Colincamps and "Euston," a road junction a little east of the village, were within the Allied lines before the Somme offensive of July 1916. The cemetery was started as a front line burial ground during and after the unsuccessful attack on Serre on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. It was briefly in German hands towards the end of March 1918, when it marked the limit of the German advance, but the line was held and pushed forward by the New Zealand Division allowing the cemetery to be used again for burials in April and May 1918. After the Armistice, more than 750 graves were brought in from small cemeteries in the neighbouring communes and the battlefields. The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.