Walking a cemetery of the ww1 and ww2 Béthune town

How a cemetery behind the lines can tell you so much history 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to Beak to Battlefield. This week we're going to walk through a cemetery in Bethune. Bethune, during the First World War, would be a place of rest for soldiers very similar to Balaeur or perhaps Poppering that we know better from Ypres. But it's a place that not many people visit, and it's a shame because this cemetery has so much to offer. We talk about the First World War. Now the idea of looking after war graves wouldn't be a thing that wouldn't come to the First World War. In 1915, the idea was banded about, and then by 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission would come into effect, and then we have what we have today, looking after 1.7 million graves in 12,000 sites in over 150 countries at 2,500 purpose-built cemeteries throughout the world. And the reason I've got to know all this now is that I am now an ambassador for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Foundation, which is a charitable branch of the Commonwealth War Graves, and I was actually approached to do this, and it's something that I absolutely love and adore, and hopefully it will give us more opportunities to see more and educate you guys a bit more over the next couple of years. But I'm currently out in on the Somme. I've done a couple of days up near Lens and Vimy Ridge, covering the Loose Battlefield and the Battle of Arras. And on my way to the Somme, I decided to take a little bit of a detour. I've gone to Bethune, a place that I've never really had an opportunity to go to, and to spend a couple of hours wandering around the cemetery. It was a quite an immense cemetery, and some of them we visit, sometimes you're quite um overcome by what you see within the cemetery. But this I decided to do this podcast as it's an ideal walking experience, perhaps on one of your little stop-offs if you want to see something a little bit different, and it can tell you so much about the history of both world wars with so many interesting stories behind so many men in such a small area. So, as I say, buffoon was used as a rest stop. Soldiers would move up to lines close to the Battle of Luz, which in September 1915 would be a complete disaster, and we wouldn't push through there until 1917. And for all that time there would be troops in that area. Quite a lot of the time of troops during the First World War, the average soldier would only see three days action per year. The rest of the time was holding that key area, and we'd take it over from the French around the Christmas of 1914-1915, and we'd stay there and be steadfast. So we're now going to visit Buffoon Cemetery. When you go through the doors, you're first greeted with a memorial to the Second World War, to a massacre that occurred in Germany, showing off the torch of resistance. This memorial remembers 350 forced labourers from seven different nations who were murdered on the 50th of March 1945 at Rombold Park in Dortmund. Forced labour is something that's not really talked about, and it wouldn't really be talked about until the early 2000s. The Nazis would take people from all over the occupied zones, with 12 million of them being forced into labour throughout the occupied areas, but 350 would be executed in Rombo Park not too far from the zoo. Of the 350, they came from Belgium, France, Germany, Yugoslavia, Netherlands, Poland, and Russia. The others were imprisoned opponents of the regime, and an urn was brought back to Bethon, where many members of the French Resistance would be deported out into Germany, and also many forced labourers. We've got to remember that the area around Bethune is famous for the coal mining, so they would have been taken and used as slave labour from there. But an urn is placed under this stone to remember all those that happened. You're now walking up the main avenue and keep going all the way to the end, and you'll start to see the familiar sight of the Commonwealth Wargraves. Now, before you get to the main enclosure, on the right hand side, you're going to see a set of separate Commonwealth Wargraves. Most of these men died in October and November 1914 during the battles of Festerburg. And the first three graves you come to are particularly interesting. We have a Jewish captain from the Royal Engineers, and next to them we can see the familiar grave of a Victoria Crosswinner, Lieutenant Frank De Pass, who was also Jewish. He would be the first Jew to win the Victoria Cross, and on the 24th of November 1914, during the Battle of Festerburgh, aged just 27 years old, he would take a German position on his own. However, it wouldn't be for the British Army. He was an officer in the British Indian Army. The Indians were the first to come over. As part of the Commonwealth, many of their officers were English. However, if you look to the left of Frank Dubois, you're going to see Captain Canwar Sing, Military Cross. He was an Indian medical officer. Now he also died in the Battle of Festerburg, and sadly, I think for his action he could have probably earned the Victoria Cross, but he would receive the MC, a newly formed award at the time. On the 23rd of November 1914, he was killed at Festerburg whilst attending to wounded in a house that was completely destroyed by shells, and he would be destroyed, he would be killed in this action. He was born in India and a native Indian, however, his parents were Christian and was educated in a university in the United Kingdom and would serve for the British Indian Army, a completely volunteer force. And when we get into the main enclosure, we will see a Sikh and Muslim plot dedicated to those of the Indian Army who perished there, as well as those of the French Empire from Algeria. But before we go in, you're going to see a grave full of nuns. Take a right hand turn and go towards the main plaque. On the right hand side you'll see an information board, and this relates to Kate MacArthur, a nun