Fromelles

Fromelles is a commune with 857 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2011 ) in the department of Nord, in the Nord -Pas -de -Calais, 16 km west of Lille.

History

From the so-called Christmas Peace from 1914 descriptions of a church service in no man's land between the trenches in the vicinity of the place have survived.

On 19 and 20 July 1916, the so-called Battle of Fromelles (Battle of Fromelles ) was at this place that the German troops had occupied since 1914, out. The attack mainly Australian troops on the German trenches was planned as a diversionary attack for the battle of the Somme, but he went as the greatest defeat of Australian troops in a single day in history. The Australian troops of the First Australian Imperial Force ( AIF) lived here their first use on the Western Front. More than 5500 Australian soldiers and 2,000 soldiers of the British army fell here in a day.

Many of the dead were recovered and buried by German troops, they were together with those who were able to recover the Allied troops, after the war in a mass grave on the VC Corner Australian Cemetery and Memorial interred. But 399 Allied casualties of this battle could not bury you. In July 2007, archaeologists from the University of Glasgow were clues but a hitherto unknown mass grave with 250 Australian and British soldiers on the outskirts of Fromelles locate. The dead were exhumed between May and September 2009 and on the newly created Fromelles ( Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery officially buried 120 meters away from their locality.