Monument aux morts de Rauba-Capeù
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The Rauba-Capeù War Memorial is located at the quay Rauba-Capeù along the tourist Seaside Road (route du bord de mer) in Nice. The quay takes its name from the section of the promenade des Anglais near the monument, where the wind is said to be so strong as to “steal one’s cap” (rauba capeù in the dialect of niçois[1]).
The monument is situated on the first path cut into the rock, the ancient road, Ponchettes, which joins Saleya Avenue to the Lympia harbor. The road was was enlarged in 1826.
The proposal for a monument to the war dead as presented by the winner of the 1913 Premier Grand Prix de Rome, Nicois architect Roger Séassal, was approved February 6, 1923.The first stone was placed on November 11, 1924 on the site of the ancient racetrack. It was completed in 1927 on Séassal’s plans. It was inaugurated by Marshall Foch on January 29, 1928. It was the mayor of Nice, Francois Goiran, who precipitated its construction in 1919 as an homage to the Nice’s war dead.
The monument obtained the label, Patrimoine du XXe siècle (Heritage of the Twentieth Century), November 28, 2000, and was awarded Trophées de l’Aménagement Urbain’s first place prize in 2004. It was designated as a historical monument February 22, 2010, before being classed May 24, 2011.
In 2018, a twenty-meter high reliquary sculpture in the form of a Niçois eagle was discovered concealed within the monument, containing placques of two-thousand soldiers who lost their lives during the First World War.[6] No records make note of it.