Jules Emmanuel Curdy

Jules-Emmanuel Curdy was born in Chailly sur Clarens, in the Swiss Canton of Vaud, on April 3, 1896. His father, Jules-Louis Curdy, was born near Montreux, Switzerland, in 1862. Although the parents were married in Bernex (France) in 1895, his mother, Elise-Marie Chevalley (1856- ), was a native of Tavel (near Montreux), in the Swiss canton of Vaud. For a time, while Jules-Emmanuel Curdy was a boy, the family lived and worked in Paris, France. In 1916, Jules-Emmanuel Curdy left Montreux, Switzerland, for Annecy (France) where he was incorporated as a Soldat 2e classe (Private Soldier) in one of the French Army's regiments of infantry then fighting on the "Western Front" . On June 25, 1917, Jules Emmanuel Curdy was gassed (Yperite) during the drawn out and pitched battle "au Chemin des Dames". Young Curdy recovered from his wounds after an extended convalescence. Private Curdy was then reassigned to the 26th company of the elite 372nd infantry regiment (57th Infantry Division) with the French Army of the Orient in Salonika/Thessalonika (Greece). He subsequently served in Macedonia and Albania in combat against the Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian armies. Mortally wounded as fighting progressed between Korçe (Albania) and Ochrid (Macedonia), Jules Emmanuel Curdy was cited for his courage in the assault on the Austrian positions in Bofnia and Kosnica. These now forgotten but desperately fought victories allowed the French to dislodge the Austrians from the Devoll river valley. Curdy died two days later in a French Army mobile field ambulance (Ambulance Alpine 7) near the now abandoned village of Protopape (Albania) on the French national holiday (Bastille Day) of July 14th, 1918. With others of his unit, his remains were enterred in the French Military Cemetery of Monastir/Bitola in Macedonia. On 24 May 1919 a French Tribunal in Paris determined the Jules-Emmanuel Curdy had "fallen for France on the field of honor". His name is inscribed on the monument for the dead of 1914-1918 in Paris, and his name is also inscribed on a monument in Montreux, Switzerland.