Rue David Military Cemetery

Location

Fleurbaix is a village about 5 kilometres south-west of Armentières. Rue-David Military Cemetery lies to the south-east of the village. Leave Fleurbaix heading towards Armentières, 300 metres from the centre of Fleurbaix turn right towards Bois Grenier. After a further 1 kilometre turn right again, follow the road round a sharp left hand bend, and the Cemetery is approximately 500 metres further on.

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Historical Information

Rue-David (or Rue-des-Davids) is the local name of the road running between La Croix-Maréchal and La Boutillerie.

The Cemetery was begun by the 2nd Royal Scots Fusiliers in December 1914, and closed to British burials in December 1917. At the Armistice it comprised Rows A to F and part of G of the present Plot I, and it contained 220 graves.

The cemetery was greatly enlarged after the Armistice by the concentration of graves, mainly from the neighbourhood of Aubers and Fromelles, including those of many of the 1st Middlesex who fell at the end of October 1914, and of the 5th Australian and 61st (South Midland) Divisions who fell in July 1916.

The cemeteries from which graves were brought to Rue-David Military Cemetery included the following:

• Abbey Wall Cemetery, La Boutillerie, Fleurbaix, under the North wall of the ruined Chartreux Abbey. Here were buried 60 soldiers from the United Kingdom (including 46 of the 1st Middlesex who fell in October and November 1914), five from Canada and five from Australia.
• Croix-Marechal Military Cemetery, Fleurbaix, at the cross-roads known as La Croix-Marechal. Here were buried 27 soldiers from the United Kingdom and one from Australia, who fell in 1914-16, and October 1918.
• Orchard of Smith’s Villa, Fleurbaix, at the cross roads 1.6 kilometres West of Bois-Grenier, where twelve men of the 1st South Staffords were buried early in 1915.
• Pont-de-la-Lys Indian Cemetery, Estaires, by the bridge between Estaires and La Gorgue, where 34 Indian soldiers were buried in 1914-15.
• Sainghin-en-Weppes Churchyard, where 15 soldiers from the United Kingdom were buried.
• Sainghin-en-Weppes Communal Cemetery, where 24 soldiers from the United Kingdom, who fell in October 1914-January 1915, were buried.
• Wangerie Post Old Military Cemetery, Laventie, on the road from the Rue-du-Bacquerot to Aubers, a little South of Wangerie Farm. (The New Military Cemetery was smaller, and closer to the Farm.) It contained the graves of 39 soldiers from the United Kingdom who fell in October 1914 April, 1916; and it was used by the Portuguese Corps in 1917.

Australian Soldiers of the Great War

There are now 898 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War in the cemetery. 429 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to four casualties known to be buried among them.

Other special memorials commemorate 11 casualties buried in Abbey Wall Cemetery, La Boutillerie, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire, and six men of the Indian forces.

The cemetery also contains ten German graves.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker.

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Other cemeteries in the area

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