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ATraveller's

Guide

AustralianRemembrance

Trailalong the

Western Front

Plan Your Visit 2

A Traveller’s GuideAustralian Remembrance Trail

AUSTRALIANS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 1Plan your visit 2

In the footsteps of the family 6

SOUTHERN REGION 7Amiens 8

Thiepval Memorial 9

Pozières 10

Albert 12

Naours 13

Vignacourt 14

Péronne, Mont St Quentin 16

Bellenglise 17

Corbie 18

Treating the wounded 19

Le Hamel 20

Villers-Bretonneux 22

Sir John Monash Centre 23

CENTRAL REGION 26Arras 27

Fromelles 29

Bullecourt 30

NORTHERN REGION 31Ypres 32

Polygon Wood 36

Tyne Cot 37

Messines 38

The 'mad photographers' 39

Ploegsteert 40

The silent cities 42

INFORMATION 43In the South 43

In the Centre 46

In the North 47

ITINERARIES 49A walk in the Somme 49

A bike ride through Flanders Fields 50

Pozières and the 1916 front line 51

The Australian Remembrance Ride 52

Contents

© The Commonwealth of Australia

Published by the Department of Veterans’Afffairs, Canberra, April 2018

ISBN: 978-0-6482602-0-2

Publication Number: P03563

This work is copyright. Apart from anyuse permitted under the Copyright Act1968, no part may be reproduced by anyprocess without prior written permissionfrom the Commonwealth. Requests

and inquiries concerning reproductionand rights should be addressed tothe publications section, Departmentof Veterans’ Afffairs or emailed [email protected]

Australian soldiers in trenches in front of the village of Le Hamel after the battle on 4 July 2018AWM E028441

Plan Your Visit 1


Australians on the western frontMost Australians have heard of Gallipoli in 1915, but few knowmuch about the Western Front. In every sense, this was abigger story. Australians fought here for two and half years atdreadful cost - 80 per cent of Australian casualties for the wholewar happened on the Western Front, in France and Belgium,between mid 1916 and late 1918.

Visiting the battlefields andmemorials here is an emotionalbut rewarding experience, whetheryou have a family connectionto the First World War or not.The sites along the AustralianRemembrance Trail offfer us all away to remember and honour ourforebears. Lest we forget.

THE AUSTRALIANREMEMBRANCE TRAIL

The Australian Remembrance Traillinks the most significant sitesfor Australians along 200km ofthe Western Front: battlefields,cemeteries, memorials, museumsand the traces that Australiansoldiers left of themselves across thislandscape. Recently the Australian,French and Belgian governmentshave worked together on a numberof these sites to upgrade facilitiesand improve the visitor experience.

From north to south, the Trail runsfrom Ypres in Belgium near thesite of the Battle of Passchendaele,through Fromelles and Bullecourtin northern France, to Pozières,the battlefields of the Somme andVillers-Bretonneux.

Each site represents a story ofimmense sufffering and toil: 46,000Australians died on the WesternFront between March 1916 and theend of the war in November 1918;another 134,000 were wounded orcaptured. Many of the bodies of thedead were never recovered buttheir names are not forgotten; theyare recorded on the memorials tothe missing.

No place on earth is more steeped inAustralian courage or blood.

PLAN YOUR JOURNEY

This booklet will help you plan yourjourney. It is not a military history ofthe battles along the Western Front– although we’ve included enoughof the story to get you started. Thisis a practical guide to your trip:when and where to go, what to seeand do, where to stay and eat, andsome suggested itineraries based ondiffferent interests and the time youhave to spend here.

There is much to see and do beyondthe battlefields in this part of Franceand Belgium – from the beautifulBay of the Somme to ancient townslike Amiens and Arras to lively villagemarkets selling regional delicaciesand wines. There are also somesuperb walking tracks and some ofthe best bike riding trails in Europe.

A GREAT TIME TO VISIT

On Anzac Day 1918 – three yearsto the day after the Gallipolilandings – Australian and British

troops recaptured the small villageof Villers-Bretonneux in northernFrance. The intense fightinghalted progress of the Germanspring offfensive and markedthe beginning of the end of theGreat War. The people of Villers-Bretonneux never forgot thosewho liberated their town.

To mark the centenary of the endof the war, the Sir John MonashCentre, a new interpretative centrelocated behind the AustralianNational Memorial, commemoratesthis sacrifice for new generationsof Australians.

There’s never been a better time tovisit the Western Front.

Along the Somme RiverAmiens

Australian recruitment poster 1918AWM ARTV00039

Australians on the Western Front 1

Plan Your Visit 2


PLAN YOUR VISIT

Bay of the Somme at dusk

If you are thinking about a trip to the Australian remembrancesites, you’re likely to have lots of questions. What do I mostwant to see? How much time do I have? Where do I start?What’s the best way to get around? Do I need a guide or a tour?This booklet will help you to work through those questions anddesign an itinerary to suit your interests and time.

How much can I do

If you have one day:join an organised tour from Paris,Amiens, Ypres or Arras - with hotelor station pick-up and drop offf,lunch and guide included

If you have three days:this is a comfortable amount of timeto explore one region in depth.Or, if you are driving yourself, youcould cover the major sites alongthe Western Front, spending oneday around Amiens, one day aroundArras and one day around Ypres.

If you have four or five days:think about splitting your timebetween the northern and southernregions. There’s plenty of Great Warhistory to absorb but there’s alsoroom to take some time away fromthe story of war. Enjoy a day at thesea around the Bay of the Somme,shopping in Lille or walking aroundthe medieval centre of Bruges.

If you have a week:take it slowly. Put your boots onand take a hike – a week is plenty

of time to walk around all themajor sites in Flanders and getdown to Arras or to walk throughthe Somme Valley around thebattlefields and along the river.Or rent a bike – you can test yourcycling skills on some of Belgium’sfamous cobbled roads or ride allthe way along the Western Frontfrom Ypres to Villers-Bretonneux.

5 MILITARY SITES ON THE WESTERN FRONT1. The village of Villers-Bretonneux, home to the Australian NationalMemorial, the Franco-Australian Museum and the new Sir JohnMonash Centre (p22)

2.The Menin Gate at Ypres. At 8pm every night, the firemen buglersof the Last Post Association pay tribute to the dead in a movingceremony. Make sure you get there early to ensure a spot. (p33)

3.The Windmill Memorial at Pozières, site of Australia’s worst losseson the Somme and close to the Thiepval Memorial (p10-11)

4.The Australian Memorial Park and VC Corner Cemetery atFromelles, with the new Pheasant Wood Military Cemetery andBattle of Fromelles Museum nearby (p29)

5.The new Vignacourt 14-18 Museum, devoted to the recentlydiscovered photographic work of the Thuillier family (opening inearly 2018) (p14)

MUSTSEE

There are lots of well markedhiking and biking trails aroundthe Western Front and a goodselection of places to stay.

Experience the regionWhile you are visiting the WesternFront, leave some room to enjoythe region. You don’t have tospend every minute walking thebattlefields, visiting museums orsqueezing in every ‘must see’ site.Relax over dinner in a riversiderestaurant or with a picnic on ahill; try some of the local food andwine; visit a gallery; rent a bike fora leisurely ride; or spend an hour atone of the lively local markets.

Plan Your Visit 3


Plan your visit 3

Once you have decided how much time you have and what mostinterests you, there are lots of choices for places to stay, sitesto see and things to do. You can focus on one region or coverseveral areas, follow one of our suggested itineraries or designyour own.

