From The Vaults

Between 2014 and 2018, the World Rugby Museum paid individual tribute to each of the 129 Test international rugby players to lose their lives during the Great War. The last name on that list, Frenchman Albert Chatau, died from his wounds in July 1924.

Here we conclude our period of commemoration with a tribute to Albert by Frédéric Humbert on the centenary of his death.

Lest We Forget.

More than 100 years after the end of the Great War, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces (National Office for Veterans and War Victims) has added Aviron Bayonnais player Albert Chatau (1893-1924) to the list of official French war dead.

Albert CHATAU is thus added to the list of 22 French international players known to have lost their lives in the Great War of 1914-18. His name was added to the Aviron Bayonnais memory plaque as part of the memory actions around the club's 120th anniversary on 18 May 2024.

Albert Chatau was a member of the Aviron Bayonnais team, champion of France in 1913, and played once for the national team in the same year against South Africa. He was seriously injured by gunfire in 1916 during the Battle of Verdun and never recovered. In 1919, he was assessed to be 90% disabled, and 100% by March 1924. He died in July 1924 from his wounds.

Albert was born in Urrugne on February 11, 1893. His father Pierre, worked as a Post, Telephone and Telegraph (PTT) employee. His mother, Françoise, was a seamstress. At the age of 19, Albert became a PTT employee.

Belonging to the 1913 class, Albert CHATAU was called up to fulfill his military obligations and incorporated on November 26th 1913 into the 49th infantry regiment, a traditional Bayonne regiment, less than a year before the declaration of war.

He participated in the general mobilization and was appointed Corporal on September 11, 1914, when the regiment was already experiencing heavy losses at Chemin des Dames.

He was appointed sergeant on November 16th 1914. His behaviour under fire and his courage in the face of the enemy earned him a citation with the award of the Croix de Guerre with bronze star.

In September 1916 he was seriously injured in Verdun (bullet in the chest), evacuated and repatriated. CHATAU was declared 90% invalid by military authorities in 1919, and later 100% in March 1924.

After the war, and despite significant after-effects of his injuries which forced him to undergo constant care at the Bayonne military hospital, he looked for any opportunity to remain close to Aviron Bayonnais, and rugby in particular. He was appointed President of the Rugby Commission of Aviron Bayonnais from 1919 until his death. In these post-war years, he was also a local press correspondent for the newspapers "L'Auto" and "L'Intransigeant".

Albert Chatau died at the Bayonne military hospital on July 15, 1924. He was then 31 years old and single. Now, 100 years after his death, he has been added to the list of Great War war dead. He is also the last international rugby player to be commemorated as part of the World Rugby Museum's period of First World War remembrance.