Cemeteries and memorials to visit Lorraine

In the heart of a forest at an altitude of more than 800 meters, 3,538 French soldiers are buried in this military cemetery, classified as a National Necropolis. A dignified burial for these men who died for France during the First World War, during the Battle of the Linge between July and October 1915, led by Marshal Joffre on the French side. A 13-meter high granite cross stands at the back of the cemetery as a tribute to these men and the suffering they endured.

Leaving Belleville-sur-Meuse and taking the direction of Fleury-avant-Douaumont, commemorative stelas from the former military cemetery at Marceau barracks stand on the edge of the state forest. These previously abandoned abandon at the cemetery location were réstaurées in 2006 and displaced by approximately metres the following year. Two graves belong to two young men aged 20, killed during the Great War and rewarded by the Legion of Honour.

During the Great War, thanks to its ideal orientation protecting it from artillery projectiles coming from the front, the Moreau valley, like many ravines in the massif, sheltered several German rest camps. Installed in September 1914 3 km from the trenches, this camp could accommodate between 800 and 900 soldiers. From February 1915 to September 1918, it was occupied by soldiers of the 83rd Landwehr infantry regiment. You can visit this site thanks to the Franco-German Committee for Remembrance and Safeguarding of the Argonne sites. It has been restored with great fidelity to its period configuration. It will allow you to learn more about the living conditions of the soldiers through various installations: a reconstructed trench, chambers, showers and latrines, a wash-house, a 0.60 m railway track and an impressive network of underground galleries.

Located in the north of the village, this statue of the Virgin pays tribute to the soldiers of the village who died for France. It was erected in 1865 by the inhabitants of Massiges who survived a cholera epidemic. The story goes that in 1915 bees settled inside the statue, in the hole formed by a bullet received in the chest, just under the left breast during the fighting of the Great War. The bees would not have deserted their shelter until 1970, when the statue was made official as a War Memorial.