Many people spend two or threedays in Amiens and the same inYpres, but if you don’t want tochange hotels you could simplystay in Arras, half way betweenthe two (central region). It’s withinabout 80km of all the major sites ineither direction. Arras is a beautiful,historic town with good transportto Paris and Lille, many finerestaurants and a fantastic Saturdaymarket. You can take day tripsto the Belgian battlefields or theSomme valley. The Australian battlesites at Fromelles and Bullecourtare much closer to Arras and theamazing Wellington Tunnels - amajor site for New Zealanders - arenear the centre of town.

Southern Region

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED MAINLYIN THE BATTLES OF 1916, baseyourself at Amiens or nearby,around an hour from Parisby train. You’re about 40kmfrom the Somme battlefieldsand the important Australiansites at Pozières, Le Hamel andVillers-Bretonneux, site of theAustralian National Memorial,the Franco-Australian Museumand the new Sir John MonashCentre. Péronne, Mont Saint-Quentin and Bellenglise are a littlefurther east; the medieval cavesat Naours and the new photomuseum at Vignacourt a littlefurther north. Amiens is also thegateway to the Bay of the Somme,one of the most beautiful marineenvironments in France.

IN JUST ONE (PACKED) DAY

Take a guided tour from Paris, orarrange a guide to pick you upin Amiens. Visit the magnificent

Amiens Cathedral, Villers-Bretonneux and the Sir JohnMonash Centre, and the memorialat Le Hamel (p20). Drive on toPozières (p10), with a stop forcofffee or lunch in the pretty townof Albert (p12). Visit the memorialand museum at Thiepval (p9 )but don’t miss the new museumdedicated to the Thuillier familyphotographs at Vignacourt (p14).

itineraries

TheWestern Front(early 1917)

B E L G I U M

F R A N C E

River

Somme

River

Yser

RiverLys

0

0

50kilometres

20miles

N

Calais

Ieper/Ypres

Lille

Amiens Péronne

PARIS

BRUSSELS

LONDONENGLAND

BELGIUM

F R A N C E

River

Somme

StraitofDover

0

0

80kilometres

40miles

sir john monash centreAustralian National Memorial

Polygon Wood

Langemark

Toronto Avenue

Dunkirk

Passchendaele

Hill 60

Amiens

Albert

Naours

Corbie

Saint Valerie sur Somme

Beaumont-Hamel Ulster Tower

Lochnagar crater

Péronne

Lille

Vimy

Arras

Notre Dame De LoretteLens

Mont St-Quentin

Villers-Bretonneux

PozièresThiepval

Le HamelBellenglise

Dernancourt

Tyne Cot CemeteryYpres

Ploegsteert

Fromelles

Bullecourt

Brussels

Paris

Ostend

Chroma light show onAmiens Cathedral

Plan Your Visit 4


IN TWO DAYS

If you’re staying the night, bookdinner in one of the many canalside restaurants in Quartier St-Leuin Amiens. Next day visit the cavesat Naours (p13) and the fabulousHistorial Museum at Péronne(p16), finishing with the Australian2nd Division Memorial at MontSaint-Quentin (p16). Or take abike ride along the Somme canalfrom Péronne (p16) and stop fora riverside lunch at Feuillères,Suzanne or Corbie.

IN THREE DAYS

Take in the Somme 1916 TrenchMuseum at Albert (p12), and thebattle sites at Bullecourt (p30) andFromelles (p29); both have new orupgraded museums. At Fromelles,visit the new cemetery for Australianand British soldiers recently reburiedfrom a mass grave.

IN FIVE DAYS

Head north into Belgium, for theAustralian sites near Ypres (see below)

Northern Region

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED MAINLY INTHE BATTLEFIELDS OF 1917,base yourself at Ypres in Belgium.You’re within 20km of most ofthe major sites – Passchendaele,Zonnebeke, Menin Road, PolygonWood, Messines, Ploegsteert, andthe cemetery at Tyne Cot. Ypresis a fascinating medieval city withsome of the region’s best food,beer and chocolate and the area isa cyclist’s heaven.

IN JUST ONE (PACKED) DAY

Book a guided tour from Ypres(p32). Visit the magnificent ClothHall (p32) home of the In FlandersFields Museum (p35), one of thebest on the Western Front. Headeast to the Australian 5th DivisionMonument and Buttes New Britishcemetery at Polygon Wood (p36),with a visit to the fascinatingMemorial Museum Passchendaele1917 at Zonnebeke (p36). The TyneCot Cemetery (p37) nearby is amust-see. Return to Ypres in time

for the Last Post Ceremony at theMenin Gate (p33) at 8pm every night.

IN TWO DAYS

Go south from Ypres to Messines(p38), stopping at the Pool of Peace,the New Zealand Soldier Statue andthe Island of Ireland Peace Park – allon Messines Ridge. Continue to thePlugstreet 14-18 Experience (p40),a small museum near the Toronto

Avenue cemetery (p31) – the onlyall-Australian cemetery in Belgium.

IN THREE DAYS

Visit Lijssenthoek Military Cemeterynear Poperinge for an insight intothe workings of a field hospital. AtPoperinghe, Talbot House is a livingmuseum – largely unchanged sincesoldiers rested behind the lineshere 100 years ago.

Boating around the hortillonnagesAmiens

The Cloth HallYpres

Plan Your Visit 5


5 GREAT EXPERIENCES ONTHE WESTERN FRONT1. Amiens Cathedral, a magnificent Gothic cathedral in abeautiful city

2.The Bay of the Somme - sun, sea, bird life and nautical history- at the mouth of the famous river

3.The Cloth Hall Ypres a medieval masterpiece destroyed inthe First World War and painstakingly reconstructed over 40years

4.The caves at Naours: a system of medieval tunnels, dug intochalky soil, bearing thousands of signatures of Great Warsoldiers

5.The Louvre-Lens: 205 major art works from the Louvre Paris,housed in a stunning new building close to Lens and Lille

DON'TMISS

IN FIVE DAYS

Do any or all of the above on abicycle, on Belgium’s extensivenetwork of cycle paths. Or continuesouth into France, via Fromelles andBullecourt, to the Australian sitesaround the Somme (see above).

Central Region

If you want to see the wholeAustralian Remembrance Trail withoutchanging hotels, base yourself in thecentre in Arras, near the Bullecourtand Fromelles sites (p29). Ventureout on trips north or south, drivingyourself or with a guide.

HIRING A GUIDE

If you have a list of specific things youwant to see or do or you are tracingthe footsteps of a relative, thinkabout hiring a private guide to designa tour that covers only the places youwant to see. It’s a more expensiveoption than a regular group tour butit can be worth it. A good guide canmake a big diffference to helping youto understand what happened in aparticular place or what happened toyour relative.

Check the local tourism informationservices and websites to find a

Saturday marketArras

guide to suit you. Most tourismofffices keep a list of qualifiedguides, including those who speakEnglish and some who specialise inworking with Australian visitors. (seep43-48 for contact details).

DOing IT YOURSELF

If you’d rather plan your ownitinerary and go at your own pace,hiring a car is the best option. Themajor car rental agencies haveofffices in most – but not all – ofthe larger towns in the region. Youcan also pick up a car at the airportif you fly into Paris, Lille, Brusselsor Charleroi or at one of the TGVstations – Lille or Haute-Picardie.

Checking OPENING HOURS

Before you finalise your plan,don’t forget to check websitesfor opening hours and specialevents. While most cemeteriesand memorials are open everyday during daylight hours, othersites – like museums, galleries,tourist attractions - will havediffferent opening hours in winterand summer, may close on oneor two days each week or changeoperating hours for special days orevents. Make sure that you checkfor public holidays too – there are11 offficial holidays in France and10 offficial holidays in Belgium andusually some local extras as well.

