The memorial at the Croix des Carmes to the fighting in Priest's Wood during the Great War, near Pont a Mousson in France

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Bois-le-Prêtre (literally Priest's Wood) near Pont-à-Mousson on the River Moselle in France was a World War I theatre of operation between September 1914 and July 1915, involving the French 73rd and 128th Infantry Division (the Wolves of Bois-le-Prêtre) and the German 121st Infantry Division. It saw some of the fiercest fighting for French forces before the Battle of Verdun in 1916. The short front line was centred on a wooden cross known as the Croix des Carmes (Cross of the Carmelites in English). In 1923 the wooden cross was replaced with a permanent memorial in stone. In the nine months of heavy fighting some 7,000 French and approximately the same number of Germans were killed and about 20,000 wounded on each side.

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Size: 3437px × 4811px
Location: Bois-le-Pretre, nr. Pont-a-Mousson, France
Photo credit: © Niall Ferguson / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: 1915, battlefield, bois-le-pretre, carmelites, carmes, croix, cross, des, france, great, helarion, monument, pere, pont--mousson, priest, remembrance, sacrifice, war, wood, world