Mort pour la France - Louis Henri LAMBERT né à Chenon 1889

• 21^e régiment d’artillerie de campagn ( 12 Brigade d'artillerie du 23 Division d'Infanterie) Sur ces croupes battues quotidiennement par les obus, les canonniers se placent entre des vestiges de bois, des traces de boqueteaux et quelques arbres déchiquetés et noircis. Immédiatement derrière les batteries, il y a un entassement inimaginable de milliers de douilles, non évacuées vers l’arrière. Partout la destruction et la mort sont présentes ; des débris de choses tordues, brisées, déchirées, brûlées, jonchent le sol qui n’existe plus. Il n’y a plus que trous dont l’enchevêtrement se modifie continuellement dans la fumée, les obus qui sifflent, grincent, hurlent ou ronronnent avant le fracas des explosions.
  
  
  Dormant peu, mangeant mal, martelé par les obus explosifs et étouffé par les obus à gaz   le régiment vivra, comme tant d’autres, dans cet enfer, pendant 79 jours (et nuits).
  
  Pendant ces 79 jours, les batteries du 21^e régiment d’artillerie de campagne envoyèrent plus de 500 000 obus sur les lignes ennemies de la cote du Poivre, de Louvremont  de la ferme de Haudromont et du Fond de Heurias 
  
  
  
  
  
  
                                                                             photo: piles of shell cases at Verdun
   
  Écrasé par d’intenses bombardements, le régiment perdit toute la 2^e section de la 8^e batterie et un nombre très important de ses canonniers. (crushed by the intense bombardments the regiment lost all of the 2nd section of the 8th battery and several other gunners)
  
  
  21^e régiment d’artillerie de campagne - composition 3 groupes, 9 batteries de 75  (36 Canons) 
  
  
   
  
  
   Le canon de 75 est une pièce à tir rapide a longe recule inventée en 1897. Sa cadence de tir       va révolutionner l'artillerie car elle est de 6 à 8 coups de minute. 
   (The 75 canon with a long recoil which enables rapid fire, 6 to 8 shells a minutes, revolutionised artillery at the time - invented 1897.  It is recorded that  3840 examples were deployed in 1914)

The artillery was the principle weapon used on the battle field at Verdun where the French were consistently outgunned by the Germans. The former, however, held their ground which forced the Germans to invest more and more resources into the field to the detriment of other theatres of the war.

In common with other artillery regiments, the 2Ist Artillery,  which consisted of 36 canon organised in 3 groups and 9 betteries,  faced daily shelling.  Their emplacements were in what was left of woodland or copses of trees almost totally destroyed. Immediately behind their lines were piles of shell cases which hadn't been removed to the rear. Destruction and death surrounded them; all sorts of debris bent, broken, blown to pieces which had scorched the earth. Their senses were overwhelmed by the smoke, the noise,  the whistling of shells followed by explosions. Sleeping little, fed bad food hammered by explosions and suffocated by gas shells the reigiment existed for 79 days and nights (from May to July 1916). During these 79 days the regiment fired more than 500, 000 shells at the enemy lines at the side of the  Poivre, at Louvremont at the farm at   Haudromont and the bottom of Heurias. 

Second Gunner Louis Henri Lambert, a professional soldier, was severely wounded and subsequently died of his wounds, probably the 12th July or the 12th August 1916 (according to one official record) and is buried at the cemetery at Chenon where he was born on the 12th March 1889.

Wikepedia & Campagne 1914 – 1918 - Historique du 12e Régiment d’Artillerie de Campagne Imprimerie Berger-Levrault – Paris Source : http://gallica.bnf.fr- Droits : Domaine public - Transcription intégrale : P. Chagnoux - 2014