French military cemetery Saint-Charles de Potyze

When the front came to a standstill and trench warfare developed at the end of 1914, it was the French Army that occupied most of the Ieper Salient. The Belgium Army held the line from the IJzer front to Steenstrate, the French - who had recently fought and won the decisive Battle of the Marne - held from Steenstrate to Hooge, and the British Expeditionary Force held from Hooge to the French border (and beyond). At the beginning of 1915, the British took over much of the northern part of the Salient. This meant that the French only now held the sector between Steenstrate and Poelkapelle. But it was precisely at this point in the line that the Germans chose to launch their gas attack at the start of the Second Battle of Ieper. It was the French troops of the Breton and Algerian Divisions that were worst affected by the gas.

The French fatalities were often buried in municipal cemeteries (as in Koksijde) or in the military cemeteries of other nationalities (for example, Lijssenthoek). Many other French dead were repatriated home after the Armistice. This cemetery, together with the French ossuary on the Kemmelberg (Mount Kemmel), is one of the few exclusively French cemeteries in Flanders. It was the site of a French field ambulance at the end of 1914.

Some 30,000 French soldiers died in the Westhoek, with a further 20,000 dying elsewhere in Belgium. This is just a fraction of France's total of 1.4 million war dead between 1914 and 1918. One-fifth of the entire French male population under the age of 50 years failed to survive the war.

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