Travel Guide Vauquois

Vauquois experienced an extraordinary destiny during the Great War. A strategic zone hotly contested by both sides, the hill where the village was located became the scene of terrible fighting right from the start of the conflict. In 1915, the war of position gave way to that of mines. At the Liberation in 1918, where the village and its bell tower once stood proudly, a desolate lunar landscape riddled with immense craters was revealed. What remains of the mound has been preserved in its original state, along with its miles of underground galleries. A new makeshift village sprang up below, but the foundation stone was not laid until 1923.