La Délivrance

La Délivrance is a 1914 bronze statue by the French sculptor Émile Oscar Guillaume [fr] (1867–1942).

The statue was created as a celebration of the First Battle of the Marne, when the German army was stopped before capturing Paris in August 1914.

Lord Rothermere, incensed by this, informed Finchley that the statue was to be placed at its present location, so that he might see it when driving to see his mother, who lived at Totteridge, or the council could not have it at all.

[citation needed] The statue was mounted on a granite plinth and was unveiled on 20 October 1927 in front of a crowd, believed to have been around 8,000 people, by the former prime minister, David Lloyd George.

On Friday, 17 October 1919, the French newspaper Le Matin announced that 11 copies of the statue, renamed La délivrance, would be created by the founders Maison F. Barbedienne and offered to 11 cities of France and Belgium, occupied or destroyed by the Germans: Amiens, Brussels, Colmar, Liège, Lille, Metz, Reims, Mézières, Saint-Quentin, Strasbourg, Verdun.