The Carrière Wellington is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

in Arras, northern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. It is named after a former underground

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...

which was part of a network of tunnels used by forces of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

and Commonwealth during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Opened in March 2008, the museum commemorates the soldiers who built the tunnels and fought in the Battle of Arras in 1917.

History

From the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

through to the 19th century, the chalk beds underneath Arras were extensively quarried to supply stone for the town's buildings. The quarries fell into disuse by the start of the 20th century. In 1916, during the First World War, the British forces controlling Arras decided to re-use the underground quarries to aid a planned offensive against the Germans, whose trenches ran through what are now the eastern suburbs of the town. The quarries were to be linked up so that they could be used both as shelters from the incessant German shelling and as a means of conveying troops to the front in secrecy and safety. 500 miners from the

New Zealand Tunnelling Company The New Zealand Tunnelling Company (also ''New Zealand Engineers Tunnelling Company'') was a tunnel warfare unit of the Royal New Zealand Engineers during World War I which specialised in sapping and mining. The tunnelling companies were occupie ...

, including

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

and Pacific Islanders, recruited from the gold and coal mining districts of the country, were brought in to dig of tunnels. They worked alongside

Royal Engineer tunnelling companies Royal Engineer tunnelling companies were specialist units of the Corps of Royal Engineers within the British Army, formed to dig attacking tunnels under enemy lines during the First World War. The stalemate situation in the early part of the war ...

, made up by now of British

coal miners People have worked as coal miners for centuries, but they became increasingly important during the Industrial revolution when coal was burnt on a large scale to fuel stationary and locomotive engines and heat buildings. Owing to coal's strategic ro ...

and expert tunnellers who had built the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The ...

. Many of them were " Bantams", soldiers of below average height who had been rejected from regular units because they did not meet the height requirements; others had been initially rejected as too old, but their specialist mining experience made them essential for the tunnelling operation. The work was difficult and dangerous. In the New Zealand units alone, 41 tunnellers died and another 151 were injured during countermining operations against the Germans, whose own tunnellers sought to disrupt the Allied tunneling operations. The Arras tunnels linked the quarries to form a network that ran from the town centre, under no man's land, to a number of points just in front of the German front lines. The tunnel system could accommodate 20,000 men and were outfitted with running water, electric lights, kitchens, latrines, a light rail system and a fully equipped hospital. The tunnellers named the individual quarries after their home towns - Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Blenheim, Christchurch and Dunedin for the New Zealanders, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Crewe and London for the Britons. (For a map of the Arras underground system, se
here
) Thousands of soldiers were billeted in the tunnels for eight days prior to the start of the Arras offensive on 9 April 1917. At 05:30 that morning, exits were dynamited to enable the troops to storm the German trenches. The Germans were taken by surprise and were pushed back . This counted as an extraordinary success by the standards of the time. However, the offensive soon bogged down and it was eventually called off after casualties reached 4,000 a day. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the tunnels were re-opened to serve as air raid shelters. They were sealed again in 1945 and were largely forgotten until their rediscovery in 1990. Much of the network has now collapsed and most of the rest is extremely unsafe. With the sponsorship of the Arras town council, the regional council and the French state, one section around the Carrière Wellington was restored and converted into a museum at a cost of €4 million.

Museum

The Carrière Wellington museum consists of a visitor centre displaying historic artifacts and presenting the historical context of the Battle of Arras, including the work of the tunnellers and the military strategy that underlay the tunnels' construction. It was opened to the public on 1 March 2008. The tunnels are accessed via a lift shaft that takes visitors approximately 22 m (70 ft) under the ground inside the galleries of the underground quarry. The tour consists of both guided and audioguided tours on a planned path accessible for wheelchairs. The visitors discover the development of the strategy of the Battle of Arras, and also the daily life of the tunnelers of New-Zealand and the soldiers of the British Expeditionary Forces sent in these tunnels to prepare this battle. The site is also a memorial dedicated to the battle of Arras, with a memorial wall remembering all the regiments involved in the battle of Arras. Since the Hundred Years of the battle in 2017, a second memorial wall is dedicated to portraits of NZ Tunnellers, and a statue was installed in the park for the remembrance of these tunnellers. Each year, a ceremony is organised at 6.30 am on April 9th. The museum opened in 2008. Between 2008 and 2013, it has welcomed 45 000 visitors per year. Since 2014, the affluence increased to 70 000 visitors each year. Image:Carriere wellington entrance.jpg, Entrance to the Carrière Wellington museum Image:Carriere wellington tunnel.jpg, Tunnel and mining trolley in the Carrière Wellington Image:Carriere wellington exit.jpg, Exit no. 10

References

* Nicholls, Jonathon. ''Cheerful Sacrifice: The Battle of Arras 1917.'' Sheffield: Pen & Sword, 2005. *
Museum to shed light on diggers' world
. ''New Zealand Herald'', 15 February 2008 *
Great War tunnellers honoured
. ''New Zealand Herald'', 16 February 2008 *

. New Zealand Defence Force, 18 February 2008. Retrieved on 20 May 2014.

External links

Carrière Wellington
(official website)
- Information on the Carrière Wellington from ''La Voix du Nord''
(in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Carriere Wellington Museums established in 2008 World War I museums in France