Northumbrian Gunner: Le Cateau Military Cemetery

Tuesday, 15 April 2014

Le Cateau Military Cemetery

The Le Cateau Military Cemetery contains a number of graves of those lost in the Battle of Le Cateau, both British and German. Le Cateau was a major transport point and the location of a German Hospital. Consequently the German part of the cemetery contains burials throughout the war, as does the British areas for those POW’s who died at the hospital. The cemetery even has a plot for Russian POW’s who died in the area.

Le Cateau Military Cemetery - British graves

Le Cateau Military Cemetery - German graves

Le Cateau Military Cemetery - Russian graves

CWGC - Le Cateau Military Cemetery

Le Cateau-Cambrésis and the country to the west of it was the scene of a battle fought by the British II Corps on 26 August 1914 against a greatly superior German force. The town remained in German hands from that date until the evening of 10 October 1918, when it was rushed by the 5th Connaught Rangers and finally cleared a week later. During the war Le Cateau had been a German railhead and the site of an important hospital centre. The military cemetery was laid out by the Germans in February 1916 with separate plots for the Commonwealth and German dead. It contains the graves of over 5,000 German soldiers, many of whom were buried during the occupation, the rest being brought in from other German cemeteries after the Armistice. A separate plot contains the graves of 34 Russian prisoners of war who died in captivity. The Commonwealth plot is the site of almost 700 graves and commemorations of the First World War.