Médaille des Évadés

The Médaille des Évadés (French for "medal of those who escaped") is a medal given by the government of France, to individuals who were prisoners of war and who escaped.

The Médaille was created by a 1926 law, intended to honor combatants not only of the First World War, but also of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. It was later given to combatants of the Second World War as well. It was struck in bronze, being 3 cm in diameter and depicting on the obverse a left-facing bust of Marianne wearing an oak-leaf wreath, and on the reverse a similar wreath encircling the legend "MÉDAILLE DES ÉVADÉS". The suspension ribbon is green watered silk with orange bands.

Those who were eligible for the Médaille had to meet one of the following criteria:

• To have been a French soldier during the First World War, who was taken prisoner, during combat, either in Europe or in an external theater of operations, and who escaped or participated in an unsuccessful escape attempt to which there were surviving witnesses.
• To have been a citizen of Alsace-Lorraine, who, between August 2, 1914 and November 1, 1918, escaped from the German army.
• To have been a civilian interned in Germany, or in occupied territory, who crossed enemy lines on behalf of the French military authority.
• To have been a French citizen who, during the Second World War, successfully escaped from either a prisoner-of-war camp or an internment camp.

One of these medals is part of the Lester Watson Collection recently given to Cambridge in America and housed at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, but they are not uncommon in collectors' terms.

References

This article is based on, but is not a direct translation of, the equivalent article on the French Wikipedia.

Médaille d’honneur pour acte de courage et de dévouement