The town of Senones found itself in the firing line between 1914 and 1918.  The heavy bombing caused huge destruction and many civilian casualties. Consequently, Senones was awarded the 1914-1918 War Cross.

Begun in 1919 then extended in 1924 to bring together the temporary cemeteries of Schirmeck, la Broque and Colroy-la-Roche, this war cemetery contains the bodies of 1,487 French soldiers, 214 of which were placed in individual graves. Among these men, 54 British soldiers and 33 Russians are buried, 17 of which in a common grave. The remains of 1,273 servicemen were placed in three ossuaries.

In 1954, the bodies of 138 soldiers who died during the Battle of France in 1940 or the liberation of Plaine 1944-1945 were brought there.

In 1923, an equestrian statue of Joan of Arc was erected in the centre of the cemetery. Under the Nazi occupation, to avoid it being destroyed, this monument was buried in the cemetery and then reinstalled to its original location after the Liberation.

In 1914, faced with the proximity of the fighting, 14,000 of the 26,000 civilians fled the town. The elderly were moved towards the Haute-Saône, whereas the young orphans were welcomed in Mâcon. In order to ensure the security of the town, non-mobilised men welcomed the populations fleeing the fighting that was taking place in the sector of Raon-l'Etape and Badonviller.

Throughout the whole of the war, this stronghold would be subjected to numerous bombardments and became a town behind the front where warehouses, feed stores and hospitals were set up. These health structures opened in requisitioned buildings, such as numerous barracks, schools or civilian hospitals. 

In September 1921 the mayor of Epinal, Augustin Baudouin, asked for his town to be awarded the Croix de Guerre (War Cross): "Located a few kilometres from the line of fire which, at one point, was less than 25 km away, at the junction of numerous railway lines ending at Saint Dié, Nancy, Neufchâteau, Dijon, on the path of the troops going to the front, Epinal did not cease - throughout the duration of the hostilities - to be the enemy's target. (...) Epinal was constantly on alert throughout the hostilities; its inhabitants suffered both personally and materially; more than 250 torpedoes were launched at the town during the course of the fighting, not to mention the bombardments by machine guns and the inevitable accidents due to the defence fire from the square". In October 1921, the town received this honour, as it did in 1939-1945. In 1954, these two decorations were incorporated into the town's coat of arms.

Some of the soldiers buried in this cemetery were Commonwealth troops and came from India. Prisoners-of-war, these men were imprisoned at Frontstalag 315 in Chantraine near to Epinal. On 11 May 1944, an American squadron bombarded the sector. By mistake the barracks, like those of Chantraine, were for the most part destroyed. 500 Hindus died there, whilst over 2,000 left to hide in the forests surrounding Epinal.

Creation: World War I. Local hospitals.

Layout: 1924, 1934, 1935, bodies from the cemeteries in Neufchâteau and the vicinity in the southeast of the Vosges department (Contrexéville, etc.), Maxey-sur-Meuse and de Colombey-les-Belles, in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department were brought together.

1955 to 1962, bodies from World War II were brought together.

1961, full renovation.

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From the First World War, there are 1,834 Germans, 388 French, 149 Russians, fifteen British, thirteen Austro-Hungarians and five Serbians buried there.

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From the Second World War, 2,008 French, 1,032 Germans, eight Yugoslavians, seven British, five Polish, five Australians, two New-Zealanders, one Canadian, one Dutch and one Armenian. Among them are buried the remains of the remains of some women, civilian victims or military nurses, and two children who died during World War II; Monique Ferret, born and died in May 1945 in captivity at Innsbruck (Square C, row 6, grave 6) and Jacques Budios killed during a bombardment along with his mother in August 1944 (Square C, row 2, grave 19).

In addition, the remains of two servicemen who died in Indochina are at Strasbourg Cronenbourg: Johann Jury, of the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion, who died 15 January 1953 at Cau Xa in Tonkin (square D, row 11, grave 19) and Helmut Kraska, of the 2nd Foreign Regiment, who died in Nam Dinh (Tonkin) on 7 October 1953 (square C, row 1A, grave 15). More recently, there was a sapper parachutist of the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment, a native of Strasbourg, Michel Lung-Hoi, who died on 4 September 1986 in Jwayya, Lebanon.

It includes ten graves of soldiers who died during the war of 1870-1871. As a result of the First World War, next to the 91 French soldiers lie 475 Romanians, 122 Russians and one Briton. As a result of the Second World War, 536 Soviets including 493 in ossuaries, 358 Frenchmen, a Pole and a Belgian are buried there, as well as seven British pilots who died during the night of 24-25 April 1944 when their bomber crashed over Soufflenheim. A commemorative plaque was unveiled in this village in May 2014.

Nearby, a German military plot containing 188 graves was also created.

During the war, 3.4 million Russian soldiers were captured, of which 1.5 million were held prisoner in Germany. In the spring of 1915, the German authorities agreed the assignment of prisoners of war to the war kommandos to alleviate labour shortages. In Alsace, several thousand Russian prisoners were made to work on drainage, wood cutting, road building, as well as agriculture.

Working conditions were hard and the mortality rate among these men is estimated at 7.3%. During the war, almost 100,000 prisoners of war perished in Germany.

In addition, through agreements between France and Russia, some Russians joined the Western Front to supplement the ranks of the French army, who suffered significant losses in 1915. In 1916, four Russian elite brigades were formed, containing 45,000 men in total. Two were sent to Macedonia on the Salonica front, while the 1st and 3rd Brigade were deployed in Champagne, where they fought their first battles in 1917. With the political tensions and the Russian revolution, these unites were taken off the front lines. Some mutinied and were imprisoned in Algeria. Others formed the Russian Legion to continue fighting alongside France. At the end of the war, this battalion, which only had 1,600 men, was appointed the Russian Legion of Honour.

In 1916, in the village of Weiler, located east of Wissembourg, the Germans established a prison camp where daily life was of the most basic standard.  Some barracks and a hospital were also built to house the Russian prisoners captured in particular on the Western Front. The Weiler national war cemetery is now the last remaining evidence of the existence of this camp, about which few records exist.