Bazeilles

Bazeilles
Commune

The CSSA Club Sportif Sedan Ardennes in Bazeilles

Coat of arms
Bazeilles

Coordinates: 49°40′41″N 4°58′38″E / 49.6781°N 4.9772°E / 49.6781; 4.9772Coordinates: 49°40′41″N 4°58′38″E / 49.6781°N 4.9772°E / 49.6781; 4.9772
Country France
Region Grand Est
Department Ardennes
Arrondissement Sedan
Canton Sedan-3
Intercommunality Ardenne Métropole
Government
 • Mayor (2014–2020) Guy Lepage
Area1 36.14 km2 (13.95 sq mi)
Population (2014)2 2,506
 • Density 69/km2 (180/sq mi)
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
 • Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)
INSEE/Postal code 08053 /08140
Elevation 152–238 m (499–781 ft)
(avg. 156 m or 512 ft)

1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Bazeilles is a commune in the Ardennes department in the Grand Est region of northern France.[1] On 1 January 2017, the former communes of Rubécourt-et-Lamécourt and Villers-Cernay were merged into Bazeilles.[2]

The inhabitants of the commune are known as Bazeillais or Bazeillaises.[3]

The commune has been awarded three flowers by the National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom.[4]

Geography

Bazeilles is located some 4 km south-east of Sedan and 2 km west of Douzy. Access to the commune is by Route nationale 43 (N43) from Sedan in the west which passes through the north of the commune and changes to the D8043 before continuing east to Douzy. Exit  3  Balan lies within the commune which leads to the D764 that goes south to the village. The N43 also links with the beginning of the N58 in the commune which goes north. Other access roads include the D8043A from Balan in the north-west which goes to the village then continues east to join the D8043. The D129 comes from Daigny in the north and passes through the village before continuing south to Remilly-Aillicourt. The D17 from Balan passes through the commune just north of the village and continues east. A railway passes through the south of the commune from east to south-west with no station in the commune. The next station in the east is at Carignan and the next station in the west at Sedan. The commune has a significant sized urban are and a large industrial estate with a very large Unilin plant. The rest of the commune is farmland.[5][6]

The Meuse river forms the south-western border of the commune as it flows north-west to eventually join the Hollands Diep at Lage Zwaluwe (Netherlands). The Chiers river flows from the north-east forming part of the south-eastern border before joining the Meuse in the south-eastern corner of the commune. The Ruisseau de la Givinne flows from the north through the centre of the commune before joining the Meuse in the south.[5][6]

Neighbouring communes and villages[5]
 Balan Daigny La Moncelle
Wadelincourt Douzy
   Bazeilles  
Noyers-Pont-Maugis Remilly-Aillicourt

Toponymy

The name Bazeilles would have appeared in the 6th or 7th century and comes from a variation of the Latin word Basilicatum meaning "church".

Bazeilles appears as Bazeille on the 1750 Cassini Map[7] and the same on the 1790 version.[8]

History

Middle Ages

In the 13th century Bazeilles was a small lordship dependent on the Abbey of Mouzon and the Reims Cathedral before being united with the lordship of Sedan-Balan under the yoke of Gilles II of Hierges. The new lordship of Sedan-Balan-Bazeilles become the "starting point" of the future Principality of Sedan.[9]

It was possible that a small castle guarded the road to Douzy and Yvois (Carignan) and would have been in the northern part of the park of the current Chateau of Orival along the Givonne (rue du General Lebrun).

From 1560-1642 Bazeilles was part of the Principality of Sedan.

Franco-Prussian War

Related article: Battle of Sedan.

Photogravure of Bazeilles (1870) by François Lafon
Painting by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville, The Last Cartridges.
Legion of Honour

During the Battle of Bazeilles on 1 September 1870 the commune was the scene of intense fighting between units of French marines and Bavarian regiments. Under the command of Commander Lambert and Captains Aubert, Bourgey, Delaury, Picard and the Blue Division, in the Bourgerie Inn, a few hundred men and officers resisted until their ammunition was completely exhausted. This moment of history was illustrated by the famous painting by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville painted in 1873: The last cartridges and conserved in Bazeilles in the House of the last cartridge.

During the battle, French civilians actively participated by firing on Bavarian troops and tending to the wounded. Angered by the casualties the civilians inflicted, the Bavarian soldiers killed many of them, setting fire to houses from which the shots were fired. By midday, the whole village was on fire.[10] Captured Franc-tireur partisans, along with other civilians who were considered unlawful combatants, were later executed. Although French propaganda showed massacres of men, women and children, an official French investigation found that only 39 civilians from Bazeilles died.[11] An additional 150 people (10% of the village population) died from injuries in the subsequent months.

Bazeilles was awarded the Legion of Honour on 9 October 1900. Bazeilles is one of the communes where is the action of the novel "La débâcle" by Emile Zola is set.

Second World War

The War Memorial

During the Second World War and during the Phoney War, the command post of the 5th Light Cavalry Division under General Jacques-Marie Chanoine was established in Bazeilles.[12] Then the Battle of France was triggered on 10 May 1940 and the Cavalry Division left for Belgium. A few days later Bazeilles was taken by the 10th Panzer Division under Ferdinand Schaal. Bazeilles was the initial base for the Schützen-Regiment 69 (Infantry from the 10th Panzer-Division), who, on the afternoon of 13 May 1940, launched an attack to cross the Meuse. The attempt was thwarted by the French artillery.[13] At the same time an attempt by the Schützen-Regiment 86 (the other infantry regiment of the 10th Panzer Division) in front of Wadelincourt succeeded and the Schützen-Regiment 69 then swerved then to that sector.[14]

Heraldry

 Blazon:

Party per fess, at 1 party per pale Or, with 3 points of flame Gules and Azure, an anchor of Or; at 2 Gules, a Legion of Honour proper.

