Honoured at last... the lost victims of Great War battle

The coffin of the unidentified soldier was taken through the French village in blazing sunshine yesterday on a military wagon from the Great War pulled by horses from the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery.

The Prince of Wales and the Governor-General of Australia, Quentin Bryce, joined the walking procession to a ceremony in a cemetery specially prepared to give the 250 men their final resting place.

Their bodies were found in early 2008 in four mass graves where they had been dumped by German soldiers after the catastrophic engagement in which more than 5,000 Australians and 1,500 Britons were killed or captured in 24 hours.

Yesterday, hundreds of members of British and Australian families whose relatives died that day made the pilgrimage to Fromelles, many still hoping that their DNA samples can establish the exact identity of the unidentified bodies in the new cemetery – the first Great War cemetery to be built for 50 years.

So far 94 of the 250 bodies have been identified by name – all Australian. A further 111 were identified as belonging to the Australian army, and three to the British army.

During the ceremony yesterday, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall met Colin and Jean Staglis, from Ackworth, near Pontefract, who visited the cemetery where his great uncle Gregory Staglis is buried.

The Royal couple also met pupils from a Yorkshire school as they visited the Neuve-Chapelle Memorial, built in honour of soldiers from South Asia who died fighting for the British Indian Army during the First World War.

Students from Allerton Grange School, in Leeds, visited the memorial as part of their study of diversity.