MONCHY-LE-PREUX, France –
Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial flag flies three times a year in Monchy-le-Preux, a small French town that was the site of an almost-unbelievable First World War battle.
For nine hours, a group of merely ten allied soldiers — of them, nine members of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment — held back a German advance that aimed to take the town of Monchy-le-Preux in April 1917.
Hundreds of their fellow soldiers had been killed or captured earlier in the day, but the “Monchy 10” were able to hold out for hours until reinforcements could arrive. They successfully halted the advance of some 200 German troops, perhaps by fooling the enemy and convincing them their numbers were much greater.
“In our town, we’re lucky to have ten heroes,” Olivier Degauquier, the town’s mayor, told CTV News in a French-language interview.
Monchy-le-Preux’s mayor Olivier Degauquier. (CTV News)
“We’re always searching, our youth especially, in video games or in movies, for heroes that are exaggerated or invented,” he said. “But these men weren’t invented. They’re real. They existed.”
In May, to coincide with a visit from Canadian officials who were in France for the repatriation of an Unknown Newfoundland Soldier, the mayor and other town officials helped organize a ceremony at the town’s own caribou monument.
It’s one of six monuments in Europe that recognizes Newfoundland and Labrador’s contributions in the First World War.
The caribou statue has been there for decades. Street art near the town hall has created a second, modern interpretation, but Degauquier admits the battle fell out of memory for a time in the small town with a population of about 700 people.
“We had the monuments, we had a caribou, but we didn’t really know what it represented anymore,” he said. “I was surprised when I came into office to learn that roads on the other side of the Atlantic were called Monchy-le-Preux, but us, we didn’t have anything.”
Since he came into office in 2020, he said, he’s started to work to re-establish some links to Newfoundland and Labrador and to Canada.
He created a special council post in charge of the heritage of the community. He said his council has also put more importance on involving schoolchildren with ceremonies and memorials inside the town.
The mayor’s council has also put more importance on involving schoolchildren with ceremonies and memorials inside the town. (CTV News)
In May, at a ceremony with Canadian officials, children from the grade school nearby laid wreaths commemorating the roughly 300 Newfoundlanders who were killed or captured at Monchy-le-Preux.
“People who come here from outside the country, they often come to visit the caribou,” said Abigaëlle Van Londersele, speaking to CTV News in French.
“The Canadians came to help us, because it was really bad during the war.”
Degauquier says this war story has a lot of modern applications, especially in what he called an increasingly complicated world.
“All wars end in peace,” he said. “Maybe we can start with peace, and avoid the war altogether.”