Designed by Philippe Prost and inaugurated on 11 November 2014, the 96th anniversary of Armistice Day, the memorial honors the 576,606 soldiers of forty different nationalities who died at Nord-Pas-de-Calais.

The memorial consists of an 1132-foot perimeter ellipse (about the length of 3.75 football fields) constructed out of stainless steel panels and concrete,[1] with a 200-foot portion elevated off of the ground.

The President of the Regional Council of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Daniel Percheron, and the German Minister of Defense, Ursula von der Leyen, were also in attendance of the inauguration ceremony.

"[10] The elliptical shape of the monument captures this sentiment and evokes a sense of "posthumous fraternity"[11] and unity among countries that were once enemies.

Prost stresses, "No ranks, no nationalities: just a dizzying list of the human stories that ended on France's northern battlefields.

The National World War II Memorial, also located in Washington, D.C., is similarly shaped like a ring, but it is sunken below ground level instead of above it, and uses golden stars to denote the number of casualties instead of lists of names.

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, an art installation constructed in the Tower of London to commemorate the centenary of World War I, also used symbolism to represent the number of casualties sustained by the British Empire and the Commonwealth, but also did not make distinction for rank or nationality.