Plan Your Visit 6


For many Australians, visiting the Western Front is about tracingthe experience of a family member who fought in France orBelgium during the First World War. As more than 295,000Australians served on the Western Front, today thousands ofAustralians have a relative who fought there.

Finding out more about where theyfought adds something very specialto any trip to the battlefields – andthe earlier you start to research thatfamily history, the better.

Some people may not evenknow someone from their familyserved. Start by asking youroldest relatives what they knowor if anyone has letters, diaries ormedals from the Great War thatcould provide some clues.

Once you have a name, thereare lots of free on-line resourcesavailable – and not just for Australiansoldiers. The UK and New Zealandalso have websites that can help.

Researching a real soldier

Frank Watts Davis came fromWilcannia, in western New SouthWales. Now we have a name, wecan search for his records on theAustralian War Memorial (AWM)website, using the search functionon the home page (www.awm.gov.au). That will give us his servicenumber, usually three or fourdigits. If the person you are lookingfor was an offficer, he probablywon’t have a service number – sohaving the full name will help.

In this case, we learn that Davis’sservice number was 1524, thathe enlisted on 3 December 1914,his unit was the 50th Battalion,he attained the rank of secondlieutenant, that he served inGallipoli and France and was killedin action on 2 February 1917.

We also learn that there is a letter,asking whoever finds him in theevent of his death to send the ringaround his neck ‘with my dyinglove (to) Miss M Murray’ in Port

Lincoln, South Australia. Whenwe search again using just thesurname and service number, wecan see what records the AWMholds, most of which is digitised.Frank has a studio photo, identifiedby a number that you can use toorder a copy.

If a soldier was listed as missing,there could be a Red Cross recordattached, which could tell you whatthey found out later about his death.If there are letters or diaries, youshould find a record on the AWMwebsite; not all have been digitised,so you may have to visit the AWM inCanberra to read them.

The State Library of NSW holdsover 700 diaries of soldiers fromthe Great War: www.sl.nsw.gov.au/research-and-collections.

Other state libraries may haverecords for soldiers from that State.

The National Archives of Australia(NAA) website (www.naa.gov.au)holds other records on this soldierand we can use the service numberto find them. On the NAA website,click ‘Collection’ then ‘Search thecollection’. Enter just the surnameand service number. This takes us toa digital copy of his service records –an Attestation form (on enlistment),a record of the battalion(s) heserved in and the name of the shipthat took him to Europe. There maybe details of wounds or sickness,family addresses, discipline records,and post-war correspondence withnext of kin.

In Frank Watts Davis’s case, thisrecord tells us something of wherehe served and that he was buriedat the Bernafay Wood BritishCemetery in France.

Lt Frank Watts DavisAWM PAFU2013.185.01

You can also search the AWMwebsite for the Battalion Diary of hisunit. This lets you work out wherehe might have been during thebattalion’s major engagements. Youcan access these in person at theAWM research library.

To find a grave, search the nameon the Commonwealth War GravesCommission (CWGC) website(www.cwgc.org) for a record ofthe cemetery and position of thegrave. If there is no known grave,you’ll find where his name iscommemorated among the missing.

If your relative was from the UK orNew Zealand, you can search siteslike www.nationalarchives.gov.ukand www.archives.govt.nz/world-war-one

Lastly, commercial websites can helpyou find records in Australia andin other countries including www.ancestry.com (you get two weeksfree to start your search),www.forces-war-records.co.uk andwww.greatwar.co.uk/research/family-history.

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF FAMILY

Australian Remembrance Trail A Traveller’s Guide

After eight months at Gallipoli, the first Australian troopsarrived in France in March 1916 to find a very diffferent war. TheWestern Front, stretching for 600km from the Belgian coast tothe Swiss border, was in stalemate. Five all-volunteer Australiandivisions joined 50 exhausted British divisions whose numbershad been decimated over 18 months of relentless fighting.

The German offfensive at Verdunhad inflicted terrible losses on theFrench. To relieve the pressure, theBritish commander General Haigagreed to launch a major offfensivefurther west along the SommeRiver. It began at dawn on 1 July1916, with the explosion of a massivemine beneath German positions justnorth of the river. By the end of theday, the British had sufffered 60,000casualties – the worst day in British

military history. The Australianswent into their first major actionnorth of here on 19 July at Fromelleswhere the Australian 5th Divisionsufffered 5,000 casualties in onenight. Five days later, the 1st, 2nd and4th Divisions went in at Pozièresand over seven weeks lost 23,000men – killed, wounded or captured.For the next two and a half years,Australian troops would rarely beout of the front line.

5 MILITARY SITES IN THE SOMME1. The Australian National Memorial and the Villers-BretonneuxMilitary Cemetery, site of the new Sir John Monash Centre

2.The Historial de la Grande Guerre museum at Péronne, one ofthe finest on the Somme

3.The Lochnagar crater at La Boisselle, left by the explosion thatmarked the beginning of the Battle of the Somme

4.The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme nearPozières. A new museum includes an amazing 60m longbacklit mural of the first day of the Battle of the Somme

5.The South African Memorial at Delville Wood near Longueval.On 15 July 1916, the South African Brigade went into battlewith 121 offficers and 3032 troops; they came out a week laterwith just 29 offficers and 751 other ranks

5 GREATEXPERIENCESIN THE SOMME

1. Ride a bike along theSomme canal – a 160kmtrail from the Somme tothe sea

2.Watch Chroma, the freehigh tech light showprojected on to the frontof Amiens cathedral;only in December and insummer – mid June tomid September

3.Go birdwatching atMarquenterre birdsanctuary, in the Bay ofthe Somme

4.Explore the beautifultown of Corbie; its richhistory dates back to thefoundation of a powerfulabbey in 657

5.Visit the astonishing airmuseum at Albert, hometo hundreds of vintageaeroplanes and cars

THE AUSTRALIAN REMEMBRANCETRAIL SITES ON THE SOMME

The Australian Remembrance Trailmarks the most significant sitesfor Australians in the Valley ofthe Somme, both battle sites likePozières and Villers-Bretonneuxand towns behind the lines whereAustralian soldiers rested likeVignacourt and Naours. Outsidethe Trail, there are many otherfascinating places and sights tovisit that explore or explain theexperience of the Great War.

Southern Region - The Somme 7

The Somme

Australian 2ndDivision troops haltedon a sunken roadSomme Valley, October 1916 AWM EZ0122MUSTSEE

DON'TMISS


Southern Region - Amiens 8

The river meanders through thecity in several channels and atnight, beside the water, the barsand restaurants in Quartier St-Leu come alive with hundreds ofstudents and visitors. In the MiddleAges, the marshes east of thecity were used to mine peat andgrow vegetables; today’s marketgardeners still sell their vegetablesat Place Parmentier on Saturdays.On one Saturday in June theydress in traditional costume to sellproduce from boats along the quay.The hortillonnages – the networkof small islands- is now a naturereserve you can explore by foot,boat or kayak.

Amiens is a city of great culturaland culinary pride, famous formacarons and chocolate, as wellas for raising the current presidentof France, Emmanuel Macron.It is also a festival town hostingan international film festival inNovember, a famous Christmasmarket in December, a well-respected festival devoted to ‘BD’in June (BD - Bande Dessinée theFrench name for the art of thegraphic novel) and in April andOctober, the La Grande Réderied’Amiens - 51 streets closed foran antiques fair that attracts80,000 people. Remember this ifyou’re trying to get a roomaround that time.

