Trentham Gardens - Trentham at War

Trentham At War

Before World War I, the Staffordshire Yeoman used Trentham as a summer military training camp between 1909 and 1914.

During World War II the Trentham Estate became a military regroupment camp for French soldiers, although there were also some Poles and a few German officers as prisoners of war. The French soldiers were a mix of the Foreign Legion, the Chasseurs Alpins (the Light Mountain Division for mountain warfare) and a tank company The bulk of the soldiers were initially marched from the train station in the pouring rain in June 1940, a march through the streets of Stoke-on-Trent which is still recalled locally and which was by some mistaken for a German invasion. The 1619 men of the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion had been in Norway, but had been pulled out to defend a line in Brittany from where they then fled to Britain The Chasseurs Alpins had arrived from Dunkirk. The Trentham Camp was initially organised by the local YMCA volunteers. The pilot Marc Haucheauchemaille recorded in his diary that... "There are 6 or 7,000 men in the camp — a miracle of English organisation — in a few hours we have tents, groundsheets, cooking utensils.", although proper medical facilities took longer to organise. Numbers at the camp appear to have lessened to 5,530 after the initial influx. By July 1940 the camp was split into pro and anti Vichy France factions. Some 600 men of the Foreign Legion chose to leave to join the Vichy Legion in North Africa. Around 900 other left to join the Free French. The bulk of the French troops remained at Trentham. The attitude of local people appears to have changed after the initial arrival: there were complaints about the killing of the deer herd, to the extent that estate records show that nearly all the deer were killed; discipline was lax; and there was extensive fraternisation with local girls. By the end of the war, local people's animosity toward the remaining French was such that many of the soldiers were glad to leave.