Today’s Voies Ferrées du Velay runs for 37 kilometers through the French Départments of Ardèche and Haute-Loire from Dunières to Saint Agrève.

The Chemin du Fer Blanc-Argent was a single track metre gauge cross country railway linking various lines of the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans (PO) running through the departments of Loiret, Loir-et-Cher and Indre in France.

On 28 July 1916, 82nd Field Company Royal Engineers received orders to march to Mametz Wood.  They were to take over from the 94th Field Company Royal Engineer who had just completed the construction of a 300 yard communication trench to the 57th Brigade who at the time had been cut off for 24 hours in the village of Bazentin-le-Petit.

On 14 July 1916 at 03.25 twenty thousand men of the 3rd and 7th Divisions moved forward up Caterpillar Valley to attack Delville Wood, whilst the 21st Division advanced on and captured Bazentin-le-Petit Wood.

Martinpuich British Cemetery was begun in November 1916 and used by fighting units and Field Ambulances until June 1917, and again at the end of August 1918.

An extract from the Diary of Robert Lindsay Mackay of the 11th Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

Bronfay Farm Military Cemetery was begun by French troops in October 1914, but was little used.  Later it was used by British troops between August 1915 and February 1917.

The Gordon Cemetery contains a total of 97 graves of which 94 are of men of the 2nd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders, of the 7th Division.  They were killed on 1 July 1916 and buried in their own support trench in a double semi-circle around the Cross of Sacrifice.

The Devonshire Cemetery, Mametz was started by the 8th and 9th Battalions of the Devonshire Regiment on July 4, 1916 when following their offensive on July 1 they buried their dead in a portion of what had been their own front line.