War memorials

France: Fleury-Devant-Douaumont Nécropole Nationale

In front of the Douaumont Ossuary is the Fleury-Devant-Douaumont Nécropole Nationale , laid out in 1923-29 with some 15,000 graves, many brought from other cemeteries. 592 of these are Muslim. A memorial stone to these soldiers was also raised, which has since been incorporated into a larger monument à la mémoire des soldats musulmans commemorating the 72,000 French colonial Muslim troops who died for France in the Great War. Designed in a rather literal and pedantic Moorish style, this was inaugurated by President Chirac in 2006. Earlier, in 1938, Le Mur des Israélites was erected on the west side of the cemetery to honour the many Jewish soldiers who died at Verdun. At the far side of the cemetery, across the road, is the  Soldat du Droit, a recumbent figure by Alexandre Descatoire which is the memorial to the politician André Thome, killed in March 1916.

Gavin Stamp