Do you remember that hour of din before the attack

And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then

As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?

Do you remember the stretcher cases lurching back

With dying eyes and lolling heads – those ashen-grey

Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?...

Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget.

- Aftermath, by Siegfried Sassoon (1919)

Every French town and village has one – from the simple soldier leaning on his rifle to overblown celebrations of mass slaughter. And each one of the estimated 30,000 war memorials that pepper the French landscape lists the names of the sons and brothers, fathers and uncles who travelled to the great slaughterhouses of the Western Front and lie forever under the mud of the Somme and Ypres, Verdun and the Marne. Their sacrifice marked forever by those simple words "Mort Pour La France".

On 9 July 2014 the Tour de France will leave the shadow of the Menin Gate in Ypres, where the Last Post still sounds at sunset, and wend its way over nine sections of cobbles shadowing the route of the "Hell of the North", Paris-Roubaix, before threading its way east and into the once disputed territories of Alsace and Lorraine. Passing the Menin Gate, Arras, the Chemin des Dames, Verdun and Douaumont, the 2014 Tour will pay its respects to the fallen of the first world war – and in doing so it will remember the riders of the Tour de France who died in the "war to end all Wars".

Philippe Thys, the Belgian cyclist who won the Tour de France in 1913, 1914 and 1920. Photograph: Branger/Roger Viollet/Getty Images Photograph: Branger/Roger Viollet/Getty Images

The 1914 Tour should be remembered for Philippe Thys’s second victory (and he would go on to win a third in 1920), but Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip on the 28 June as Thys was stamping his authority on the race by winning the first stage – from Paris to Le Havre – and the events that unleashed the hell of the first world war escalated rapidly throughout the month of July. Six days after the Tour finished, France ordered military mobilisation and, by 3 August, France and Germany were at war.

Despite Desgrange’s desire to run the race in 1915, the Tour was suspended until 1919, when it would return to the battle-scarred roads of France with stages to Strasbourg "le jour de gloire" and Metz "the day of memory". And there would be a new symbol of renewal and rebirth: Le Maillot Jaune. Imagine how the Yellow Jersey must have blazed and glowed as the Tour entered those devastated territories of eastern France.

The Belgians would go on to dominate the postwar years but the reason for their domination may have more to do with the way the guerre mondiale played out than any supposed physical superiority on behalf of the Belgians. While the French lost 1,397,800 young men in combat, the Belgians lost just 58,637.



Belgium was neutral in 1914 and, though her tiny army chose to fight – and created a breathing space for the British and French forces to organise their campaigns in doing so – the country was swiftly occupied. While the French lost a generation of champions on the battlefield, the Belgians endured the German occupation – the "Rape of Belgium".

It hardened attitudes and crystallised a resistance around the idea of Flemish nationalism. And so began the rise of the Flahutes, the hardmen, who were older, tougher and wiser, inured to hardship and with a point to prove. The average age of a Tour de France winner rose sharply from 1919 and didn’t begin to fall again until 1930, when a 26-year-old called André Leducq triumphed for France.

There was one other huge impact on the race. With trade teams unable to individually organise the equipment they needed for their riders to mount an assault on the Tour – so much had been sequestered for the war effort and the market for new bicycles was slim – they were forced to co-operate and ride for the conglomerate La Sportive team in uniform grey jerseys, their team allegiances denoted only by different coloured epaulettes: purple for Peugeot, dark green for Automoto, blue for Alcyon and so on.

It is almost impossible now to imagine the 1914 Tour continuing against the backdrop of the escalating political crisis. During his 200km solo breakaway on stage 13, Francois Faber was followed for part of the way by an armed soldier from one of the French bicyclist battalions yet in the images of the time he rides on oblivious. Desgrange, editorialising in l’Auto on 3 August 1914, was typically bullish:

“It’s a big match that you have to fight: make good use of all your repertoire. Tactics should hold no worries for you. Use your guile and you’ll return…you know all that, my lads, better than me who you’ve been teaching for nearly 15 years. But be careful! When your rifle is pointed at their chest, they’ll ask your forgiveness. Don’t give it to them. Crush them without pity.”

