Jersey Flag
The Channel Islands and the Great War
Guernsey Flag
 

Le courage et la revanche

An account of André de Gailhard-Bancel and his family


L'introduction: The name of André de Gailhard-Bancel is to be found on the 'French Consulate Memorial' in St Thomas Roman Catholic Church in Jersey. At first glance, his surname is not, in the least, one that features in the Island's Telephone Directory between De Freitas and De Garis. However André (or Marie Joseph Roche André to be more precise, although André will be used throughout), had been in Jersey for an, as yet, indeterminate period up to the outbreak of the Great War. This article looks at his family, his life and his death.

Le contexte: In the turbulent century for France that followed its Revolution, the Island of Jersey would become a home, albeit a temporary one in many cases, to many Frenchmen. There would be the notable exiles such as the writer Victor Hugo, between 1852 and 1855, and the former French War Minister, General Georges Ernest Boulanger, from 1889 to 1891. Meanwhile, from the early 1850s there would also be many Bretons and Normans who, seeking labour would be employed on farms throughout the Island, many of them staying, their families to become an important part of the present day community.

Meanwhile, during the latter half of the 19th Century the French state was taking a more secular posture, and seeking to reduce the influence of the church on the state, and in particular the Roman Catholic Church. As a result, the 1870s and 1880s were a period when there was an influx, into Jersey, of French priests and nuns from the various orders. One such order that came was the Society of Jesus, or as they are more usually known, the Jesuits.

In 1880, they had been forced to leave their seminary at Laval. However, with the assistance of British Jesuits, they acquired the Imperial Hotel on St Saviour's Road for this purpose, thus enabling the Jesuit scholastics to carry on with their religious education and studies. The Hotel would be renamed as the Maison Saint-Louis.

Back in France, laws were also passed that mandated that the provision of all education was to be secular, i.e. non-clerical. Consequently, the Jesuits would also be obliged to relocate their French Naval Preparatory School from Brest to Jersey, thereby continuing to provide students with the necessary training (but without the practical work) to enter the École Navale at Brest. The School was originally established in Waverley Terrace in St Helier, but it later moved to Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours in St Saviour, the building which currently houses Highlands College.

In 1900, the flow of students from the Preparatory School to the École Navale would cease thanks to further French laws that now excluded foreign trained candidates. These laws were, in part, possibly the result of envy generated by the fact that the School had trained more than 20% of the 1586 young men who had entered the École between 1882 and 1900. However, this has not meant to be a history of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours and Maison Saint-Louis, or indeed, the Roman Catholic Church in Jersey (For that it is suggested that the reader might wish to read 'Deo Gratias' by Diana Moore or 'A History of Highlands College' by Eileen Nicolle), rather that it sets the scene.

But, from 1900 and throughout the period of the Great War, Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours and Maison Saint-Louis would both continue to function, the former as a school, particularly for the sons of French parents who recognised the value of Jesuit education as well as novices for the priesthood, the latter as a seminary. One of the more notable students who attended at this time was the well-known Jesuit priest, Teilhard de Chardin, who attended both institutions between 1901 and 1905, and who, during the Great War, would become a stretcher bearer.

Unsurprisingly, de Chardin would not be the only individual from either Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours or Maison Saint-Louis who served during the Great War. Of the former students at Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, 350 would be mobilised, of which 81 would give their lives 'pour la France'. Meanwhile, while it is not known how many from Maison Saint-Louis were mobilised, 52 from the Jesuit Order would also die. André de Gailhard-Bancel was one such man.

La famille de Gailhard-Bancel: André's father was Hyacinthe de Gailhard-Bancel (1849-1936), an advocate who became a politician, and who was a member of the Action Libérale Populaire. He was a Deputy for the Ardèche departement from 1899 to 1910, and again from 1912 to1924 when he retired from politics. He had married Therèse Marey (1852-1879), and they had a daughter, Marie (1875-1919), and a son, Louis (1878-1918). Dying of wounds in a military hospital at Sézanne, Marne on the 2nd August, 1918, Louis had risen to the rank of Chef d'Escadron (the equivalent of a Major in the British Army). In 1920 he would be recognised with the Officer's grade of the Légion d'Honneur.

Widowed in 1879, Hyacinthe would again marry, this time to Amélie Bergasse (1860-1943), and they would have four sons, Henry (1884-1944), Maurice (1885-1972), André (1887-1914), and Pierre (1888-1914). Maurice would go on to be a Doctor of Law, but Henry's circumstances prove fascinating, if not macabre, and we will return to him later. The Livre d'Or for the French clergy stated that the five brothers had been mobilised of whom three had been killed and another wounded. Clearly, the three dead were Louis, André and Pierre, while it is not known whether it was Henry or Maurice who had been wounded.

