History

The Val de l'Aisne — the stretch of the Aisne river valley east of Soissons — has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic. Acheulean hand axes found at Presles-et-Boves and in the Saint-Remi Museum in Reims attest to several hundred thousand years of human occupation.

In Gallo-Roman times, the Aisne was a major axis between Reims (Durocortorum) and Soissons (Augusta Suessionum). Today's villages — Vailly, Bucy-le-Long, Condé-sur-Aisne — often preserve an old core organised around a Romanesque or Gothic church.

The First World War left a deep mark on the area. The Chemin des Dames ridge, just north of the valley, was the scene of some of the war's bloodiest fighting, notably the Nivelle Offensive of April 1917. The villages of Chavonne, Soupir and Pont-Arcy were destroyed and then rebuilt in the 1920s. The national cemeteries at Soupir, which hold more than 10,000 French and German soldiers, are now an integral part of the memorial landscape.

After the Second World War, the Val de l'Aisne organised itself around an agricultural economy (cereals, sugar beet) and a network of small businesses. The creation of the Val de l'Aisne Community of Communes in 1996 allowed member towns to pool services and pursue a coherent local-development policy.