the First World War, namely nine victims of the Franco-Prussian War. By the eastern wall was a collective grave that was carefully maintained by the French side. In September 1914, about 85 German fallen soldiers from the heavy fighting at the end of the Battle of the Marne also found their final rest there. Many contemporary photos exist of the grave, its elaborate grave markers, and monuments. Apart from the wall plaster, however, only the gravestone of Feldwebels (first sergeant) Friedrich Hermann Walther, K.S. Schützen-Regiment 108 (108th Schützen Regiment), which can be seen on the right in the adjacent photo, has survived; he drowned in the Aisne on July 19, 1871.

Already from mid-September 1914, various field hospitals were established in Vouziers, such as in the former “Hospice”, today’s municipal hospital, or in the large schools, for example a building of today’s Lycee professionel Jeanne d’Arc. A military hospital was established in the Cuirassier barracks. Many wounded from the Argonne fighting and Champagne battles were treated in Vouziers. Among them were not only German soldiers, but also French, colonial troops, Italians, and later also Russians and Czechoslovaks. Added to this were prisoners of war of many nations, who were deployed for labor purposes and in the construction of positions, as well as civilian members of the medical and nursing service, who frequently contracted diseases from the soldiers such as tuberculosis or typhoid fever.

The military medical service was supplemented by civilian personnel for the first time during the First World War. Alongside the Red Cross, the actors were the individual knightly orders, especially the Johanniter, Maltese, Samaritans, the Catholic nursing orders, deaconesses, and Jewish nursing associations. Participation was on a voluntary basis. Details were regulated by the “Service Regulations for Voluntary Nursing”, first published in 1907. During the First World War, more than 220,000 women and men were active in voluntary nursing. It “behooved” especially the “daughters of the upper classes” from aristocratic and bourgeois families to perform medical service. About a third of them worked in front-line military hospitals. Remuneration was low at 30 to 100 Mark per month. In return, the experiences gained were infinitely cruel for the young women, who had mostly grown up sheltered.

The ever-increasing number of fallen soldiers required the creation of mass graves in the civil cemetery of Vouziers as early as the autumn of 1914. These were initially created in the eastern part, and later in the partly unoccupied middle and western parts.

As was still customary at the beginning of the war, solemn inauguration ceremonies took place, regularly attended by senior officers up to the general ranks. The first such ceremony took place with the participation of the Inspector of Communications of the 3. Armee (Third Army), GenLt. (major general) Adolf Graf von Westarp, on October 22, 1914. This was reported by “Der Landsturm” in an article in issue no. 3 dated October 25, 1914:

In the following months, burials were carried out almost daily on the grounds of the civilian cemetery of Vouziers. Above all, those who died in the military hospitals were buried. Elaborately designed gravestones replaced simpler variants over time, and metal ones replaced the initially simple wooden crosses. The ever-increasing number of dead soon made an expansion of the burial ground necessary. Thus, an expansion area was first created at the western edge of the cemetery, in the direction of today’s Rue de Syrienne. Contemporary photographs show that many individual and mass graves were created here too in a short time. When this area was soon no longer sufficient either, the neighboring grounds of today’s war cemetery were developed for burial purposes at the latest in 1916.

After the end of the war and initially without the involvement of German authorities, the French side completely removed the German graves located in the civilian cemetery and the graves situated west of the cemetery grounds, and reburied the fallen soldiers on the grounds of today’s military cemetery. In doing so, as was unfortunately customary in the first years of peace, procedures were not exactly gentle. A travel report in the 2nd issue of the Volksbund magazine “Kriegsgräberfürsorge” (today: “Frieden”), published for the first time in 1921, documents the reburials already carried out at that time and an overall neglected condition of the German cemetery sections on and around the civilian cemetery as well as the grounds of today’s war cemetery of Vouziers.

The dead soldiers to be reinterred found their final resting place predominantly in two large mass graves within the ground marking of the current mass grave. Many were not recorded by name. Several hundred of those buried have been identified in modern times using archival records, casualty lists, books of the dead, or contemporary photographs.

From the early days of the First World War and military graves service in Vouziers, another relic has been preserved in the civil cemetery that is not immediately recognizable as such. It is a monument made of light sandstone standing in the northwestern corner, into which a black granite cross is embedded. On its crossbeam, the inscription „HONNEUR AUX MORTS!“ can be discerned with difficulty.

