The French connection

WORDS: LYDIA MONIN / IMAGERY: ROBERT HANSON

A French town liberated by Kiwi soldiers during World War I will soon be home to New Zealand’s first war museum in Europe

The walled medieval fortress town of Le Quesnoy sits in a river valley in the northeastern corner of France. It’s been on the front line in wars and battles for the best part of two millennia and was occupied by the German army for most of World War I – that is, until the town was liberated by New Zealand soldiers.

On the other side of the world the memory of that battle has faded, but that’s about to change. Thanks to the renovation of a 19th-century mansion house in the heart of Le Quesnoy and an Oscarwinning creative team, New Zealand is about to open its first war museum in Europe.

Herb Farrant, President of the New Zealand Military Historical Society, first visited Le Quesnoy in 1995 and has kept going back.

“With Le Quesnoy being the culmination of the New Zealand Division’s service in the Great War, it became obvious to me from about 2000 that we needed to do something about it.”

Seven days before the Armistice, New Zealand troops surrounded Le Quesnoy, with its deep, wide moat and strong ramparts. Bombardment wasn’t possible because there were too many civilians trapped inside, so they employed a medieval tactic: scaling the walls by ladder. But instead of arrows, it was German machine gun fire raining down on them. One-hundred-and-forty-seven New Zealand soldiers died as a result of that day’s fighting, while all the townspeople were spared.

The taking of Le Quesnoy was a significant action during the Battle of the Sambre – the last operation of the Hundred Days Offensive that ended World War I.

“The skill and valour with which the stronghold was carried are beyond praise,” reported a Reuters’ war correspondent.

Expecting to see British troops, the residents of Le Quesnoy were surprised to discover who their rescuers were, says Herb.

“The great comment on all New Zealand monuments relating to the Great War is ‘From the uttermost ends of the Earth’.”

Le Quesnoy still honours the nation that came to its aid. There’s a school named after the first soldier over the wall and New Zealand-related road signs. In 1999 Le Quesnoy was twinned with Cambridge in Waikato.

Herb started annual battlefield tours of the Western Front for relatives of New Zealanders who’d served in World War I, and knew the civic authorities in Le Quesnoy. In 2004 he spoke to the mayor about a museum, but nothing came of it until he got a former New Zealand deputy prime minister involved.

Sir Don McKinnon recalls Herb stopping him around a decade ago to ask whether he’d heard of Le Quesnoy. Sir Don admits he knew little about the town before he visited for the first time in 1995, as part of Anzac Day commemorations as the then Minister of Foreign Affairs. He felt the place should have had more recognition, so he agreed to help Herb with the development of a museum and visitor centre.

Sir Don became chair of the New Zealand Memorial Museum Trust, set up to raise money from private donations. There was a further boost after the 2014 election of a new Le Quesnoy mayor, Marie-Sophie Lesne, who strongly supported the project, believing the museum to be “an undeniable asset for the town” that “will allow visitors to witness the friendship which has united us since 4 November 1918”.

As commemorations for the centenary of World War I got underway, it was announced that the Australian government was funding a new and very expensive war museum in France.

“That probably prompted a few people to think about it; that no government – and I was part of government – had ever felt a pressure to do something like this,” says Sir Don. However, he says, the current government has allowed a tax benefit for New Zealand donors, who have committed the millions needed to commence the renovation and plan the visitor experience, with the trust still seeking further contributions to bring the project to fruition.

In 2017 the museum finally found a home. Marie-Sophie Lesne helped the trust to purchase a 19th-century mansion house inside the walls of Le Quesnoy. Recently vacated by the local gendarmerie, it came with eight 1950s maisonettes, a stand-alone cottage, a garage and a hectare of land.

In 2022 Wētā Workshop, the creator of the Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War exhibition for the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, joined the Le Quesnoy project. Wētā Workshop’s artists, technicians and craftspeople will create an interactive visitor experience based on human stories “whether you’re talking about the soldier from Waipukurau or the French family who hid in the basement of their house for weeks on end”, says Sir Don. Wētā Workshop’s installation will feature New Zealand’s involvement throughout World War I.

