Authuille Military Cemetery
Historical Information (Source: CWGC)
The village was held by British troops from the summer of 1915 to March, 1918, when it was captured in the German Offensive on the Somme; it was ruined by shell fire even before that date. The Military Cemetery was used by Field Ambulances and fighting units from August, 1915 to December, 1916, and in 1917 and 1918 by Indian Labour Companies.
There are now over 450, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, nearly 40 are unidentified and special memorials are erected to 18 soldiers from the United Kingdom, known or believed to be buried among them. The graves of two other German soldiers have been removed. The cemetery covers an area of 2,650 square metres and is enclosed by a low concrete curb.
Private William McBRIDE - 12/23965 - 9th Bn. Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers - Died 22 April 1916 Age 20
William McBride, born on September 23, 1895, at Rathcarbry, County Armagh as the son of Joseph and Lena McBride, Roan Cottage, Lislea, County Armagh, Ireland. He had three brothers, one of whom emigrated to Canada, and one sister. William attended the Temple Presbyterian Church (1st Keady) and his name appears on this church's war memorial, his sister was a member of the church choir. He was educated at Crosskeys National School and after school served an apprenticeship in the shoe trade.
William enlisted in the army in Belfast, 9 months before his death. He died as a result of an artillery bombardment, killed when a bomb exploded in his trench.
Immortalised in the 1976 song by Eric Bogle No Man's Land / The Green Fields of France
Well how do you do, Private William McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side?
And I'll rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916.
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly?
Did they sound the fife lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
And though you died back in 1916
To that loyal heart are you always 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Forever enshrined behind some glass-pane
In an old photograph torn and tattered and stained
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?
Chorus
Well the sun's shining now on these green fields of France,
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance.
The trenches are vanished long under the plough
No gas, and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand.
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.
Chorus
And I can't help but wonder now Willie McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
You really believed that this war would end war?
But the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame -
The killing and dying - it was all done in vain.
For Willie McBride, it's all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again.
Chorus
