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Origin and history

The Fusillés de Nouvron-Vingré monument is a stone obelisk erected in the mid 1920s to honour six French soldiers of the 298th Infantry Regiment. The men — nicknamed "the Martyrs of Vingré" — were shot for example on 4 December 1914 during the First World War and were accused of refusing an assault deemed impossible. Their controversial execution became a symbol of the military injustices of the time.

The rehabilitation of the six soldiers took place on 29 January 1921, when the Court of Cassation annulled their sentence. A public subscription, supported by the Ligue des droits de l'homme and the departments of the Loire and Allier (origins of five of the shootings), allowed the construction of the monument. Inaugurated on 5 April 1925 in the presence of veterans of the 298th RI, he stands facing the field where the execution took place, on the edge of the departmental road 128.

The monument consists of a central obelisk surrounded by a gate, carrying two commemorative plaques. The first enumerates the names of the shotmen (Floch, Blanchard, Durantet, Gay, Pettelet, Quinaud) and their rehabilitation. The second pays tribute to their memory, stressing their innocence and their status as "victims of the example". Ranked a historic monument in 1997, it remains a major memorial of the Great War in the Hauts-de-France.

Its location, at the edge of the departments of Aisne and Oise, near Soissons, reflects its anchoring in a territory marked by the 1914 fighting. The monument also illustrates the post-war commitment to military justice, carried by associations such as the League of Human Rights and local communities. Today owned by the commune, it perpetuates the memory of these soldiers, symbols of the disciplinary drifts during the conflict.

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