monument et crypte aux morts

English translation

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History

The crypt of the dead of Loos, which commemorates the losses of the First World War, consists of two parts: on the surface a monument of fairly conventional style (a granite obelisk), and the underground part the crypt which serves as a military plot, where the bodies of soldiers repatriated at the request of families are gathered. The question of the fate of the bodies of combatants had been debated since the start of the war, when for the first time the regulations provided for individual burial for all (and no longer only for officers). The finance law of 31 July 1920 settles the matter by providing both that families can request the return of the bodies of soldiers who died for France at the expense of the State, and that unclaimed soldiers will be grouped within military cemeteries at the sites of the fighting. At Loos, of 368 combatants recognized as dead for France, 133 are the subject of a request for repatriation, which can only succeed if the cemetery is in a position to receive them. This question is mixed with that of the war memorial, and the municipality decides to combine the two projects by surmounting the crypt with a monument. It is the architect Fidèle Lhermitte who is the author of the project approved in May 1922, but the variations in the programme desired by the mayor and the defective workmanship which he holds the architect responsible for leads to his replacement by Alexandre Walare. The latter completes the monument on the drawings of his colleague, and designs the layout of the small garden that surrounds it. The most interesting element of the crypt is its decoration, due to the master glazier and mosaicist Jean Gaudin. He creates it by inserting the tesserae into the cement render covering the walls, which is coloured red for the upper parts. This economical technique is nonetheless of fine appearance. The iconography takes up traditional funeral motifs (torches, incense holders, crosses) and associates them with the palm of the martyrs and the laurels of the victors, to commemorate these victims. These are not only military: two civilians executed by the Germans are also depicted. This explains the wording on the commemorative inscription of the central pillar 'died for the Fatherland' and not 'died for France', which was initially attributed only to military personnel. This central pillar also bears the names of soldiers whose bodies were not repatriated, in order to commemorate in the same place both the present and the absent.