Welcome to the WWII Forums! Log in or Sign up to interact with the community.

WWI's last battlefield gravemarker

Discussion in 'Military History' started by GRW, Nov 14, 2021.

Tags:
  1. GRW

    GRW Pillboxologist WW2|ORG Editor

    Joined:
    Oct 26, 2003
    Messages:
    20,829
    Likes Received:
    3,054
    Location:
    Stirling, Scotland
    How poignant is this? Just popped up on my FB timeline.
    "At the end of the First World War, Jean-Joseph Ivaldi went looking for his son, Edouard. Edouard (portrait photo below, early 1917) had joined the French Army, and was killed near a small village in Champagne, France, in 1917.
    When Jean-Joseph found his son's body in 1919, he raised the cross in the photo below, and placed upon it the helmet Edouard was wearing at the moment he was killed (possibly even the same one in Edouard's photo). It still remains in place today, a rusting tribute to its final owner.
    The grieving father also left a memorial to his son, which says
    To the memory of
    IVALDI, Edouard Marius
    of Pavillons-sous-Bois
    Corporal of the
    7th Infantry Regiment,
    9th Company
    Died for France
    30 April 1917
    Erected by Jean Ivaldi, his father,
    out of objects found in this place
    that had belonged to him.
    Today the location of Edouard Ivaldi's grave is kept hidden away from tourists, guarded jealously by the locals for whom he died.
    And this grave is especially distinctive and sacred, because more than a century later, Corporal Edouard Ivaldi is believed to be the only soldier from the First World War still buried in a marked grave upon the actual spot where he fell in battle.
    Pour tous les soldats de la
    Première Guerre mondiale."
    This is the only link I could find to a picture.
    www.reddit.com/r/CemeteryPorn/comments/r1xl3/grave_of_french_soldier_edouard_ivaldi_in/
     
    Kai-Petri likes this.

Share This Page