The Somme… This tragically resonant name recalls one of the deadliest battles in history, emblematic of the horror of trench warfare. However, only 30 km from the western front stands the town of Vignacourt, the exact antithesis of the fear experienced during war. An important logistics site in the rear front, Vignacourt became synonymous with joy, hope and rediscovered humanity thanks to the photographic activity carried out by the Thuilliers, a quite astonishing peasant couple. 4,000 poignant photos were found in 2011 in the attic of their Picardy farm... Through the story of the Thuillier couple and the highlighting of their works, let's set off together to discover the moving life of the soldier at rest during the Great War !
The mysterious Thuillier couple
Both from peasant families from Vignacourt, Louis and Antoinette Thuillier married quite young, aged 26 and 21 respectively. To meet their needs, they embark together on a business of renting agricultural machinery. They settle in the farm belonging to Louis.
This unusual couple is passionate about new technologies. In 1913, Louis acquired a rare plate camera and took up photography, teaching himself how to take quality shots. He shares this enthusiasm with his wife:Antoinette is passionate about this art and becomes as talented as her husband.
In 1914, Louis was enlisted as a courier. By car or bicycle, he crosses the front line to transmit information between the rear and the heart of operations. Wounded in the first months, he returned to Vignacourt with his wife and their son Robert, born in 1912. His official contribution to the war effort was over. He won't leave.
Louis and Antoinette then decide to devote themselves more to photography, selling their services for a pittance. In 1916, they improvised a small studio in the courtyard of their farm in Vignacourt. A large backdrop is hung as an artistic backdrop:it appears on 80% of the photos taken. The couple is then pleasantly surprised to see civilians and especially soldiers flocking to Vignacourt for the chance to have their portrait taken!
Warrior's Rest
As the Somme became the junction point for French and British forces in preparation for an offensive on the German army, more than 30 different nationalities flocked to support the war effort. These soldiers from France, England but also from Asia, the Maghreb, Africa or even Canada and Australia, are entitled to frequent rest periods to better support the stress of combat.
Men take full advantage of these short bursts of joie de vivre ranging from a few days to 2 weeks, which restore their faith in humanity and throw a soothing veil over the moral wounds of war. Many do not have enough time to return home. So they travel. Australians for example, as soon as they can, choose England, their "Motherland", to clear their minds. Lively London life delights soldiers:
The pub was filled with men and women. Clouds of powder, carmine lips, mischievous smiles, sweetness in pink and white. Life is good.
Joseph Maxwell
Easier to access and just as entertaining:Paris!
Paris ! Paris ! Full of life and wonderful. On the boulevards, all the feminine beauty in the world. One of them walked with me under the beautiful trees of the Bois de Boulogne, others came to dine with me.
Lieutenant George Deane Mitchell
The villages also exercise their attractions. The soldiers lodged with the locals were happy to discover the local population, often benevolent.
When we arrived in a French village, the first thing they asked us was if we were going to stay.
In sharing and good humor, they help the owners bring in the crops, feed the hens or repair the roofs, replacing absent or dead husbands, sons and brothers.
The distractions offered to resting warriors are many and varied:boxing matches, cricket matches or rugby matches, card games, chess and dice or even evenings devoted to entertainment:
During cabaret evenings, the men put on make-up to imitate famous Parisian comedians or sing bawdy songs under the benevolent gaze of the officers.
Underground city of Naours
They indulge in snowball fights in winter, have fun with the children and … look at the beautiful silhouette of young French women with lust:nearly 15,000 Australians will bring a French fiancée or wife back to their country!
Many soldiers take their minds off things by making real tourist trips, visiting all that the surroundings of their cantonment offer them in terms of cultural curiosities. The underground city of Naours is one of the key places near the Somme front. The “caves” of this exceptional site served as a refuge for the inhabitants of Picardy in the event of an invasion. Entire buses shuttle between the cantonments and Naours to introduce the soldiers to this curiosity. They describe in their diary or in their letters the intense moments they experienced there:
We freshened up and visited the Caves. Entering the old wooden door with our guide, it was terribly cold. We walked for an hour and passed through passages and halls all dug by people in Norman times.
Underground city of Naours
Few leave the underground city without having carved their initials and battalion number in stone. A way, again, to leave a trace of their passage on earth before returning to the trenches. It is these thousands of very moving graffiti that today attract tourists and families to Naours in the footsteps of their ancestors!
Located a few days' walk from the front, Vignacourt became one of the favorite meeting places for soldiers resting after the horrors experienced on the Somme front. And the excitement in the village is mainly caused by the atypical photographic activity of the Thuillier couple!
Postal photography:attraction of Vignacourt!
Arriving at Vignacourt, the soldiers are delighted. Thanks to the couple settled in the village farm, they will be able to give news to their family! Many photos are thus slipped into envelopes, accompanied by a letter. Testimonials, extremely valuable, are multiplying:
Of the horrors of those days I will say nothing. […] Oh Mom, our nation is great. Enough of the war. We are now resting in a peaceful little village and it is a pleasure to enjoy the sweet grass under the apple trees and to forget the traces of war, to think of our sweet home
Excerpt from a letter from Horace Parton
And the soldiers take pleasure in posing for the two photographers, both warm, talented and with a simplicity that touches the heart. In a letter to his family, the Australian Jim Holland speaks of Louis Thuillier as "our French photographer friend". They also take a liking to the couple's eldest son, Robert, who likes to pose with the soldiers in costume.
