List of World War I Memorials and Cemeteries in Alsace
Alsace saw heavy fighting and the loss of life during World War I, as the Western front cut through the area.
On 12 August 1939 a memorial was unveiled to commemorate those killed in a German artillery bombardment in the Col du Bonhomme on 8 September 1914, including several senior officers and the commander of the 41st Infantry Division, General Marie Désiré Bataille [fr].
At the top of the Tête des Faux there are the remains of a French look-out post and a small memorial which, translated, reads: "Here fell for France on July 6, 1916, Captain Demmler, Doctor Espagne, Jean-François Bouvier, Jean-Marie Renaud of the 62e BCA ".
Probably the victims of a shell that fell on a shelter located at this place"In the pass that separates the two peaks of the Têtes des Faux is the cemetery at Duchesne.
Bodies here were brought in from Lingekopf, Barenkopf, Schratzmännele and the Valley de la Fecht as well as from Stosswihr, Soultzeren, Muhlbach, Hohrod, les Trois-Epis and Orbey.
Just by the museum at Linge there is a monument whose inscription dedicates it to the "10,000 French dead whose blood stained this land."
It was the idea of Gérard Ambroselli [fr] and carries the text of a poem by André Piot who had fought in the war.
The original single monument was erected in 1927 but was dynamited by the Germans in July 1940 during World War II.
The first memorial comprises a small pedestal with a bronze depicting the typical oversized beret worn by the chasseurs perched on the top.
A plaque fixed to the monument explains that the land was given to the Club Alpin Francais by the town of Soultz out of gratitude to those who helped France secure the return of Alsace and Lorraine.
A second plaque states that the memorial is dedicated to the "Diables Bleus" (Blue Devils) which was the nickname of the 66th Bataillon of Chasseurs.
[citation needed] He had once said:[4] "If I die my friends, of hopes and misery, you will bury me near the front in the earth under the fir cross near the blazing steeple, but keep the ground where I fell."
The entrance is approached by a cutting from the road and is flanked by two bronze representations of victory by the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle.
Inside the crypt and covered by a large bronze shield is an ossuary which contains the remains of 12,000 unidentified soldiers.
The cemetery holds the graves of General Marcel Serret [fr], Captain Paul Amic, and Richard Hall of the American Ambulance Field Service.
The cemetery was created in 1920 to receive bodies from fighting south east of Mulhouse and from the village areas of Ballersdorf, Friesen, Illzach, Lutterbach, Sierentz and Zillisheim.
At the eastern edge of the village is a monument to Corporal Jules-André Peugeot who was killed at 10am on 2 August 1914, 30 hours before war was declared between France and Germany.
