Le cimetière militaire dit « de l'entrée de la forêt »

 
Established by the occupiers during 1917 on the Neufchâteau road at the same time as the Plateau cemetery, it became a French military cemetery after the Great War. 2,500 colonial troops who fell in the deadly fighting on 22nd August 1914 are buried there. At the entrance to the necropolis, the monument sheltering the statue of the fallen infantryman, called "To the Glory of the Colonials", reminds us that over 4,500 men from six colonial regiments from North Africa and Senegal died on Gaume land. The work of artist Jeanmart de Sainte-Marie-sur-Semois, the statue was created in blue sandstone in 1927. Beneath a sort of dais, a soldier with African features is advancing, finger on the trigger of his rifle. On the plinth of the statue there are many inscriptions recalling several other episodes of one of the bloodiest encounters of the First World War, which left 20,000 French and 20,000 German soldiers dead in less than 48 hours - not to mention hundreds of civilians, victims of German reprisals in the neighbouring villages.
Listed: 30-11-1989
 

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