Alphonse Tellier, soldier in the 276th Infantry Regiment
The story of an ordinary Brie soldier
Au During the Battle of the Ourcq, a rare event occurred involving a number of soldiers from the French 6th Maunoury Army, recruited from Seine-et-Marne.
They went into battle on 5 September 1914, close to the villages where they were born.
Private Alphonse Tellier went to fight on his own fields!
He tells us about it.
My name is Alphonse Tellier.
I was born on 10 April 1887 in Cuisy, a small village in the Brie region north of Meaux, bordering the Montgé-en-Goële forest.
I work the land, like my father before me. I live on a farm in Iverny.
During the fine summer of 1914, I harvested my fields near Villeroy.
At the beginning of August, I left my farm to join the barracks of the 276th reserve infantry regiment at Coulommiers.
I was 27 years old and belonged to the 19th company of the 5th battalion, regimental number 260.
The regiment was sent to the Lorraine front, then moved by train to a position south of Amiens, before retreating to Paris, trailed by advancing German forces.
On 5 September, I couldn't believe it - we were at Villeroy!
I could see my village steeple from where I was standing!
Maybe I'll be able to sleep at home tonight...
It's half past noon and suddenly shells are falling on our lines!
It was the start of an artillery duel between the French batteries near us at Iverny and the German batteries facing us on the Monthyon hillock.
At around 4 pm, we were ordered to head for Monthyon to protect the Moroccans engaged in Télégraphe wood.
My company deployed in the ditch along the road from Villeroy to Iverny.
The Germans are right in front of us, well sheltered behind a row of trees along the Ru de la Sorcière.
We had to march 600 metres in the open in those fields, in my fields...
Captain Guérin, Lieutenants Péguy and de la Cornillière, sabres at the ready, shouted at us to advance 30 metres!
We made it, but half the men had fallen.
Only Lieutenant Péguy was left to command us and he decided to leap forward again, 30 metres.
We protected ourselves as best we could, but not him.
He stood up and was shot in the head...
Three quarters of the men in the company are either dead or wounded.
I've just been shot in the left shoulder.
We had to do it, we set off from a road, in the open, in our red trousers, facing German machine guns...
I couldn't believe it! We were the only ones to be sacrificed...
I lay there until nightfall. Then I managed to crawl back to Villeroy, with a few survivors. I thought of my fallen comrades, but also of those who had escaped death, like Victor Boudon.
Later, he would even write a book about this battle known as the Battle of the Ourcq... We became friends.
Back to Péguy: a journalist asked me if I knew him well...
I told him I didn't.
I was just a country bumpkin, I'm a country boy, as they say, I only found out afterwards...’
Hero of Iverny
Après After rejoining his regiment, Alphonse Tellier was wounded again in the right lung a year later, on 30 September 1915, in the trenches on the Aisne front, at Marteau Wood, near Soissons.
Hospitalised at auxiliary hospital no. 118 in Courbevoie, he returned to combat after a month's recovery.
On 15 November 1917, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre (for helping to free his comrades buried in a dugout for over an hour under heavy shelling).
On 15 July 1918, during the German offensive in the Second Battle of the Marne, he was taken prisoner east of Reims.
Released after the armistice of 11 November 1918, and then posted to the Fontainebleau regiment, he was demobilised on 12 July 1919.
This was almost 5 years after the outbreak of war.
He was awarded the Médaille Militaire on 26 October 1937, the Médaille de la Marne in September 1960 and the Legion of Honour on 28 December 1961 (this was awarded to him during the commemorations in September 1962).
What a journey for a mere "country bumpkin" as he too modestly defined himself in 1972, when he recounted the fighting and the circumstances of the death of his lieutenant Charles Péguy in the TV programme "Les grandes batailles du passé: La Marne" (The Great Battles of the Past: The Marne).
Every September, he would faithfully attend the commemorations of the Battle of the Marne with Charles Péguy's family and his comrades-in-arms, including Victor Boudon, who was in the same company and author of the book "Avec mon lieutenant Péguy".
A town councillor in Iverny from 1945 to 1965, Alphonse Tellier died on 26 January 1977, aged nearly 90.
He is buried with his wife in Iverny cemetery, not far from the graves of Captain Michel and Lieutenant Whitcomb, who fell on 5 September 1914.
On 11 November 2003, a rue Alphonse Tellier was inaugurated in his village, Iverny, as a tribute.