The Ardennes department is a department in the Grand Est region of France, with Charleville-Mezieres serving as its capital. Named after the broader Ardennes forest, the Ardennes department was one of the original 83 departments created in 1790 during the French Revolution. Following the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, the Duchy of Bouillon, Couvin, Mariembourg, Fagnolle, and Philippeville were ceded to the Netherlands (and are now part of Belgium), and the department was occupied by Prussian troops from June 1815 to November 1818. On 2 September 1870, the city of Sedan was the site of Napoleon III's surrender to the German army during the Franco-Prussian War. The Ardennes forest played a major role in the German Schlieffen Plan, executed both in 1914 during World War I and in 1940 during World War II; in 1944, the "Battle of the Bulge" was fought in the Ardennes department. Ardennes is a conservative stronghold, and it had a population of 270,582 people in 2019.
Gallery[]
