Attractions and Places To See around Sorel - Top 15

Crossed by the Canal du Nord, the town of Allaines boasts a rich history spanning the centuries. Gallo-Roman vases have been found in its soil, before the village became a strategic location during wars of various eras.

The Mont Saint-Quentin Australian War Memorial is a memorial dedicated to the fallen soldiers of the Australian Second Division during the Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin in World War I. The memorial is located on the summit of Mont Saint-Quentin in Péronne, France. The original memorial consisted of a sculpture of an Australian soldier driving his bayonet into a German eagle, but was destroyed by German soldiers in 1940 because of its anti-German image1. The current sculpture, entitled Digger, was created by Australian sculptor Stanley James Hammond and erected in 1971. The memorial is one of five memorials commissioned by soldiers of the Australian Second Division.

allaines is a commune with a rich history. Large quantities of Gallo-Roman vases have been found in the ground. Allaines is said to be the Vicus Helena where the Romans of Aetius won the victory over the Franks of Clodion the Hairy in 448. At the time of the Templars, underground passages were dug under the current church. In 1653, numerous skirmishes took place between the Spanish and the troops of the Lord Marshal de la Ferté. The bones that are often found in a place called Land of Tombs bear witness to these deadly battles. In 1870, during the siege of Péronne, the Prussian army of Von Goeben came to reform at Allaines, in the Tortille valley, and then headed towards Saint-Quentin, after being defeated by General Faidherbe. Phosphate mining ended in 1895, which had brought the village considerable income. During the First World War, during the Battle of the Somme, on 15 September 1916, the village was retaken by the French army. The losses were heavy, the 60th Infantry Regiment was wiped out and the 44th Infantry Regiment lost 600 soldiers.

This is lock number 10 on the Canal du Nord and is known as Allaines. It is situated on the north side of the village of Allaines in the Somme department 80. The 19 locks on this canal are between 6 and 7 metres deep and therefore have stepped bollards built into the lock walls. The lower gates are of the guillotine type rather than the usual double swing gates. The locks are operated by calling a control centre on the VHF. The VHF channels alternate between 18 and 22 for each alternative lock. Each lock has a modern control tower and these were all originally manned but are now empty apart from the locks which act as control centres. Many of the locks have a lock house next to them. In addition, many of them were built with huge side ponds which are used during lock operations to save half a lock's worth of water at each bend. These side ponds are still in use today.

The national necropolis of Moislains, known as the Charentais cemetery, gathers the remains of soldiers who fell for France during the fighting that took place around this village on 28 August 1914. This national cemetery, created at the end of these clashes, was built successively in 1923-1924 and in 1944. This necropolis brings together 465 bodies, including the French, 99 in individual graves and 366 in an ossuary. Since 1924, this necropolis has housed a memorial in honour of the memory of these fighters who came mainly from Angoulême and Bergerac. At the foot of this monument, an oak coffin from Puy-de-Nelle (commune of Charente) was placed in 1960. Made by Gaston Rofidal, former non-commissioned officer in the 307th Infantry Regiment (RI) during the war, this chest symbolically contains various soil samples taken from the communes of Charente. Because it suffered from the vagaries of time, it was replaced in 2014.

The Monument aux Morts in Barastre is a war memorial commemorating the victims of the First World War. The monument is located on the Place de la Mairie in Barastre, a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department, located in the Hauts-de-France region in north-eastern France1. The monument was erected in 1922 and lists the names of the victims of the town who died during the war.

A farming village located 30 km south-east of Arras on the D20. The entire commune was destroyed during the First World War. History During the First World War, the village was occupied by British troops in March 1917, before being lost to the Germans a year later. The village was retaken on 5 September after an advance by the British 42nd Division (East Lancashire). The cemetery contains the graves of almost 10 British soldiers (one of whom was buried by the Germans in 1916). The extension to the cemetery contains the graves of 284 German soldiers, 46 French, 39 British, four New Zealanders and one Australian. The commune was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1920.