French armoured Baby Holt experiment at Sauain 9 December 1915

Souain-Perthes-lès-Hurlus is a commune in the

Marne Marne can refer to: Places France *Marne (river), a tributary of the Seine *Marne (department), a département in northeastern France named after the river * La Marne, a commune in western France *Marne, a legislative constituency (France) Nethe ...

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

in north-eastern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

First World War

On 9 December 1915 at Souain, a former battlefield with rough terrain and trenches, and in the presence of General Philippe Pétain, a prototype armoured vehicle motorized with a Baby Holt caterpillar was successfully tested. It is also known for the

Souain corporals affair The Souain corporals affair (; ) was an incident where four corporals in the French Army were shot by firing squad as an example to the rest of their companies during the First World War. The executions, which occurred in the vicinity of Souain on ...

, 17 March 1915. The village is the site of the Monument de la Légion Etrangère, an ossuary with 130 bodies of légionnaires from the 1st and 2nd Régiment Etrangers, who fell at the French offensive in Champagne, in September 1915. The monument ossuaire was erected in 1920 by William Farnsworth, father of Harvard alumnus Henry Farnsworth, a young American university student who had enlisted in the French Foreign Legion on 5 January 1915 and was killed 28 September 1915. Harvard Alumni Bulletin - Volume 23 - Page 401 1920 Through the Farnsworth Room in the Widener Library Building his name is already linked, most fittingly, with the daily life of Harvard College. The new memorial in France has a significance and suggestion (if which all Americans may well take note. When Henry Farnsworth and other adventurous spirits among our younger countrymen threw themselves into the European war on the side of the Allies, .. The war had devastated the region, making construction very difficult. Nevertheless, the work was completed in less than six months, beginning in May and ending in November 1920, with work taking place seven days a week. Rue Henry Farnsworth in the town was also named for the fallen Farnsworth.

First World War

See also