Le monument aux morts de l'Armée d'Orient et des terres lointaines at Marseille

MONUMENT TO THE ARMY DEAD  IN THE EAST AND DISTANT LANDS

The monument to the Army Dead of the Orient and the Distant Lands, or Porte d'Orient, is a First World War memorial located at the Kennedy Corniche on the Marseille shoreline. The Armée d'Orient was the designation of the French force deployed on the Salonika (Macedonian) Front that was the largest component of the multi-national force deployed there. The Allied units eventually came under overall French command. 

Details Viewed from the South

On 29 September 1918, this sector was the location of the first armistice requested by one of the Central Powers—Bulgaria—at the conclusion of the war. At the base of the monument, which was dedicated in 1927, are supplemental plaques that honor France's later fallen in North Africa and Indochina. The French sacrifices in 1915's Gallipoli campaign by the Corps Expeditionnaire d'Orient  don't seem to have a special mention but might be included within the "distant lands" scope of the monument.

Victory

The monument, designed by architect Gaston Castel (1888–1971) and sculptor Antoine Sartorio (1885–1988), features a bronze statue surrounded by a white granite arch. The designers proposed a site on a promontory  overlooking the Mediterranean to remind visitors that Marseille is the gateway to the Orient. The massive arch has a crescent and a star in its center, and the intrados are decorated with stylized palm leaves. It is flanked on either side by full-length figures commemorating the land army and that of the air combatants, while two female figures with massive wings, placed on the fruit of the jambs, represent their heroism. On a base, in the center of the arch, stands the bronze Victory, her arms outstretched toward the sky. On the sides of the arch are inscribed the names and dates of the major campaigns of the First World War. 

            Plaques Remembering the 1918 Armistice and Later Additions for                           North Africa  and Indochina

The name Armée d'Orient has a long historic pedigree for France, applied to three expeditionary forces:

• Armée d'Orient (1798), the French task force sent by the French Directory under Bonaparte for an invasion of Egypt in 1798
• Armée d'Orient (1853), the unit sent by Napoleon III to the Crimean War
• Armée d'Orient (1915–19), the French-led field army fighting in the Balkans during World War I