MARNE

The imposing Monument de la Victoire de la Marne records that the battlegrounds of the Marne stretched ‘from Verdun to the Gates of Paris’. In between lie the hills and valleys of the Champagne region, an idyllic landscape covered in vineyards and dotted with towns and villages along the region’s popular ‘Champagne Trail’ - the setting for what historian Basil Liddell-Hart called ‘the battles that changed the course of history’.

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Today, it is hard to imagine huge armies sweeping across the landscape as Paris came under direct threat of occupation in 1914 and again in 1918. Evidence of these titanic battles can be discovered around Belleau Wood and Chateau Thierry where huge American cemeteries and monuments recall the first action by US Marines on European soil. A reminder of these epic battles is Les Fantomes, a haunting French Memorial to the Second Battle of the Marne which looms above the lonely Butte de Chalmont.

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