As the choice of language suggests, the monument served to honor deceased French soldiers. Contemporary photographs prove that it was already in place in 1915, specifically at the head of an elaborately designed mass grave.

For the French casualties of the First World War, the state casualty database “Mémoire des Hommes” makes it possible to determine predominantly the dates of wounding and death in the war years 1915 to 1918. It is probable that, contrary to official accounts, at least some of the Russian dead were not forced-labor prisoners of war, but members of the Russian Expeditionary Corps fighting for France. Its 1st Special Brigade was deployed from June 1916 to April 1917 to relieve the Verdun front, initially in Champagne between the towns of Suippes and Auberive, and later in the sector around Fort de la Pompelle east of Reims. Corresponding indications can also be found in the death registers of the war hospital viewable at the Federal Archives in Berlin (formerly WASt), where the admission of at least 21 of the Russian soldiers buried in Vouziers is recorded during the relevant period.

How the English soldier got to Vouziers is not entirely clear. His unit, the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Berkshire Regiment, fought on the Somme starting on March 24, 1918, as part of the 25th Infantry Brigade. Here it was caught up in the prelude to the so-called “Spring Offensive 1918”, designated “Operation Michael” by the Germans. After heavy casualties, the remnants of the unit were withdrawn from the front at the end of April 1918. As early as May 27, 1918, in a supposedly quieter location, they found themselves exposed to another major German attack, the “Blücher and Yorck Attack” (English: “3rd Battle of the Aisne”) launched between Noyon and Reims. The 2nd Battalion was overrun and shattered. It lost about 700 men in these battles, including 2 dead, 51 wounded, and about 650 missing. In all likelihood, Private Ernest Woodley was taken prisoner by the Germans as a wounded man and one of the missing, was brought to Vouziers, and died there in the military hospital.

When visiting the Vouziers War Cemetery, a closer look at the surviving contemporary German gravestones is worthwhile. Some of these are sculpturally sophisticated works. This applies, for example, to the gravestone of Landsturmmänner Philipp Moog and Gerhard Ullenboom, who died on June 10, 1916, as Armierungssoldaten (4./ArmB 60). In some cases, gravestones can be found whose original location can be traced on one of the many contemporary photographs. This applies, for example, to the red granite stone of Hptm.d.R. (captain) and senior forester Gustav Adolf Kiessling, who fell on October 6, 1915, at the beginning of the “Autumn Battle in Champagne” near Ripont as leader of the 1st Battery of Reserve-Feldartillerie-Regiment 53 (53rd Reserve Field Artillery Regiment).

Vouziers – the French pilot Roland Garros

The story concluding this article deals with an imposing soldier’s grave in the civil cemetery of the city of Vouziers. Buried there in 1918 was the former French aviation pioneer Roland Adrien Georges Garros, whom most people associate more with tennis than with World War I.

That the later fighter pilot, despite very modest successes in aerial combat, became a figure of military-historical importance and achieved greater fame in France than flying aces like Jean Navarre, René Fonck, or Georges Guynemer, remains a mystery to this day. His entire life and its depiction after the war were characterized by exaggerated heroization by the French press and intense myth-making.

Roland Garros was born on October 6, 1888, on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean. At the age of 12, his parents sent him to France for schooling. In 1907, Garros began studies in economics, law, and music at the Sorbonne University in Paris. He broke these off shortly thereafter after deciding to become a pilot at an air show in Reims in 1908. In 1910, Garros received his pilot’s license and successfully participated in various flying competitions in the following years. In a modified Morane-Saulnier G, he accomplished the first direct flight across the Mediterranean Sea from Fréjus (France) to Bizerte (Tunisia) in 1913, with a flight time of about 6 hours and a distance of about 750 kilometers.

At the outbreak of World War I, Roland Garros joined the French air service with the rank of lieutenant. With Escadrille Morane-Saulnier 23 (M.S. 23), initially stationed in Villers-lès-Nancy and later in northern France and Belgium, he was initially deployed for reconnaissance flights and later as a fighter pilot.

In August 1914, a few days after the start of the war, news was spread in French newspapers that Garros had fallen heroically in the first air battle in world history. Allegedly, he had intentionally rammed a German Zeppelin with his aircraft, brought it down, and was killed in the process. In reality, Garros was staying in Paris as a front-line soldier on leave at the time and was in perfect health.

