List of World War I memorials and cemeteries in Artois

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. 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.

The attack at Fromelles was planned as a diversionary attack to the north of the battle raging on the Somme. Fromelles had already seen action in 1915 when British efforts to take Aubers Ridge had been repulsed with heavy losses. The Fromelles attack in 1916 saw the baptism of the Australian Imperial Force to fighting on the Western Front as the units then down on the Somme had yet to be committed to action. As was to be the case at the Somme, the provisional artillery bombardment at Fromelles did not cut the German barbed wire as hoped would be the case, and the German machine guns, with a clear view of the attackers, were able to wreak havoc once the infantry launched their attack.

One hundred metres from Memorial Park and its tribute to the courage of the Australian Cobber lies the VC Corner Australian Cemetery which was established after the Armistice of 1918. The plaque reads It consists of two mass graves covered with immaculate lawns and marked with a cross. The graves contain the remains of more than 400 Australian soldiers who were killed in the Battle of Fromelles but who could not be identified.

Immediately the war ended, Australians went back to Fromelles.

Further images of the "Cobbers" memorial

Below are some photographs of the "Cobber" memorial, and V C Corner.

File:Fromelles-09.jpg, View of VC Corner Cemetery
File:Australian 53rd Bn Fromelles 19 July 1916.jpg, Men of the Australian 53rd Battalion photographed in the trenches at Fromelles
File:Marker on Cross of Sacrifice at Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Miltary Cemetery.JPG , An inscribed stone at the base of the Cross of Sacrifice at Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery
File:BlockhausFromelles.JPG, This photograph of a German blockhouse at Fromelles shows just how formidable the German fortifications were.

Neuve-Chapelle Indian Memorial- The Battle of Neuve Chapelle March 1915

Neuve Chapelle is located some north of La Bassée and west-south-west of Lille. The Neuve-Chapelle Indian Memorial at Richebourg, near Neuve Chapelle, commemorates over 4,700 Indian soldiers and labourers who lost their lives on the Western Front during the First World War and have no known graves. It was designed by Sir Herbert Baker. The location of the memorial was specially chosen as it was at Neuve Chapelle in March 1915 that the Indian Corps fought its first major action as a single unit. The memorial takes the form of a sanctuary enclosed within a circular wall after the manner of the enclosing railings of early Indian shrines. The column in the enclosure's foreground stands almost high and was inspired by the famous inscribed columns erected by the Emperor Ashkora throughout India in the 3rd century BC. The column is surmounted with a Lotus capital, the Imperial British Crown, and the Star of India. Two tigers are carved on either side of the column guarding the temple of the dead. On the lower part of the column the words 'God is One, He is the Victory' are inscribed in English, with similar texts in Arabic, Hindi, and Gurmukhi. The tigers are the work of the sculptor Charles Wheeler. The memorial was unveiled by the Earl of Birkenhead on 7 October 1927. Lord Birkenhead, then Secretary of State for India, had served as a staff officer with the Indian Corps during the war. The ceremony was also attended by the Maharaja of Karputhala, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Rudyard Kipling, and a large contingent of Indian veterans. An inscription on the wall reads

The Indian Army made a huge contribution to the Great War. Their involvement on the Western Front was limited in the main to the years 1914 and 1915 and after this, in recognition of the difficulties for Indians to live and operate in the grim climatic conditions of Northern Europe, they were moved to the Egyptian Theatre of War and other warmer places. India, in the context of the 1914-1918 war, was pre-partition India; the Indian Sub-Continent in 1914 would have embraced present day India, Pakistan, Kashmir, Nepal and Bangladesh. Only days after the British government had declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, two infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade of the Indian Army were ordered to mobilise and prepare for overseas service. Units began arriving in France in September 1914, and by late October they were involved in heavy fighting on the Messines Ridge in Belgium. It was at Messines on 31 October 1914 that Khudadad Khan performed the act of gallantry for which he was later awarded the Victoria Cross, becoming the first Indian born soldier to be so honoured. The Indian Corps, which was composed of the 3rd (Lahore) and 7th (Meerut) divisions, went on to fight in some of the bloodiest battles of the first year of the war, and at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle which ran from 10 to 13 March 1915. Indian soldiers made up half of the attacking force and, despite suffering very heavy casualties, succeeded in capturing important sections of the German line. The officers and men of the Corps further distinguished themselves at St. Julien in the Ypres Salient in April 1915, at Aubers Ridge and Festubert in May of that year, and at Loos in September 1915, before they were redeployed to the Middle East in December. The Indian Cavalry Corps remained on the Western Front until the spring of 1918 and Indian labour companies, which had begun arriving in France in 1917, performed vital and often dangerous logistical work behind the lines until after the Armistice. India sent over 140,000 men to the Western Front – 90,000 serving in the infantry and cavalry and as many as 50,000 non-combatant labourers. They hailed from the length and breadth of British India: from the Punjab, Garwahl, the Frontiers, Bengal, Nepal, Madras, and Burma, and represented an extremely diverse range of religious, linguistic, and ethnic cultures. The officer corps was composed mostly of men of European descent. Of the combatants, over 8,550 were killed and as many as 50,000 more were wounded. Almost 5,000 of the dead have no known grave and are commemorated both on the Menin Gate at Ypres and here at Neuve Chapelle.

