French Headstone

[shinglma]

Can anybody tell me what the French process was for identifying those killed. I ask because I noticed at Notre Dame de Lorette last week a number of graves where a number of letters in the name were replaced with dots. The most extreme case was the one below.

[CROONAERT]

Shinglma

If I've understood you correctly, the answer is pretty much the same as for the British Army (ID discs , paybooks, other documentation and letters, labels and badges on the uniform , personal effects and recognition by comrades).

The French ,however, didn't seem to place as much emphasis on individual marking of graves having historically developed a "mass grave" mentality.WW1 was the first time that they really concentrated on individual graves for OR's, but the "mass grave" mentality seemed to come back into vogue during the post war concentrations.This could be a reason for the partial identification on some graves.

Just for reference, the French had 2 types of "official" ID disc during the war. They started with and most ended the war with the Mle.1881 disc (one disc usually worn round the neck or pinned into the clothing and another usually worn on the wrist). The front of the Mle.1881 showed the soldier's name and "class" (ie the year he became of service age).The reverse showed the soldier's number and depot town.

The Mle 1881 is illustrated below.

Dave.

[CROONAERT]

...the other disc was the Mle.1918, introduced that year. This showed the same details as the 1881 disc, but had a perforated section with the information repeated for removal in the event of the soldier becoming a casualty. This pattern is the type that also saw service in WW2 and the colonial campaigns of the 1950's. It was invariably worn on the wrist.

Dave.