Cimetière 1870 de Floing

The cemetery is the military plot reserved for the graves of servicemen who died for their country in 1870 in and around Floing. In line with the entrance is the large stele, flanked by 16 headstones along the back wall. Those who climb the slopes leading from the Floing church to this cemetery and the Terme plateau may have a double reaction as they walk: the joy of seeing a magnificent landscape is usually followed by the impression of reliving the bloody ordeal of a few thousand heroic cavalrymen who, at the end of a lost battle, sacrificed themselves to save honor. In less than two hours, on the afternoon of September 1, 1870, more than a thousand of them were thrown into mind-boggling cavalry charges and struck down by the intense fire of enemy skirmishers who had managed to take up position in close ranks on the Terme hillside.