AmiensAmiens is an elegant, captivating city and the gateway to theSomme battlefields. Julius Caesar spent a winter here in 54BC, camped beside the Somme River. Jules Verne moved herein 1871 and wrote most of his famous books in a house that’snow a museum. Thousands of Australian soldiers came throughhere on their way to the Somme. Some left their mark: theUNESCO listed belfry tower was known locally as the Prison desAustraliens because so many were briefly locked up here fordrunkenness or disorderly behaviour.

The Notre-Dame Cathedral hasdominated the city for almost 800years. It is not just the largest Gothicbuilding in France, roughly twicethe size of Notre-Dame in Paris, itis also one of the most exquisitechurches anywhere in the world.Begun in 1220, it survived both theFrench Revolution and two worldwars – remarkable given that Amiensis a major railway hub and one of

the objectives the Germans mostwanted to capture. During the FirstWorld War, large banks of sandbagsprotected the building but a smallnumber of German shells hit it inMay 1918. It is said that the bishop ofAmiens sent a message to the PapalNuncio in Munich, who persuadedthe German Chancellor to spare theCathedral. That nuncio was EugenioPacelli, who became Pope Pius XII.

Waterside restaurantsSt-Leu, Amiens

Amiens Cathedralprotected by sandbags

TRANSPORT

Amiens is a little over one hour fromParis by train (from the Gare duNord) and the trains are frequent.If you fly into Charles de Gaulleairport (CDG), a fast train can takeyou through to the TGV station atHaute-Picardie but you are still 30minutes east of Amiens. You can pickup a rental car at the TGV station or

take the SNCF bus that goes directto Amiens. Haute-Picardie station isa good option if you are staying inPéronne, 10km to the east. Ask yourhotel to arrange a taxi.

Amiens has a number of places torent cars and bicycles and a goodrange of accommodation.

LOW

RESOL

UTION


Southern Region - Thiepval Memorial 9

Thiepval MemorialThe British Memorial to the Missing is the largest CommonwealthWar Memorial in the world. Perhaps it had to be, to accommodatethe 72,243 names of the British and British Empire soldiers classedas missing after the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Missing heremeans they have no known grave, or the body could not beidentified on burial. Their average age was 25.

Australians did not enter the Battleof the Somme until 23 July 1916at Pozières, but 10 Australians, sixof them unknown, are buried in

the cemetery at the foot of themonument. Many more died nearby,trying to take Pozières and MouquetFarm. The cemetery is unusual

for having 300 British and Empiresoldiers and 300 French soldiersburied side-by-side, symbolising thetwo countries’ alliance in the FirstWorld War.

The memorial, 45m high, can beseen from all over the battlefield. Itwas designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens,who also designed the AustralianNational Memorial near Villers-Bretonneux. Open every day, closedfrom mid December to mid January.

Thiepval MemorialInterior

HISTORIAL THIEPVAL

The Historial de la GrandeGuerre museum at Péronne hasestablished a new museum atThiepval, focussing on the Battle ofthe Somme. This is a must see forthe stunning 60m long illuminatedpanorama by American illustratorand artist Joe Sacco. It gives acontinuous view of the first day ofthe battle. There is nothing like itin any other war museum on theWestern Front. The museum alsoholds a life-sized replica of one ofGeorges Guynemer’s aeroplanes.At the time of his death in 1917,aged 22, he was a national heroin France, credited with shootingdown 54 enemy planes. Openevery day, closed mid December tomid January.

Panoramaby illustrator Joe Sacco

A BOY SOLDIER’S STORY

Robert Warner was living in Kiama,New South Wales when he enlistedin January 1916. He had been bornin London, but came to Australiawith his family when he was seven.His experience of war was brutallyshort: four days after joining the4th Pioneer Battalion, he was hit inboth legs and an arm while movingup to trenches near Mouquet Farm,close to Thiepval. In 1917, a CorporalBanfield, who served with him,wrote the following note to theRed Cross from an army hospital inRandwick, Sydney. ‘I knew Warnerwell. He was only a young lad but avery great cobber of mine. I should

like to see hispeople. We werewounded on aMonday nearMoquet (sic)Farm; we werejust going up toa sap. They weregoing over thetop that night.He was hit by a bomb. Both his legshad to be amputated. He died inhospital near Albert. He was verywell liked.’ Robert Warner is buriedin the Puchevillers British Cemetery,Puchevillers, France. He was aged 15years and eight months.

AWM P05301.244


Southern Region - Pozières 10

Pozières is one of the most significant sites for Australians onthe Western Front. More Australians died here than on any otherbattlefield in France. For many, it was their first experience of war.This is one of the highest spots in the Somme Valley and the Britishhad lost thousands of men since 1 July 1916 trying to take it. If thenewly arrived Australian divisions could take Pozières and MouquetFarm, General Haig hoped to take Thiepval from the rear.

By the time the Australiansarrived, the little farming villagehad been obliterated by shelling.There were few buildings leftbut the Germans had built soliddefences - deep trenches, bunkersand blockhouses. You can seethe Gibraltar blockhouse at the

southern end of the village,beside the First Australian DivisionMemorial. The Germans had alsofortified the remains of an ancientwindmill at the northern end ofthe village. This is now the site ofthe other Australian Memorial,built over the ruined Windmill

blockhouse. The view from heregives a clear idea of the strategicimportance of Pozières.

At 12:30am on 23 July 1916, theAustralian 1st Division attackedPozières taking the village butnot the Windmill. Three weeksof relentless counter-attacks andshelling followed; the battle waswon but at an unprecedentedcost. The Australian 1st, 2nd and4th Divisions sufffered 23,000casualties, including 6,700 dead,many of whom were never found.‘The horror was indescribable’,wrote Lieutenant John ‘Alec’ Rawsof the Australian 2nd Division.

Pozières

A DAY OUT

We are lousy, stinking, ragged,unshaven, sleepless. Evenwhen we’re back a bit we can’tsleep from our own guns. Ihave one puttee, a dead man’shelmet, another dead man’s gasprotector, a dead man’s bayonet.My tunic is rotten with othermen’s blood and partly splatteredwith a comrade’s brains….Courage does not count here. Itis all nerve. Once that goes, onebecomes a gibbering maniac.’

From a letter by Lt J A Raws,who was killed later in the same battle.

“

Australian gunners in actionnear Pozières, July 1916 AWM EZ0141

You can easily visit Pozières, theThiepval Memorial and its newmuseum, the Lochnagar craterand the pretty town of Albert inone day.

From Amiens, take the D929 towardsAlbert, a straight Roman road,except where it veers around theChâteau de Querrieu, which was the1918 headquarters of Australian warcorrespondent Charles Bean. You willsoon see a right turn to Dernancourt,just before Albert.

Go past Albert to La Boisselle andthe Lochnagar Crater, then on toPozières. After that, leave at leastan hour for the Thiepval Memorial3km to the west, and anotherfor the preserved trenches atBeaumont-Hamel.

Return to Albert for lunchthen dive into the eccentricunderground Somme 1916 Museumjust offf the main square. If you’revisiting on Saturday or the secondWednesday of the month, go to

Albert first for the weekly market,then on to Pozières and Thiepval.Check with the Albert TouristOfffice about a guided tour of theSomme panoramas - three hoursevery Friday. Or take a 40-minuteboat trip on the river from thevillage of Éclusier-Vaux, 18km tothe southeast of Albert. If you loveclassic aeroplanes and automobiles,visit the extraordinary personalmuseum of Monsieur Betrancourton the outskirts of Albert (onlyopen on Saturdays).


