The biggest historical reenactment weekend in the Île-de-France region.

Meaux reenacts the Battle of the Marne on the very ground where it was fought. Three hundred uniforms, a rolling tank, horses, and a 1914 taxi occupy the esplanade of the Great War Museum. A black and red Renault taxi passes the speed check, and no one is quite laughing. These cars transported soldiers to the front during the battle, and the Renault Foundation is lending one for the occasion.

Nearly three hundred reenactors from twenty-seven associations and several countries set up their bivouac in front of the museum. They raise the colors at dawn, inspect the canisters as if for a review, maneuver, simulate a gas attack, and parade through the town. The cavalry of the Fer de Lance association reminds us that horses fought in the war as much as men. The Saint-Chamond La Madelon tank, a rolling replica carried by Mémoire de Poilus, emerges onto the square and begins to move. Period music and a saber dance conclude each day before the lowering of the colors.
The setting is as important as the demonstration. Meaux marks the furthest point of the German advance, and Charles Péguy fell a few kilometers away, in the first days of the offensive. The museum was built on this land, around the fifty thousand artifacts collected over forty-five years by the historian Jean-Pierre Verney. Trucks, planes, and artillery pieces occupy its nave.

The reconstructed trenches can be visited as an additional fee and provide a true sense of the scale of these historical battles.

Museum of the Great War
Rue Lazare Ponticelli, 77100 Meaux
Saturday, September 5 and Sunday, September 6, 9:30 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
€7 per day, €10 for a two-day pass on site, free for children under 12, access to the trenches €3 extra.
Online ticketing recommended.
Museum parking lot closed, free shuttle from the Champ de Foire parking lot and P'tite Navette from Meaux train station, 25 minutes from Gare de l'Est.

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