Richebourg, Pas-de-Calais

The Battle of the Boar's Head was an attack on 30 June 1916 at Richebourg-l'Avoué in France, during the First World War. Troops of the 39th Division, XI Corps in the First Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), advanced to capture the Boar's Head, a salient held by the German 6th Army. Two battalions of the 116th Brigade, with one battalion forming carrying parties, attacked the German front position before dawn on 30 June. The British took and held the German front line trench and the second trench for several hours, before retiring to their lines having lost 850–1,366 casualties. The operation was conducted when the British Armies on the Western Front north of the Somme, supported the Fourth Army during the Battle of the Somme (1 July to 18 November). The British Third, First and Second armies conducted 310 raids against the Germans up to November 1916, harassing the Germans opposite to give novice divisions experience of fighting on the Western Front, to inflict casualties and to prevent German troops from being transferred to the Somme. From 19 to 20 July, XI Corps conducted the much bigger Battle of Fromelles, where British and Australian troops suffered an even greater number of casualties.

The Le Touret Memorial is a World War I memorial, located near the former commune of Richebourg-l'Avoué, in the Pas-de-Calais region of France. The memorial lists 13,389 names of British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave who were killed in the area prior to the start of the Battle of Loos on 25 September 1915. The exceptions are Canadian soldiers, whose names are commemorated at the Vimy Memorial, and Indian Army soldiers, whose names appear on the Neuve-Chapelle Memorial. Those commemorated on this memorial include the Victoria Cross recipients Abraham Acton, William Anderson, Jacob Rivers, and Edward Barber. Also commemorated here are Clive and Arnold Baxter, brothers who were killed on the same day, 25 January 1915, in the Brickstacks area of Cuinchy. Designed by J. R. Truelove, the memorial is a loggia surrounding an open rectangular court. The inscription is over the entrance, and given in both French and English. The memorial was unveiled on 22 March 1930 by Lord Tyrrell, a diplomat who was present in his role as British Ambassador to France.

La Couture (French pronunciation: [la kutyʁ]; West Flemish: De Kouter) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France about 6 miles (9.7 km) northeast of Béthune and 18 miles (29 km) west of Lille.

The Neuve-Chapelle Indian Memorial is a World War I memorial in France, located on the outskirts of the commune of Neuve-Chapelle, in the département of Pas-de-Calais. The memorial commemorates some 4,742 Indian soldiers (including Nepal) with no known grave, who fell in battle while fighting for the British Indian Army in the First World War. The location of the memorial was chosen because of the participation by Indian (India, Nepal) troops at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.

Festubert (French pronunciation: [fɛstybɛʁ]) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France 21 miles (34 km) southwest of Lille. The village was on the Western Front during the First World War and was largely destroyed in the May 1915 Battle of Festubert.

The Defence of Festubert was an engagement on the Western Front early in the First World War when Indian and British battalions of the 7th (Meerut) Division of the Indian Army defended the village of Festubert against a German attack from 23 to 24 November 1914. It was one of the first actions in the war in which an attack was made against a prepared defensive position. The British and Indian regiments that took part were awarded the battle honour Festubert 1914.

The Battle of Festubert (15–25 May 1915) was an attack by the British army in the Artois region of France on the western front during World War I. The offensive formed part of a series of attacks by the French Tenth Army and the British First Army in the Second Battle of Artois (3 May – 18 June 1915). After the failure of the breakthrough attempt by the First Army in the attack at Aubers Ridge (9 May 1915) tactics of a short hurricane bombardment and an infantry advance with unlimited objectives, were replaced by the French practice of slow and deliberate artillery-fire intended to prepare the way for an infantry attack. A continuous three-day bombardment by the British heavy artillery was planned, to cut wire and demolish German machine-gun posts and infantry strong points. The German defences were to be captured by a continuous attack, by one division from Rue du Bois to Chocolat Menier Corner and by a second division 600 yd (550 m) north, which was to capture the German trenches to the left of Festubert. The objectives were 1,000 yd (910 m) forward, rather than the 3,000 yd (1.7 mi; 2.7 km) depth of advance attempted at Aubers Ridge. The battle was the first British attempt at attrition.

The Portuguese Military Cemetery in Richebourg, Pas-de-Calais, France, is the burial site of 1,831 casualties of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps in World War I. It is the only Portuguese military cemetery in France. The cemetery was built between 1924 and 1928 and a great number of its dead were killed in the Battle of the Lys in April 1918. A total of 238 are unidentified. Other burials were moved to the site from the rest of France, Belgium and German prisoner of war camps. In 1939, it was expanded from 1,500 graves to its present capacity. In 2014, the cemetery was one of several across France and Belgium listed to be nominated to be UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites. President of France Emmanuel Macron and President of Portugal Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa led a ceremony of 2,000 invitees at the cemetery on the centenary of the start of the Battle of the Lys, 9 April 2018. The site was also visited by Portuguese president Jorge Sampaio (2004) and prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho (2014).

Vieille-Chapelle (French pronunciation: [vjɛj ʃapɛl]; West Flemish: Oedekapelle) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France about 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Béthune and 15 miles (24 km) west of Lille. The river Lawe flows through the commune.

Ernest Cotton Deane (4 May 1887 – 25 September 1915) was a medical officer of the British Indian Army and an Irish international rugby player. Born in the city of Limerick, Ireland, he went to school in Kingstown (present day Dún Laoghaire) in County Dublin and then studied medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), graduating in 1909. He was selected to play rugby for Ireland in one match, against England in February 1909. His rugby career was cut short when he broke his leg in a match against Oxford University. Deane was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1911, after a period as house surgeon at the Adelaide Hospital, Dublin. In 1913, he was posted to India and served in Burma. He was stationed in Meerut at the start of the First World War. From there, he travelled to France with the Garhwal Brigade of the Indian Expeditionary Force, landing in Marseille in September 1914. He was deployed immediately to the Western Front, where he served first with the 20th Field Ambulance and then as medical officer of the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Leicestershire Regiment. His unit saw much active service. On 22 August 1915, he was awarded the Military Cross after running out under machine gun fire to rescue four men who had been wounded by artillery fire. A month later, his regiment participated in the Battle of Loos, and was almost entirely obliterated. He was shot dead after going to help some injured soldiers: his action earned him a mention in despatches. Deane was one of 60 RCSI doctors to receive the Military Cross in the First World War, and one of 17 to be killed in action.

Neuve-Chapelle (West Flemish: Nieuwkappel) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France It was the site of a First World War battle in 1915 about 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Béthune and 16 miles (26 km) southwest of Lille.

Laventie (French pronunciation: ​[lavɑ̃ti]; West Flemish: Wentie) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France.