Maubeuge-Centre Cemetery

Maubeuge possessed a French military aerodrome, and it was H.Q., R.F.C., from the 16th to the 23rd August, 1914. It was captured by the Germans on the 7th September, 1914, and it remained in their hands until it was entered by the 3rd Grenadier Guards in the early morning of the 9th November, 1918. The 5th, 47th Casualty Clearing Stations were posted in the town for different periods between the end of November, 1918, and the middle of May, 1919.

The "Cimetiere Communal du Centre" one of the town cemeteries, was used by the Germans; it contained at Armistice the graves of German soldiers and British, French, American, Russian, Italian and Rumanian prisoners. These have been to a great extent regrouped, removed, or increased in number by concentrations from other burial grounds; and the British and other war graves are now mainly in the South part. One hundred and five were brought after the Armistice from Petit-Bavay British Cemetery or from the battlefields West of Maubeuge.

There are now nearly 200, 1914-18 and over 50, 1939-45 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, a small number from the 1914-18 War are unidentified. From the 1939-45 War, three United Kingdom graves could not be precisely located and are commemorated by special memorials, inscribed "buried near this spot".

The British plot covers an area of 645 square metres.

PETIT-BAVAY BRITISH CEMETERY, PONT-SUR-SAMBRE, was a little East of the Forest of Mormal. It contained the graves of 29 soldiers from the United Kingdom, all belonging to the 1st/5th East Lancs or the 1st/10th Manchesters, who fell on the 6th and 7th November, 1918.