|
|
|
|
|
|
© Stéphane Compoint
|
|
Battle of Artois, Hill of Notre Dame de Lorette: On the west side of the hill, the french side of the battlefield : on 30000 meter square, more than 1,000 meters of trenches, sometimes restored to the original locations with guns machine guns, shells, barbed wire, etc.. In the background, the lantern tower of the National Cemetery (one of the four with those of Dormans, Douaumont and Old Armand). This hill overlooking Artois (165 m.) was one of the most fought battlefield between October 1914 and September 1915. After the war, the French government created the board of Notre Dame de Lorette which will be the largest French necropolis : 20,000 individual graves (the cemetery of Douaumont is composed of 16,142 individual graves) are erect and bodies of 22000 other unknown soldiers are grouped into eight ossuaries (two of them in the white square on the right), including the lantern tower (photo 006). From March to November, the dead are watched over daily by the "Guard of Honor of Notre Dame de Lorette".
|
|
|
|
|
