On the occasion of November 11, a ceremony was organized in Reims, at the Parc de Champagne, to celebrate the centenary of the Monument to the Heroes of the Black Army, which pays tribute to the African soldiers who fought in the First World War .
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On November 11, 2024, the bells rang out at the Parc de Champagne, in Reims (Marne), in tribute to the African soldiers who came to fight on the battlefields of the First World War.
This year, the city of Reims is taking advantage of the commemoration of the German armistice in 1918 to celebrate the centenary of the Monument to the Heroes of the Black Army, installed in Champagne Park.
“Reims owes them a lot. They defended the city against German attacks at Fort de la Pompelle, also on the Merfy side, specifies the Horizons mayor of Reims, Arnaud Robinet. And then of course, not very far from here, whether in Verdun or Chemin des Dames, our African friends were present with us alongside the metropolitan soldiers.”
The monument installed in Champagne Park is a replica of the one destroyed by the Germans in 1940.
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© FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI / AFP
In 1922, a national subscription was launched to have a building erected in mainland France and in Africa in memory of the indigenous soldiers who died for France. This double monument was inaugurated two years later in Bamako, in present-day Mali. In France, Reims was chosen to host it. “Both because the city had been defended by African troops and also because it remained emblematic of the front,” explains historian Jean-Pierre Husson, present at the ceremony this Monday.
In 1940, the Reims monument was dismantled by the Nazis. After years of discussion, it was not until 2013 that it was rebuilt in the Champagne park, then inaugurated by President Macron and his Malian counterpart Ibrahim Boubakar Keita in 2018. The culmination of a long rehabilitation work carried out by Sheikh Sakho.
President Emmanuel Macron and his Malian counterpart, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, on November 6, 2018 in Reims. (archives)
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© PHILIPPE WOJAZER / POOL / REUTERS POOL / MAXPP
“It was absolutely important that it be reborn because we could not be satisfied with erasure. Completely erasing this history was the avowed goal of the Nazis”recalls Cheik Sakho. At least 30,000 Senegalese riflemen died on the battlefields of the Great War.