In 1964, a Special Bronze Panel was added to this memorial with the names of 210 servicemen who died during the 1914-1918 war, whose graves at Zehrensdorf Indian Cemetery, Germany, had become unmaintainable. Although this plaque still exists, the graves were reinstated in 2005. This site also contains the Neuve-Chapelle 1939-1945 Cremation Memorial. In 1964, the remains of 8 Indian soldiers (including 2 unidentified) were exhumed from Sarrebourg French Military Cemetery Extension and cremated. The names of the 6 identified soldiers are engraved on panels at the Neuve Chapelle Memorial along with the following inscription

File WO 32/5878 held at The National Archives in Kew provides further background information on the memorial. This file also covers the memorials to the Indian Army which it was proposed be erected in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Gallipoli and East Africa. The file notes that amongst those remembered at Neuve Chapelle is the Victoria Cross winner, Rifleman Gobar Sing Negi. One interesting point to arise from the National Archive file is a letter from Army Headquarters in Simla dated 26 June 1919. This includes the following

Aubers Ridge and Festubert

It was on 24 March 1915, several days after the failed offensive at Neuve-Chapelle, that General Joffre made an official request for the British Army to take part in a huge offensive he was planning in Artois at the beginning of May. The aim of the offensive was to break through the German line north of Arras. The main thrust of the attack was to be made by the 10th French Army on Vimy Ridge and two supporting attacks on the flanks would, it was hoped, secure the heights of Lorette Spur to the north-west and other high ground to the east of Arras. If everything went according to plan the French hoped that they would be able to advance into the coal basin itself and take Douai.

In this context the British fought two battles, that at Aubers Ridge and at Festubert, both fought in May 1915, and both to distract the German's from Joffre's main attack.

Neither battle achieved the results hoped for and huge casualties were sustained- it reportedly took three days to transfer the wounded of 9 May to the field ambulances on the second line. In one single day of fighting the British Army had lost 11,000 men (dead, wounded and lost in action) which was, in relative terms, one of the highest casualty rates of the Great War, in particular for officers.

The memorial at Le Touret remembers those who died at Aubers and Festubert and have no known grave.

Memorial to the 15th Battalion Canadian Infantry

There is a commemorative plaque located just a kilometre to the east of Festubert which marks the efforts in this area of the 15th Battalion Canadian Infantry during the Battle of Festubert which opened on 15 May 1915.

Following the German gas attack in the Ypres Salient in April 1915, the depleted Battalions of the Canadian 1st Division were reinforced and moved to France south of Armentières. On 18 May the Canadian 3rd Brigade, was called up from Reserve and moved into the line east of Festubert, joining a series of assaults around a German strong point called the Orchard. The 14th Battalion (Royal Montreal Regiment), 16th (The Canadian Scottish Regiment) and the 15th Battalion (48th Highlanders of Canada) all played a significant part in the fighting.

When the battle was called off on 25 May, the line established by the advances of the 15th and 16th Battalions remained the front line until 1918. The Canadian 1st Division suffered 2,468 casualties and the 15th Battalion lost 150 men. The fallen of the 15th Battalion lie buried in: Aire Communal, Arras Road, Béthune, Cabaret Rouge, Étaples, Guards (Cuinchy), Hinges, Le Touquet and Pont-de-Hem Cemeteries and the Missing are commemorated on the Vimy Memorial. The commemorative plaque was unveiled on 23 October 2011 in the presence of Canadian and French dignitaries by members of the 15th Battalion Memorial Project.