Le courage: Turning to André, we find that he was born in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, on the 10th March, 1887. At the outbreak of the Great War he was studying at Maison Saint-Louis, when the French Army was mobilised. As a reservist he promptly left Jersey for France, and headed off to Montélimar where the 252e Régiment d'Infanterie was based, joining the Régiment's 19e Compagnie on the 3rd August, 1914 in the rank of Sergent. A few days later, the Régiment, as part of the 128e Brigade, would join the 64e Division in the divisional concentration area near Gap, staying there from the 8th to the 20th August, before heading northwards by train to Bayon where it disembarked on the 21st August.

Initially the Régiment was assigned to digging trenches in the areas around the villages of Saffais, Ferrières, Barbonville, Velaine and Buissoncourt, as these areas lay on the line of a German advance on Nancy. André was very likely in action at Buissoncourt where the Régiment had its first soldier killed, and when a German attack was successfully repulsed by the 17e and the 19e Compagnies.

Between the 25th August and the 25th September, the Régiment would be holding the line at Buissoncourt and then Cercueil and Erbéviller, although an action at La Bouzule on the 8th September would see it lose 23 men killed, 25 wounded and another 45 missing. On the 25th September the 252e Régiment received orders to march to Mandres-aux-Quatres-Tours via Gondreville, a distance, in all, of 44 miles (70 kilometres). Leaving Erbéviller at 17.00 hours that evening, they reached their destination, the following day at 23.00 hours, an excellent performance, given that less than two months previously, the men were still civilians.

Despite its extreme fatigue, the Régiment was roused at 04.00 the following morning, the 27th, and would perform superbly in finally stopping the Germans who had been trying to achieve a breakthrough. Then, being heavily shelled, it crossed the Beaumont crest and advanced several hundred yards towards its objectives. The attack resumed the following day, with the 22e and 23e Compagnies leading. Again, under heavy artillery fire, the Régiment were ordered to stop and dig in a few hundred yards short of the road between Richecourt and Seicheprey. That night a German counter-attack was again repulsed. These two days had cost the 252e Régiment a further 43 dead and 216 wounded.

Resuming the attack on the 1st October, the Régiment was now being caught in cross-fire from the Germans, who held positions of dominance. Nevertheless, with a fresh attack on the 4th October, a further advance was made and its objective, a small wood, was at last reached. In the days that now followed, the trenches were organised and at night, these were being pushed towards the enemy.

With the Régiment's increasing number of losses in terms of deaths and injuries, André was promoted Sous-Lieutenant on the 5th October, yet would continue to serve in the Régiment's 19e Compagnie with his younger brother Pierre, also a Sous-Lieutenant, as his Company Commander (but possibly granted the acting rank of Lieutenant).

During the remainder of October and throughout November, the 252e Régiment now adopted what would become part of daily life for most of the men on both sides of the line, static trench warfare. Strengthening and improving the defences, trying to advance towards the enemy, patrolling and carrying out reconnaissance became the order of the day, and more often the night! Then, on the 12th December, the Compagnie was tasked to attack German trenches between Saint Baussant and the Bois de la Sonnard, and during this attack, he and his brother would be killed in a classic example of the French military philosophy of 'l'attaque à outrance'. Broadly translated, the regimental history describes what happened as follows:

'On the 12th December, the 252e Régiment d'Infanterie took part in the attack that was conducted by the 64e Division, the 128e Brigade having, as its objectives, the German trenches that had been established on the plateau to the north of the Bois de Remières. This attack, hindered by torrential rain and the mud which had made the rifles unusable, failed with heavy losses. The 19e Compagnie was the only one to reach the first line German trenches and would hold their position until nightfall. But, surrounded, the Compagnie lost a large number of its men, including all of the officers, namely Sous-Lieutenants Pierre and André de Gailhard-Bancel, and Sous-Lieutenant Auguste Elie Doladille.'

Turning to the Livre d'Or once more, it states that he was shot, while nearby and a few minutes later, his brother was killed also. It also stated that, before this final, fateful attack, he had called his section together, given the men some words of encouragement, and then recited an act of contrition with them. It is not clear from the Régiment's Journaux des Marches et Opérations (the equivalent of the British Army's War Diaries) as to the number of casualties that the 19e Compagnie had suffered, but, they were too weak to resist persistent German counter-attacks, and so the survivors were forced to withdraw at nightfall.

