Practically forgotten by the townspeople since its removal in 1954, works began on the German military cemetery of Belle-Motte from 1917. It was situated in Zeulies wood, towards the back of the current French cemetery.
As with Belle-Motte's French national cemetery, it was the German army, since it still occupied Belgian territory, that exhumed and gathered the remains of the soldiers fallen on the battlefield of Belle-Motte. The cemetery welcomed 226 soldiers, almost exclusively members of the 79th Infantry Regiment who fought on these lands on 22nd August 1914.
The original German cemetery would be re-designed in 1929, it was given the number 99 and its patron would be the 'Kameradschaftsbund' von Voigt-Rhetz, a former 'fellow member' of the 79th Infantry Regiment, who lived in Hildesheim, a German town situated close to Hanover in Lower Saxony. By statutory order dated 19th August 1917, Belgium, under German authority and military government, decided to guarantee the perpetuity of the burial grounds of Franco-British, Italian, Russian and Germanic soldiers resting on its territory.
