Bapaume

Bapaume is a common French, located in the department of the Pas-de-Calais and the area Nord-Pas-de-Calais. Chief town of canton of the north of the France, it belongs to the Arrondissement of Arras.

Its inhabitants is called Bapalmois.

Toponymy

The “Bapaume”, gesture of despair. Bapalmoises and Bapalmois did not dance of joy in front of the abundance of harvests. On the contrary: they “beat palms” as a sign of despair, so much their grounds were bad. Thus the linguists explain the origin of the name of this small town known to have been the theater of one of the rare French victories against the Prussians during the war of 1870. It is one of some villages and localities of France whose name, transmitted by small-people (popular etymology), is related on the hardness of its ground for the peasants or to the production of icelle like Rompéchine in Charente, Bramefain and Balledent in the the Limousin, Bréviandes in Champagne-Ardenne (and various communes with the similar name) or Make fun-Barrel in Touraine among a multitude of others…

Geography

Bapaume is served by:

  • the RD 917 old Trunk road 17 (ex-RN37) road axis Paris - Lille
  • the RD 929 and the RD 930, old Trunk road 30, and both ex-RN 29 (before 1974) between Albert and Cambric on the road axis Valencian Amiens .
  • the highway A1 Paris-Lille via Arras.

It is crossed by Northern TGV Ligne.

History

The threshold of Bapaume

The town of Bapaume was marked by its position that some called the threshold of Bapaume, not passage between Artois, the plains of Flandres on the one hand and the valley of the Sum and the Paris basin on the other hand. As of half of the 11th century one speaks about toll about Bapaume, which was revised in 1202 then in 1442.

Many ways pass by Bapaume, of old roads between the two areas then the highway (1965) and the TGV (1993). However the 19th century the municipal council opposed in the passing on his territory of the Paris-Lille railway. This position was regretted because since 1859 the Municipality claimed the creation of a railway connecting Achiet the large one (Paris-Lille way) to Bapaume with animal haulage (one was afraid of the vapor with Bapaume?). The railway connecting these two communes was brought into service only in 1871, with steam traction.

Fortifications

This position of threshold made that Bapaume was subjected to multiple wars. Defense forces were built there: a Roman camp, then a feudal mound, then a castle with the site of the feudal mound. It would seem that in this one the queen Mahaut d' Artois remained there and that Jeanne d' Arc spent one night there.

In 1335, the city by itself was strengthened with the variation of the castle. However these fortifications were not very effective, the city was taken on several occasions, Charles Quint ordered into 1540 to build a strengthened place. Thick ramparts with bastions girdled the city and the castle including/understanding of the elaborate defensive systems such as branches of mines, galleries of mine. These fortifications of Charles Quint were reinforced thereafter by Vauban.

At the 19th century, Bapaume was not regarded any more as a strengthened city. In 1847 the dismantling of the fortifications was thus undertaken. It was carried out by the Army within the framework of operations and experiments of explosives. The walls and the bastions were levelled, the ditches were filled. Only the keep and part of the bastion of the Dolphin is still visible.

Work was completed lately to restore underground galleries and to make them worth visiting on the one hand to the bastion of Reyne to the south-east of the city and on the other hand to the bastion of the Dolphin. These undergrounds were used as shelter during the two world wars.

The battle of Bapaume January 2nd and 3rd 1871

The battles of Bapaume was delivered January 2nd and 3rd 1871, during the war free-Prussian of 1870-71 with the territories of Biefvillers-lès-Bapaume and Bapaume. The general Faidherbe with the head of the Army of North stopped the Prussians.

Extracts of the table of Armand Dumaresq exposed in the big room of the mairie.









Second world war

During the Bapaume second world war was a zone of combat. The Guidet mayor who belonged to Resistance, was stopped and off-set with the camp of Groß-Rosen where he died on November 27th, 1944. Since 1948 a monument which shows it at the time of its arrest honors its memory. With the Town hall are a ballot box with ground of Groß-Rosen as well as a table the representative.

The commune is twinned with Moers, a town of Rhineland-Westphalia, this twinning is the work of the son of Abel Guidet, Henri Guidet, who implied himself in the Franco-German reconciliation.

Administration

Its mayor, Jean-Paul Delevoye, were Minister for the public office and town and country planning during the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin. It is currently mediator of the Republic.

Demography

Economy

  • Detention center.

Places and monuments

On the Faidherbe place

The statue of the Faidherbe general

It was inaugurated on September 27th, 1891. This first statue was carved by Louis CHRISTMAS. But during the First World War, on September 29th, 1916, the statue was reversed. It lay with the pedestal base of. Undoubtedly believing that it was out of bronze, the Germans wanted to recover metal of it. Then it disappeared. The base, ravaged by the glares of shell remained empty during 13 years. It is only into 1926 that the city decides to be addressed to sculptor DECHIN of Paris (it still has the model of the first statue of 1891) in order to carry out the current statue. The new monument was inaugurated on August 18th, 1929 by Mr. Paul PAINLÈVE, Minister for the War. During the refitting of the place, the statue was installed a few lower meters on September 26th, 1997.

Monument of Lighter and Taillandier

A monument is set up against the town hall to the memory of Albert Taillandier and Raoul Briquet killed in the explosion of the town hall on March 25th, 1917. They were all the two deputies of the Pas-de-Calais but of different opinions, Albert Taillandier was preserving Raoul Briquet was socialist, on mission of inspection on the face on behalf of the National Assembly. They wanted to spend the night in the building but it was trapped.

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