Southern Region - Pozières 11

A SOLDIER’S STORY

By 1916, Albert Jacka had already won the Victoria Crossfor his bravery at Gallipoli, the first Australian to do soin the Great War. A farmer’s son fromWedderburn,Victoria, he was now 23. On the night of 6 August 1916,at Pozières Ridge, he and his men were caught behindadvancing German troops. Jacka emerged concussedfrom a German dugout after a bomb was thrownin. He led his remaining eight men in a charge onsome German soldiers who were escorting Australianprisoners back to their lines. Other Australians, isolatedin shell holes, jumped up to join in. Some Germanssurrendered, others fought on and died. Jacka was hitthree times and every one of the eight men with himwas wounded. Their actions turned the tide, recapturingthe ridge and taking42 prisoners. TheAustralian offficialhistorian Charles Beancalled it ‘the mostdramatic and efffectiveact of individualaudacity in the historyof the AIF’. Jacka wasawarded the MilitaryCross. He was awardeda bar to the MilitaryCross at Bullecourt in1917. He survived thewar and became mayorof St Kilda. He died in1932, aged 39.

WHAT TO SEE

THE 1STDIVISION MEMORIAL (268 Route d’Albert,80300 Pozières); commemorates the 1stDivision’s rolein France and Belgium from Pozières in 1916 to theHindenburg Line in 1918. Coming from the south,turn left just after you enter the village. The GibraltarBlockhouse stands next to the memorial. There is newinterpretive signage and a wooden observation deckand two new walking trails link sites of importance toAustralians. Listen to the audio on the ‘Australians inthe Somme 16 & 18’ app for mobile devices.

THE AUSTRALIAN MEMORIAL (THE WINDMILL): builtover another German blockhouse, this haunting siterepresents the hardest-won point of the battle forPozières and the place where most Australians died.Drive through the village to the northern end. To thewest, you see the Thiepval Memorial and oppositethe Windmill, the Tank Memorial. This is where tankwarfare began when 36 British tanks set offf from hereon 15 September 1916.

ULSTER TOWER:a memorial to the Ulster battalions,in the form of a mock Gothictower. On 1 July 1916, the 36th UlsterDivision sufffered 5,000 casualtieshere, more than half of themkilled, on the first day of the Battleof the Somme.

THE LOCHNAGAR CRATER:the explosion of a huge minesignalled the Allied start to theBattle of the Somme on 1 July 1916;54,000lbs (24,500kg) of explosiveswent up at 7.28am, leaving thelargest mine crater of the FirstWorld War.

NEWFOUNDLAND PARK ATBEAUMONT-HAMEL: more than800 men of the NewfoundlandRegiment went into action hereon the first day of the Battle of theSomme; by the next morning, 68were left standing. You can seeremains of the original trenches.

NEARBY

AWM A03408


Southern Region - Albert 12

AlbertWith its 250 Art Deco houses, Albert is now one of the prettiesttowns in the Valley of the Somme but to British and Australiansoldiers, it was the home of the Leaning Virgin - a statue ofMary and baby Jesus on top of the Basilica of Notre-Dame deBrebières in the middle of town.

Visible from miles around, thestatue was hit by a shell in January1915; it slumped sideways but didnot fall. The British said whoeverknocked the statue down wouldlose the war; the Germans believedthe opposite. Australians called her‘Fanny’, after Olympic swimmerand diver Fanny Durack. In March1918, the Germans briefly occupiedthe town and British artillerytargeted the tower to stop it beingused for observation. The Virgin

finally fell in April 1918 and wasnever recovered. After the war, theBasilica was reconstructed as anexact replica, with a new statue ofthe Virgin recreating the original.

Albert is another great base fromwhich to explore the Somme.Thiepval, Pozières, the Lochnagarcrater, the Ulster Tower and theNewfoundland Park are all close.This is the Pays du Coquelicot(Poppy Country) and there are38 walking tracks and lots of

non battlefield attractions basedaround three rivers – the Somme,the Ancre and the Authie. Rent abike, a kayak, a houseboat for thebeautiful rivers, canals and pondsnear here; go horse riding or takea vintage train ride at Hameau deFroissy.

DERNANCOURT:Australian troops were rushed herein March 1918 to stop the Germanadvance towards Amiens. SouthAustralia adopted Dernancourtafter the war and raised moneyto rebuild the town. Le PavilionAdélaïde is next to the schooland across the main square, you’llfind rue d’Australie. The AustralianGovernment has contributedto a new walking trail here, withsignage explaining the 1918 actionsalong the railway embankment.

SOMME TRENCH MUSEUM:(Musée Somme 1916): inside a seriesof 13th century tunnels built toprotect the people of Albert frommarauding armies, the 250m oftunnels are filled with a cornucopiaof artefacts. Dioramas show thewar underground – in bunkers,mines, dugouts, and trenches. Youcan even buy a tiny box of shrapnelpellets in the gift shop! Rue AnicetGodin, Albert, right beside theBasilica. Open every day 23 Januaryto mid December.

L’ÉPOPÉE DE L’INDUSTRIE ETL’AÉRONAUTIQUE:Monsieur Betrancourt opens hispersonal museum of aeronauticaland mechanical treasures only onSaturdays, but it is worth the wait.

A fascinating collection of intactaeroplanes, vintage trucks andcars. If you’re lucky he may evenshow you the holy grail - a pieceof the Red Baron’s Fokker! 17 rueIndustrie, 80300 Albert Open onlyon Saturdays.

NEARBY

The leaning virginBasilica of Albert 1916 AWM C05062


Southern Region - Naours 13

Naours, the hidden cityIn July 1916, the first Australian soldiers to arrive in France cameto Naours as tourists, and left their mark with grafffiti on thewalls of the ancient subterranean city. These tunnels, extendingover 3km, were built over centuries to protect the local peopleduring frequent invasions and wars. At one time, the 300 roomscould accommodate 3,000 people and their livestock. Theyhad an extensive ventilation system, an underground church,and carefully concealed entrances. During the First World War,thousands of Allied soldiers came to see the tunnels and lefttheir names in pencil on the walls. Archaeologists have recentlyphotographed and catalogued every one of the 3,000 signaturespreserved here and produced a book about the grafffiti – themost extensive collection of First World War signatures in France.Of the 1,821 names already identified, 731 are Australian, 339British and 55 American. More than 600 are still to be identified.

Some of the men who scribbledtheir names would become famous:Captain Ivor Margetts, a legendarysoldier who died soon after atthe Battle of Pozières; LieutenantLeslie Blake, MC, who had survivedthe rigours of Douglas Mawson’sAntarctic expedition of 1911-1914,only to die of wounds in October1918; Alistair Ross of Lismore, one offour brothers who served in the war;or HJ Leach, who wrote the words‘merely a private’ under his name.Some of the Australian signaturesdate from just before the battlesof Fromelles and Pozières in July1916 and many of these young menwould die within a few weeks of theirvisit. Their names at Naours becamea kind of self-made memorial.

A book, The Silent Soldiers ofNaours, by the team that workedon the cataloguing project - GillesPrilaux, Matthieu Beuvin, MichaelFiechtner and Donna Fiechtner – isnow available in English.

The caves are best visited with aguide, because some of the namesare hard to find. Call or email to booka guided tour (+33(0)3 22 93 71 78;[email protected]

A SOLDIER’S STORY: HERBERT JOHN LEACH

Leach was 25 when he visited thecaves at Naours in July 1916.

He was from South Australia, thesecond son of Eli and Mrs DN Leachof Hyde Park, South Australia. Forsix years before the war, HerbertJohn had worked as a carpenterat the Lion Timber Mills. He gavehis religion as Church of England(Anglican). He was a slight man,weighing only 65kg on enlistment inJanuary 1915. By the time he arrivedat Marseille in France in April 1916, hehad served four months at Gallipoli,from August to December 1915.

