Historical Information (Source: CWGC)

A greater part of the village was included in the front taken over by British troops in March, 1916, and the remainder fell into British hands on the first day of the Battles of Arras, the 9th April, 1917. Bailleul Road East Cemetery was begun by the 34th Division in April, 1917, and carried on by fighting units until the following November; and Plot I, Row R, was added in August, 1918. Plots II, III, IV and V were made after the Armistice by the concentration of isolated graves from a very wide area North, East and South of Arras.

There are now over 1,000, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, over half are unidentified, and seven special memorials record the names of soldiers from the United Kingdom buried in Northumberland Cemetery, Fampoux, whose graves could not be found on concentration; and a number of graves in Plot V, identified as a whole but not individually, are marked by headstones bearing the additional words, "Buried near this spot". Every year of the war is represented in the cemetery, but more particularly the last nine months of 1917. The cemetery covers an area of 4,486 square metres and is enclosed by a rubble wall.

Private Isaac Rosenberg (25 November 1890 – 1 April 1918) was an English poet and artist. His Poems from the Trenches are recognized as some of the most outstanding poetry written during the First World War.

His "Break of Day in the Trenches" provides one of the most disturbing examples of the dark, macabre humor found in the later WWI poetry that sought to demystify the virtues of honor, glory, and patriotism associated with combat. The speaker in the poem –presumably a WWI soldier in the trenches– begins by conversing with a rat as he looks out to no man's land from the trenches with the rising dawn.

(Info: Wikipedia)