Today one can picture the cold, sodden poilus with 20 inch bayonets fixed to their otherwise useless rifles, wearing the bright scarlet pantalons of that period, and led by their young officers, brandishing swords and pistols, exhorting them forward, all charging up the slope towards the Germans in the lashing rain (the Germans were never daft in trying to hold the higher ground during the Great War). One may question the wisdom of those who ordered such attacks but the courage of those who carried them out can never be doubted.

In the 252e Régiment's Orders, number 66bis, dated 8th February, 1915, it would state that André had: 'Gloriously fallen on the field of honour', while the 64e Divisional Orders, number 169, dated 28th May, 1915 contained the following citation:

'He was killed on the 12th December, 1914 carrying out his duty with admirable bravery and energy during the attack on the German trenches on the plateau to the north of the Bois de Remières.'

Both brothers would be awarded the Croix de Guerre avec Palme et Etoile d'Argent for their bravery and leadership.

La revanche: We turn to André's brother Henry. In 1900 he had entered the École Navale at Brest, and two years later would be commissioned into the French Navy. Interestingly, his intake at the École Navale was a year behind that of the future Admiral Darlan! As far as can be seen, he did not rise above the rank of Lieutenant de Vaisseau (the equivalent of a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy). Later, between the two world wars he appears to have become a trustee of a co-operative syndicate for local farmers.

During the Second World War, following the fall of France in 1940, the lower half of France would be run by the Vichy government in a fashion that was 'more German than the Germans'! There were deportations of Jews and other 'undesirables', while it would establish La Milice Française to seek out and capture or kill members of the French Resistance. Indeed, the Milice would, in due course, take their orders directly from Berlin. However, in the aftermath of France's liberation in 1944, many of those who had cooperated, collaborated or had operated against their fellow Frenchmen were subject to summary, sometimes rough, justice.

Henry may have been a Vichy supporter, collaborator, or even worse, for on the 29th September, 1944, along with five other men, he was assassinated!

The six men were being held in a Detention Centre in Valence, having been tried as members of the Milice or as collaborators. Two had received death sentences at their Courts Martial established by the Free French Forces of the Interior, but which were then commuted to 20 years hard labour. One received an unspecified period of hard labour while another two were held because the Court Martial considered itself insufficiently competent to judge them. In Henry's case, it was still being assessed as to whether there was sufficient evidence to justify a trial. During the early evening, two men posing as Police turned up and were clearly there to distract the two guards. Not long after, twenty armed men entered, menaced the guards who were obviously unwilling to offer resistance and the six were then taken out, bundled into four waiting cars which then sped off. During the night they were shot!

The following morning the body of one of the men was found hanging from a clock tower in a square in Valence with a sign saying: 'So are punished traitors!' Not long after, a van would be parked in the same square and the bodies of the other five, including that of Henry, would be found inside. Whatever the justification, this was an inglorious end to his life!

Enfin: Finally we return to André de Gailhard-Bancel one last time. On the 5th March, 1920, he would be recognised as a Chevalier in the order of the Legion d'Honneur as indeed his brother Pierre was also. The citation for this award reads as follows:

'A Section [Platoon] Leader of exemplary courage who was motivated by the highest sense of duty. He died gloriously, at the head of his Section, during the attack at Saint Baussant on the 12th December, 1914.'

While the Ministère de la Défense SGA graves database does not list either he or his two brothers, the Livre d'Or does contain the statement that: 'His body was found and reburied in August, 1921'. One assumes that this is correct, and if so, does it suggest that he and Pierre were originally buried where they fell, and, along with Louis, were subsequently buried in the family grave after their bodies were recovered? This is to be determined.

Like many of his compatriots, Sous-Lieutenant André de Gailhard-Bancel was a very courageous young man, who was prepared to do his duty for France, even though French politicians of that time had not always looked favourably on the Jesuits. But, Jersey can also be proud that it was home to him and his fellows, and it is fit and proper that his name, at least, is remembered in St Thomas' Church.

© Barrie H Bertram
29th October, 2012

Acknowledgements:

David O'Mara, WFA: for providing the image and much of the source material
Diana Moore: 'Deo Gratias'
Eileen Nicolle: 'A History of Highlands College'
SGA: 'Journaux des Marches et Opérations'
Unknown: 'Historique du 252e Régiment d'Infanterie pendant la Guerre 1914-1918'

Contact Barrie