engineering

Soissons Memorial

Soissons Memorial is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Soissons Memorial rather than just read about it. In short: The Soissons Memorial is a World War I memorial located in the town of Soissons, in the Aisne département of France. The memorial lists 3,987 names of British soldiers with no known grave who were killed in the area from May to August 1918 during the German spring offensive.

Key takeaways

Soissons Memorial belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Soissons Memorial to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Soissons Memorial from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Soissons Memorial is a World War I memorial located in the town of Soissons, in the Aisne département of France. The memorial lists 3,987 names of British soldiers with no known grave who were killed in the area from May to August 1918 during the German spring offensive. The battles fought by those commemorated here include the Third Battle of the Aisne and the Second Battle of the Marne. In August 1914, the British Expeditionary Force crossed the Aisne River two kilometres west of Soissons, and re-crossed it in September. For the next three and a half years, this part of the front was held by French forces and the city remained within the range of German artillery. In April 1918, five divisions of Commonwealth forces (IX Corps) were posted to the French 6th Army here. At the end of May, they faced an overwhelming German attack which pushed the Allies back across the Aisne to the Marne. Having suffered 15,000 fatal casualties, IX Corps was withdrawn in July, and was replaced by XXII Corps, which took part in the Allied counter-attack that, by August, drove back the Germans and recovered the lost ground. The memorial's inscription reads: "When the French Armies held and drove back the enemy from the Aisne and the Marne between May and July 1918 the 8th, 15th, 19th, 21st, 25th, 34th, 50th, 51st and 62nd divisions of the British Armies served in the line with them and shared the common sacrifice. Here are recorded the names of 3,987 officers and men of those divisions to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death." This is a free-standing memorial (one without an associated cemetery) constructed in Portland stone. It was designed by G. H. Holt and V. O. Rees with sculpture by Eric Kennington. The memorial was unveiled on 22 July 1928 by Sir Alexander Hamilton-Gordon. Hamilton-Gordon was a general in World War I, commanding IX Corps from 1916 onwards, and was commander of this corps during the Third Battle of the Aisne, which is commemorated here. For security reasons, the gates of this memorial are permanently locked.

See also List of Commonwealth War Graves Commission World War I memorials to the missing in Belgium and France

References

External links Details of Kennington's sculpture and the inscription (from YourArchives)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Soissons Memorial

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Soissons Memorial claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Soissons Memorial before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Soissons Memorial ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Soissons Memorial

In research: Soissons Memorial appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Soissons Memorial in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Soissons Memorial is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures completed in 1928, Buildings and structures in Aisne, Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Soissons Memorial outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Soissons Memorial in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Soissons Memorial means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Soissons Memorial out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Soissons Memorial in simple terms?

Why does Soissons Memorial matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Soissons Memorial?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Soissons Memorial.