Gëlle Fra
Encyclopedia
Luxembourgish language
Luxembourgish is a High German language spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 320,000 people worldwide speak Luxembourgish.-Language family:...
for 'Golden Lady'), is a war memorial
War memorial
A war memorial is a building, monument, statue or other edifice to celebrate a war or victory, or to commemorate those who died or were injured in war.-Historic usage:...
in Luxembourg City, in southern Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
. It is dedicated to the thousands of Luxembourgers who volunteered for service in the armed forces
Armed forces
The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...
of the Allied Powers
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
The Gëlle Fra is situated in Constitution Square, in the Ville Haute
Ville Haute
Ville Haute is a quarter in central Luxembourg City, in southern Luxembourg.In 2001, the quarter had a population of 2,686 people.It is the historical center of Luxembourg City and is involved in its UNESCO World Heritage Site status....
quarter
Quarters of Luxembourg City
The Quarters of Luxembourg City are the smallest administrative division for local government in Luxembourg City, the capital and largest city in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg....
of central Luxembourg City.
Description
The centrepiece of the monument is a 21 metre-tall graniteGranite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
obelisk
Obelisk
An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...
. Atop of the obelisk stands a gilded
Gilding
The term gilding covers a number of decorative techniques for applying fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give a thin coating of gold. A gilded object is described as "gilt"...
bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
statue
Statue
A statue is a sculpture in the round representing a person or persons, an animal, an idea or an event, normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger...
of a lady, holding out a laurel wreath
Laurel wreath
A laurel wreath is a circular wreath made of interlocking branches and leaves of the bay laurel , an aromatic broadleaf evergreen. In Greek mythology, Apollo is represented wearing a laurel wreath on his head...
as if placing it upon the head of the nation. At the foot of the obelisk are two (ungilded) bronze figures, representing those Luxembourgish soldiers that volunteered to serve for France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
; one lies at the base of the statue, having died in service of his country, whilst the other sits, mourning his dead compatriot.
The sculptor of the three bronze figures was Claus Cito
Claus Cito
Nicolas Joseph 'Claus' Cito was a Luxembourgian sculptor. He is most notable for having created the original Gëlle Fra war memorial.Cito trained at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels...
, a native Luxembourger. The model for the Gëlle Fra is unknown. The monument was opened in 1923.
First World War
During the First World War, Luxembourg pledged itself to neutralityNeutral country
A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...
, but was occupied by Germany
German occupation of Luxembourg in World War I
The German occupation of Luxembourg in World War I was the first of two military occupations of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg by Germany in the twentieth century. From August 1914 until the end of World War I in November 1918, Luxembourg was under full occupation by the German Empire...
, which justified its actions by citing military necessity. However, most Luxembourgers did not believe Germany
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
's good intentions, fearing that Germany would annex
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
their country in the event of a German victory; these claims were substantiated by Bethmann Hollweg's Septemberprogramm
Septemberprogramm
The Septemberprogramm was a plan drafted by the German leadership in the early weeks of the First World War. It detailed Germany's ambitious gains should it win the war, as it expected...
.
Although Luxembourgers left under German occupation at home could do little to aid the Allies, those overseas, outside Germany's control, could volunteer to serve against Germany. In total, 3,700 Luxembourgian nationals served in the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
army, of whom, 2,000 died. As Luxembourg's pre-war population was only 266,000, this death toll amounted to more than 1% of the entire national population, which is a relatively greater percentage for many combatant nations (see: World War I casualties
World War I casualties
The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I were over 35 million. There were over 15 million deaths and 20 million wounded ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history....
).
After the First World War
When Luxembourg was occupied by Nazi forces in World War II, the Germans dismantled the memorial in October 1940. Several portions of the memorial were rescued, and after the war, the monument was partially restored. Later additions were made to honor Luxembourger forces who had served in World War II and the Korean War.The monument was not fully reconstructed and restored to its original design until 1984.
The statue of the gilded lady was exhibited at the entrance of the Luxembourg pavilion of the Expo 2010 world exhibition in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
.