Le Touret Memorial and Le Touret Military Cemetery

The Le Touret Memorial, which lies between Béthune and Armentiéres, commemorates over 13,400 British soldiers who were killed in this sector of the Western Front from the beginning of October 1914 to the eve of the Battle of Loos in late September 1915 and who have no known grave. The Memorial takes the form of a loggia surrounding an open rectangular court. The names of those commemorated are listed on panels set into the walls of the court and the gallery, these are arranged by regiment, rank, and alphabetically by surname within the rank. The memorial was designed by John Reginald Truelove, who had served as an officer with the London Regiment during the war, and was unveiled by the British ambassador to France, Lord Tyrrell, on 22 March 1930. Almost all of the men commemorated on the Memorial served with regular or territorial regiments from across the United Kingdom and were killed in actions that took place along a section of the front line that stretched from Estaires in the north to Grenay in the south. This part of the Western Front was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the first years of the war, including: the Battle of La Bassée fought from 10 October to 2 November 1914, Battle of Neuve Chapelle fought from 10 to 12 March 1915, Battle of Aubers Ridge fought from 9 to 10 May 1915, and Battle of Festubert fought from 15 to 25 May 1915. Soldiers serving with Indian and Canadian units who were killed in this sector in 1914 and 1915 whose remains were never identified, are commemorated on the Neuve Chapelle and Vimy memorials, while those who fell during the northern pincer attack at the Battle of Aubers Ridge are commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing.

The Portuguese Cemetery and Memorial at Neuve Chapelle and the memorial at La Couture

On the same road as the Indian Memorial is the Portuguese and their cemetery at Richebourg. On 9 April 1918 the German Army launched Operation Georgette in the Lys Valley in the hope of a decisive victory before the arrival of further American reinforcements. In three successive waves, ten divisions overwhelmed the two Portuguese divisions which were incomplete, badly organized, and taken by surprise as they were in the process of being relieved. Portuguese losses amounted to 7,500 men on that day. On the next day, along with the Scottish, the survivors defended La Couture near Béthune before eventually being forced to retreat. The Germans took Estaires, Armentières and Bailleul but failed to take Béthune and Hazebrouck. Operation Georgette was called off on 29 April 1918. The Portuguese had suffered heavy casualties in this action and the bodies of many of the men killed were beyond identification. 239 of the graves at Richebourg are marked with the Portuguese word ''Desconhecido'' ("unknown"). The site of the cemetery/memorial takes up both sides of the road and on one side there is a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima and on the other side, behind an entrance and a wrought-iron gate, is the Portuguese National Cemetery, the final resting place of 1,831 soldiers.

In 1916, the young Portuguese Republic had entered the war on the side of the Allies. The Portuguese Expeditionary Force comprised up to 56,500 men and, under the command of the British Army, was assigned to Flanders and positioned in the trenches between the villages of Laventie and Festubert. The Portuguese Command took up quarters in Peylouse Manor in Saint-Venant.

In honour of the soldiers who defended the village of La Couture, the French and Portuguese governments inaugurated a monument there in 1928. The monument's frieze shows the ruins of a Gothic church and an allegory of the Portuguese Republic coming to the aid of one of its soldiers.

Sector 2. Artois: From La Bassée and Béthune to Lens

Dud Corner Cemetery, the

Loos Memorial, and the Battle of Loos

In the autumn of 1915, the British High Command had little enthusiasm for another major offensive but the French were quite insistent on one. Joffre's plans involved a two-pronged attack. The French Army was to launch a major attack in the Champagne area and a Franco-Commonwealth attack was planned on a line to the north of Arras. Of this 32-kilometre stretch the British were allocated a section running from Givenchy just north of the La Bassée Canal and the industrial town of Bully-Grenay in front of Lens; the Gohelle Battlefields.

One reason for Haig and French's lack of enthusiasm was that they did not feel that they had fully absorbed the lessons of Second Ypres, Festubert, Neuve Chapelle and Aubers Ridge, the earlier offensives of 1915 and the doomed Gallipoli campaign had diverted precious men and munitions from the Western Front. However, their major concern was that the levels of ammunition available would not support a major offensive as the initial advances by the infantry would have to be supported by a high degree of artillery fire. The French demand was however met and the British Army allocated the 10 kilometre sector mentioned earlier. At this battle the British intended to make their first use of gas and the offensive would give Kitchener's "New Army" a chance to show their mettle.

In fact the offensive failed both in the Champagne and at Loos and the Loos Memorial at Loos-en-Gohelle commemorates the 20,605 British officers and men who were killed from 25 September 1915 to the end of the war in November 1918 in the little sector between the river Lys in French Flanders and the village of Grenay, near Lens, in Artois. The Loos memorial forms the rear and two sides of Dud Corner Cemetery, so called because of the high number of unexploded shells found there.

The thousands of names of the servicemen missing in action with no known grave are inscribed on 139 stone panels attached to these side and rear walls. The Loos Memorial was designed by Sir Herbert Baker with sculpture by Charles Wheeler. Stone tablets containing the names of the missing are numbered from 1 to 139, starting at the north-west corner of the memorial and running around the walls to the south-west corner. It was unveiled by Sir Nevil Macready on 4 August 1930.

