Moulin-sous-Touvent German Military Cemetery

Historical Information (Source: Volksbund)

1903 German war dead First World War.  1,903 fallen rest in individual graves. Six of them remained unnamed. Of these, over 1,000 died in 1918.

The German military cemetery Moulin-sous-Touvent was laid out in July 1920 by the French military authorities as a collective cemetery to accommodate the German war dead from scattered field graves and temporary burial sites. The additions were made from 34 parish areas in a sector northwest of Moulin at distances of up to 25 km and were completed by 1927.

Moulin and the surrounding towns were among the areas that were particularly fiercely fought over in the first and last years of the war. The Inf.Reg. "Bremen" (1st Hanseatic League) No. 75, who died in the fighting on September 20th and 21st, 1914 in this area when they fended off a first attempt at encirclement by the French after the Battle of the Marne and the retreat to Oise and Aisne.

Then it remained relatively quiet in this section of the front until March 1917, apart from fighting in June 1915. In mid-March, the German troops retreated to the so-called "Siegfried Position" - Moulin and the surrounding area became a French leg. However, the majority of those buried here died during the major battles and numerous skirmishes from spring to autumn 1918. The major German attack on March 21 towards Amiens, the German attack between Reims and Soissons at the end of May and the attack between Noyon and Soissons deserve special mention on May 30, 1918 and the Allied counterattack - for the first time with strong American support - which began on July 18 and ended in this area with a withdrawal of German troops at the end of September 1918.