At Naours, he left behind his mark:‘HJ Leach. Merely a private. 13/7/16SA Australia’. Six weeks later, on 23August, he was killed at Pozières,a few kilometres to the east. Indaylight on 21 August, the 10th

Battalion attacked towardsFarbeck Graven, near MouquetFarm. Of the 620 men, 120 werehit by shelling before the fightbegan. Every offficer in thebattalion was wounded or killedin the attack. Leach is buried atBulls RoadCemetery, Flersbeneath an inscription that says‘Duty Nobly Done’.

The tunnels at Naours

Naours tunnels grafffitti


Southern Region - Vignacourt 14

VignacourtFrom the middle of 1916 until early 1917, the small town ofVignacourt became a refuge for Australian soldiers. Just northof Amiens, it was out of reach of German artillery, but closeenough to the battlefields for effficient troop movement as therailway ran through to Amiens, Paris and the Channel ports.Most Australian divisions rotated through a couple of campsnearby. Exhausted men from Pozières and Mouquet Farmcould get a warm bath, a hot meal, a clean uniform and even acomfortable bed, if they were billeted in a French house. Theycould also get a constant supply of vin blanc (perhaps the originof the word plonk) or vin rouge at one of the many wartimecafés. At the Thuillier house on the edge of the village, many ofthese men had their photos taken – on their own or with a mate- to keep as a souvenir or to send home.

The Australians returned in spring1918 when the Germans camevery close to capturing Amiens.In November, Australian soldierscelebrated the end of the warhere, dancing in the main squarewith the townsfolk. A few stayed onafter the war to marry. Vignacourthosts a series of events aroundAnzac Day each year to honour thetown’s relationship with Australia.

THE DISCOVERY OF THEPHOTOGRAPHS

Antoinette and Louis Thuillier rana farm and sold farm machinery inVignacourt. Louis was fascinated bytechnology and machines, includingbicycles, motorcycles and cameras.Before the war, he taught himselfand his wife how to take and printphotographs. He enlisted in 1914but was wounded and demobbedby 1915. He and Antoinette beganmaking photos of the many soldierspassing through the village –French, British, Indian, Nepali andAustralian. They kept more than4,000 negatives, but when the warended, they apparently stoppedtaking commercial photographs andpacked the glass plates away. In 2011,researchers from Channel 7’s SundayNight program heard a rumourthat the negatives still existed.After negotiation with the Thuillierfamily, reporter Ross Coulthart and

historian Peter Burness were taken tothe old Thuillier house. In the attic,they found what they had hopedfor – 4,000 glass negatives, stored inthree old chests.

Kerry Stokes, owner of Channel 7,bought the entire collection,donated the plates showingAustralians to the AustralianWar Memorial, and returned afull digital copy to the town ofVignacourt. The plates have nowbeen preserved and copied at theAustralian War Memorial, whichmounted a travelling exhibition in2012. Ross Coulthart’s book, TheLost Diggers of Vignacourt, hasbecome a best-seller. Many of thesoldiers have now been identifiedthrough the photos they sent homea hundred years ago.

A new museum, Vignacourt 14-18,showcases the work of Louis andAntoinette Thuillier and will open in2018 in the renovated outbuildingsof the family farmhouse.

Group portrait of soldiers of 2ndDivisionAWM P10550.140


Pâté de canard d’Amiens:created in 1643, duck patein pastry (’en croute’),with pork, apples, cognac,trufffles, mushrooms, eggand shallots

La ficelle Picarde: hamand cooked mushroomsrolled in a crepe andbaked in a creamy cheesesauce

Macarons: Amiens isfamous for its macaronsand chocolate

BERT MOUAT AND THE XMAS DINNER

Herbert Alexander Mouat servedin the 6th Battalion, after enlistingin late August 1915. He had a wifeand four children in Poowong,Victoria. He had many bouts ofsickness and just as many citationsfor being absent without leave,disobedient, missing roll calls, andeven for talking after lights out.The 6th was billeted at Vignacourtin November, 1916, when he hadthis photo taken at the Thuillierfarm. He sent the picture home asa postcard and it became a partof the Australian War Memorialcollection. On the back is written:

'4671 Pte Herbert Alexander Mouat,6th Battalion, holding the XmasDinner. Taken in France.'

The duck and the dog may havebeen Thuillier farm animals. Bertwent missing again in February1917, after being hospitalised inEngland. He was fined again inmid July for being absent withoutleave. He returned to his battalionin September 1917, having missedthe battles of Menin Road andPolygon Wood, but he was hit soonafterwards at Broodseinde Ridgein Belgium. The bullet severedhis spinal cord and he becameparaplegic. After 11 months inhospital in England, he caught aninfection and died on 28 September1918. He was 29 years old.

Bert Mouat is one of the soldiersdetailed in Ross Coulthart’s book,The Lost Diggers.

Le gateau battu: anancient specialty, literallybeaten cake, which isserved at weddings andfestivals, excellent with jam

La Rabote: a Picardydessert, peeled andcored apple filled withsugar and baked in pufffor short crust pastry

Flamiche aux poireaux:sealed and baked pie ofleeks, crème fraiche andbutter, sometimes withnutmeg and cheese.Typical of the Santerrearea, west of Péronne

AWM H06113

While you aretravelling around theSomme region, don’tmiss the opportunityto try some of thelocal delicacies.

You’ll certainly find aselection of traditionaldishes on the menu atmany cafes and restaurantsbut make sure you dropin at one of the weeklymarkets too. You’llfind plenty of cheeses,charcuterie, cakes andpastries to tempt you – justtry what the locals buy.

Regional Specialities

Southern Region - Vignacourt 15


Southern Region - Péronne and Mont Saint-Quentin 16

Péronne and Mont Saint-QuentinIn the autumn of 1918, Australian forces took part in a seriesof decisive victories along the Somme River, moving east fromAmiens. The Australian divisions fought alongside each otherunder the command of the Australian general, Sir John Monashwho was knighted in August 1918 and whose confidence andaudacity in these months would earn him much praise. Péronneand Mont Saint-Quentin were heavily defended but they fell ina determined Australian attack over four days, from 29 Augustto 2 September. The cost was heavy – 3,000 Australian casualties– but individual acts of gallantry were many. Eight Australianswon the Victoria Cross, more than on any other Australian fieldof battle of the First World War.

‘You have altered the whole courseof the war,’ the British General SirHenry Rawlinson is said to havetold Monash.

Péronne has been sacked manytimes since the Vikings. TheGermans held it from late 1914, sothe town was virtually razed byAllied shelling. At its centre, a largemediaeval fortress houses one ofthe finest war museums on theWestern Front. L’Historial de laGrande Guerre displays 70,000objects from all sides, in clever and

thoughtful displays. The collectionincludes many important artworks– particularly those by the Germanartist Otto Dix, who fought in thewar. Two new galleries opened in2015, one depicting the Australianrole in the nearby battles.

Péronne sits at the junction of theSomme and the Cologne rivers,and appears surrounded by water,making it one of the loveliest townsin this region. It is a good base ifyou would like to stay somewheresmaller than Amiens or Arras. The

river offfers lots of scope for nonmilitary tourism and the bicyclepaths to the west run 160km to thesea. The Somme River divides hereinto many idyllic ponds, which canbe explored on foot, car or boat.The city has some fine hotels andrestaurants and a fast train links thenearby station at Haute-Picardie withCharles de Gaulle Airport near Paris.

Mont Saint-Quentin is about1.5km north of Péronne. The 2nd

Division Memorial, on the site ofone of their greatest victories, ison avenue des Australiens, nearthe top of the hill. The statue ofa digger in slouch hat, head castdownward in reflection, is thesecond on this site. The first, anAustralian soldier symbolicallybayonetting a German eagle, wasremoved by German forces in theSecond World War.

