NATIONAL NECROPOLIS OF NOTRE-DAME-DE-LORETTE

After the First World War, the hill of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette was chosen by the French Government to receive the remains of French soldiers from over 150 cemeteries on the fronts of Artois, Flanders, Yser and the Belgian coast. The site contains 20,000 graves and the remains of 22,000 unknown soldiers placed together in 8 ossuaries. Notre-Dame-de-Lorette is France’s biggest national necropolis. A basilica and a lantern tower have been built there. At the foot of this lantern tower, a crypt contains the coffins of 32 unknown soldiers from all the French wars of the twentieth century.

The Ring of Remembrance: extending over almost 300 metres, the biggest engraved memorial in the world bears the names of the 580,000 soldiers, nurses and auxiliary workers, of all nationalities, who fell in Flanders and the Artois during the First World War.