Desgrange stood behind his words and volunteered for the French army as a poilou and served with the infantry, though he was in his fifties by then. He would win the Croix de Guerre for his efforts and continue to write for l’Auto throughout the war. Already his thoughts were turning towards the next Tour de France.

Many of the riders who had competed in the first 11 years of the race would not live to see the 1919 Tour, including three of the great pre-war Tour champions who never returned from the battlefield.

Francois Faber (who won the Tour in 1909 to become the first foreign champion) was killed Mont-Saint-Eloi on 9 May 1915. The Luxembourgeois was fighting in the First Regiment of the Foreign Legion. His body was never found. A monument to him exists in Albain-Saint-Nazaire. He was the "Geant de Colombes" who won six stages, including an unbeaten record five in a row in the 1909 Tour de France to seal the victory and take his place in the history books.



The word panache might have been coined for Faber's exploits in that race; he took one stage with a 255km solo escape to finish 33 minutes ahead of his rivals; he won another by passing over the Ballon d’Alsace, then he raced along the cols Porte, Laffrey and Bayard in first place while the heavens threw all they could muster at him. He was hoisted shoulder high by the crowds in Paris when he sprinted across the final line in the Parc des Princes, his bike on his back, having broken his chain 3km from the finish. Of such stuff was the Geant de Colombes made.

Octave Lapize, who won the Tour in 1910, was shot down on Bastille Day in 1917. Lapize – nicknamed Le Frise for his mop of curls – won the first historic raid through the Pyrenees in 1910 and encapsulated all his anger and frustration in that one word "Assassins!" Lapize was the first rider ever to cross the summit of the Tourmalet – his steel statue, le Geant, is towed to the summit on the first Saturday of June every year. You can ride up alongside him as he makes his way to the top of the climb, into the rarefied air at 2,122m.



French cyclist and 1910 Tour de France winner Octave Lapize stands with his bike. Photograph: AP Photograph: AP

Lapize would go on to win that 1910 Tour and the go up in a biplane on a rest day for his bapteme de l'air, the start of a love affair with flying that ended in the skies over the French border. Mortally wounded, he died a few days later of his injuries. He was 29.

Lucien Petit-Breton, the winner 1907 and 1908, was killed in a car crash on 20 December 1917. Petit-Breton had been involved in the "taxis of the Marne" operation in 1904, when French troop reinforcements were sent to the front line in a fleet of Paris taxi cabs. He was part of a bicycle battalion before driving vans for la Poste. Legend says he was on a secret military operation behind the lines when he met his death but it seems he simply had a head-on collision, one moment of bad luck.



Raised in Argentina, Lucien Mazan rode under a pseudonym to escape his father's vilification and won his back-to-back Tours as a poinconnee – it was his skills as a mechanic as much as a rider that sealed his victories. Petit-Breton was the first real superstar of the Tour, his image adorning Peugeot posters and young female fans naming their kittens after him. Crashing out of the 1913 Tour, his kneecap shattered, he would never win the race again.

Lucien Petit-Briton, the Tour de France champion in 1907 and 1908, who died on 20 December 1917 during the first world war. Photograph: AP Photograph: AP

Marcel Kerff, the Belgian who finished sixth in the 1903 Tour, raced resplendent in a white safari suit, was either hanged or shot as a spy by the Germans in August 1914.

Emile Engel, the winner of stage three on 2 July 1914, died in the Battle of the Marne later that year.

Francois Lafourcade, who lit up the first Pyreneean stages and poisoned Paul Duboc in 1911, died in 1917. Duboc was luckier; he survived the attempted poisoning but died in the second world war at the age of 57.

Henri Alavoine, the brother of Gars Jean, who won 17 stages of the Tour and died of injuries sustained in aerial combat in 1916.

An illustrated map of the 1914 Tour de France. On 28 June 1914, 145 riders lined up to start the race. On the same day, a continent away, a political assassination took place that would have unimaginable consequences to the riders as they pedaled across Normandy to Le Havre. Photograph: AP Photograph: AP

Anselme Mazin, Lucien Petit-Breton’s brother, fell victim to the recklessness of General Nivelle in 1915. It was in protest against Nivelle’s tactics that the infantry advanced into No man's land bleating like lambs to the slaughter. Was Mazin among them?

