WW1 Military History Museum and local patrimony

     The Great War in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Region (Hauts de France), in south of Artois and more particularly the Hindenburg Line ("Siegfried Stellung", "Hindenburg Line" or "Grande Trenchée") in the ARRAS sector (between the Arras - Cambrai road in the north and Bullecourt in the south) will be subjects largely covered by the Hindenburg Line Museum (Military History Museum). It also refers to the destroyed villages and their inhabitants as well as the fighters, whether famous or not, as well as to prisoners and families. Through numerous objects, maps, images or documents, we will evoke the great military actions such as the Battle of Arras, the Battle of the Scarpe, the 100 Days of Canada (Battle of the 100 Days), or the Spring Offensive (Battle of the Kaiser - Operation Michael), but not only those less well known, on a completely different scale but which have brought their share of horror such as the fighting at Fontaine Les Croisilles, the Battle of Bullecourt, the Battle of Chérisy or that of Croisilles...

     Discover the history of this sector, our actions and our projects so that all this does not fall back into oblivion ...

     Location: South-East of Arras, valleys of La Sensée and Cojeul in the triangle Arras - Bapaume - Cambrai (Nord-Pas-de-Calais - Hauts de France)

     The Hindenburg Line, Ligne Hindenburg, le Fossé, Grande Tranchée or Siegfried Stellung is the name given to the defensive trench installations created by the Germans from 1916 from, Pas-de-Calais to Aisne via french Nord department, onwards with the aim of being able to carry out a withdrawal movement (Operation Alberich of 1917) in order to better hold the conquered terrain and save men by reducing the length of the front. The line takes its name "SiegfriedStellung" (it is also the case of "Alberich" or "Wotan"... we shall see) from an opera by Richard Wagner (1813-1883), "Siegfried" being the third opera in a quadrilogy "Der Ring des Nibelungen" (The Ring of the Nibelung) inspired by Nordic mythology, first performed in 1876.

     Siegfried Stellung takes shape from Lens (north of Vimy) to La Fère (south of Saint Quentin) and makes the most of the land on which it is built. It is 70,000 men who will be used to set up the installations, the vast majority of whom will be prisoners of war (Russians, Belgians, etc.). This line, or rather these lines, because we are talking about a set of intertwined networks (for example: Siegfriedstellung, wotanstellung...) are mainly composed of two parallel trenches perfectly visible from the air and quite recognizable on the various trench maps of the time, per section concreted, drawn in regular slots (which limits the firing in a row) punctuated every 100 meters by machine gun concrete positions (MEBU : Mannschaft EisenBeton Unterstände - pillbox) and lighter firing positions. In front of and between these two wide and deep trenches (anti-tank, tanks that first appeared in September 1916), there are literally barbed wire fields, these barbed wire networks are several tens of metres wide and extremely dense, so they were easily visible by air and you could barely see through.... They are a death trap : set up in a V-shape with passages created at various key locations so that the attacker is channelled under crossfire from machine guns and mortars, not a single square metre of ground escapes the gunners as well as artillery that can be located near the lines in blochhaus (bunkers) or on a line several kilometres from the front. Some trench lengths were provided with shelters or deep tunnels that allowed troops to wait under barrage. Procurement, communication, headquarters... everything is planned. It is a trench model, based on all the lessons learned since the beginning of the conflict. An unprecedented construction from the First World War that we will try to make you discover in Arras sector...

We will certainly discuss this famous Hindenburg Line Nord-Pas-de-Calais Region in detail, but not only : The Great War (WWI) in general as well as the great actions that will impact our local history, the local arms facts (Arras Battle, Chérisy Battle, the Wancourt tower battle, Croisilles Battle, Bullecourt battle, or Fontaine les Croisilles battle...), individual actions and routes, equipment, uniforms, armament, technologies and techniques, life in the trenches and in the rear, the life of our villages and their inhabitants, animals, arts... as well as local history in a more generalized framework. Browse through the pages of our site relating to the future Museum, subscribe to our Facebook page, and come and see us whenever possible at the museum or on our events! We will keep you informed of our progress... See you soon!