NEUFCHATEAU

NATIONAL NECROPOLIS OF NEUFCHÂTEAU

Route

Description

There are in France 265 national necropoli: among the 90 located in Lorraine, including 10 in the Vosges department, the one in Neufchâteau was classified as a “definitive national cemetery” on the 6th of August 1920. Located next to the cemetery in rue de la Paix, it contains 1008 graves of soldiers who died during the two world conflicts of the 20th century.

Most of the graves here are of soldiers from the Great War: 956, including 833 French, 120 Germans, one Russian and two Poles. The memory of 1939-1945 is perpetuated by the presence of 52 graves: 47 French and 5 British.

The history of the necropolis began in 1914 when the strategic position and the hospital role of the town made the creation of a military cemetery essential, leading to the acquisition of the Tourneval property: it is there that, according to the law of 19 December 1915, "any soldier who died for France has the right to a perpetual burial at the expense of the State". This place of remembrance has been constantly enlarged; today, in the middle of the aisles of sober and similar graves, the visitor discovers many details about the buried soldiers.