Martinsart Cemetery, on the Somme Battlefield in Northern France. Maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, CWGC.
Martinsart Cemetery, The WW1 Somme Battlefield in Northern France where on the 1st of July 1916 a great offensive was launched by the Commonwealth and French forces. First day casualties were just under 60,000, ground gained nil. Dozens of cemeteries containing hundreds of thousands of war dead all maintained by the Commonwealth war Graves Commission cover the landscape. Martinsart was close to the Allied front line until September 1916, and again from March to August 1918. Martinsart British Cemetery was begun at the end of June 1916, when 14 men of the 13th Royal Irish Rifles, killed by a shell, were buried in what is now Plot I, Row A. It was used as a front-line cemetery until October 1916 and again in September 1918, when bodies were brought in from the battlefields for burial by V Corps. After the Armistice, the cemetery was enlarged when more graves were brought in from the area north, east and south of the village. There are now 488 First World War servicemen buried or commemorated in the cemetery. 155 of the burials are unidentified but special memorials commemorate six casualties believed to be buried among them. The cemetery is unusual in that the graves are marked by stones made from red Corsehill or Locharbriggs sandstone, rather than the more usual Portland stone. The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield. No. of Identified Casualties: 333
Size: 3630px × 2411px
Photo credit: © Brian Harris for the CWGC/Alamy / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: battlefield, cemetery, commission, commonwealth, cwgc, france, graves, martinsart, somme, war, ww1
