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Jeroboams and Jerrys: the untold story of how the champagne region helped win the First World War
The white headstones of over 400 British soldiers gleam in the autumn sunshine. Just beyond the wall that circles the cemetery at Chambrecy, the land rises and the slope is striped with vines that are heavy with champagne grapes. Walk away from the road and, hidden among glades of trees, you can find trenches close by, their sandbags and barbed wire still intact.
It's an odd juxtaposition, but these peaceful hills and valleys are home both to the most luxurious of all sparkling wines and the battlefields of the First World War where, 100 years ago, in the summer of 1918, Germany launched - and lost - its last major offensive on the Western Front.
Champagne's position in north-eastern France sealed its fate as a site of conflict not just through the 20th century, but as far back as 451AD, when Attila the Hun was defeated in the Battle of Châlons (the city is now the headquarters of Joseph Perrier champagne). The gentle slopes of this wine region lie on the intersection of two old trade routes, which ran north-south between Flanders and northern Italy, and east-west from Germany to Paris.
It is centred on the town of Epernay, and the great city of Reims, in whose magnificent cathedral 25 kings of France were crowned, from Louis VIII in 1223 to Charles X in 1825. From Reims, it is just 90 miles - or a few days' march - to Paris, which made the city a key stronghold for the Allies to retain, and the Germans to take.
For most of the First World War, the Champenois were right on the front line. The vineyards of the hilly Montagne de Reims lay within earshot of shelling, some of those of the Vallée de la Marne became battlegrounds, and the main city was repeatedly under attack. They resisted by keeping going: making wine, and opening up their cavernous chalk champagne cellars to give shelter to injured soldiers and schoolchildren deep underground. The war came quickly to Champagne.
Under the aggressive Schlieffen Plan, the German army began advancing through Belgium towards France in August 1914. By 3 September, it was at the gates of Reims and Epernay. Aware that the city was about to be besieged, the mayor of Reims posted a set of instructions to his citizens, preparing them for occupation, and advising them to 'garder tout votre sang-froid' - to, in effect, keep calm and carry on.
In Epernay, the mayor was a certain Maurice Pol-Roger who, with his brother Georges, ran the eponymous champagne house (following the Second World War, Pol Roger became famous as Winston Churchill's favourite champagne).
As residents fled to safety, Maurice announced, "I will stay [in Epernay] no matter what happens, to reassure and comfort those who wish to leave but cannot. And I will do all that is humanly possible to defend them." Maurice was decisive and sure of himself; one who knew him at the time later wrote that "his character, perhaps too authoritarian for peacetime, was found to be of great benefit in critical and difficult circumstances... He was, during an exceptional time, the man of the hour."
A book on the history of Pol Roger recounts how those leadership qualities were called on almost immediately when, on the eve of the occupation, it was discovered that "all municipal funds had been removed by the chief of police and other senior servants, who had deserted their posts and fled".
Maurice arranged for the overnight printing of special coupons that could be used in place of bank notes, and decreed that anyone refusing to accept them as currency could be arrested. Epernay was occupied for eight days. As mayor, Maurice found himself at the forefront of tough negotiations.
For instance, when a German sentry complained that a local had wounded his foot, the Germans threatened to burn down the town - a foreshadowing of their reprisals against partisans during the Second World War - unless Maurice could deliver the culprit. When his team proved the sentry had wounded himself, the Germans climbed down. Four times Maurice was threatened with execution and four times he managed to survive.
Meanwhile, a bloody counter-attack was being waged along the course of the river Marne, an eastern tributary of the Seine, which flows through and gives its name to one of Champagne's key grape-growing regions, the Vallée de la Marne. The Battle of the Marne lasted a week and saw some of the worst bloodshed of the First World War, with almost half a million casualties. The French army sent fresh troops from Paris by taxi, eventually forcing a German retreat out of Reims and Epernay.
Still, now and for the rest of the war, Reims remained a city that was under bombardment. The front line looped around its northern side and down to the Fort de la Pompelle in the south-east. Many of those who could leave did so. At the start of 1914, Reims was home to over 100,000 people. A few weeks after the start of the war, only around 50,000 were left. In 1915 that number dropped to 20,000; after the civilian evacuation in spring 1917 only about 1,200 remained.
As war broke out, the grape growers of Champagne were nearing harvest time, and 1914 was an excellent year. With the men at war, the grapes were picked by women, old people and children, with those in the Montagne de Reims working to the soundtrack of cannon explosions and shelling. Finding hands to pick the fruit was not the only logistical challenge, though.
The French military authorities had blocked traffic in the area, making it hard for those champagne houses based in Reims city centre to move fruit and barrels around. Ad hoc arrangements prevailed, with one producer taking in barrels of grapes for another.
These were desperate and fearful times. During the course of the war, Reims suffered 1,151 days of artillery shelling, and some days more than 1,000 shells rained down. Eighty per cent of the historic centre was destroyed by the end of 1918.
