Wander the Circuit du Souvenir and other places of remembrance in Hauts-de-France

In the Aisne département, the Chemin des Dames, which has always been a strategic road and a sentry walk, owes its name to Louis XV's daughters, the Mesdames de France. They would use it to visit their governess at the Château de la Bove, near Vauclair. But it wasn't this anecdote that made it famous...

The Chemin des Dames is infamous for having been the scene of deadly battles during the First World War. History will remember above allGeneral Nivelle's failed offensive in 1917, a strategic error that led to a terrible defeat for the Allies. Yet the general stubbornly continued the attack for an entire month, resulting in many deaths on the battlefield and mutinies in the French ranks.

Between the Aisne and Ailette rivers, not far from Route Nationale No. 2, a field of memorials and steles echoes Louis Aragon's lines: "Traveller, remember the moulin de Laffaux".

The site and its surroundings are home to nine memorials: the Monument des crapouillots, the Monument aux fusiliers marins, the Monument des sténographes, the Monument au 4ème cuirassiers, the Monument au général Estienne, the Monument au 9ème régiment de cuirassiers à pied, the Mémorial Georges Damez, the Mémorial Frédéric Taillefert and the Mémorial Henri Dupouy. A visit full of meaning.

During the First World War, Canada gained real recognition as a free and independent nation that actively helped the Allies. To thank this great nation for its help, the French government erected a memorial, the largest in Europe for Canada, at Vimy. It commemorates this trench warfare and honours the memory of the Canadian soldiers who died in combat.

Located not far from Lens, the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette national necropolis was inaugurated in 1925 to commemorate the thousands of soldiers who died between October 1914 and September 1915. More than 45,000 soldiers lie there in peace, half of them in individual graves. The site comprises: the cemetery, the basilica, the lantern tower and the museum, all covering a total area of 25 hectares.

In 2014, to mark the centenary of the start of the war, an international memorial bearing the names of 600,000 combatants was added: it is known as the Anneau de la Mémoire.

In Albert, the Somme Museum recounts the lives of soldiers in the trenches. The Newfoundland Memorial at Beaumont-Hamel depicts a large bronze caribou, the emblem of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, its defiant gaze forever fixed on its former enemies, watching over the fields that still hold many soldiers with no known final resting place.

On the British Memorial at Thiepval, the names of the 72,000 British and South African soldiers who went missing on the Somme between the summer of 1915 and 20 March 1918 are engraved, 90% of them from the Battle of the Somme. Along the way, you will pass the La Boisselle mine pit, Pozières and its commemorative monuments, the South African Memorial and Museum at Longueval, the Chapelle du Souvenir Français at Rancourt and the Historial de la Grande Guerre at Péronne.

Perched at the top of a small hill 15 minutes from Amiens, the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux brings the visit to a close. It bears the names of the 11,000 Australian soldiers who died for France. Don't forget to climb the staircase to the top of the tower, which offers a 360° view of the surrounding countryside, the Australian sites on the Western Front and, in fine weather, Amiens Cathedral.

As an integral part of the history of the Hauts-de-France region, be sure to pay a visit to the various remembrance sites if you're passing through. You can spend a day or several days there, depending on your interest in the subject. By car, by bike, on foot or even by plane, the possibilities are endless for discovering these places that have left their mark on international history.