Anthony "the Tortoise" Wattelier, who died on the Somme.

Charles Privas, who had shone in the 1913 Tour, died in the first few weeks of the conflict.

Pierre Marie Privat, a talented caricaturist who died two days after brothers-in-law Leon Hourlier and Leon Comes fell from the skies together in an aerial accident in 1915.



German cyclists Willy Honeman and Willy Schmitter, who were killed on the same day as Hourlier and Comes.

René Cottrel, Jean Perreard, Marius Villette, François Cordier, Frédéric Rigaux, René Etien, who all died in the Battle of Gallipoli.

Georges Bronchard, the 1906 Lanterne Rouge, who died in 1918

Pierre Vuge, the most gifted of a family of cycling brothers, who died in 1918

Albert Niepceron, who rode the 1904 Tour de France and served in the infantry, died in the final days of the war

Camille Fily, the youngest ever rider in the Tour, who was shot and killed on the Kemmelberg in Belgium in May 1918

Emile Guyon, who was Swiss by birth but French by adoption, died in the skies in October 1918.

Franck Henry, the young hope of French cycling; Philippe Alary, who only turned professional in 1913; and the young 21-year-old André Batilly, who all died in 1915.

Emile Besnier, Vincent Buisson and Albert Cartigny, who died in the early days of the war in September 1914 aged 21.

Marcel Chanut, Louis Constans and Maurice Dejoie, who rode the Tour for Clement-Dunlop in 1914 and died in Greece in 1915.



Albert Delrieu, who rode as an individual in 1913 and 1914;Raymond Didier another individual who rode four Tours from 1908 until 1911 and was no longer a professional when he died in 1915.



Auguste Garnier, who rode as a professional in 1914.

Roland Garros, after whom the French Open tennis stadium is named, was a cyclist in his youth who rode under the pseudonymous anagram Roland Danlor and died in aerial combat a month before the war ended.

Paul Gombault, who was born in Reims and died in Picardie in 1916.

Ernest Haillotte, who rode against Petit-Breton in 1908 for the Fortunat team.

Adrien Heloin who rode for the mighty Alcyon team, Herve.

Emile Lachaise, who was 20th in the 1909 Tour

Eugene Lacot, who spent a year as a professional in 1908

Louis Lecuona, a Parisian who rode the controversial 1904 race.

Emile Maitrot, the 1901 world speed champion, who died on the Somme in 1916.

Francois Marcastel, who died in Hannover, Germany at the beginning of the war.

Gabriel Mathonat, who finished 31st in the 1910 Tour and he died on 22 August 1914.

Marceau Narcy, an Alcyon rider who died almost at the outbreak of war in September 1914.

Armand Perin, who rode as an individual in the first ever Tour in 1903 and again in 1908 for the Perin Cycles team.

Jean-Marie Perreard, who died in Lisieux, France in 1914 aged 31.

Charles Ponson, who finished 48th in the 1909 Tour riding for the French Indiana team.

Felix Pregnac, who turned professional in 1914 aged 34 and was killed later that year in Lorraine.

Pierre Stabat, a first year professional when he rode the 1914 Tour as an individual.

Georges Tribouillard, who was seventh in the 1913 Paris-Tours and died of his injuries after the war had ended in 1919.

Edmond Heliot, Leon Dupoux, Emmanuelle Fillon, Francois Julien, Francis Lebars, Eugene Leonard, Auguste Meziere, Rene Michel, Maurice Petit, Aguste Pierron and Marcel Robert.

They all rode the Tour de France and all have their names inscribed on war memorials around the French countryside: Mort Pour la France. They swapped the Hell of the North and the mud of the unmade roads of the Tour for the hell and the mud of No man’s land. They are les disparus: the "disappeared" – how curiously beautiful and moving, as if they simply rode into the dust clouds of the paves or the lost and secret corners of the mountains and never came back.

Yellow flowers at the entrance of the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium. One hundred years after the war began, Tour de France organisers have decided to mark the anniversary with a series of stages across the northern and eastern French and Belgian battlefields where so many lives were lost. Photograph: Virginia Mayo/AP Photograph: Virginia Mayo/AP

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