The lost village of Vauquois in the Argonne (Le village disparu) is a testament to the enormity and ferocity of a unique underground struggle of the 1914-1918 war. There are other lost villages in France: Hurlus, Ripont and Tahure on the Champagne battlefields, and the villages of Verdun that were destroyed and left little evidence of where they once stood. Other areas were mined - the Somme, Vimy and the Argonne Forest - but it is only at Vauquois that you find surviving evidence of extreme mine warfare that continued below ground well after the village was obliterated, and when there was little hope of a breakthrough on the surface from the infantry of either side.
The Butte de Vauquois, where this tiny village once stood, is now just a mass of craters and tunnel entrances. But in 1914 this small hill 290 metres above sea level, with the Argonne massif to the west and Mort Homme to the east, was hotly contested by the Germans and French. It provided a superb observation point for road and rail traffic from the Islettes pass, and therefore, eventually, all movement to and from Verdun.
Along the Frontline
The Germans took the hill on 24th September 1914 and heavily fortified it. Between October of the same year and March 1915 the French 10th Division, under General Vaidant, mounted several counter-attacks. At first they were unsupported by artillery, using only bayonets in heroic charges. They also used, for the first and last time at Vauquois, a flame-thrower but a north wind blew it back upon their own infantry. Eventually they overcame German resistance and established themselves on the south side of the hill, with the Germans occupying the north side supported by artillery in the woods of Cheppy and Montfaucon on a 6 km front. This is where both sides stayed for the next three years, mining towards each other with increasing ferocity.
The first German miners, 30th Pioneer Battalion, arrived on 7th January 1915 and the French, who were also beginning to mine, blew their first charge on 3rd February. Initially the French had to dig vertically as their position was on a gentler slope than the Germans. They climbed up and down these first tunnels by rope and with some humour, akin to their Tommy allies, named their tunnels after stations on the Paris Metro. During this early stage small mines were used as an adjunct to infantry attacks but by March 1915 the mines increased in size to 50-1,500 kg of explosive, in tunnels at a depth of 5-15 metres.
Neither side was to be outdone or moved from this vantage point. They tenaciously dug deeper and increased the size of the mines. March 1916 heralded the advent of mines 1,500-15,000 kg in size at a depth of 25-40 metres. The Germans exploded the biggest of all at Vauquois, 60,000 kg, on 14th May of that year. It blew apart the west portion of the hill taking 108 French lives. The crater of 80 metres width would hold within the diameter of its upper margin the length and wingspan of a Jumbo Jet. The depth of 20 metres would comfortably accommodate the height from the wheels to the top of the tail.
Tunnel Entrances
French [Odeon after Paris Metro Station] · German
The sappers of both sides shifted tons of Argonne rock, a loamy sandstone the French called 'gaize', to create an underground system of tunnels, on three levels, that eventually totalled 17 km (12 km German/5 km French), and between them exploded 519 mines (199 German/320 French). The explosive used by the Germans for both mines and camouflets was Westfalit. The French used a mixture of Ammonium Nitrate and TNT.
From April 1917 to the beginning of 1918 the French dropped the use of mines and changed to large camouflets (smaller explosive devices to destroy tunnels and not large enough to create craters) of 2,000-8,000 kg at a depth of 35-50 metres. Mid December 1917 saw a lull in hostilities as both sides fraternised underground. They agreed to detonate only between the hours of 4pm and 7pm. This amicable agreement came to an end when the Germans exploded 7 camouflets in February 1918. The Germans had also undertaken the herculean task of digging 3 deep shafts Mittel, Rader and Treppen Stollen intended to blow up the entire hill so that it would be of no use to anyone. Only Mittel and Rader were completed to a depth of 94 metres and 95 metres respectively, but were never used. The last French explosion was in March 1918 and the Germans exploded their final camouflet on 9th of April. From 14th to 19th April the German Pioneers withdrew from Vauquois to the Pioneer camp at Varennes. No advantage had been won for either side and when the US 35th Division arrived on 26th September, the first day of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, they found nothing but a devastated landscape as evidence of the fighting that had occurred there.
What had been a small hill-top village with a population of 168 was a series of mine craters 10-20 metres deep separating the French and German front lines. The ground had become the grave to 8,000 missing French and German dead. There was no sign of the church or school that had crowned the crest of the hill: all had been swallowed up by the ground beneath. What remains is an underground labyrinth of tunnels containing barracks, storage depots, command posts and everything needed to support the men (up to 1,200 Germans and 800 French) and the operations of that troglodyte world.
The Troglodyte World
Today the ground that dips and folds around you has been softened by time. Trees and vegetation have reclaimed the shattered landscape. A new village has been built below the summit and a French preservation society, "Les Amis de Vauquois", are proudly restoring this subterranean world. At the top of the Butte stands the "Memorial to the Combatants and Dead of Vauquois". A Poilu, constantly vigilant, looks east towards Verdun, a rifle in one hand, a grenade in the other. Behind him is a representation of the blasted tree that served the French as a range marker for artillery. Tucked into the rock lies a sleeping tunneller, forever at rest above the hell that once was his, and what is now for us an enduring reminder of a hidden conflict.
Sources and Thanks: Simon Jones, Curator of the King's Regiment Museum at the Museum of Liverpool Life lent valuable advice and confirmed my note taking. Simon was involved in the Channel 4 documentary The Underground War, produced in 1999. The photos are from my own collection.
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