Notre Dame de Lorette

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Notre Dame de Lorette (Ablain St.-Nazaire French Military Cemetery)
France
Louis-Marie Cordonnier , Jacques Cordonnier
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Official name	Funerary and memory sites of the First World War (Western Front)
Type	Cultural
Criteria	i, ii, vi
Designated	2023 (45th session)
Reference no.	1567-PC10

Notre Dame de Lorette (French pronunciation:

– utterly dominates the otherwise flat Douai plain and the town of Arras.

Site of four battles

The ground was strategically important during the First World War and was bitterly contested in a series of long and bloody engagements between the opposing French and German armies. It was the focal point of three battles:

• Battle of Arras (1914) (1–4 October 1914) – an encounter battle during the Race to the Sea
• First Battle of Artois (17 December 1914 –13 January 1915) – part of a combined attack with the First Battle of Champagne (20 December 1914 – 17 March 1915)
• Vimy Ridge
• Third Battle of Artois (25 September–15 October 1915) – also known as the Artois–Loos Offensive

The Battles of Artois were as costly in French lives as the better-known

fallen as well as an ossuary, containing the bones of those whose names were not marked.

Cemetery and ossuary

In total, the cemetery and ossuary hold the remains of more than 40,000 soldiers, as well as the ashes of many concentration camp victims.

The basilica and memorial buildings were designed by the architect

and his son Jacques Cordonnier, and built between 1921 and 1927.

Basilica

A small building was raised in 1727 by the painter

(Italy), to shelter a statue of the Virgin Mary. It was destroyed in 1794, rebuilt in 1816 and transformed in 1880.

Gallery

• 
  Basilica
• 
  Second Battle of Artois, 1915
• 
  Lorette Cemetery

References

External links

• Notre-Dame de Lorette
• ND de Lorette at Web Matters
• French site Notre Dame de Lorette (in French)