French Flanders: Neuve Chapelle Part One – Euston Post Cemetery

We begin the second half of this tour around a mile or so down the road from our last stop, Pont-du-Hem Military Cemetery, at what is not really much more than a scattering of graves by the roadside.  I say the second half of the tour, but really this is a brand new tour, hence the changed title, because this post, and in particular those that follow, are inextricably linked with Neuve Chapelle, either the battle in 1915, or by location. 

This is Euston Post Cemetery, and had there been just a handful fewer, these burials would all have been consolidated into one of the larger cemeteries in the area, and this would now be a roadside field, or more likely covered in farm buildings.

Map you have seen before, the area we visited in the first half of this tour shaded above the pink dashes, with the area we are about to explore below.  CWGC cemeteries are marked in red, other ‘stuff’ in green, and our current location at Euston Post is marked in orange, almost exactly a mile, as the crow flies, from the centre of Neuve Chapelle (mauve circle).

I find it easy to imagine the wooden crosses that preceded the headstones here, amidst what, at the time, must have been little more than mud and grass and shell holes,…

…but which had once been, apparently, an orchard.  The cemetery plan can be perused here.

Cemetery entrance, the cemetery name inscribed on the inside (below).  The first burial was made here in January 1915, and the last nine months later in October, by which time forty one British soldiers had been buried here.

Euston Post was a British strongpoint beside the road, called as such because a light railway – referred to by troops as ‘The London and North Western’ – ran, and presumably terminated, here.

Cross of Sacrifice with behind, on the right, the final headstone in Row A,…

…a Royal Engineer who died in early March 1915 in the days immediately preceding the Battle of Neuve Chapelle,…

…as did the next two men in the row.  There are three men who died in February 1915 in the middle of the row,…

…and four late-January 1915 casualties at this end,…

…although the very first burial made here can be found in the centre of the three headstones closest to us on the left,…

…this Worcestershire Regiment private killed on 12th January 1915 and buried, at the time, in what was an isolated grave, before the cemetery expanded around him.

Row B, the two centre headstones, and the one a little further on in shadow, the only unidentified British soldiers buried in this little cemetery.  The other five, identified, casualties in Row B are all from March 1915, as are five of the seven burials in Row C behind.  Of these, six were probably killed during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle – they died between 10th & 14th March 1915 – and I will point them out later.

Row D comprises six burials from April, May & June 1915.  Behind, along the boundary wall, Row E contains nine burials, eight of whom are men of 1st Bn. Connaught Rangers, the first four men October 1915 casualties, their deaths noted in the battalion war diary,…

…one on 15th October,…

…one on 19th, and two on 21st,…

…and were the final burials made here.  In the foreground, one of six men of the Northamptonshire Regiment buried in the cemetery in 1915.  Despite the eight Connaughts & six Northants men, this is not a regimental cemetery; there are four Worcester men here, but otherwise the burials are split between over a dozen different regiments.

The final four British burials in Row E along the boundary wall – the final one, far right, is German – are also Connaught Rangers, these men killed in August 1915,…

…three of the deaths mentioned in these battalion war diary extracts, two on 3rd August and one (below) the following day.

The final grave in the row, as mentioned,…

…is that of an unidentified German soldier, maybe a badly wounded prisoner-of-war, or even a long-forgotten corpse finally given a permanent grave,…

…his burial possibly even preceding the British graves in this cemetery.

Looking north west, Row E on the right, D on the left, and a mighty impressive farm building, because that’s what it is, in the background,…

…and now looking west, towards the Cross and the road beyond.

The headstones of the six men mentioned earlier who were probably killed during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle are marked here in red.  The headstone marked in blue…

…is that of Second Lieutenant David Anselm Kerr, 3rd (attd. 2nd) Bn. The Royal Scots (pictured), who was killed in action leading his platoon on 13th October 1914, and originally buried at Croix Barbée (half a mile west of here) beneath, assuming it was actually ever built, and I have my doubts, an unusual cross, as the plan on the left shows,…

…where he lay until 1952, when he was exhumed and reburied here.  Kerr had volunteered on 7th August 1914, and had only joined the battalion at the front on 10th October, three days before his death.  His grave is the only concentration burial in this cemetery.  The unidentified German, and Second Lieutenant Kerr, bring the total number of burials here to forty three.

We also know that this Sikh soldier, now buried in Rue-du-Bacquerot No.1 Military Cemetery, was once buried here.

Leaving Euston Post Cemetery, it’s time to visit the two British cemeteries in Neuve Chapelle itself, the first of which, Neuve Chapelle Farm Cemetery, is just half a mile away across the fields to the south east.  And I might even tell you a bit about the battle when we get there.