Baghdad Northgate Cemetery

WWI: After the capture of Baghdad (11 March 1917), the city became the base for the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force. Casualties from the continued operations north towards Samarra, Tikrit, and Mosul, as well as hospital deaths in Baghdad, were buried here.

Interwar: The cemetery received burials from the permanent garrison and RAF detachments. Deaths reflect disease, accidents, and the unstable political climate of the 1920 Iraqi revolt and its aftermath.

WWII: During the Anglo-Iraqi War, Baghdad saw intense fighting and air raids. The cemetery received burials from these actions, as well as from garrison and hospital deaths in the following years.

The cemetery was once a verdant garden but is today largely bare of the trees and plants it once supported with only a few poor remnants remaining.

Baghdad Northgate circa. 1950s

Historical photographs from the cemetery's earlier years, when its grounds were planted with trees, palms, lawns and flower beds. Images © CWGC.

Baghdad Northgate today

Recent photographs of the cemetery as it stands now, with bare ground where lawns and flower beds once grew.

There are an estimated over 7,853 casualties buried or commemorated at Northgate making it the single largest CWGC site in Iraq. The numbers are only estimated as the CWGC’s own data is often inconsistent and for Iraq at least often not accurate, this is compounded by the lack of equality in how Indian Army casualties were treated vs their European counterparts with inadequate record keeping and the use of mass graves rather than individual burials. The UK maintained an almost constant military presence in Iraq from 1914 to 1955 but the CWGC also often do not count interwar and post war casualties some of which are found in the cemetery which further complicates things. Baghdad Northgate was also the site where burials and memorials from all over Iraq as well as Iran and Turkey were concentrated after the wars, many of these do not appear on the CWGC cemetery map and it’s unclear to the extent they are included in the count.

The figure of 7,853 is calculated from the available information on the CWGC website which gives 4,160 Commonwealth casualties of the First World War are commemorated by name in the cemetery, many of them on dedicated memorials. Unidentified burials from this period number 2,729 primarily Indian Army. An additional 296 Commonwealth servicemen of the Second World War buried in the cemetery died of illness or by accident when serving with PAIFORCE. Within the cemetery is the Baghdad (North Gate) (Khanaqin) Memorial, commemorating 104 Commonwealth servicemen, 437 Polish soldiers and three soldiers of the Arab Legion of the Second World War buried in Khanaqin War Cemetery.

The North Gate Cemetery also contains 127 war graves of other nationalities from both wars, 100 of them Turkish, and 41 non-war graves.

There was once a memorial to 29 officers and men killed in action by insurgent tribal forces at Samawah Station, during the Iraqi revolt in 1920, it was located behind the 15th Division unit memorial in the North East corner.

Samawah was a key railway station on the line midway between Baghdad and Basra. During the 1920 rebellion, British garrisons, including those in the Samarra area, were under pressure, and reinforcements were actively moving to secure communication lines. The 1920 revolt resulted in roughly 6,000 Iraqi deaths and around 500 British and Indian soldiers killed, with the rebellion being largely subdued by the end of October 1920. The exact nature of the action on the 3rd September is as yet unknown but likely some more, deeper research would discover it. What happened to this monument is unknown but of it there is no sign today.

The cemetery is laid out in a rough rectangle east to west with the entrance on the south side. The east side is a mass of individual grave stones with many missing and broken and with Maude’s Tomb in the middle. The east boundary is where many of the unit memorials are placed. The west side is predominantly Indian Army and is bare earth with only memorials to the men buried there. WW2 Indian Army burials did receive a grave stone and these are in a very poor state of repair.

One unique grave is that of 2nd Lt. Frederick Ivor Thesiger (related to the explorer Wilfred Thesiger) which is not a standard CWGC grave but a privately-funded one. Generally, such graves were routinely replaced by standard graves but Thesiger’s family insisted it remain. Given he was the eldest son of Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy of India from 1916 to 1921, his family came with sufficient influence to have their wishes fulfilled, as they are to this day.

The casualties in the cemetery cover a very wide and diverse theatre of operations, with many extraordinary stories and a few mysteries.

Casualties include submariners from E17, E20, E15 and I7, and sailors from HM Yacht Zaida of which there are conflicting accounts of her fate in 1916. The loss of E15 was sensationalised in The Victor comic.

There is one grave from a casualty from West Africa (likely Nigeria), a Cape Corps (South Africa) grave, another from Burma, and a single Camel Corps grave, a unit never deployed to Mesopotamia, Private E R Reynolds was a PoW, captured in Palestine. He was originally buried in Smyrna, now Izmir, in Turkey. His body was disinterred and reburied in Baghdad.

There are also a cluster of graves with shared burials suggesting commingled remains. These are all from a single action on March 5, 1917, the Battle of Lajj. The 13th Hussars, as part of the 7th Indian Cavalry Brigade, advanced toward Lajj where they encountered entrenched Turkish forces. Misinformed by a captured officer, they expected to collect prisoners but, instead, were met with heavy rifle fire. After an initial dismounted advance and a charge, the regiment became bogged down by the strength of the Turkish position. The Hussars were forced to dismount and fight on foot until the 6th Brigade was able to outflank the Turks, leading to their retreat. The regiment suffered heavy casualties at the Battle of Lajj, with nine officers and 77 other ranks killed.