The Big Question: What was the Battle of Fromelles, and why are they digging up the bodies?

Why are we asking this now?

Work began yesterday to recover, and identify where possible, the remains of up to 400 British and Australian soldiers found last year in eight mass graves near Fromelles in northern France.

Who are these men?

They are believed to be British and Australian soldiers killed during a poorly planned and calamitous assault on German trenches on 19 and 20 July 1916. Their bodies were probably collected and piled into pits, just behind the front line, by Bavarian soldiers after the battle.

Is it unusual to find so many bodies from the 1914-18 war?

Individual remains are often ploughed up by farmers or discovered in the construction of new roads or buildings. The bodies of 20 "Grimsby Chums", with linked arms, were found in a single grave near Arras in June 2001. The pits at Pheasant Wood, near Fromelles – containing between 250 and 400 men – is the largest mass burial site found on the Western Front since the 1920s.

What was the Battle of Fromelles, and why is it less well-known than the Somme, Passchendaele or Arras?

Fromelles was a small and futile battle, overshadowed at the time, and since, by the much larger and equally futile battle of the Somme 50 miles to the south. The joint British-Australian offensive at Fromelles, just south of the Franco-Belgian border, was intended to divert German attention from the Somme fighting, which began 18 days earlier. The attack had no clear objectives and was twice cancelled. It was finally ordered by General Sir Charles Monro, against his better judgement, when the British commander-in-chief, General Sir Douglas Haig, refused to accept responsibility for abandoning the whole idea.

Why were there so many British and Australian casualties in this engagement?

The German front line on the Aubers ridge was intensively bombarded using new tactics which were meant to avoid the slaughter of attacking British troops seen on the first day of the Somme. The British barrage lifted and then craftily returned to the same spot in the hope of catching the Germans as they emerged from their dug-outs. Unfortunately, the German "front line" thus pounded was no longer the German front line. Unknown to the British generals, most of the defenders had withdrawn to drier ground just beyond the ridge.

The attack was therefore a disaster. More than 5,500 soldiers of the Australian Fifth Division – many recently arrived from the failed Gallipoli campaign in Turkey – were killed, wounded or captured in less than 24 hours. Over 1,700 Australians died and many of their bodies were never found. The British 61st (South Midland) Division, mostly untried volunteers from Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, suffered 1,500 casualties, including 500 deaths.

Fromelles may have been forgotten in Britain but it has always been remembered in Australia: as the worst single calamity in the nation's military history; and a supreme example of the British senior military bungling which killed so many Australians (and others) in 1914-18.

Where are the mass graves and how were they found?

The site was discovered by two Australian amateur historians and its importance confirmed by University of Glasgow archeologists last year. Pheasant Wood lies in the north-eastern part of the battlefield, immediately behind the German lines attacked by the 8th and 14th Australian brigades on the evening of 19 July 1916. The likelihood is that many of the bodies are those of Australian soldiers who reached the German trenches and were killed in counter-attacks. There may also be some British bodies collected from other parts of the battlefield by the three Bavarian regiments who were defending Fromelles.

What will happen next?

The remains will be separated, cleaned and dried. Intensive tests will be made on about a dozen skeletons to discover whether DNA samples can be recovered in sufficient quality – probably from teeth – to allow individual soldiers to be identified. If these tests are encouraging, all the bodies will be tested for DNA. Appeals have been made for descendants of the "Missing of Fromelles" in both Australia and Britain to give DNA samples to allow matches to be made. Service records of the age and height of the missing men will also be used.

All the bodies will be given an individual grave next year in a new Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery at Pheasant Wood. This will be the first Commonwealth cemetery to be built in France for nearly half a century and will follow the sobre, grey-brick and Portland stone pattern of the originals, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Those bodies which are identified will be given named graves. Others, depending on the information available from surviving badges or insignia, will have grave markers saying "An Australian soldier of the Great War" or a "British soldier of the Great War" or just "A Soldier of the Great War".

Why disturb these bodies after 93 years?

Considering the careless abandon with which their lives were thrown away, it may seem strange to make such a fuss so long after they were slaughtered. But the principle that every Commonwealth soldier should have an individual grave, where possible, was first established during the 1914-18 war. The principle is cherished by the Commonwealth War Graves' Commission to this day. Each body which is discovered – whether a single corpse or 400 skeletons in a series of pits – must be given its own grave.

The collision between industrialised, mass slaughter and concern for the dignity and individuality of the dead is emblematic of the First World War: it is one of the reasons why it still haunts us. The victims of previous wars – officers excepted – were thrown into large holes and forgotten, just as the Fromelles soldiers were dumped by their Bavarian vanquishers.

A Western world which was beginning, for the first time, to respect and value individuals poured them nonetheless into its new mincing machine of military-industrial power. It then, for the first time, where possible, gave them individual graves. Bizarre though this process was, there is no reason why the "Fromelles 400" should be denied the individual resting places given to so many of their fallen comrades.

Is it not time to bury the 1914-18 war?

The last survivors have all but gone but the memory of the war refuses to die. More people now visit the immaculately kept Commonwealth War Graves Cemeteries in Belgium and Northern France than ever before.

The 1914-18 war was the culmination of a 19th century which increased the productive and destructive power of mankind beyond the scope of dreams and nightmares. On the Western Front at least, the Great War was fought by educated men: one of the first generations to be universally educated. The tragedy of this was made all the more painful because, at this stage, the majority of those fighting and killed were volunteers in both Britain and Australia, men who had flocked with enthusiasm to the cause of their mother country.

The collision between mass slaughter and individual conscience – symbolised by those neat white rows of individual graves – rightly continues to haunt us.

Is it time to bury the 1914-18 war?

Yes...

*It all happened a very long time ago and almost all its veterans are now dead

*Modern mankind has no lessons to learn from such an old-fashioned, set-piece, pre-media war

*Remembrance too often takes the form of absurdly inappropriate military bands and parades

No...

*Abiding interest is driven by ordinary people, not governments

*The war was the first great warning of the dangers of the productive and destructive power of the industrial age

*Like no other event, the Great War asks unresolved questions on the limits of heroism and patriotism