London-based New Zealander Robert Hanson is the trust’s architectural advisor. He’s liaising with the trust, Wētā Workshop and the French architect working on the project to ensure that Wētā Workshop’s creation respects the original building and doesn’t adversely affect any future changes to the property.

“Every object’s got to be lit and it’s got to have a cable going back to the data room … I want to make sure we know where those cables are along the floor or the ceiling so that in future we know where to go to open it up and modify or take them out.”

The mansion house was built between 1873 and 1892 by Achille Carlier senior, who would later become deputy mayor of Le Quesnoy and a member of parliament. Carlier’s widow held talks on horticulture at the house in 1904 and Achille Carlier junior was the town’s mayor at the outbreak of World War I. He ended up spending almost a year in German prisons for harbouring wounded French and British soldiers in the local hospital. Carlier remained mayor of Le Quesnoy until 1919.

The gendarmerie took over the property in the early 1950s, installing metal windows and covering up ornate ceilings and partitioned rooms.

Transforming the mansion house into a museum involves part restoration, part modernisation. Original tiles in the main entrance area and a grand staircase are being restored, and timber windows will replace the metal ones. The external walls will be insulated, a lift has been put in, and the ground and first floors have been strengthened. The second floor is being converted into offices, a conference room, a kitchen, a bathroom and data rooms.

No decision has been made on the fate of the 1950s maisonettes, but accommodation for travellers is an option under consideration. On the extensive grounds are birch trees, mature cherry trees and lawns – and a recently discovered gravestone. Bearing the date 1631, it depicts an angel and is thought to be connected to a 12th-century abbey that once stood on the site of the mansion house.

It’s hoped the museum will open to the public in late 2023. And it’s hoped that like Gallipoli, Le Quesnoy will become a place of pilgrimage – a new stop on every young New Zealander’s OE.

“Virtually every travel agent in this country will say, ‘You’re going to Paris? Why don’t you go up the road for two hours and see something that’s important to this country’s military heritage?’” says Herb.

Anyone who makes it to Le Quesnoy from New Zealand will get a warm welcome.

“You only need to whisper that you’re a New Zealander,” says Sir Don, “and people are offering to help you, buy you a drink, buy you a cup of coffee.” https://nzmmtlq.nz/

Empire City: Wellington Becomes the Capital of New Zealand

John E Martin

(Te Herenga Waka University Press) RRP $70, hardback

The opening to this academically robust and generously presented history of Wellington is strangely unpeopled. Ghosting through the late 1870s city, we get the lay of the land and the landmarks on it, but no bodies between them.

Thankfully, the pages are soon populated by a fascinating cast of characters, as ex-parliamentary historian John E Martin eloquently recounts a transformation of the harbour settlement from the early 1800s to a capital city in 1865 through their stories.

As well as the usual suspects (Featherston, Governor Grey,

Te Rauparaha, Plimmer, Wi Tako and various Wakefields), John weaves in stories of lessexalted figures – for example, J H Wallace, who, with his wife, lost six children to scarlet fever in 1865 after campaigning for urgently needed improvements to sanitation systems.

With 23 maps and more than 350 beautifully reproduced photos and illustrations, the narrative is largely chronological. Each chapter also follows a theme, which adds a satisfying complexity to the reading.

The subject matter remains wide ranging and built heritage features prominently, with regular overviews of Wellington streets and their buildings, creating a timelapse of familiar and forgotten landmarks.

Working-class struggles aren’t given as much airtime as the manipulation of government policy for personal gain by those in power. However, the many stories of the evolving city together testify to the unceasing challenge of sustaining a settlement, and then a city.

A complicated tension will arise for some readers who both champion the colonial story of Wellington becoming the city they love, but also see, through a post-colonial lens, the trauma and sacrifices of tangata whenua that made it possible: the almost complete eclipsing of Te Aro Pā by the “tide of industry and housing”, for example, and the rapid disintegration of the coastal communities by “the March of purchase”.

It’s not a simple tale of conquest, however, and John does justice to the multifaceted dynamics of power, conflict, ambition and luck, and the many twists, turns, allegiances and divisions that saw “a fishing village like Wellington” become a nation’s capital city.