Cuinchy
Cuinchy is a small village located midway between Bethune and la Basee. In terms of the context of the Western Front, put simply it is located about 30 miles south of Ypres and 20-25 miles north of the Somme battlefields.
Map of Cuinchy and Vermelles area
Whilst the latter two locations are of course the best known in terms of the British Army and the famous battles of the Somme and Passchendaele, the Western Front during the First World War stretched from the channel coast south to the border with Switzerland. The British and Commonwealth forces manned a part of this line; the exact length they held varied over the course of the War, but it consisted of sectors in Belgium and Northern France. Whilst the lesser-known sectors may not have seen the very large set-piece battles of the Somme and the Ypres Salient, there were battles fought here and in many cases particular sectors were loathed by the soldiers who spent time there.
Cuinchy became known to me first by reading Robert Graves autobiography Goodbye To All That. Graves, with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, was stationed at Cuinchy several times. One of the major features of the area were the "brickstacks". These were several stacks of bricks which had been manufactured by a brickworks located just to the south east of Cuinchy village.
Below is a trench map from June 1916, showing both German and British trenches. The brickstacks and the canal can be clearly seen.
1916 trench map of Cuinchy area
Cuinchy is bisected by the Canal d'Aire, a wide canal with a lock located within the village. During the war the front lines ran to the east of the village, and the lock was perhaps half a mile behind the British lines. The picture below was taken from nearby the lock, near the location of a trench known as Sackville Street. This was around 400 m behind the Birtish lines, looking east towards where the front lines would have been. Robert Graves was in the line around here in 1915.
The Canal at Cuinchy: looking east
A passage from Goodbye To All That describes one of the horrors that men had to deal with in the Great War - rats:
"Cuinchy bred rats. They came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly."
The constant strain of being under fire and in danger must have been bad enough; but rats, lice and other privations must have made life almost unbearable for the front-line soldiers at times.
There are two military cemeteries today in Cuinchy (and also a number of graves in the civilian Communal Cemetery). Woburn Abbey Military Cemetery is around 600 m behind where the front lines ran. The viallge of Cuinchy was within the range of German guns for most of the War, and Woburn Abbey was the name used for a house which stood just to the east of the cemetery location. The house, which was used as a Battalion HQ, was also a Dressing Station. The original cemetery (Plot 1) was first used by the Royal Berkshires in June 1915, but by January 1916 use was mainly discontinued because it was too exposed to enemy artillery fire. After the Armistice, graves were brought in from at least five other cemeteries, four of which were within Cuinchy, to make up the other four plots. There are now more than 550 burials here, with nearly half being of unidentified soldiers.
Woburn Abbey Cemetery, Cuinchy
The only other military cemetery that remains in Cuinchy today is the Guards Cemetery at Windy Corner. This is located to the north-west of the village, just west of the cross-roads which were known as Windy Corner during the War. Like Woburn Abbey, there was a house here during the War which was used as a Battalion HQ and also a dressing station. That was how this Cemetery was started, in early 1915, by the Second Division. It was used especially by the 4th Guards Brigade, hence the first part of the name (on the CWGC lists it is officially "Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner"). Plots 1, 2 and most of Plot 3 form the original part of the Cemetery, whcih was used until May 1916, there then being nearly 700 graves here. However, in 1918, the cemetery was so heavily shelled that it was reported that it had become "literally a series of shellholes". However, in 1919, it was restored and because it had been well surveyed before being so damaged, every cross (today replaced with headstones) was restored to it's original position.
Once again, the Cemetery was greatly enlarged post-war with more than 2700 burials from other small cemeteries and also from the battlefields of Neuve Chapelle, Aubers Ridge and Festubert. This makes a total of nearly 3500 burials today, with many of these - over 2000 - being unidentified.
Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner, Cuinchy
The site of the infamous brickstacks, of which Robert Graves wrote, is now inaccessible, as it is on private land. It is located near an abandoned building which was an electricty generating station.
Disused building on the site of the brickstacks
Behind this abandoned building, the land is very uneven and this disturbance may perhaps date from the war; but it is difficult to know what other activities have happened in the area over the last 90 years. In an ironic twist, the area now is popular with local shooting enthusiasts!
Disturbed ground on the site of the brickstacks
Vermelles
Vermelles village lies around three miles south of Cuinchy, and at least for part of the War was another hot-spot. In Goodbye to All That Robert Graves describes the village as having been "taken and retaken eight times last October" (that is, 1914). When Graves was billeted there in June 1915 he records that not a single house remained undamaged. It was then only three-quarters of a mile from the British front line, and yet Graves and his fellow soldiers played a cricket match in the village, screened by the remains of houses from enemy observation.
As Vermelles was so close to the front line during the War, it was not surprising that casulaties were buried in small clusters in this village. The two pictures below both show graves in Vermelles during or shortly after the War. The top picture shows six German graves in what appears to be a back garden, and the lower one two graves (the nationality of those who lay here is not known) in the ruins of the village.
German graves in a garden in Vermelles. Photo: H. David
Two graves in the ruins of Vermelles
These photos of crooked makeshift crosses standing in the ruins of this small, perhaps obscure village, have a sad and immediate effect and convey the horrors of the War. Despite the difficulties, soldiers of all sides tried their best to give their fallen comrades the best burial that they could in the circumstances.
After the war, these small burial plots were concentrated into fewer larger cemeteries - relatively fewer that is: there are many hundreds of military cemeteries in Belgium and France. However, in Vermelles today, there are only two British military cemeteries remaining: the small Quarry Cemetery and the larger Vermelles British Cemetery. The latter lies just off the D75 in the village, and is actually in two parts, which are separated by a small road.
Vermelles British Cemetery
The larger part nearer the main road contains the Stone of Remembrance, and Plots I-IV. Plot I (on the left front as you enter from the main road) was the original Cemetery, and was known as the Gloucester Graveyard as it was laid out around the time of the Battle of Loos (September 1915) by the Pioneers of the 1/Gloucesters. After the armistice additional graves were added, including the plots (V and VI) across the track at the rear, which is also where the Cross of Scarifice is located. There are now over 2100 burials here.
Within the Cemetery are four graves of German soldiers. It may be tempting to speculate that these could perhaps be some of those in the pictures above; however the chances of this are remote. These graves may well have been destroyed by shell-fire, or lost, and these graves may well be those of prisoners captured who later died, or perhaps those killed in a raid. Unfortunately, the CWGC records are unlikely to shed any information on the subject, and so we will never know.
Vermelles British Cemetery: German graves
Acknowledgements: Chris Baker for confirming the location of the brickstacks, and input from others at the Great War Forum