- Attractions
- Monument
Located near Charleroi, Belle Motte is one of the largest French First World War cemeteries on Belgian soil, located not far from Charleroi. This site is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with 15 other Walloon funeral and memorial sites.
The Battle of the Sambre
On the borders of the villages of Le Roux and Aiseau, close to the place where the deadly fighting of the Battle of the Sambre took place on August 22, 1914, this military cemetery gathers the remains of more than 4,000 French soldiers: fighters from Brittany, Normandy, the Bordeaux region, the North of France and North Africa.
The first stones of the cemetery were laid in 1917 by the Germans. A square of German graves featured there until 1954 before being subsequently transferred to the Langemark cemetery. In the center of the cemetery stands the main monument, consisting of a Gothic arch. This is the embryo of a memorial chapel built by the Germans in 1917. A plaque pays tribute to Franco-Belgian friendship.