New signage and a walking pathhelp to explain the Australianactions here. The signs beginoutside the church on rue del’Abbaye, a good place to park. Ifyou go first to the Historial Museumor the tourist offfice opposite thechâteau, pick up a brochure aboutthe new walking tour, ‘the Battle ofMont Saint-Quentin’.

Men of 54th Batallionafter the capture of Péronne AWM E03183

Australian 2ndDivision MemorialMont Saint-Quentin


HAVE A DRINK IN PICARDY – THE SOLDIERS DID

Australian soldiers developed ataste for rough vin blanc and vinrouge during the war, but modernvisitors have more choice. Picardy,(now part of the Hauts-de-Franceregion) is strong on apples andbarley – so those ingredients leadinevitably to cider and beer.

The barley produces two varietiesof beer – a light lager known asRebelle, and the stronger Milliacusbeer. Boutique organic ciders arevery popular. In western Picardy,cider is then distilled to producean eau de vie that is aged in oak

for at least two years. A numberof medieval concoctions are stillmade – usually from a base of whitewine, combined with sugar, honey,apple, and lemon. These traditionsgo back to the Romans: try someHypocras (spicy red wine withcinnamon and honey) or Saugette(white wine, honey and sage).

While there isn’t much winegrown in Picardy, there are afew communes in the Aisnedepartment that have the rightto grow and produce properlyaccredited champagne.

Bellenglise, a hamlet of 400 people, is the most easterly pointon the French section of the Australian Remembrance Trail.The Australian 4th Division has its memorial here, just north ofthe town, because it is the last battle they fought, seven weeksbefore the Armistice.

At the time, exhaustion had setin on both sides, after months offighting for every small town alongthe Somme River. The Germanshad retreated to the massivelyfortified Hindenburg Line,demoralised by a string of losses.General Haig was told that Germanoffficers were reporting that theirsoldiers were now reluctant to face

Australian troops. The Australiansoldiers were just as sick of war,having fought continuously sinceMarch, but they could see an endin sight. General Monash plannedthe attack with his usual precisionand flair. With only eight tanksavailable, he ordered engineers tobuild 10 dummy tanks out of woodand canvas. Each could be moved

by a team of six soldiers inside, andwere placed where the Germanscould see them, to inspire fear.

The final action began on 18September. Advancing on theHindenburg Line, the Australianslost over 1,200 men. Of the fiveAustralian divisional memorials onthe Western Front, Bellenglise isthe least visited, partly because it isthe most isolated, but the Memorialis surrounded by beautiful, tranquilfarming country. It’s a short drivefrom Péronne, 22km west.

Bellenglise

Australian 45th Batallion troops attacktowards the Hindenberg Line

1918 AWM E03383

Southern Region - Bellenglise 17


Southern Region - Corbie 18

Corbie is an ancient town with a fascinating history, a friendlyatmosphere and good rail connections to Paris and Amiens. LikeAlbert, it has a range of accommodation and restaurants and alovely small town feel.

The Germans shelled Corbie andcame close to taking it in the SpringOfffensive of 1918. Before that, it wasa rest town for Australian troops– up to 20,000 at a time. A largehospital treated many Australianand British soldiers, including theBritish writer JRR Tolkien, whocame in late 1916 with trench fever.The illness probably saved his life.

The locals say the twin towersof the abbey church were partof his inspiration for The Lord ofthe Rings. In 1918, the Australiangeneral Pompey Elliott caught aBritish offficer with a cart full oflooted champagne near here. Elliottpromised that the next offficercaught looting would be hanged inthe Corbie market square.

Very little remains of the 7th

century Benedictine Abbey, butit was once one of the mostimportant in France. The touristofffice has walking tours that takeyou inside the Abbey church ofSt-Pierre, with its extraordinarycollection of relics. Cycle routenumber 32 passes through hereon its way from Amiens to Arras,via Albert and Dernancourt. Witha few detours, you could alsoinclude Villers-Bretonneux, LeHamel, Pozières and Vaux-sur-Somme (see below). Downloada brochure from the SommeTourisme website.

Corbie

NEARBY

Ruined abbey church of St PierreCorbie, 1918 AWM H15599

VAUX-SUR-SOMME: Manfred vonRichthofen, also known as theRed Baron, crashed here on 21April 1918. The Canadian pilot RoyBrown was initially credited withshooting him down but recentresearch suggests he was killedby Australian ground fire. Hisplane was stripped for souvenirswithin minutes. A piece of thewing resides at the AeronauticalMuseum in Albert.

SAILLY-LE-SEC: the Australian 3rd

Division fought here in March 1918as part of a desperate campaign to

stop the German Spring offfensive.The 3rd Division Memorial is on theD1, where the smaller road comesup from Sailly-le-Sec. You can seethe Australian Corps Memorial at LeHamel, across the river.

SCENIC DRIVE: in late 1918,Australian troops fought across allof this landscape. Cross the Sommevia the D1, on the road to Bray.Just outside town, park at Point deVue Ste-Colette for a great viewover the man-made ponds below,dating to the 7th century. Continueon to the Red Baron crash site (in a

field of peas), then the 3rd DivisionMemorial, at one of the highestpoints. Return via Sailly-Laurette,where in 1916 British engineersrebuilt the lock so barges could takethe wounded back to hospitals inCorbie and Amiens. Wilfred Owenwas one of those wounded. Hispoem ‘Hospital Barge’ recalls thisjourney. There’s a small memorialto him next to the main lock. TheD71 will take you on to Le Hameland the Australian Corps Memorial.Continue to Villers-Bretonneux orback to Corbie via Fouilloy.

Market, Place de la RépubliqueCorbie


Australian forces sufffered five times as many casualties on theWestern Front as they did in any other place. The figures arestaggering and while exact numbers are in dispute, most nowagree that Australia lost over 46,000 dead and more than 130,000wounded here – more than half of the total AIF enlistment of295,000. Those figures would be higher if they included thethousands of men who died soon after returning to Australia –some by their own hand, others from wounds incurred on activeservice or from illnesses made worse by that service.

By 1916, both treatments andorganisation had improved fromthe previous year at Gallipoli, whenmany soldiers died from diseaserather than wounds. On theWestern Front, whether a soldiersurvived a wound depended partlyon when he was wounded duringa battle, whether stretcher bearerscould reach him and how close hewas to an aid post.

A soldier wounded at Pozières inFrance in July 1916, if he could stillwalk, might be told to get himselfto a nearby dressing station. Thosewho could not walk had to bepicked up from the battlefield andcarried back by stretcher-bearers.

These men did this day after dayunder fire and many were killed.

The Dressing Station worked as atriage centre, patching up minorwounds to send soldiers back tothe Front and organising the moreseriously injured to be sent byambulance, train or even bargeto a Casualty Clearing Station, amobile hospital that could performmost kinds of surgery, includingamputation. That was common,partly because gangrene set inrapidly from wounds contaminatedby soil.

If a soldier was wounded in Franceor Belgium, he might hope he hada ‘Blighty wound’ – an injury serious

enough to send him to ‘Blighty’as the soldiers called England -because this could mean a spellaway from the battlefields. Thewounded soldier would be put ona hospital ship although sadly manyof these were sunk by Germansubmarines before they reachedEngland. Those who would never beable to rejoin their units would besent home to Australia, where newmilitary hospitals were hurriedly setup to receive them.

