Maria has very kindly
given me permission to share the fantastic information she has gathered about
Etaples on my weblog.
"The Inspirational Women of the Great War who died and are
buried in Etaples Military Cemetery Pas de Calais, France.
The Crimson Coast
The Crimson Coast was the name given to the northern French
and Belgian coastline during the Great War.
Hospitals situated along the Channel coastline were part of the casualty
evacuation chain and were located fifty or so miles further back from the frontline
than the Casualty Clearing Stations in France and Flanders. They also needed to
be close to railway lines to receive the casualties and close to a port where
the soldiers could eventually be evacuated back to Britain for longer term
treatment.
Etaples during the Great War
Etaples, a coastal fishing port situated about 15 miles south
of Boulogne in France, was used as the main British Base Depot in WW1. To the north of the port is where the British
established a large infantry training camp and a complex of 11 numbered
Commonwealth General Hospitals, one Stationary, four Red Cross Hospitals and a
Convalescent Depot. These almost entirely comprised of huts and tents and could
deal with 22,000 wounded and sick soldiers.
Etaples was well away from the Front Line and therefore
relatively safe from attack, the only exception being bombing raids made by aircraft. Unfortunately, the hospitals were bombed several
times in 1918 as a result of their location alongside the Boulogne to Paris
railway which accessed both the Northern and Southern Battlefields. They were also
adjacent to the major complex of training camps which were the main targets.
One Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, Vera Brittain,
experienced over a month of night time air raids, resulting in her being
exhausted and more frightened than ever. Vera left Etaples before the worst bombing
raids of May, June and August 1918, in which many patients, nurses and other
VADS were killed in these hospitals.
Etaples Military Cemetery
As with other areas in the theatres of war, cemeteries
sprang up around hospitals and Casualty Clearing Stations, etc.
In September 1919, three hospitals and the Queen Mary Army
Auxiliary Corps Convalescent Depot still remained in Etaples some ten months
after the Armistice of November 1918. In
Etaples Military Cemetery, some of the headstones of nurses and other Voluntary
Aid Detachment volunteers bear post-war dates. Most of those deaths were as a
result of the Influenza epidemic that followed the war.
At the end of the First World War, Etaples Military Cemetery
contained 10,816 identified casualties, 35 unidentified casualties, totalling
10,771. 10,751 of those were male and 20 female casualties.
During the Second World War, hospitals were again situated
at Etaples and once again the Cemetery was used for burials from January 1940
until the evacuation at the end of May 1940. After the end of the Second World
War, graves from other cemeteries in France were moved to Etaples - 119
identified and 38 unidentified bodies.
Also buried in Etaples Military Cemetery are the bodies of
662 Non Commonwealth people, mainly German, together with 5 Non World War
service burials. It is worth noting that
the cut off date to count as First World War dead for the purposes of the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission was 31st August 1921. " Maria Coates, 2016.
