French Flanders: From Laventie to Neuve Chapelle Part Four – Rue du Bacquerot 13th London Graveyard

A mile to the east of Laventie, this is Rue du Bacquerot 13th London Graveyard, which is today to be found on Rue Plate, which leads into Rue de la Vengerie and, eventually, a mile and a quarter south of here, Rue du Bacquerot.  Helpful, that.  Still, that’s the risk you run if you decide to name your cemetery after a road. 

The cemetery was begun by men of the 1st Bn. Royal Irish Rifles in November 1914, and was used thereafter until the early summer of 1916.  When it was closed in June 1916 (there is, to be fair, a single July burial), close to two hundred men, all but one identified, had been buried here.

Cemetery entrance,…

…the cemetery name inscribed on either side.

The lack of dates is unusual,…

…and there are no plots here, just seven rows of burials, one obscured in this picture, Rows A (far left) to G (far right), as the cemetery plan, thanks to the CWGC, shows.

On our left on entering, this neat little structure holds the ‘In Perpetuity’ tablet, in English & French, and a seat for the weary.

The graves at this end of the cemetery are widely and evenly spaced, those at the far end closer together, but still nicely regimented, one sign of a cemetery created in relative safety.  And it may well be that by the summer of 1916 this area had become much less safe, thus the cemetery’s closure.  Or it may be that by then, with the original regiments who created the cemetery long gone elsewhere, other regiments, with no link to this particular burial site, simply chose to bury their dead somewhere else.

Rows A & B, the two rows directly ahead of us to the left of the Cross, are all burials from 1915 & 1916, but four of the five other rows contain casualties from 1914, two of whom are buried in Row C, beneath the second & third headstones on the right.  Both were Gordon Highlanders killed in December 1914, probably buried apart from the other 1914 burials we are about to see in anticipation of future Highlander casualties; the very nature of a regimental cemetery, as this was when created, means room is required for, let’s say, expansion.  As it turned out, these two men were the only Gordon Highlanders buried here, and as time moved on, men from other regiments killed in 1915 were buried on either side of them.  Or that’s how I read it, anyway.

Row C continues, after a gap, with these four 13th (Kensington) Bn. London Regiment casualties from early 1915 (with three more behind them in Row D),…

…after which, still following Row C, we find the rest of the early burials, all at this end of the cemetery.  The burials were initially laid out crossways, and here all the other 1914 burials (except one) are highlighted; the headstones left unshaded are burials from 1915 (all the 1916 burials are towards the far end of the cemetery).  The six mauve-shaded headstones show the first burials made here by 13th Bn. London Regiment in the last ten days of December 1914, and explain the cemetery’s name, particularly as the battalion would continue to use the cemetery during the early months of 1915; we have just walked past some of their early 1915 burials (previous shot).  The five blue-shaded headstones mark the 1914 burials made by the Royal Irish Rifles, the earliest of which, a man killed in mid-November 1914, the central of the three blue headstones in Row F, was the first man to be buried here.  The one 1914 burial not pictured, out of shot to the right, and the first grave of Row C,…

…is that of Private John Finn, another 13th London Regiment man killed in late December 1914.

This extract from the 13th London Regiment war diary documents their arrival in the front line trenches south east of Fauquissart, about a mile to the south of here, on 18th November 1914, and, two days later, their first death.  Private Perry, incidentally, was originally buried in another cemetery further south along the Rue du Bacquerot which was called Rue du Bacquerot (Wagnerie Post) Old Military Cemetery and which no longer exists; he now lies in Rue David Military Cemetery, Fleurbaix.  The entry for 20th November ends ‘frost & snow. Many men suffer from frostbite’,…

…and by early December many of the diary’s entries bemoan the foul weather and flooded trenches above all else.  The table is a running total of officers, NCOs & men killed & wounded that appears on a weekly basis in the diary’s early pages until, as casualties become a way of life* in the aftermath of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the tables cease.

*there’s irony for you.

Row D Grave 2, Corporal Albert Charles Freeman, another 13th London Regiment man, killed on 21st December 1914,…

…one of two men to die that day, the other man buried alongside him.  The battalion took over some trenches from the Royal Irish Rifles the same day,…

…and the three Royal Irish Rifles riflemen buried at the start of Row F, the ones highlighted in blue earlier, are, as mentioned, the earliest burials here.

Looking west from the cemetery’s north eastern corner, the road behind us, Row F on the left, and Row G along the wall.

If you are wondering why this burial ground was not named after the 1st Bn. Royal Irish Rifles, who did, after all, bury the first man here, well, apart from the five blue-shaded headstones in the earlier picture, the only other man of the battalion buried here is thirty four year-old Captain William Mortimer Lanyon, who died on 5th April 1915, and who lies beneath the headstone closest to the camera here at the start of Row G.  According to the newspaper report, he was killed instantaneously by a sniper’s bullet to the head on the day after he had entered the trenches for the first time.  At least, by adding him to this end of the row, he was buried among men of his battalion.

The war diary continues with the battalion’s experience of the famous Christmas truce (above & below),…

…although I don’t get the impression that they were that enthusiastic, ‘firing impossible as other units still out’ on 27th December suggesting that although others were still fraternizing, they wanted to get on with the war.  Private Finn, whose grave we saw earlier at the start of Row C, was one of the two casualties noted here as having been killed on 28th December,…

…although the GRRF incorrectly gives him an extra year of life.

Another man was killed by a sniper on 29th December (Lance Corporal Woodley on the GRRF),…

…and he now lies beneath the headstone on the left here in Row C, the two other late December Kensington casualties on the GRRF, Privates King & Pitts, next to him.

1914 ends with more foul weather, ‘water running in trenches’.

The Kensingtons remained in the area through the early months of 1915, and by late February had buried seventeen men in this cemetery.  The final table in the war diary appears on 4th March, by which time the battalion were spending a week or so in reserve, training for the first British offensive of the war, the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.

At which point we shall head back across the cemetery, Row C once again in the centre of the picture,…

…to the southern side,…

…and Row A, on the far left, and Row B ahead of us.  Laventie church can be seen on the horizon to the left.

All the burials in Row A are from October, November or December 1915…

…except the final three, who were killed in January 1916.

Evidently the cemetery was once known as Red House Cemetery,…

…after one of the once-ruined houses on the other side of the road.

Looking to our left, this end of Row D contains most of the final burials made here, men from various regiments who died in June 1916, although the actual last burial was a gunner killed on 16th July 1916, and who was added to this end of Row C, seen here peeking out to the immediate left of the Cross of Sacrifice.  Behind Row D we get our first view of Row E, which, as you can now see, is considerably shorter than the rows on either side.

Cross of Sacrifice, reverse,…

…and obverse.

Beyond Row D, on the right here,…

…this is Row E, the three graves nearest us from summer 1915, the rest of the burials, including three Australians, from between April & June 1916.  Behind are the final two rows, Rows F & G, and if we head to the boundary wall at the far end,…

…and look back down the cemetery, I have a confession to make.  The headstones on the right in this shot in Row F, or at least twenty five of them at this end of the row, are all 9th Bn. Australian infantrymen who were killed on 20th April 1916, the second, and final, day of the Battle of Fromelles.  And I failed to photograph them.  Well, from the right side.

Row G, the burials at this end all men who died in the first few months of 1916.

Back at the cemetery entrance, Private Finn’s headstone on the left, this solves the question of why the dates are not inscribed on the outside, because here they are, in Roman numerals, on the inside.

Baldrick says, “Can we get a move on please, it’s effing freezing here!”

And he was right.

We now head south, our current location marked in orange, our next stop the red dot just half-a-mile down the road.