Augustin Trébuchon was a normal young lad, although his childhood was anything but normal. His mother died when he was eight and he and his four younger brothers and sisters were raised by their father Joseph, in the French village of Montchabrier in the Lozère.
The Lozère region is very mountainous and young Augustin enjoyed running up the steep slopes and descending at full pace.
Joseph died when Augustin was just seventeen and the youngest sister was twelve. It was decided by the village priest that the four young children should be sent to orphanages leaving Augustine alone. He remained in the family home. He never married and was a communal shepherd tending his sheep in the beloved mountain slopes. He played accordion at village marriages before volunteering for the army on 4th August 1914.
He joined the 415th Infantry Regiment as a messenger. He had already served in the second battle of the Marne and at Verdun, Artois and the Somme before arriving in the Ardennes near the end of the war. He had twice been wounded, including a bad injury to his left arm from an exploding shell. Augustin was promoted to the rank of Soldat de Première Classe (Private First Class) in September 1918. His commanding officer said he was ‘‘a good soldier having always achieved his duty, of remarkable calm, setting the best example to his young comrades’.’
On the 11th November he was summoned to his commanding officer’s headquarters and given an envelope.
‘Private, this message will inform the commander of the 163rd Infantry that the armistice will take effect at precisely 11a.m. today. It is imperative you get this message through. We don’t want any more French blood spilt on this God-forsaken battlefield.’
At Vrigne-sur-Meuse, in the Ardennes, the 163rd Infantry Division was ordered to attack an elite German unit, the ‘Hannetons’. General Henri Gouraud told his men to cross the Meuse River and to attack ‘as fast as possible, by whatever means and regardless of cost’.
It has been speculated that the attack was to end any possible hesitation or doubts by German negotiators at Compiègne. General Foch, the French commander, believed the Germans were reluctant to sign and so ordered Général Philippe Pétain to press on across the Meuse River.
Trébuchon was halfway between Sedan and Charleville-Mézières. Rain was falling and the Meuse was flooding. Its width was put at seventy metres. The temperature was well below freezing. Warfare had destroyed bridges across the river and sappers worked by night and in fog to build a plank footbridge across a lock. There had been no reconnaissance of the other bank because bad weather had kept the spotter plane on the ground. Around seven hundred men crossed the river a little after 8 am, taking a telephone wire with them. Some fell in the river and the first deaths of the battle were by drowning.
The fog cleared at 10.30 am and the French could see the German positions a little higher up, a few hundred metres away. The French were spread over three kilometres between the Meuse and a railway line. The Germans opened fire with machine guns. The French sent up a spotter plane now that the fog had lifted and the artillery on the other bank could open fire without fear of killing their own. Darkness fell at 6 pm and the battle continued until news of the Armistice arrived.
The last of the ninety-one French soldiers to die after 11th November was Augustin Trébuchon – he was 40 years old. He fell near the railway line with his message still in his hand.
The Armistice followed and the French withdrew without honouring their dead. Ninety-one brave French soldiers were left in the mud and slime, never to be buried with full honours. They all died after the war had ended. Augustin was named as the last French casualty of the war.