A century after the Great War, we still find from time to time soldiers who died for France. In Geneva, we have just found the identity of nearly 300 poilus, erased from memories because of their cross-border status. On November 11, they joined the nearly 900 names already engraved in the stone of the Geneva war memorial.
Honor to those who fell for France on November 11, and honor to those forgotten by History. On this Armistice Day, the names of 291 poilus join those already engraved on the war memorial at the French consulate. These forgotten soldiers, French, Swiss or binational, all linked to Geneva, are now honored.
But in 1924, when the monument was created, they had gone completely under the radar. “They have been forgotten by the particularity which is that of a border […] at a time when no real database existed for the civil and military authorities,” summarizes the president of the Mémoires association Nicolas Ducimetière.
Scoured archives
To find these names, we had to open the archives. And above all, leaf through and cross-check the sources, to find all the French people in Switzerland of the time. Thomas Cornaz and his colleague Marion Gros carried out this painstaking work as a duo.
Example, a certain Auguste William Giraud from Geneva appears in the list of deaths for France from the Ministry of Defense. But not on the war memorial. Thanks to the work of historians, these 291 poilus found a name, but also an address, a profession, a marital status, in short their history.
This November 11, State Councilors, Ministers, Mayors and consuls paid them a warm tribute, with this shared message of not forgetting the lessons of the past.