Louis and Antoinette each have their very recognizable style. Louis is a technician. He specializes in group photos or outdoor photos. The exposure time was then 2 to 3 seconds… No one should move, otherwise everything is blurry and the photo is missed! The charming Antoinette brings the scene. Her shots have a theatrical side that is both feminine and modern. She selects in her furniture and her accessories what to embellish the famous painted sheet which serves as a backdrop, representation of a very Italian elsewhere with its classic columns:what to escape and drive away the dark thoughts...
Both manage in a striking way to make humanity triumph over these faces of men rubbing shoulders with the inhuman. The personality of each shines through in the photos, so clear that the slightest expression takes on unprecedented power. These precious photographs are a real open book. They say many things at once. Sometimes the horror of war can be read in a look while hope lights up a smile...
Hope is in their hearts when they face the camera, proud and upright, showing courage. Smiles, sometimes sly, defy the fate that fate has reserved for them.
Vignacourt Interpretation Center
A mix of nationalities where everyone is made comfortable by the masters of the place, Vignacourt is also a place that creates social ties. We forge friendships and communicate in the same spirit of solidarity. Some comrades pose together, carrying a message, as in this poignant shot where they pose with a sign "We want our mumie" ("We want our mom")
Captured in the dark room of the camera, the images are deposited in negative on a glass plate. In the dark of the laboratory installed in the Thuillier house, the image is fixed on the plate which will then be printed on a silver chloride photo paper. Exposure to light finally reveals the image, capturing the subject for eternity.
Vignacourt Interpretation Center
After the war
The end of the war marked the end of the photography activity of the Thuillier couple. After the perpetual tingling, the feeling of being useful to others and the construction of a small family constantly in motion, suddenly, it is nothingness. Louis Thuillier is recovering very badly from this sudden stop. He had forged real bonds of friendship with the soldiers. The photo had become a reason to live. Quickly, Louis Thuillier fell into depression and ended his life in 1931...
Robert takes care of his mother and together they carefully store the 4,000 photographic plates taken during the war in large trunks. These are then stored in the attic. The years pass and Antoinette leaves this world while her son Robert still owns the Vignacourt farm.
At the end of the Great War, the Mayor of Vignacourt made a solemn promise to honor the graves of Allied soldiers who died for France. In 1988, the new mayor of Vignacourt, Michel Hubau, honored this promise by baptizing two streets:rue du Général Martin and rue des Australiens. A beautiful commemorative exhibition is organized to celebrate the event. Robert Thuillier then asks a photographer friend to develop some 300 photos from his parents' collection.
In the 1990s, Laurent Mirouze, passionate about the history of the First World War, passing through Vignacourt, discovered with amazement these pictures hung in the town hall. Their exceptional quality leaves him speechless. Certain of having discovered a treasure, convinced that other photographs exist, he begins to do research and to speak about it loudly in the press to attract the attention of the media. Faced with his tenacity, the Australian channel Channel Seven ends up taking an interest in the subject. In 2011, she decided to devote a report to this intriguing story...
The fabulous discovery
When the team of 6 journalists arrives in the village, armed with questions and cameras, Robert has been gone for a long time. The farm is for sale and… nobody wants it. The television crew still manages to get inside the Thuillier farm and home thanks to Henriette Crognier, a descendant of the couple's second child, Roger. Exploring the entire property, the team ends up entering the attic where Henriette ensures that the photographs are kept. Huge trunks attract the attention of journalists. And there, miracle! 4,000 plaques that had been sleeping there for almost 100 years are discovered, revealing their moving secrets. We even find, carefully rolled up on itself, the famous backdrop that Antoinette Thuillier loved to use so much to stage her shots!
For Australians, the discovery is significant. Rare are the testimonies of their 295,000 compatriots voluntarily engaged in the war alongside the British and the French. Today, the John Monash Interpretation Center in Villers-Bretonneux restores their prominent place to these Australian soldiers, using breathtaking cutting-edge technology to tell the horrors experienced by these men of unfailing bravery. and who have an unfailing sense of humor.
From the “exhumation” of the Thuillier collection, the duty of memory accelerated the bringing to light of the photos. The farm is bought by the town hall of Vignacourt to make it an Interpretation Center dedicated to the history of the Thuillier couple and their photos. The precious plates are acquired by Kerry Stokes, a wealthy Australian businessman. Cleaned, they are entrusted to the Australian Memorial War which has them digitized.
Then begins the identification of the soldiers photographed. A vast quest made easier by the extraordinary quality of the pictures:it is possible to zoom in so precisely that you can see the battalion number, the number of bars embroidered on the uniform (which correspond to as many war wounds ), etc… Little by little, names are affixed to certain faces, in particular Australians because the Australian plates are all intact. Shocked families discover for the first time the faces of their loved ones who died in France!
In 2016, while the Interpretation Center was taking shape with the start of renovation work on the Thuillier farm, a fantastic new discovery caused a stir:20 new plaques, very damaged, had fallen between a beam and cob from the wall in the attic!
Today, the visitor, both amazed and moved, can walk around the Thuillier farm and admire the exact copies of these striking photos... Thanks to Valérie Vasseur, head of the Vignacourt Interpretation Center, who knows how to communicate her passion and his emotion. Thank you to the whole Somme Tourisme team, for the delicious organization of these days of unique and captivating discoveries!