The fact that the French lost the war and was so traumatized afterward made the conflict much more difficult for them to commemorate. The government erected a few memorials in places where its soldiers fought gallant defensive actions. The huge Lion of Belfort, carved into a mountain in Alsace in eastern France, commemorates the resistance of Belfort to the German advance. The city endured a 100-day siege but the Germans never succeeded in capturing it and after the war, Belfast, unlike the rest of the province of Alsace, was permitted to remain part of France. The French government tried to use monuments like this to link a heroic past with an expected glorious future, says author Andrew Eschelbacher.
The victorious Germans erected memorials on the former battlefields. These monuments were to both celebrate their victory and commemorate their 28,000 soldiers who died in the war. Since these areas were now part of Germany, the memorials also marked the territory as German. Historian Geoffrey Wawro notes how the design of the monuments -- replete with iron crosses and the spikes of German pickelhaub helmets -- suggests a confident nation secure in its place in the world. Today, these same monuments stand ignored in French farmland.
Towns in both France and Germany sometimes erected memorials to commemorate local people who died in the war. Although many have not survived the intervening years, others can still be seen today, often in local cemeteries. In Muehlacker in Germany, the town cemetery is home to a number of memorials to different wars, including a small stone obelisk topped with an eagle that lists the names of 75 men who served in the war. Another example is in the city of Marburg, where a red sandstone monument in the city cemetery commemorates 25 local German soldiers.
