Location 3 – Faubourg Pavé Cemetery

	Click and drag to move the map. Use the slider to zoom in/out.

Brief History - French Counter-Offensives and Aftermath

Directions – Leave Verdun to the east on the D630 in the direction of Etain. The cemetery is on the left before you leave the city joining the D603.

Practical Information – As a reminder of the human cost of the fighting prior to reaching the battlefield proper, this cemetery is striking and probably best seen as the first site the morning after visiting Location 2.

Historical Notes – Buried around the large cross in the centre of this cemetery are seven unknown soldiers. The eighth from this group was chosen entirely at random to be laid beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris as the French Unknown Warrior. The selection ceremony took place in the Verdun Citadel in 10th November 1920. There are over 5,000 other burials here.

As with the remains of the British Unknown Soldier, laid to rest in the entrance of Westminster Abbey, the significance of the act is often misunderstood. For us today the Unknown Soldier is a symbol of the sacrifice of the war and of the faceless millions who went to their deaths. However, for many bereaved families at the time whose loved one were classed only as "missing", the hope could be clung to that it was their relative that had been found and accorded the highest honour the nation could bestow.