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Origin and history

The National Necropolis of Fontenelle is a French military cemetery dedicated to soldiers who died in the First World War. Located in Ban-de-Sapt (Vosges), in the far east, it dominates the area from the hillside of Fontenelle, at 627 meters altitude. This place gathers the remains of 1,384 military personnel, 424 of whom rest in ossuary, from nine temporary cemeteries in the vicinity (La Fontenelle, Germainfaing, Launois, Celles-sur-Plaine).

Created between 1921 and 1923, the necropolis honours the victims of the Battle of Fontenelle (September 1914 to July 1915), a bloody episode of war in the Vosges. A memorial, carved by Émile Just Bachelet in 1925, represents Marianne and a hairy in local pink sandstone. Since 2010, the ONACVG has managed the site, listed as a historical monument in 2017 and as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2023 among 139 sites on the West Front.

The site includes a marked memory trail, tracing the history of fighting through historical panels. The necropolis includes the bodies of soldiers who fell in confrontations like those on the Col de la Chapelotte. In 2015, commemorations marked the centenary of the fighting. The monument, a symbol of Vosges resistance, remains a place for collective memory to be collected and transmitted.

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