This is a List of World War I memorials and cemeteries in Pas-de-Calais, within the historic County of Artois and present day Pas-de-Calais Department of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, located in northeastern France. World War I battles in this area of the Western Front include the First Battle of Artois (December 1914 – January 1915), the Second Battle of Artois (9–15 May 1915), and the Third Battle of Artois (25 September–15 October 1915).
Background Following the various declarations of war which were to lead to the First World War, the German Army opened the war on her western front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium and then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The German Army forced the Allied armies to retreat until the Battle of the Marne was fought, when the tide turned and the German Army was forced to retreat northwards. They did so to the river Aisne, dug in on the high ground there, and fought the First Battle of the Aisne. This encounter was inconclusive and what historians call the race to the sea followed, during which neither side was able to achieve a breakthrough as they edged to the north and at the conclusion both sides were to dig in along a meandering line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France. This line, the Western Front, remained essentially unchanged for most of the war. A war of movement was over and a type of warfare that no side had planned for was to take its place: a static war of attrition with both sides entrenched on either side of the front line.
Between 1915 and 1917, there were several major offensives along this front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. However a combination of entrenchments, machine gun nests, barbed wire, and artillery repeatedly inflicted severe casualties on the attackers and counterattacking defenders and as a result, no significant advances were made. Among the most costly of these offensives were the Battle of Verdun with a combined 700,000 dead, the Battle of the Somme with more than a million casualties, and the Battle of Passchendaele or "Third Ypres", which saw roughly 600,000 casualties.
Both sides tried to break the deadlock by introducing new military technology, including poison gas, aircraft and tanks but it was improved tactics that eventually restored some degree of mobility to the conflict. The German spring offensive of 1918 was made possible by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that marked the end of the conflict on the Eastern Front. Using the recently introduced infiltration tactics, the German armies advanced nearly to the west, which marked the deepest advance by either side since 1914 and they very nearly succeeded in forcing a breakthrough.
The Germans could not in the end break the Allied line and now the numerical advantage given the Allies by the volume of soldiers arriving from the United States of America fuelled an inexorable advance by the Allied armies during the second half of 1918. The German Army commanders finally realised that defeat was inevitable, and the government was forced to sue for conditions of an armistice. This took place on 11 November 1918 and the terms of peace were agreed upon with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
After the Battle of the Marne and the Battle of the Aisne, the encounters between the two opposing armies moved northwards towards Compiègne on 17 to 18 September 1914, to Roye on 22 September 1914, the Battle of Albert from 27 to 28 September 1914, and then the Battle of Arras from 30 September to 5 October 1914. From 4 to 8 October 1914 there was fighting at the Battle of La Bassée and at Neuve Chapelle. The two armies then continued to move northwards until the Yser and the North Sea coast were reached.
Neuve Chapelle was to see a further Battle of Neuve Chapelle from 10 to 13 March 1915, followed by the Battle of Aubers Ridge on 9 May 1915, Battle of Festubert from 15 to 25 May 1915, and the Battle of Loos from 25 September to 18 October 1915.
No major attacks took place in the Arras sector from the end of October 1915 to April 1917, but then we see the huge Battle of Arras fought from 9 April to 17 May 1917, fighting at Hill 70 in August 1917, the "Kaiser's Battle" from 21 to 28 March 1918, the Battle of the Lys in April 1918, and the Second Battle of Arras in August 1918.
Sector 1. Arras: From south of Ploegsteert to Festubert The Battle of Armentières was part of the so-called "Race to the Sea", the series of battles that were ultimately to define the line of the Western Front as trench warfare finally took over in the autumn of 1914.
Cite Bonjean (New Zealand Memorial) This memorial is located in the Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery, Armentières, and commemorates 47 officers and men of the New Zealand Division who died in the neighbourhood of Armentières and have no known grave. The cemetery and memorial were designed by Sir Herbert Baker.
