On 17 October 1920, the commune of Ly-Fontaine - witness to the combats of the battle of Guise in 1914 - was commended by the army and awarded the French Croix de Guerre (War Cross).

The Courneau military training camp

In 1916, the French military command chose to station the African soldiers on Courneau moor. These men came from the territories of former French West Africa: Senegal, Upper Senegal and Niger (present-day Mali), Mauritania, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and Dahomey (present-day Benin). Forming the battalions of Senegalese tirailleurs, they landed in Bordeaux, then made their way to La Teste, where they were given military training and language classes.

In 1916 and 1917, more than 27 000 men followed this route.

Once the land had been drained, many soldiers losing their lives in the process, a camp of 400 huts was built to accommodate up to 18 000 men. Owing to the marshland surrounding the camp, the tirailleurs contracted respiratory illnesses which were sometimes fatal. Courneau was soon nicknamed the “camp of misery”. The dead were buried on site.

In autumn 1917, due to the revolution in Russia, the Russian troops were withdrawn from the front and took the place of the tirailleurs at Courneau. Eight thousand men were sent there. Discipline being practically non-existent, there was much trouble with the local population. In the first months of 1918, the camp was emptied of its occupants. Many of them joined work parties; others enlisted in the Foreign Legion.

In January 1918, the camp was reorganised to accommodate the American contingents, mostly artillery units, who landed in Bordeaux and were stationed temporarily at Courneau. From July 1918 to May 1919, successive units stayed at the camp before going to the front. During that period, 87 American soldiers died of “Spanish flu” and were buried in a cemetery created specially for that purpose on 15 February 1918, in the forest of Natus-de-Bas. After the war, the soldiers’ remains were transferred either to the United States or to the Suresnes American Cemetery in Hauts-de-Seine.

The Natus memorial

On 1 November 1967, a memorial was unveiled to the African soldiers who died at the Courneau camp. Designed by architect Phihl, the monument was built with funding from Le Souvenir Français, the veterans ministry, the President of Côte d’Ivoire, veterans’ associations and local councils around Arcachon Bay.

After several years of research, local remembrance organisations, the town council of La Teste de Buch and the Ministry of the Armed Forces succeeded in ascertaining the identities and origins of the Senegalese tirailleurs. In 2018, as part of the First World War centenary commemorations, the Ministry of the Armed Forces had five stone slabs erected, bearing the names of the 956 African soldiers buried in the cemetery, which were unveiled on 11 November. Another stone is inscribed with the names of the Russian soldiers and two French soldiers who are buried on the site.

The Ministry of the Armed Forces plans to enhance the site by creating a remembrance trail at the heart of the cemetery, to shed light on the lives of the soldiers who lived in the Courneau camp.

Another stone slab in memory of the American soldiers stands outside the camp.

There are twenty French soldiers from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 at rest in an ossuary monument at the cemetery. From WWI, there are 427 French soldiers, 274 Belgian soldiers, nine Russian soldiers and 1 Chinese soldier buried in individual graves. As for WWII, there are 1,355 French soldiers, including 188 in the ossuary, ten Spanish soldiers, one Polish soldier and five Soviet soldiers, one of whom is in the ossuary. Five soldiers who died for France in Indochina are also buried at the cemetery.

In the French section lie the bodies of soldiers and sailors who fell during and as a result of World War I, particularly on the Eastern front: 1,024 French, 22 Serb, 18 Greek, 16 Russian and 1 Bulgarian combatant are buried in individual graves. The remains of 777 French combatants have been placed in an ossuary. In 1961, the southeast section was transferred to the Italian government, which placed in a columbarium the remains of 975 soldiers who had perished in the south of France during World War II and whose bodies were not claimed by their relatives.

An eight-metre high pyramid and two sphinxes were erected in September 1810. They serve as a memorial to Vice-Admiral Latouche-Treville, Commander-in-Chief of French Naval Forces in the Mediterranean, who died in Toulon harbour on 17 August 1804.

The tomb of Marie-Nicolas Ravier, captain of the Armée d’Orient who gave his life for France on 8 October 1917 includes the inscription: “In recognition of care given to his son, Marie-Nicolas Ravier de Dounemari bequeathed half of his fortune to the Hôpital de Saint-Mandrier on 8 January 1919”.

In the late 1950s, the decision was taken to build a cemetery in Luynes in honour of the soldiers of the French Empire who lost their lives in southeast France in the two world wars.

Work began on Luynes National Cemetery in 1966. It contains the bodies of more than 11 000 French troops killed in the First and Second World Wars: 8 347 in 1914-18, 3 077 in 1939-45.

The bodies buried at Luynes were exhumed from temporary cemeteries in the departments of Aude, Alpes de Haute-Provence, Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, Gard, Hérault, Var, Vaucluse and Pyrénées-Orientales. In accordance with the law, families that requested the bodies of loved ones had them returned to them, to be buried in private graves, while the remainder were laid to rest at Luynes: 8 402 in individual graves and 3 022, unable to be identified, in three ossuaries. This process went on until 1968. The cemetery was officially opened on 27 September 1969, by veterans minister Henri Duvillard, a former member of the Resistance, leader of the Corps Francs du Nord du Loiret.
 

