The Baslieux National Necropolis is a French military cemetery located in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in northeastern France, close to the Luxembourg border. It is dedicated primarily to French soldiers who died during the early stages of World War I, particularly in the fighting of August 1914.
At the outbreak of the war, this region stood near the heavily fortified frontier between France and Germany. During the opening phase of the conflict, known as the Battle of the Frontiers, French and German forces engaged in intense combat across Lorraine and the Longwy basin. The rapid movements, artillery bombardments, and infantry assaults resulted in heavy casualties on both sides. Many soldiers were buried hastily in temporary graves near the battlefields.
After the war, the French government undertook a vast program to regroup and dignify these scattered burials. Bodies recovered from provisional cemeteries and isolated graves in the surrounding area were reinterred at Baslieux. The cemetery was officially designated a “national necropolis,” meaning it is maintained by the French state as a permanent site of military remembrance.
The Baslieux National Cemetery contains the remains of soldiers who died during the fighting of the Battle of the Frontiers (August 1914). This cemetery, constructed between 1920 and 1921, houses bodies exhumed from isolated graves or temporary military cemeteries in the vicinity of Baslieux and Doncourt. In the battle 800 French soldiers lost their lives, on this site, the site of a mass grave dating from 1914, 293 French bodies are buried beneath an ossuary monument. This monument was funded by the family of Second Lieutenant Trochu, an officer in the 151st Infantry Regiment.
Visit
The monument is located on the side of a road with a beautiful natural view, it can be viewed 24 hours a day.
