A century of neglect: The British cemetery in Baghdad from WWI (Photos)
Shafaq News/ In the center of Baghdad, there is a cemetery that holds the secrets of a century of wars and conflicts. It is the Graveyard of the English Soldiers, where hundreds of British troops who fought and died in World War I are buried.
The cemetery, which is located in the Bab al-Muadham area, is part of a complex of Iraqi colleges, including the College of Fine Arts and the College of Engineering of Al-Mustansiriya University. It is a historical site that reflects the turbulent history of Iraq, which was under Ottoman rule until the British invasion in 1917.
Furthermore, the British soldiers in the cemetery were part of the Mesopotamian campaign, a long and hard war against the Ottomans. Some of them were famous, like General Maude, who captured Baghdad in 1917, and Colonel Leachman, who was killed by a tribal leader in 1920.
The cemetery was first called the North Gate Cemetery, and it grew after the war by adding graves from other places in Iraq and Turkey. The cemetery also has the remains of 127 soldiers of other nationalities, including 100 Turks and 41 non-war graves.
However, the cemetery has been forgotten and ruined over the years. Shafaq News Agency showed the sad state of the cemetery, which looks like a desert because of the weather. Many of the gravestones have been lost or broken, and the names and dates of the soldiers have been wiped out. The tomb of General Maude, which was a big monument, has been painted with graffiti.
The cemetery is one of the many cemeteries in Iraq that remember the people who died in the two world wars. The CWGC has been trying to fix and protect the cemeteries, but it has had troubles because of the security situation and the access limits. In 2012, the CWGC fixed 511 headstones and made a new fence for the cemetery. It also made a two-volume book that lists the names of the people buried or remembered in Iraq, which is at the CWGC office in Maidenhead, England.
