Eternal Rest Granted Unto WWI Hero

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War, and the French media has recognized and solemnly memorialized it with stories about the war and many of its people. L'Éveil, the local newspaper of Le Puy and the Haute-Loire region, ran a story about Corporal Auguste Sabatier, a 25-year-old army nurse of the 121st Regiment, whose body was exhumed from the military cemetery in Nanterre (near Paris) to be interred in his family's plot in Saugues, a village in south-central France about 50 minutes west of Le Puy. 
An interment ceremony took place there on November 10 with all the honors due his rank. He will now be more than a name on a church wall dedicated to the 130 fallen soldiers of Saugues. This all happened thanks to Auguste's great nephew, Rolland Sabatier.

Rolland wanted to bring his great uncle home again on this 100th anniversary of his death after he learned about his life through the French military archives. He also went through a complex process of working with the National Office of Former Combatants and Victims of War and by gaining the support for his plan through the mayors of Saugues and Nanterre. 

Auguste was killed on August 20, 1917, at 5:30 a.m. rescuing wounded soldiers on the front lines of Verdun less than an hour after the battle to re-take Côte 304 had started. 

It turns out that Sabatier was one of the war's heroes having been cited for two Croix de Guerre (Cross of War) medals, which were posthumously given to him in 1921 by Paul Deschanel, the president of the Republic of France. He had previously received the St. Georges medal, a Russian decoration, for saving the lives of Russian soldiers in numerous battles. His bravery had also been cited on numerous other occasions. 

As was the custom at the time, talking about a deceased soldier was considered a taboo subject, so they were often forgotten. However, Rolland remembers his grandmother being extremely sad every November 11, the day of the Armistice. The wound of her loss of Auguste had never healed. 

One day in 2004, Rolland found by chance a cache of old family photos that included several of Auguste. He considered it "a small miracle" that helped him learn more about his uncle and to "close the loop" of information that had been previously been suppressed. 

The newspaper shared these photos of him; his wife, Albertine who was 6 weeks pregnant at the time of his death; and his friends. The story helps to document the effect of the war on ordinary people and its haunting losses.