But Champagne had a ready-made refuge: deep below the ground, underneath both Reims and Epernay, there is a labyrinth of hundreds of miles of tunnels carved into the chalk. The champagne houses flung them open to offer shelter to civilians and soldiers - and, underground, an alternative city flourished.
"At the beginning, there were daily shellings and always to the same schedules, so some took their picnics, went outside Reims in the morning and came back in the afternoon," says Isabelle Pierre, historian for Veuve Clicquot, Krug and Ruinart champagnes.
On 19 September 1914, incendiary shells set fire to scaffolding on Reims cathedral. During their short occupation, the Germans had used the cathedral as a hospital, storing straw around the door, and this acted as kindling for the blaze. The roof timbers went up in flames so hot that they melted 400 tons of roofing lead, which poured down through the open mouths of the gargoyles. On the same day, the protestant church was also damaged.
After this, some champagne houses made part of their cellars available for services. In others, they occasionally played films. At Krug, they managed to manoeuvre a Christmas tree into their cellar for the festive celebrations. One famous picture - currently part of an exhibition in Reims cathedral - shows a woman called Elisabeth Journé lying in bed holding her swaddled baby, Albert.
Behind the bed, you can see row upon row of champagne bottles - young Albert was born on 18 December 1914 in the Krug cellars - and Mme Journé wrote a note to Mrs Joseph Krug thanking her for her hospitality and sending her best wishes for the New Year.
The three big champagne players of the era were Mumm, Moët and Pommery, which between them produced around 10 million bottles of champagne a year - a third of the region's total. Mumm was founded in 1852 by members of a noble German family - the von Mumms - who had not applied to become French nationals.
When war broke out, the property was confiscated, champagne production was stopped, and the cellars became home to a primary school called L'Ecole Joffre, as well as a refuge for soldiers. Taittinger and Veuve Clicquot, meanwhile, gave over space to military hospitals to treat wounded soldiers.
It might have been safe down here but it wouldn't have been particularly comfortable. Walking through the crayères (chalk caves) today - some cavernous and huge, the legacy of old Roman quarrying; others narrow and efficient - what you mostly notice is the damp (chalk can absorb up to 40 per cent of its own weight in moisture) and the cold chill this gives the air.
People used shipping crates as tables, lit the dank corridors with candles and petrol lamps, and installed tables, seats and beds between the stacks of bottles.
Use a torch to scan the walls of many of these cellars and you can see graffiti scratched into them by those who sheltered here - a German helmet, a name, a red cross or a motto. It was forbidden to criticise the war effort, so frustrations were expressed covertly. Underground at Taittinger, someone has etched into the wall in Ancient Greek, "Too much suffering".
The network was so extensive that, in some places, it allowed Allied troops to gain underground access through no man's land and arrive at the trenches of the Western Front unseen.
Aerial duels were played out in the skies above the champagne vineyards - starting with the first recorded aerial combat of all time on 5 October 1914, when Sergeant Joseph Frantz and Corporal Louis Quénault intercepted and shot down a German Aviatik. On 25 May 1917, Sous-Lieutenant René Dorme, a French fighter ace who had previously notched up 23 aviation victories, was killed when he crashed into the ground by the Fort de la Pompelle after diving towards a German plane.
In July 1918, the Germans launched their last big offensive of the First World War on the Western Front. The intention was to lure the Allied troops away from Flanders to the Marne, by launching diversionary attacks to both the east and west of Reims, in what became known as the Second Battle of the Marne.
In the east, the French set up a false line of trenches, manned by just a few sacrificial souls, which took heat out of the initial German bombardment. In the west the Germans advanced into the Marne, crossing the river at Dormans, in the heart of champagne country.
The Allies launched a massive counter-offensive, with the French army joined by about 85,000 US troops as well as reinforcements from Britain and Italy. The barrage went on for several days and the bloodshed was devastating - the Allies lost about 120,000 men, the Germans 168,000 - but the battle was a pivotal one; the beginning of the end.
Today, if you drive through the champagne vineyards to Dormans, you will see a grand monument standing on the hillside, overlooking the river. Built on a site chosen by Marshal Foch, its ossuary contains the remains of 1,500 unknown soldiers.
Inside the chapel, 100 steps lead you up the tower and on to the roof, from where you look down across the turquoise band of the river Marne, as it meanders through fields, vineyards and villages. "Where exactly did they fight the Second Battle of the Marne?" I asked Hélène Mehault, a First World War expert and the director of the Centre d'Interpretation Marne at Suippes, who was with me. She waved an arm slowly across the entire panorama.
They say 2018 will be a superb year for champagne. The long, warm summer has brought in grapes that are abundant and high in quality. Perhaps, as we approach the centenary of Armistice Day, the harvest will pay tribute to those who lost their lives defending this ground, as well as to the tenacious spirit of those Champenois whose act of defiance in the darkest of times was to keep going.
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