from Cork, who would come over and served during the First World War. She was served as a nurse within the field hospital close to where we are today. However, she would remain in Buffoon after the First World War, and then during the Second World War, she would serve as part of the French Resistance. She would then be arrested in 1943 and send to the Ravensbruck concentration camp north of Berlin. Here she taught lessons and she would finally be liberated in 1945. She then would die in Cork in 1971, a very little known story of an Irish person during the Holocaust. We now carry on and go to the main plot. Here you're greeted by just over 3,000 graves, and as we can see on the initial part, you can see some French graves buried amongst them. We must remember that this sector wouldn't be completely English. The first start of the war, it was occupied by the French, and then slowly as the war progressed down in the south, they would move their troops there, and the British would take it over. But as you wander through the cemetery, on the left hand side, you'll see lines and lines of graves. These can almost be read chronologically as the hospital that was based here, many of the wounded were being brought from the battlefield by canal, and many of them would sadly perish here. However, the way the cemetery is actually laid out is on to the left you have other ranks, and on the right hand side you have several plots dedicated to the commissioned officers. We have lieutenant colonels, majors, captains, all buried side by side. And on the right hand side you'll see a rather peculiar cross. This is a personal memorial made by the men of Captain Sidney Cerreas, who died age 25. He was a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps, joined in August 1914, and he was killed by a sniper on the 3rd of October 1915, whilst tending to a wounded soldier, and he would be brought back to the cemetery, and we have his personal private memorial. It's one of several of the personal private memorials that were kept. Of course, in the post war period in the 1920s, every man wanted to be remembered every man had to be remembered equally. However, you still find some personal private memorials that were made, and this personal memorial was actually made on the battlefield by a local, and it still sits here today. There is another man, Private Campbell, which you'll find on the complete opposite end of the cemetery. His personal memorial still stands there to this day. We then come across the plot to the Algerians of the French army and a small plot of Indian soldiers. Amongst them, some of them are Gurkhas, those men from the pool, those happy, smiley little short men who have done the British Army proud. We then look to our left. As you know, sorry, we'll carry straight on, because we're going to come to the German plot. So obviously, where the wounded and prisoners were being brought back, many would die. And we have quite a few burials here of Germans who died in 1917, and you also have those who died in 1919, so in the post-war period, the Germans would be part of the clear-up, and of course Spanish flu would rip through many of them. But talking of that of 1919, also in the Indian plot we have an unknown Indian soldier who died in 1919. It'd be interesting to find what the circumstances are and why he isn't owned, he isn't known. And then if we look to our left, we're going to look down the main part of the enclosure, and you have an amazing shelter. All cemeteries have got some form of shelter, and when cemeteries were designed in the post-war period, it'd all go under contract, so people would bid to design a particular cemetery. But this particular shelter, it could be an old-fashioned market hall or marketplace that you see in any of the little villages throughout the United Kingdom. There are some later burials of 1918, but here we see either side of this little market hall graves of men who died in 1940 for the Battle of France, and also men who died in its liberation in 1944. We go past these enclosures and you can look to the left, and you'll see a large number of French, and next to the market hall is a long line of men who are non-commissioned officers. And then we're greeted by an even bigger plot tucked around the corner. Now, if you look very closely, you can see by looking at these graves that they are in chronological order. So you get an idea of that day by day, as the cemetery was being built, as men were dying in the casualty stations, they were placed side by side. Now we're going to turn to the right and go to the end of the cemetery, and you can see a little shelter where you can sit. And this is the last plot within the cemetery. Go all the way to the end, and you'll see the graves of 21 men from the Manchester Regiment on the 23rd of December 1917, whilst in Bethune. They were making their way to their billet when a German shell landed and killed all 21 of them, and now all 21 of them lay side by side. As we look across this cemetery, it's hard to get the scale that there's just over 3,000 graves. This isn't a battlefield, this is the day by day, the cost of war. There isn't all battles, there isn't a day by day fighting, this is technically the fodder of the all-quiet on the Western Front. Buffoon itself is a lovely little city. It has a belfry like we would find in many of the different Flemish towns. And I travelled here by train. If you're travelling between Little Flanders, if you're coming by the Eurostar, the train that takes you to Arras will also drop you off here. So perhaps if you're planning on visiting Arras, you might want to just jump off the train, go and find Bethune Cemetery, and perhaps sit on its main square and look over the Belfry, which has been here for since the 1300s, and it's one of the last relics of the town. The town would be destroyed during the First World War, and it'd be very heavily bombed during the Second World War as it was attached to a railway yard, but yet that belfry stands proud as a history has passed it by.