Location 10 – Neuville-St-Vaast German Cemetery

	Click and drag to move the map. Use the slider to zoom in/out.

Directions – Return from the Vimy Ridge Memorial Park the way you came and, on reaching the D937, turn left. The German Cemetery is on the left within a few yards.

Historical Notes – For anyone with a simplistic view of the Western Front as being one long series of assaults by brave Tommies into the crosshairs of grinning German machine-gunners, a visit to Neuville-St-Vaast German Cemetery will be a dramatic and sobering demonstration of the terrible losses inflicted on the German Army in this region. As far as the eye can see are iron crosses marking the resting place of 37,000 German soldiers with a further 8,000 in a mass grave on the left hand boundary of the cemetery. The sheer numbers here gives Neuville-St-Vaast the dubious distinction of being the largest cemetery of any nationality in Artois – possessing nearly four times as many burials as the largest CWGC cemetery in the world at Tyne Cot in the Ypres Salient.

Neuville-St-Vaast German Cemetery: mass grave. Photo: Mark Sluman. Click on image for full size (875 KB).

Neuville-St-Vaast German Cemetery: Jewish grave. Photo: Mark Sluman. Click on image for full size (1,001 KB).

Behind the far wall of the cemetery, now just farmland, was the German defensive position known as the "Labyrinth".

Neuville-St-Vaast German Cemetery. Photo: Mark Sluman. Click on image for full size (700 KB).

Area known as the "Labyrinth" with Neuville St Vaast behind. Photo: Mark Sluman. Click on image for full size (538 KB).