The Conseil départemental de la Meuse and the City of Saint-Mihiel have decided to inaugurate a new exhibition space. It is dedicated to the history of the Saint-Mihiel Salient during the Great War.
Occupied since September 1914, the city and the sector of the Salient had to live under the laws imposed by the Kommandatur. The civilian population was subjected to restrictions, requisitions and daily bombings. The latter are those of the French army. Indeed, the French army was relentlessly trying to retake the town of Saint-Mihiel and to push the German army out of the territory, whose border was only about 50 kilometers away at that time.
The exhibition “Le Saillant de Saint-Mihiel, de l’occupation à la libération” (The Salient of Saint-Mihiel, from the occupation to the liberation) takes place in the former court house of the city of Saint-Mihiel, rue du Palais de Justice. A wing of the former abbey church houses the exhibition on nearly 400 m².
The themes of the exhibition are as follows:
One can admire many photographs, as well as more than a hundred objects lent by local collectors and from the collection of the Conseil départemental de la Meuse.
Seven audiovisual devices are also available to the public. These projections, on various supports, were made with archival films from the ECPAD, NARA and the Pathé Gaumont Archives. As well as photographs from the Fonds Valois, the Musée de la Cour d’Or in Metz and postcards borrowed from private collections.
Finally, we travel back in time with an immersive scenography that highlights the city’s court past. An experience to be lived in the territory of Land of Memory!