On April 18, 1915, Roland Garros was forced to make an emergency landing after an attack on the railroad line between the Belgian town of Ingelmunster and the city of Kortrijk east of Ypres, either due to a technical defect or an infantry hit to a fuel line of his aircraft. Garros was captured on a farm between the villages of Lendelede and Hulste by Württemberg cavalrymen.

The remains of the French aircraft, a modern Morane-Saulnier N, were transported to Germany and examined at the Fokker aircraft works near Schwerin (Fokker Aeroplanbau GmbH).

It is still frequently read today that the Dutch engineer and aviation pioneer Anthony Fokker, working for the German military, refined the deflector technology found on Roland Garros‘s aircraft and used it as the basis for an interrupter gear he later developed. This portrayal also does not correspond to the facts. Even before the outbreak of war, all warring nations had been working on possibilities for fixed and automated weaponry for aircraft. As early as 1913, the Swiss-born engineer Franz Schneider had a corresponding „Abfeuerungsvorrichtung für Schußwaffen auf Luftfahrzeugen“ registered and protected at the Deutschen Kaiserlichen Patentamt.

Although attempts were also made by Anthony Fokker’s team to protect the aircraft’s propeller blades using deflectors or other metallic devices, these all failed due to the high projectile energy and penetrating power of German steel-jacketed ammunition.

Already several months before the acquisition of the French aircraft of Roland Garros, specialists around the engineer Heinrich Lübbe, using the technology invented by Franz Schneider, had developed a synchronization gear specifically intended for the various Fokker Eindecker. In May 1915, following its mass production readiness, Fokker spontaneously equipped an A.III single-seater with a correspondingly synchronized Parabellum machine gun and drove to Berlin in one of his sports cars, towing the aircraft.

The high-ranking officers recognized the potential of the new technology. It was agreed to present a prototype of the new “combat single-seater” to the army commands along the Western Front. In June 1915, Fokker set out on travels with the combat pilot Leutnant Otto Parschau. The first stop on June 13, 1915, was the headquarters of the German Crown Prince (5th Army) near Stenay. On June 23, 1915, the 6th Army in Lille followed with the Bavarian Crown Prince. Later, the test model was also tested by the German pilots Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann. They, too, were enthusiastic about its capabilities. The aircraft, subsequently designated as Fokker E with the model numbers I. – IV., was the first mass-produced fighter. It secured supremacy in the skies over the Western Front for German aviators well into the war year 1916.

Roland Garros was brought to Germany as a prisoner-of-war officer as late as February 1918 and interned in various locations. It was not until February 14, 1818, that he succeeded in escaping from his prison at the time, the Cavalier I “Scharnhorst” of Fortress Magdeburg, once the strongest fortress in the German Empire. Legend has it that Garros and a fellow inmate, pilot Anselme Marchal, were able to escape after bribing the guards and wearing imitated German uniforms. Previously, Garros reportedly received a set of tennis rackets from supporters in France, in the handles of which a topographical map of the German Empire was said to have been hidden. This account, too, is unverified and is more likely to be seen as a constructed link to his later role in tennis.

Ultimately, the two soldiers made their way back to France via the Netherlands and London. There they were celebrated as heroes. Both were appointed Officiers de la Légion d’Honneur, and Garros was also promoted to Oberleutnant. He declined a position at the French military academy. Garros urged to be deployed as a fighter pilot again as soon as possible. In doing so, he concealed an advanced eye condition that forced him to secretly wear glasses during missions.

In August 1918, Roland Garros was assigned to Escadrille 26, belonging at the time to the 4th French Army. After a few hours of flight, he returned to active service. With a SPAD XIII type biplane, he achieved another confirmed victory on October 2, 1918.

On October 5, 1918, during the initial phase of the Allied Meuse-Argonne Offensive, a bombing raid was flown against the German supply railway station of Saint-Morel on the strategically important Amagne-Lucquy–Revigny railway line. In aerial combat, Roland Garros was shot down. His aircraft crashed into a field north of the town. Garros lost his life. His conqueror is said to have been the German fighter pilot Hermann Habich, Jasta 49, flying an Albatros D.III. The pilot and aircraft were brought to Vouziers. Garros was identified in a local military hospital by his close friend Edmond Audemars and subsequently buried in the civilian cemetery of Vouziers. His aircraft was found in November 1918, following the recapture of Vouziers by the French, behind the church on the banks of the Aisne.