Powązki Cemetery — Monument to the French Soldiers

A historic Warsaw cemetery

Powązki Cemetery (Cmentarz Powązkowski, known as Stare Powązki), one of the oldest and most important necropolises in Warsaw and Poland, holds many figures of Polish history.

It is there, not far from Gate No. IV, that the monument to the French soldiers who died in Poland stands.

A monument to the French soldiers

The monument was raised over the grave of nine French soldiers of the Haller Army. It bears the mottoes “Honneur et Patrie” (Honour and Country) and “Fidélité et Dévouement” (Loyalty and Devotion).

The grave slab reads: “To the French soldiers who died in Poland in the ranks of their Polish brothers-in-arms.”

At the rear, a marble plaque engraves some sixty names and ranks, beneath the inscriptions “To the French soldiers fallen in Poland 1919–1921” and “Here rest 9 French soldiers of the Haller Army.” Seventeen French soldiers buried in Lwów (Lviv) are also recorded.

The Haller Army and the French Mission

These men served in the Haller Army (the “Blue Army”) and the French Military Mission, engaged alongside Poland during the Polish-Ukrainian War and then the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921.

Among those remembered here is Rear Admiral Eugène-Charles Jolivet, head of the French Naval Mission in Poland, who died in Warsaw on 17 June 1926 — his body was repatriated to France. In 1946, another Frenchman, Jean Grane, who died in Warsaw on 7 July 1946, was buried nearby.

A living work of remembrance

As the cemetery registers burned in 1944, the identification of these soldiers rests on the monument’s inscriptions and on cross-research between French archives (the Mémoire des hommes database) and Polish ones.

Le Souvenir Français en Pologne watches over this monument and honours the memory of these soldiers during commemorations. Further details — the full list of names, the condition of the monument and upkeep work — will be added as research progresses.