Bezonvaux

Bezonvaux is a common French, located in the department of the Meuse and the area Lorraine. It belongs to the Canton of Charny-on-Meuse.

This commune does not have any inhabitant. It is one of new the French Villages destroyed during the First World War which was never rebuilt. At the end of the hostilities, it was decided to preserve this commune, declared “village died for France”, in memory of the events which had proceeded there. The commune is managed today by a council of three people designated by the prefect of the Meuse. Bezonvaux is close to Ornes, destroyed village and not rebuilt.

Geography

The village is crossed by the departmental way 24 which connects Gremilly to Haudiomont while curving with the foot of the coasts bordering the Meuse in the east of Verdun. These coasts, just as the agricultural territory of the commune, are now covered by the forest of Verdun. The Ruisseau of Bezonvaux , which takes its source with three kilometers in the west of the village, joined the brook of Be worth with Mogeville and throws itself then in the Flowering ash. The geographical position of Bezonvaux is:

longitude= 05° 28 ' 06" Is
latitude = 49° 14 ' 15" North

The territory of the village covers 923 hectares and is spread out between 226 and 367 meters of altitude.

History

The origin of the village is probably related to the establishment of a Gallo-Roman villa. Its name could come from that of a count austrasien Boson who would have been the lord about the 8th century. At all events Besonval existed already at the 11th century and profited in 1252 from a charter from stamping. In 1540 the parish of Bezonvaux is an appendix of that of Douaumont. It is in 1624 qu ' a priest is affected at the village, Beaumont-in-Verdunois becomes additional then parish of Bezonvaux. At the beginning of the 18th Beaumont century, become more important than Bezonvaux, the priest moves to settle there but in 1803, Bezonvaux is attached to Ornes while preserving its church. The parish church, built at the 18th century and restored in 1848, was dedicated to Saint-Gilles, It was destroyed at the same time as the village, between 1916 and 1918. The current vault was built between 1927 and 1932 to a hundred meters of the ruins of old.

The village had already a school, or at least a room by making office, towards 1750. From 1824 the common one makes carry out work in a house which it has just bought to arrange a classroom there. A project of common house being used at the same time as town hall, of communal baker's oven, housing for the teacher and school sees the day in 1886. At that time 44 children are provided education for. The last instituor of the village, Emile Joseph Richard, was killed in front of the town hall by a shell on January 3rd, 1915.

A mill with flour, actuated by the brook of Bezonvaux, was in service until the destruction of the village. It was located downstream from the village.

In 1803 the population of the village was of 199 inhabitants, right before the First World War it was of 149 inhabitants after being gone up to 317 in 1851.

Though located near the zone of the engagements, the village was emptied completely of its inhabitants only on February 15th 1916, little time before the Germans do not take it by storm on February 25th. After the armistice, there did not remain a wall upright and the cultivable grounds were plowed by deep shell holes of which much had not burst. For these reasons, the territory of the village was declared zone too dangerous.

Places and monuments

Personalities related to the commune

See too

Common of the Meuse
French Villages destroyed during the First World War
After-effect of war
not exploded Ammunition
Red zone

External bonds

Site on the destroyed villages
Way of memory (Bezonvaux in the war of 1914-1918)
Inheritance of France (History of the parish church)

Bezonvaux on the site of the national geographical Institute
Bezonvaux on the site of INSEE
Bezonvaux on the site of Quid

Plane of Bezonvaux on Mapquest

Photographs

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