Le Quesnoy Memorial In November 1918, just a week before the end of the First World War, the New Zealand Division captured the French town of Le Quesnoy. It was the New Zealanders' last major action in the war and to this day the town of Le Quesnoy continues to mark the important role that the country played in its history. Streets are named after New Zealand places, there is the New Zealand memorial, and a primary school bears the name of a New Zealand soldier. Le Quesnoy was occupied by the German Army for most of the First World War but on 4 November 1918, it was attacked by men of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade, who scaled the high walls of the outer ramparts and seized the German Commander and his garrison of over 1,000 men. On the face of the walls is a memorial commemorating their success and the ninety New Zealand lives that were lost in the process. After resisting the German offensive in the spring of 1918, the Allied Armies (including American troops), under the command of General Foch, launched a counter-attack along the length of the Western Front in what was to become known as the Hundred Days Offensive. On 21 August, the British Army launched the first of a number of attacks on the Western Front in the sectors under its control: Amiens, Albert, Arras and Bapaume. The Allied troops advanced up to the Hindenburg Line which they breached at Saint-Quentin Canal on 5 October and at Le Nord Canal three days later. Lille and Douai were liberated on 17 October, and the British Army pressed on towards the Belgian border while the New Zealand Division was given the job of liberating Le Quesnoy. The 18th century Vauban fortifications protecting the town encouraged the Germans garrisoned there to hold out against the Allied advance; however the precision of the New Zealand artillery disrupted the organization of the German defence. In the general confusion Kiwi soldiers managed to set up a ladder on the south side of the town and enter through a sluice gate. Led by Lieutenant Leslie Averill, the New Zealanders completely surprised the Germans who, after much fighting in the streets, surrendered the town on the evening of 4 November. The Armistice was signed a week later.
Memorial to the 1914 Christmas Truce The British Army that held the front from the south of Ypres to the La Bassée canal was, in late December 1914, composed of what remained of the units which had been decimated in the First Battle of Ypres the month before. Life in the trenches was still very primitive and, with the onset of winter and the rain causing many trenches to be waterlogged, extremely demanding. The narrowness of "No man's land" in this sector of the front, just a few dozen metres, created a strange proximity between the warring parties. Small-scale, but bloody, attacks carried out in the vicinity of Ypres and French Flanders during the month of December 1914 gave way, in some sectors of the front, to spontaneous truces, in particular for the recovery of the wounded and dead lying in the mud of no man's land. On 24 December 1914, some German soldiers erected Christmas trees, complete with candles and paper lanterns, on the parapets of various first line trenches. Christmas hymns were soon being sung on both sides and soldiers even called out to each other across the front. Similar but much larger events took place on Christmas Day. In some places the warring sides buried their dead at the same time, and some even exchanged little presents, and home addresses, while in other sectors the fighting continued to rage, mostly due to sniper activity. In the British sector the truce was observed by many units at Houplines, Bois-Grenier, Fromelles, Neuve-Chapelle and Richebourg-l'Avoué. The small village of Frelinghien is situated on the Franco-Belgian frontier just to the north east of Armentieres and a memorial to the Christmas Truce is situated in Frelinghien Park opposite their football ground. There were a number of unofficial truces held along the line that day though the commands of both sides issued orders against fraternisation.
Sector 1: Fromelles (Fleurbaix), Aubers, Neuve Chapelle and Festubert South from Armentières was the front line dominated by the Aubers Ridge. The German army held this ridge, so much of the fighting in the sector involved attempts to dislodge them from it. "South of the Armentières sector lies Aubers Ridge, a belt of country about 3 miles deep and 9 miles long. No extended periods of fighting devastated this ridge; but by shielding the important French town of Lille and German communications and supply hubs, it was always a potential setting for a major British offensive, The ridge itself, barely rising 50 feet above the plain was hardly an outstanding topographical feature in peacetime; in war, however, it totally dominated the terrain to the north and west. It was to be the scene of several British struggles in 1915– and the site of a tragic failure the following year.".Peter Barton's "The Battlefields of the First World War". Published in London by Constable in Association with the Imperial War Museum.
The Australian Memorial Park at Fromelles and the Battle of Fromelles 19 to 20 July 1916 The Australian Memorial Park is situated around the remains of German fortifications on the part of the German line captured by the 14th Australian Brigade and held overnight from 19 to 20 July 1916. The park and the nearby VC Corner Cemetery lies some from Fromelles, south of Armentières, and west of Lille.
The work entitled Cobbers sculpted by the Melbourne sculptor Peter Corlett is located here. Corlett based his sculpture on 3101 Sergeant Simon Fraser of the 57th Battalion, a 40-year-old farmer from Victoria who had rescued many men from the battlefield. Corlett depicts him carrying a man of the 60th Battalion. Fraser was "mentioned in despatches" on a later occasion when he was a Lieutenant with the 58th Battalion. He was killed at Bullecourt on 12 May 1917. He has no known grave and his name appears on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial. In a letter written on 31 July 1916 Fraser wrote
The Battle of Fromelles or Fleurbaix was a bloody affair and in a twenty-seven-hour period the Australian 5th Division suffered 5,533 casualties, with 1,917 killed, of whom 1,299 could not be identified. A further approximately 400 men were taken prisoner. To illustrate the extent of the losses the 60th Battalion Victoria Regiment started the battle with 887 men and, when the fighting was over, had just 1 officer and 106 men left. It is also estimated that the British Army had 1,547 men killed or wounded and that the German Army lost 1,500 soldiers killed or wounded in the Battle of Fromelles.