Australian WWI remains to be reburied

Australian and British troops from World War I, whose remains were found in a mass grave in France, are to be reburied individually, both governments say.

The remains of up to 400 soldiers who died at the Battle of Fromelles in 1916 will be placed in a new cemetery on the site of, or as close as possible to, the mass grave, Britain's veterans minister Derek Twigg said.

The Battle of Fromelles, on July 19-20, 1916, was a bloody failure. Intended to divert German troops from the Battle of the Somme, some 5,500 Australian and 1,500 British soldiers were killed.

It was the worst loss of life for the Australian Imperial Force in a 24-hour period, more even than Gallipoli in 1915, and poisoned relations between the Australians and their British commanders.

Exhumation and re-interment will be carried out by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The project is expected to start later this year, Twigg said.

"It is right and proper that those brave men who lost their lives at Fromelles are buried with the honour and dignity befitting their ultimate sacrifice," Twigg said in a statement.

"The new cemetery will be a lasting tribute to their bravery and a place of pilgrimage for families who lost a relative in the battle. It will ensure the memory of their actions lives on for future generations."

An amateur historian in Australia discovered the mass grave in a location known to Allied troops as Pheasants Wood on the edge of Fromelles, west of the city of Lille, northeastern France.

Limited excavation work carried out in May and June confirmed the presence of the soldiers.

The woman who owns the land in which the mass grave lies said on Thursday she was prepared to donate it for a cemetery to be built there for the fallen soldiers.

"On condition that the site is accessible to the handicapped, to the elderly and to families with children," farmer Marie-Paule Demassiet-Beaussart told AFP.

She bought the land in 1981 and, not knowing that it was a mass grave, used it to grow turnips.

"It breaks my heart to have been working over bodies of the dead. We always thought there was something special about this place," she said.

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