It will run through the beginning of the Capetian dynasty to nowadays and will focus on everything related to France and its history.
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« Gégène » (terme de l’argot militaire français, diminutif de « génératrice ») : dynamo électrique manuelle en dotation dans l’armée de terre française de 1954 à 1962, utilisée pour fournir une alimentation électrique au poste de radio C5.
Gégène is military slang for generator and names an electric generator that made campaign phones work. It was also used to torture people, firstly during the Indochina war and then during the Algeria war to extract informations from the FLN fighters. Electrods would be placed on the prisonner’s body and electricity would circulate inside it.
French castle at Fort Niagara. Fort Niagara is a fortification located near Youngstown, New York, on the eastern bank of the Niagara River at its mouth, on Lake Ontario.
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle built the first structure, called Fort Conti, in 1678. In 1687, the Governor of New France, the Marquis de Denonville, constructed a new fort at the former site of Fort Conti. He named it Fort Denonville and posted a hundred men under the command of Capt. Pierre de Troyes, Chevalier de Troyes. The winter weather and disease was severe, and all but twelve perished by the time a relief force returned from Montreal. It was decided in September 1688 to abandon the post and the stockade was pulled down. In 1726, a two story “Maison a Machicoulis” or “Machicolated House” was constructed on the same site by French engineer Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Lery. It was called the “House of Peace” or trading post to appease the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois. The name used today, “The French Castle” was not used until the 19th Century. The fort was expanded to its present size in 1755 due to increased tensions between French and British colonial interests.
Le Cameroun en 1917-1918: Histoire, paysages, ethnies.Description : Corvées de vivres.Date : Le 10 janvier 1917Lieu : Douala, Cameroun.Photographe : Frédéric GadmerOrigine : ECPADRéférence : SPA 97 H 3787
In 1914, after the beginning of WW1, France and England tried to take a hold of the German colonies in Africa. If Togo quickly fell, it is an other story for Cameroon, which resisted a year and half. The Germans held the ground and used guerilla methods to fight against the French, Belgian, and English troops encircling them. The last stronghold fell in February 1916 and Cameroon is divided between the three Nations.
Ten months later, Frédéric Gadmet is sent to Cameroon, and while drawing up the inventory of the economical profits the colony could offer, he took around 3,000 photos, and among them, photos of the landscape and the different people he met.
Le traître : Dégradation d’Alfred Dreyfus, dégradation dans la Cour Morlan de l’École militaire à Paris.
In 1894, the French Army’s counter-intelligence section, led by Lt. Col. Jean Conrad Sandherr, became aware that new artillery information was being passed to the German embassy in Paris by a highly placed spy likely to be posted in the French General Staff. Suspicion quickly fell upon Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who was arrested for treason on 15 October 1894. On 5 January 1895, Dreyfus was summarily convicted in a secret court martial, publicly stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment in a penal colony on Devil’s Island in French Guiana.
Partisan of the Gardes de la Manche, 1679 © Army Museum, Dist. RMN photo Pascal Segrette
The Gardes de la Manche (literally “guards of the sleeve”) were the closest guards to the King, so close they touched his sleeve. In 1679, they were given new tabards and weapons. The Herculean symbolism, inherited from Henry IV, was replaced in their decorations by the solar symbolism adopted by Louis XIV circa 1662.
Indeed, the iron of the partisans represents the world (a globe) above which flies a chariot driven by Mars, the god of war (the King). This chariot, drawn by four horses, crushes the eagle (the Holy Empire) and the lion (often associated with England but representing Spain in this context). The King is crowned with the victor’s laurels by an allegory of Renown, under the radiant sun surrounded by the motto NEC PLURIBUS IMPAR.
Jean Bérain (1640-1711) was entrusted with making these weapons. In 1675, he began designing the costumes and decorations for the events - carrousels, funerals as well as parties and operas - held at the Court of France.
Battle of Poitiers (miniature of Froissart)
The Battle of Poitiers was a major battle of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France. The battle occurred on 19 September 1356 near Poitiers, France. Preceded by the Battle of Crécy in 1346, and followed by the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, it was the second of the three great English victories of the war.
Chalands de retour de la marée devant le fort Louvois
Fort Louvois, which is known locally as Fort du Chapus, is a fortification built between 1691 and 1694, during the reign of Louis XIV, on the Chapus islet, and is about 400 metres (1,300 ft) off shore in the town of Bourcefranc-le-Chapus in the department of Charente-Maritime, France. The fort sits opposite the citadel of Château d’Oléron on the island of Oléron. The fort was positioned so that a crossfire from the château and the fort would control the Pertuis de Maumusson (Passage of Maumusson) and impede access to the Rochefortroads from the south. Fort Louvois only saw action towards the end of World War II when bombardment greatly damaged the fort, necessitating later restoration.
After the Battle of Waterloo, commanding the last of the Old Guard, Pierre Cambronne was summoned to surrender by General Colville. A journalist named Rougement reported Cambronne’s reply as “La garde meurt et ne se rend pas !” (“The Guard dies and does not surrender!”). These words became famous and were put on a Cambronne statue in Nantes after his death.
However, Cambronne always denied that he had made the “The Guard dies …” statement. His reply, according to other sources, was the much more direct “Merde!” (“Shit!”, figuratively, “Go to hell”), which he also denied having said. This version of the reply became famous in its own right, becoming known as le mot de Cambronne (“the word of Cambronne”)
Le Général Lescure blessé passe la Loire à Saint-Florent - Jules Girardet
The Virée de Galerne was a military operation of the War in the Vendée during the French Revolutionary Wars across Britanny andNormandy. It takes its name from “gwalarn”, a Breton word for the “vent de noroît” (northwest wind).
It concerns the Vendean army’s crossing of the River Loire after their defeat in the battle of Cholet on 17 October 1793 and its march to Granville in the hope of finding reinforcements there from England. Unable to take Granville on 14 November 1793, it fell back towards Savenay (23 December 1793) where it was completely destroyed by Republican troops under Kléber. The battle of Savenay marked the end of what would come to be called the first war in the Vendée.