The Battle of Loos had opened on 25 September 1915. The 9th (Scottish) Division scored one of the few successes by gaining a foothold on the Hohenzollern Redoubt and Fosse 8, the main observation posts used by the Germans to view the area and the 15th (Scottish) took Loos and pushed on to the Hill 70 Redoubt. However, the gains, won at such a horrific loss of life, had to be capitalized on quickly and the reserves (mostly inexperienced New Army Divisions) were brought into action too slowly. The Germans counter-attacked and by 27 September the offensive was breaking down and the Germans had retaken both the Hohenzollern Redoubt and Fosse 8. Attempts to retake these important positions were made on 13 October 1915, but failed after further heavy losses and by 19 October 1915, the battle petered to a halt. The British Army had lost over 20,000 men.

Field Marshal Sir John French, already being criticised before the battle, lost his remaining support in both the Government and Army as a result of the British failure at Loos and his perceived poor handling of his reserve divisions in the battle. He was replaced by Douglas Haig as Commander of the British Expeditionary Force in December 1915.

The first use of gas by the British had not been a success but Kitchener's New Army had at least been "bloodied" and in every sense of the word. It has been estimated that more than 14,000 of those named on the walls of the Loos Memorial died in the Battle of Loos and that of the 8,500 who died on the first day, over 6,500 were to have no known grave.

Among the dead on the British side at Loos were: Fergus Bowes-Lyon, brother to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later Queen Consort, of George VI and "Queen Mother"), author and poet Rudyard Kipling's son, John, and the poet Charles Sorley.

"Loos was the fourth failure of 1915 for the British and this time losses reached almost 48,000 men; at Vimy the French figure was almost identical. In the wider Artois offensive the total was 143,567.".

No further attacks were to take place in the Gohelle, Vimy and Arras sectors until the spring of 1917.

File:LV4 1.jpg, View of slag-heaps near Loos Memorial. These slag-heaps are called ''crassiers'' in French.
File:Loos-en-Gohelle terrils 11-19.jpg, View of slag-heaps or crassiers. Also called ''terrils'' in French.
File:Loos-en-Gohelle - Fosse n° 11 - 19 des mines de Lens (008).JPG, A fosse in the Loos area. ''Fosse'' is the French word for a coal-mine.

Memorial to the 55th (West Lancashire) Division at Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée. "They win or die. Who wear the rose of Lancaster"

Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée is a village some north of Arras and about west of La Bassée and the memorial to the 55th (West Lancashire) Division near to the Givenchy Communal Cemetery. It was here in April 1918 that the 55th (West Lancashire) Division defended the village against three German Divisions. In April 1918, the German 6th Army launched the second part of General Ludendorff's strategic plan to win the war before the weight of the rapidly expanding American Army could be brought fully into action. Originally named George, it was later renamed Georgette. The encounter that followed is known as the Battle of the Lys. The German attack commenced on 9 April 1918 and the 55th (West Lancashire) Division in front of Givenchy and the 2nd Portuguese Division at Neuve Chapelle took the blunt of the attack.

Because this sector of the front had been in British hands for years, the various zones of combat forming the 1918 styled defence system was far better prepared than that of Gough's Fifth Army (who had taken over an unprepared position from the French). However, the Portuguese were suspected to be capable of offering only a weak resistance and the British 40th Division (in front of Fromelles) and 34th Division at Armentières had both been badly mauled in Operation Michael on the Somme only weeks beforehand.

The Lancashire Territorials of the 55th Division found themselves confronted by the 4th Ersatz, 43rd Reserve and 18th Reserve Infantry Divisions on their own front while their immediate left flank was rapidly pushed in by the 1st Bavarian Reserve Division following the faster than anticipated collapse of the Portuguese 2nd Division. As the Germans pushed in and around them the Lancashire men fell back to their line of resistance along the road to Windy Corner, mounted counterattacks, and remained. The front by the following day looped around the top of Festubert and then turned north-west towards Locon. On 11 April, a second attempt was made to break the 55th Division but apart from a few hundred metres on its far left the assault by four German Divisions was repulsed. Having made greater gains to the north around Merville and the Belgian border, the Germans began to concentrate their efforts in those areas. Ultimately their offensive would fail. The defenders of Givenchy had not ceded a metre.

