French War Cemetery Rossignol-Orée de la Foret

Rossignol-Orée de la Foret French War Cemetery contains a number of French war graves from World War I.

During the Battle of Rossignol, part of the Battle of the Borders, there was a confrontation in this area on August 22, 1914 between the French colonial troops and two German infantry divisions in which thousands of soldiers died.
Most soldiers were buried after the battle at the place where they fell.

In 1917, the Germans decided to create military cemeteries to regroup the thousands of German and French soldiers who fell during the battle of Rossignol.
After the war, many French families repatriated the bodies to their place of origin.
The German remains were grouped in one cemetery, that of Saint-Vincent.
The French government also regrouped several smaller cemeteries and two mass graves were dug in 1923 for this purpose.

2500 fallen French soldiers are buried on Orée de la Foret, of which 121 soldiers with an individual headstone and 2379 unknown French soldiers in two ossuaries.
The necropolis was inspired by the floor plan of a church and was designed as a kind of natural cathedral. The trees symbolized columns that supported the foliage of the beeches. Today these trees are gone after the 1989 storm.
The main monument was designed by the architects Henri Lacoste and Louis Madeline.
In the center of the cemetery is a memorial stone for the French writer Ernest Psichari, who was killed here.

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Source

• Text: Fedor de Vries + Marie-Christine Vinck
• Photos: Marie-Christine Vinck