Cemetery near Virton 1914.

[Kevdan]

Yesterday I visited the cemetery where all graves are unknown. Because all the personal items and also the name tags were collected and sent to family. This cemetery is near Virton.

[Kevdan]

I think i have done this topic in de wrong place, can some one re place it for me ? I am new and i saw that there was an other place for this.

[Michelle Young]

Moved to the Cemeteries and Memorials sub forum. 

[AOK4]

Hello,

Isn't this the French cemetery Houdrigny? Not all graves are unknown, some are individually identified and most of the persons are in fact identified, it was just not possibly to identify them individually when the Germans made this cemetery in 1917 (concentrating the field graves to this cemetery). This was due to the fact that the Germans, when they buried the soldiers after the fighting in 1914, took away personal items and identifying items before burying the soldiers in mass graves (in 1914). They usually knew the names of the men buried, but as they were buried together, it wasn't possibly to individually identify every soldier upon exhumation in 1917. It was again the Germans who created these new cemeteries in 1917, not sparing costs and work and giving every soldier (friend or "enemy") a similar grave.

Jan

[Kevdan]

41 minutes ago, AOK4 said:

Hello,

Isn't this the French cemetery Houdrigny? Not all graves are unknown, some are individually identified and most of the persons are in fact identified, it was just not possibly to identify them individually when the Germans made this cemetery in 1917 (concentrating the field graves to this cemetery). This was due to the fact that the Germans, when they buried the soldiers after the fighting in 1914, took away personal items and identifying items before burying the soldiers in mass graves (in 1914). They usually knew the names of the men buried, but as they were buried together, it wasn't possibly to individually identify every soldier upon exhumation in 1917. It was again the Germans who created these new cemeteries in 1917, not sparing costs and work and giving every soldier (friend or "enemy") a similar grave.

Jan

I had that idea too. And according to me, the names are on the monument ?

[healdav]

The French took to the idea of ID tags fairly early on but they opted to give each man one tag.

Naturally, after he was killed, the tag had to be collected and sent back to HQ so that his name could be taken off the ration strength.

Voilà, one unknown.

After a time each man got two tags.

[AOK4]

21 minutes ago, healdav said:

The French took to the idea of ID tags fairly early on but they opted to give each man one tag.

Naturally, after he was killed, the tag had to be collected and sent back to HQ so that his name could be taken off the ration strength.

Voilà, one unknown.

After a time each man got two tags.

It was the same in the German army, hence the tag that could be broken in half.

Edited 31 August by AOK4

[SteveMarsdin]

Burying named men in mass graves was common in 1914: Foch’s only son, Gervaise is buried in one at nearby Gorcy. France changed their policy in 1915 when each man was entitled to be buried in an individual grave.

But as Jan said: these weren’t buried by the French: some were initially buried by local Belgians independently (Kevdan’s explanation there is correct) and some by the Germans (Belgian civilians supervised by the Germans). The German built cemeteries in 1917 are quite beautiful (eg Bellefontaine)

[healdav]

3 hours ago, AOK4 said:

It was the same in the German army, hence the tag that could be broken in half.

The French didn't think of that (nor did the British)