Notre Dame de Lorette is the name of a ridge and basilica north-west of Arras. It is near the D937 road northwest of Arras at the village of Ablain-Saint-Nazaire. The high point of the hump-backed ridge stands 165-metres high and - with Vimy Ridge - utterly dominates the otherwise flat Douai plain and the town of Arras. 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 the three battles:
- First Battle of Artois (27 September–10 October, 1914) - an encounter battle during the Race to the Sea.
- Second Battle of Artois (9 May–15 May, 1915) - French attack towards 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 Battle of Verdun. With Verdun, Notre Dame de Lorette is a French national necropolis, sacred ground containing the graves of thousands of French and Colonial fallen, as well as an ossuary, containing the bones of those whose names were not marked. In total, the site contains the remains of nearly 40,000 soldiers, as well as the ashes of many concentration camp victims.
History
A small building was raised in 1727 by the painter Nicolas Florent Guilbert, who had made a successful pilgrimage to Loreto (Italy), to shelter a statue of the Virgin Mary. It was destroyed in 1794, rebuilt in 1816 and transformed in 1880.
External links
| World War I Portal |