Administration

The Meuse at Bazeilles

List of Successive Mayors[15]

From To Name Party Position
1912 1945 Alexandre Abd-El-Nour Independent Radicals Doctor
1973 1989 André Etchegoimberry Butcher
1995 2014 Pierre Sulfourt General Councilor (1992-2004)
2014 2020 Guy Lapage

(Not all data is known)

Demography

In 2012 the commune had 2,022 inhabitants. The evolution of the number of inhabitants is known from the population censuses conducted in the commune since 1793. From the 21st century, a census of communes with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants is held every five years, unlike larger communes that have a sample survey every year.[Note 1]

Population change (See database)
1793 1800 1806 1821 1831 1836 1841 1846 1851
1,062 884 1,081 1,300 1,380 1,386 1,691 1,837 1,951
1856 1861 1866 1872 1876 1881 1886 1891 1896
- - 2,048 1,470 1,768 1,862 1,734 1,525 1,413
1901 1906 1911 1921 1926 1931 1936 1946 1954
1,406 1,352 1,258 1,127 1,171 1,164 1,268 1,176 1,344
1962 1968 1975 1982 1990 1999 2007 2012 -
1,356 1,337 1,376 1,708 1,599 1,879 1,976 2,022 -

Sources : Ldh/EHESS/Cassini until 1962, INSEE database from 1968 (population without double counting and municipal population from 2006)

Bazeilles Industrial zone

Culture and heritage

The Chateau of Orival
The Chateau of Orival Park
The Chateau of Turrenne (now a farmhouse)

Civil heritage

The commune has a number of buildings and sites that are registered as historical monuments:

Notable people linked to the commune

See also

Bibliography

Jacques Rousseau: Bazeilles, origins and mutations, 2002. ISBN 2-84458-008-4.

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ↑ At the beginning of the 21st century, the methods of identification have been modified by Law No. 2002-276 of 27 February 2002 Archived 6 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine., the so-called "law of local democracy" and in particular Title V "census operations" allows, after a transitional period running from 2004 to 2008, the annual publication of the legal population of the different French administrative districts. For communes with a population greater than 10,000 inhabitants, a sample survey is conducted annually and the entire territory of these communes is taken into account at the end of the period of five years. The first "legal population" after 1999 under this new law came into force on 1 January 2009 and was based on the census of 2006.

References

  1. ↑ Bazeilles on Lion1906
  2. ↑ Arrêté préfectoral 15 June 2016 (in French)
  3. ↑ Inhabitants of Ardennes (in French)
  4. ↑ Competition for Towns and Villages in Bloom website Archived December 10, 2014, at the Wayback Machine. (in French)
  5. 1 2 3 Bazeilles on Google Maps
  6. 1 2 Bazeilles on the Géoportail from National Geographic Institute (IGN) website (in French)
  7. ↑ Bazeille on the 1750 Cassini Map
  8. ↑ Bazeille on the 1790 Cassini Map
  9. ↑ 2000 years of History of the Sedanais, P. Congar, 1967 (in French)
  10. ↑ Schmidthuber (Hrsg.): Der deutsch-Französische Krieg 1870/71 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Antheilnahme der Bayern. Auszug aus dem Generalstabswerk, J. F. Rietsch, Landshut 1900, S. 90
  11. ↑ Jan N. Lorenzen: The great battles – myths, people, stories, Routledge, 2006, Frankfurt, p.162 According to other data, 31 civilians were killed, wounded, or were missing due to direct fighting. Dennis A. Showalter: The face of modern warfare. Sedan 1st, and second In September 1870. Stig Förster, Markus Pohlmann, Dierk Walter (ed.): battles in world history. Salamis to Sinai. Munich 2001, p 239
  12. ↑ Jean-Yves Mary, The Corridor of Panzers, Vol. I, Bayeux, Heimdal, 2009, p. 34
  13. ↑ Jean-Yves Mary, The Corridor of Panzers, Vol. I, Bayeux, Heimdal, 2009, p. 243
  14. ↑ Jean-Yves Mary, The Corridor of Panzers, Vol. I, Bayeux, Heimdal, 2009, p. 250
  15. ↑ List of Mayors of France (in French)
  16. ↑ Jean-Marie Pérouse de Montclos (dir.), The Heritage Guide. Champagne Ardenne, Paris, Hachette, 1995, p. 104 ISBN 2-01-020987-7 (in French)
  17. ↑ Ministry of Culture, Mérimée IA08000326 Pasta Factory (in French)
  18. ↑ Ministry of Culture, Mérimée PA00078341 Chateau of Turrenne (in French)
  19. ↑ Ministry of Culture, Mérimée PA00078340 Chateau (in French)
  20. ↑ Ministry of Culture, Mérimée IA080000212 Chateau of Orival Park (in French)
  21. ↑ Ministry of Culture, Mérimée IA08000327 Chateau of Montvillers (in French)
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