Belgium 1914
Battle of the Yser- You are here >
- Mametz, Devonshire Cemetery
Mametz, Devonshire Cemetery
The Devonshires held this trench
Commonwealth War Graves Commission sign for Devonshire Cemetery on the D938. [DVA]
In 1914, as he went off to war, young English poet Rupert Brooke wrote these lines for the beginning of perhaps his best–known poem:
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.
If there is a piece of France that is ‘forever England’, it is Devonshire Cemetery on the D938 Albert–Péronne Road south of Mametz. The way into the cemetery is from the roadside car park, up a short length of country road and then up steps over a dirt pathway. At the entrance to the cemetery is a stone tablet with these words set under the badge of the Devonshire Regiment, the ‘Devons’:
The Devonshires held this trench:
They hold it still.
Entry to Devonshire Cemetery, Mametz. [DVA]
The dedication stone at the entrance to Devonshire Cemetery with the famous inscription - ‘The Devonshires held this trench …’ [DVA]
Inside the cemetery you are virtually in the old British front–line position as it was on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916. Today, there are two lines of headstones, all joined closely together to indicate that this is a mass grave. With one or two exceptions the stones display one date – 1 July 1916 – and one unit: the Devons. One senses that here is a story, a tragedy among many tragedies, of that first day of the Battle of the Somme on which the British Army suffered 57,470 casualties. Of these, 21,392 were either killed in action, died of wounds or went ‘missing’ – the worst casualty figures ever in the British Army.
Devonshire Cemetery, Mametz. [DVA]
From hereabouts, Captain Duncan Martin, 9th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment, had observed the location of a particular German machine gun. On 1 July, Martin’s men were to attack, not towards Mametz across the road, but at right angles towards the more distant village of Fricourt. Working from a plasticine model he had made of the area, Martin calculated that if this particular machine gun was not put out of action by British pre–attack bombardments then it would fire into the right flank of his men causing heavy casualties. Higher authorities assured him that the gun would be dealt with. When, on the morning of 1 July 1916, the Devons rose from their trenches, they were mown down by the machine gun whose crew had survived whatever bombardment had tried to put them out of action.
The view from the cemetery at Mametz village across the valley towards the part of the British front held by the Devonshire Regiment on 1 July 1916. Devonshire Cemetery is among the trees across the road and up the hill. [DVA]
The Calvaire in the Mametz Cemetery near which the Germans had set up the machine gun which on 1 July 1916 killed many of the men of the Devonshire Regiment as they advanced across the valley below towards the village of Fricourt. [DVA]
Empty shell casings and ammunition boxes representing a small sample of the ammunition used by the British Army in the bombardment of Fricourt, France, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916. [AWM H08331]
Despite these casualties the Devons took their objectives. Later that day they went back over the battlefield, recovered their dead and buried them in what is now Devonshire Cemetery. On a wooden sign, long since weathered away, they wrote those words:
The Devonshires held this trench:
They hold it still.
Among the dead was Captain Martin who lies at the end of the left–hand row in grave A1. Another young officer, also of the 9th Battalion, who died with Martin, was Lieutenant William Hodgson. Hodgson was already a published writer of short stories and poems about his war experiences and as he prepared to go into action on 1 July he penned his last poem. It contains the following verse, an indication, perhaps, of this young soldier’s sense that death was close. He was 23 years old.
I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of Thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good–bye to all of this;––
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.
Headstone of Lieutenant William Noel Hodgson, Devonshire Regiment, killed on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. [DVA]
Headstone of Captain Duncan Lennox Martin, Devonshire Regiment, killed on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. [DVA]
Headstone of Private Samuel Board Enticott, Devonshire Regiment, killed on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Enticott’s headstone is of recent origin showing how the Commonwealth War Graves Commission replaces worn headstones. [DVA]
This site is being added to progressively. See the Updates page for new regular additions.
© 2007 Department of Veteran's Affairs and Board of Studies NSW :: Last update - 24 April 2007