A new WW1 Cemetery

Today, more than 90 years since the First World War, a new cemetery has been dedicated in northern France. In May 2009 work began to exhume the remains of 250 British and Australian soldiers who has been killed at the Battle of Fromelles in July 1916.

On 19th July 2010 the final re-burial took place and Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery was formally completed, the first CWGC cemetery to have been built for 50 years. Of the bodies recovered, 205 have now been identified as belonging to Australian soldiers, three served with the British army and 42 are still classified as unknown.

Some of the artefacts recovered - here

Details of the process of identification - here

Video clips here

Remembering Fromelles website - here

New book on the Somme battles

Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century

Newly released in paperback, 'Bloody Victory' is getting rave reviews!

"The battle is firmly fixed in the collective British memory as a futile massacre, in spite of a number of efforts to argue that the matter was rather more complex. Dr Philpott’s book is the latest, and perhaps the most ambitious and impressive, attempt to buck this trend... this is an important and powerful book that deserves to be read and its arguments debated. " Dr Gary Sheffield in BBC History Magazine

"Required reading . . . A thoughtful and important book by a first-rate historian . . . It is a proper history of the battle, not simply an agonising account of its first day . . ." Richard Holmes

"A sweeping and authoritative re-examination of the battle . . . Bloody Victory is a magnificent and powerful book, destined to become the standard work on the subject" Christopher Silvester, Daily Express

The review speak for themselves... maybe some useful summer holiday reading?! Click here to buy and read further reviews.