The memorial itself is a -high granite cross standing in a small park near Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée Communal Cemetery. The memorial includes the words and records part of Sir Douglas Haig's Despatch of 20 July 1918

File WO 32/5870 held at The National Archives in Kew covers the memorial at Givenchy to the 55th Division and indicates that the Memorial was unveiled on 15 May 1921 by Joffre. See also

Memorial to Lieutenant Hillyar Hill-Trevor

Also at Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée is a memorial to Lieutenant Hillyar Hill-Trevor of the 1st Battalion of the Scots Guards who was killed in action on 21 December 1914. He has no known grave and is one of those named on the Le Touret Memorial. Hillyar George Edwin Hill-Trevor was the only son of the Hon. George Edwyn Hill-Trevor and his wife and a grandson of the first Lord Trevor of Chirk, North Wales. He was a direct descendant of Arthur, Duke of Wellington. The memorial stands on a carved base, set in a large curbed surround filled with granite chippings. The top of the column is inscribed , and across the base is written and on the centre of the base The memorial is cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The sculptor of the memorial was William Reid Dick who provided much of the sculpture on the Menin Gate and was responsible for the Arras Flying Services Memorial. The female figure is a copy of that which he used for the Bushey War Memorial in England.

The Tunnelers' Memorial at Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée

This particular area lent itself to the digging of tunnels and both sides waged a "mining war".

The memorial at Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée commemorates the endeavours of the men of the Tunneling Companies of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand who, during the Great War, lived, fought and died underground in France and Flanders. It was unveiled on 19 June 2010. It is erected in special remembrance of Sapper William Hackett (VC) of 254 Tunneling Company RE, and Private Thomas Collins of the 14th Battalion, The Welsh Regiment, who both still lie beneath the field in front of this memorial.

The memorial comprises a British Lakeland slate panel whose dimensions are those of the Shaftsbury Gallery in which William Hackett VC and Thomas Collins still lie. The words are framed by drawings of the tunnelers mining equipment – including canaries and mice. The circular base is the same diameter as the Shaftsbury Shaft by which the tunnelers descended into the gallery. William Hackett is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial in Belgium while Thomas Collins is listed on the Thiepval Memorial.

58th French Infantry Division

This monument is situated on the D 941 between Cambrin and Auchy les Mines. The 58e Division d'Infanterie were a Reserve Infantry Division and arrived in Cuinchy on 16 October 1914. The Germans had occupied a position along the Vermelles — Violaines Road opposite them. On the northern side of the canal was the British II Corps (later the Indian Corps). A constant run of battles was taking place trying to secure La Bassée and Givenchy with the British and French fighting side by side for much of the time. In these early months of the war the line was still fluid without real trenches and the French managed to advance their line by . Over the next few days the Germans launched numerous counter-attacks; despite heavy losses the French held the line. As a result of these constant assaults in both directions, the first trenches were constructed in the area, though the word is used loosely because with a very high water table the trenches tended to be built up rather than dug down. On 12 November 1914 the Division received a citation

The 58th Infantry remained responsible for this sector of the line throughout the winter of 1914/1915. Alongside them were soldiers of the 141e régiment d'infanterie territorial (141st Territorial Regiment – made up of older soldiers who had already finished their term in the Reserve) of the 92e Division Territoriale. The Memorial was inaugurated on 31 August 1924. t comprises a block of granite surmounted by a French Army Adrian Helmet. The inscription on the memorial reads and on the sides are listed the units which made up the Division: 295th, 285th, 256th et 281st Infantry and the 141st Territorials.

Memorial to the 1st King Edward's Horse at Vieille Chapelle

This memorial is located in Vieille Chapelle New Military Cemetery and honours the 1st King Edward's Horse, who defended the village in April 1918. File WO 32/5854 held at The National Archives covers the memorial and the period 1919 to 1922. King Edward's Horse suffered 150 casualties in forming a new front where the Portuguese line had broken. In WO 32/5854 is the information that the plot of land upon which the memorial stands had been offered to the regiment by the commune of Vielle Chapelle. Many New Zealanders perished at Vieille Chapelle and in the file is a cutting from the ''Otago Daily Times'' of 28 March 1921 which recorded the ceremony held when the first stone of the memorial was laid.

Sector 3 Artois: Loretto Heights and

Vimy Ridge

The south-eastern end of the Vimy Ridge the east of the ancient city of Arras. East of Arras the front line crossed farms and villages. Arras was evacuated by French forces on 29 August 1914 but reoccupied a month later. It remained in French hands throughout the war. Underneath the city there were tunnels and catacombs dug out of the chalk by the Romans. Some were used during the First World War by medical units and as safe shelter for Allied troops. The city was destroyed by German artillery bombardments from vantage points on the high ground.

"As the boundary of the clay plain of Flanders and the chalk uplands of Artois, the Vimy Ridge and its smaller cousin Notre Dame de Lorette

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