1914-18: the Empire comes to France’s aid

Right from 1914, France called on its empire to support the war effort, by providing troops, workers (nearly 200 000 men) and raw materials. A total of 600 000 soldiers were mobilised from across the Empire: tirailleurs, spahis and zouaves from North Africa; tirailleurs from sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar; and troops from Indochina, the Antilles and the Pacific. From the Marne to Verdun, Champagne to the Aisne, these men fought on the main fronts, including the Eastern Front.

The soldiers from the colonies arrived in metropolitan France via Marseille, while others passed through the port city on their way to the Eastern Front. The camp of Sainte-Marthe was set up in 1915 to accommodate the colonial troops.

Unaccustomed to the cold climate, these soldiers were susceptible to respiratory illnesses and frostbite. The violence of the fighting, the bad weather conditions and the poor hygiene of the trenches caused the deaths of more than 78 000 of them.

In winter, the colonial soldiers were withdrawn from the front and sent mostly to the South of France. The French Army’s many wounded and sick who were evacuated from the different fronts, and in particular the colonials, were also treated in the south. Despite the treatment they received, several thousand died in hospitals of the region and were initially buried in local cemeteries. Some 8 347 bodies (2 626 of them in ossuaries) were reburied at Luynes.
 

1939-45: the French Empire in the war

As in the First World War, France called on the troops of its Empire in September 1939, when France mobilised and declared war on Nazi Germany. Alongside their French comrades, the colonial soldiers distinguished themselves in many battles. Among them, the Senegalese tirailleurs (who despite their name came from across sub-Saharan Africa) fought particularly fiercely. Besides sustaining severe losses, they sometimes suffered reprisals at the hands of German troops who, exasperated by their resistance, hounded them relentlessly. Thus, they were the victims of summary executions, for instance at Chasselay (Rhône) or Chartres, where survivors of the 26th Regiment of Senegalese Tirailleurs were massacred, a crime denounced at the time by prefect Jean Moulin.

From July 1940 onwards, as certain territories of the Empire came out in support for Free France (in particular, French Equatorial Africa), countless volunteers from all backgrounds enlisted in General de Gaulle’s Free French Forces. They particularly distinguished themselves at the Battle of Bir Hakeim (Libya), in June 1942, against Rommel’s Italian and German troops.

After the Anglo-American landings in North Africa (November 1942), the French Army of Africa made its re-entry into the war against Germany and Italy. It took part in the Tunisian campaign, which culminated in enemy surrender in May 1943, liberated Corsica in September and, from November, played an active role in the Italian campaign, as part of the French Expeditionary Force commanded by General Juin. The North African tirailleurs, spahis and goumiers distinguished themselves on the slopes of Mount Belvedere (February 1944) and opened up the road to Rome during the victorious Garigliano campaign, in May 1944.

On 15 August 1944, two months after Operation Overlord in Normandy, the Allies landed in Provence. General de Lattre de Tassigny’s Army B (the future French First Army) consisted predominantly of African soldiers. Following violent fighting, on 28 August 1944 they liberated the ports of Toulon and Marseille. These deep-water ports were crucial to maintaining supplies to the Allied armies in France. Ascending the Rhone valley, the French First Army took part in the Battle of the Vosges and the offensive against Belfort (Autumn 1944), where goums and tirailleurs sustained major losses, owing to enemy resistance and bad weather. Even so, during the winter of 1944-45, these men liberated Alsace. Crossing the Rhine, on 31 March 1945, the First Army drove deep into Nazi Germany and entered Karlsruhe and Stuttgart.

Most of the soldiers killed in the Second World War and buried at Luynes (3 077 men) died in the fighting to liberate Provence, following the landings of 15 August 1944. 
 

Within the walls of the national cemetery is a memorial lantern, which serves as the commune's war memorial. In 1921, after having granted - in November 1920 - the principle of a permanent plot for the soldiers of the commune who had died for France, the Morvillars municipal council decided to erect the commune's war memorial within the walls of the military cemetery. This memorial, in the form of an 8 metre lantern, was inaugurated in 1923. Crowned by a Greek cross, this monument therefore carries the names of the 32 natives of Morvillars who died in 1914-1918 and those of the five who died in 1939-1945. Twelve graves of soldiers originating from Morvillars surround this monument, arranged in a semi-circle.

In 1914, the fortified town of Belfort was a major part of France's defence. The 14 forts controlled a gap between the Swiss border and the Vosges. During the first days of the war, a new occupation such as the ones of 1814 and 1871 was feared. That is why a state of siege was put in place by the governor. More than 20,000 women, children, elderly, sick people and foreigners were evacuated to neighbouring departments. Equipment, supplies, buildings...everything was requisitioned as part of the war effort.

However, during the entire conflict, Belfort remained untouched by the major offensives. The front was 20 kilometres away. Daily life was however marked by bombings and the flow of convoys of the wounded. As the war continued and the combats became increasingly violent, the number of wounded continued to rise. Because of such an influx, the 500-bed military hospital was quickly overwhelmed.  The health services had to adapt, and requisitioned public and private buildings. And so the Dollfus Mieg et Compagnie spinning mill, schools in the Montbéliard area and the Rue de Châteaudun as well as the Sainte-Marie secondary school were transformed into temporary hospitals. Adolphe Pégoud, the French fighter ace with six victories under his belt, was transferred to one of these structures after being shot down over Petit Croix on 31 August 1915. He was buried on 3 September in the cemetery at Brasse, where he remained before being exhumed in 1924, when he was buried at the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.