CIMETIÈRE DE CHAMBIÈRE

Israelite Cemetery and Military Cemetery. As early as the 16th century and especially during the last three major conflicts, the large Messinian garrison had to deal with the problem of its dead. The present necropolis has existed since 1870; it contains 5,014 individual tombs and 11 ossuaries grouping together 13,015 French, Allied (1,700 Russians, 103 British and 88 Italians and 15 Belgians) and German soldiers and civilians. During the three previous centuries, burials were most often "outside the walls", in this isolated Chambière island, a wasteland subject to flooding by the Moselle, probably around the "Cornue géline", a small farmhouse which became a hospital and then a military laundry. The future Marshal of Belle-Isle had a "modern" hospital with its funeral field built in 1733 at Le Pontiffroy. However, due to the small size of the field and the imperatives of hygiene and town planning, it was necessary to bury, from the Revolution onwards, close to the original site. After the tragedy of 1870, the Germans made Chambière their "garrison cemetery", open to families. Not having this function after 1918, the site, now a national necropolis, had to be reorganised "within the walls" and only receive war victims.