French military cemetery (1914-18) in Houdrigny

Go to

Presentation

This French cemetery holds the victims of the Battle of Virton who were mainly from the 3rd infantry division of Amiens. Many of the graves are unnamed. The monument erected on the edge of the cemetery lists the deceased members of the 87th infantry regiment originally from St-Quentin. The day after the combat of August 1914, the bodies of French soldiers killed on the battlefield in Virton were buried by residents of Houdrigny. The wives of the fallen soldiers had made little cloth bags in which they put watches, rosaries, coins and other personal keepsakes. These items were kept in the town hall to be returned to the families. The soldiers’ ID badges were also placed in this bag which made identification of the exhumed bodies impossible.

Contacts