Many of the military cemeteries onthe Western Front grew up nextto field hospitals, as at Vignacourt.Those cemeteries have a higherproportion of known graves,because the soldier’s identity wasusually known when he arrivedfor treatment. In 1918, the twoBritish casualty clearing stations atVignacourt received many Australianwounded from the Battle of Amiens.That’s why more than 400 of the 584First World War graves at Vignacourtare Australian. Many Australiansoldiers had happy memories of restperiods at Vignacourt – but not all.

Treating the wounded

Casualty clearing station in Larch Wood tunnelsBelgium, August 1917 AWM E00672

Treating the Wounded 19


Southern Region- Le Hamel 20

Le HamelAustralians may wonder why there is a second Australianmonument so close to Villers-Bretonneux. It’s because GeneralJohn Monash made history here.

In mid 1918, General Monash hadjust been given command of theentire Australian Corps, the firstAustralian to have that honour, aftera string of British commanders. Thesmall village, known then simplyas Hamel, had been in Germanhands for three months. GeneralRawlinson, Monash’s superior,wanted it back. Monash did not likethe odds until he saw what the newMark V British tanks were capable of.He saw a way to coordinate artillery,infantry, aircraft and tanks so thateach arm supported the others. Thebattle orders were so detailed thatthe positions of new shell holes weremarked in advance, so the infantrycould use them as cover.

Eight hundred Americans joinedthe Australian attack on 4 July 1918– American Independence Day.Monash predicted the battle wouldtake 90 minutes. There is someargument among historians aboutwhether it took 85 or 93 minutes,but it was an astounding success.Even so, there were 1,200 Australiancasualties, 176 American and 2,000

German. Monash famously wrotelater that ‘a perfected modernbattle plan is like nothing somuch as a score for an orchestralcomposition, where the variousarms and units are the instruments,and the tasks they perform theirrespective musical phrases’.

AUSTRALIAN CORPS MEMORIAL:the monument is on the top of

Part of the message from French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau

The Australian Corps Memorial

the hill on the site of the Germancommand post. The Germanshad deep dugouts across 550mof trench here; you can see theremains of the trenches just tothe right of the monument. Thereare some interesting photographsalong the path from the car park,showing the destruction wroughton the village by Allied shelling.There is a moving messageinscribed on the monument froma speech that the French PrimeMinister Georges Clemenceaugave while visiting Australiantroops soon after the battle.

'When the Australian Army cameto France, the French peopleexpected a great deal of you … Weknew that you would fight a realfight, but we did not know thatfrom the beginning you wouldastonish the whole continent … Ishall go back tomorrow and say tomy countrymen: ‘I have seen theAustralians. I have looked into theirfaces. I know that these men … willfight alongside us again until thecause for which we are all fightingis safe for us and our children.'


A GENERAL’S STORY - SIR JOHN MONASH

Monash was the first Australian tocommand the combined Australianforces in the First World War inFrance. He was hated by some,adored by others, and his reputationis still debated by historians. Was hethe greatest general on the Alliedside in the Great War, or merely thegreatest that Australia produced?Was his career path slowed byentrenched anti-semitism in theBritish Army or simply by his ownfierce ambition?

John Monash grew up in a Jewishfamily in Melbourne. His father wasfrom Prussia, (near Poznan, now inPoland) but John grew up speakingEnglish and German. He was anexceptional student until his firstyear at university, which he failed,he was only 15. He excelled at chess,mathematics and music, all of whichcontributed to his developmentas a soldier. He studied arts andengineering at the University ofMelbourne, then took a law degree.

By 1914 he was an expert inconcrete construction, especially

roads and bridges, and had almost30 years’ experience as a volunteerin the Victorian Militia, with aspecial interest in artillery. He hadjust turned 49, was comfortablywealthy and commander of aninfantry brigade. He was alsosmart, ambitious and brashlyconfident – which sometimesmade him unpopular with hiscontemporaries.

He commanded the 4th InfantryBrigade at Gallipoli and tookover as commander of the newlyformed 3rd Division in France in1916. His success in the Third Battleof Ypres, particularly in the 3rd

Division’s victory at Broodseinde,put him in good standing withthe British High Command.In November 1917, when thefive Australian divisions werecombined as the new I AnzacCorps, Monash was one of twoAustralians most likely to be givenits command. The other wasGeneral Cyril Brudenell White,the favourite of Australian war

General Monash escorts Australian Prime Minister Wiliam Hughes to the Australian FrontSomme, September 1918 AWM E03851

John Monash 1919by James Quinn (1860-1951)

oil on canvasCollection:

National Portrait Gallery, CanberraGift of John Colin Monash Bennett 2007

Donated through the AustralianGovernment's Cultural Gifts Program

correspondent Charles Bean.Bean did not like Monash. Monashregarded Bean’s campaign tostop his appointment as straightanti-semitism. In a letter to his wife,Monash called it a ’pogrom’.

Australian Prime Minister BillyHughes confirmed Monash andBean later changed his assessmentof Monash’s abilities. He had littlechoice when Monash becamethe most successful general onthe British side in the last sixmonths of the war, developingnew tactics that emphasisedcoordination between artillery,infantry, tanks and aircraft. Havingbeen knighted in the field, SirJohn Monash returned to Australiaa national hero. He continuedhis distinguished career in publicadministration in Victoria anddied in 1931.

Southern Region - Le Hamel 21


Southern Region - Villers-Bretonneux 22

Of all the places where Australians fought on theWestern Front,Villers-Bretonneux is perhaps the best known to Australians today.

This is partly because Villers-Bretonneux was a turning point in1918, both for the Australian troopsand the (mostly) British generalscommanding them. The GermanSpring offfensive in March hadtaken back nearly all the territorynorth of the Somme that the Allieshad gained since July 1916. Villers-Bretonneux stood between theGermans and the vital British railand road hub at Amiens, just 15kmwest. If the Germans could takeVillers-Bretonneux, they could shell

Amiens – and they did take it for afew hours on 24 April 1918.

The Australian and British counter-attack then retook the town inone night of brutal hand to handcombat. This stopped the Germanadvance and from here, Australianbattalions played a big part inthe final campaigns of the war, invictory after victory - at Le Hamel,Péronne and Mont Saint-Quentin. Ina sense, the end of the war beganhere, in Villers-Bretonneux.

The 5,000 inhabitants of the villagevowed not to forget les Australiens.This contributed to the decisionto establish the main AustralianMemorial on Hill 104, just north ofthe village. For Victorians, Villers-Bretonneux has a special status,because so many of the Australiansoldiers who died here werefrom Victoria. Many Australians,including school groups, comehere every year to pay theirrespects. A dawn service has beenheld here on Anzac Day since2008 and commemorative eventscontinue over several days. Thereis even an annual Australian RulesFootball match, played on groundthat Australian soldiers oncefought over. The new Sir JohnMonash Centre further cementsthese memories for both countries.

Villers-Bretonneux

WHAT TO SEE

Start at the ÉCOLE VICTORIA(9 rue du Victoria), where thefamous message ‘Do Not ForgetAustralia’, written in English, adornsthe playground shelter. The messageis repeated in French in each ofthe classrooms. The school wasrebuilt between 1923 and 1927 withfunds donated by school childrenfrom the State of Victoria. Theschool at nearby Dernancourt wasalso rebuilt with funds from SouthAustralia. A number of buildings andstreets around Villers-Bretonneuxdemonstrate the afffiliation with

Australia. Look out for the twokangaroos on the town hall’s versionof the Australian Coat of Arms.

THE FRANCO-AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM,upstairs on the first floor of theschool, has been recently reopenedafter a full renovation, funded in partby the Australian Government. Ithouses a large number of interestingartefacts - letters, maps, paintings,posters, uniforms and especiallyphotographs, most of them donatedby the local community. Therenovation has allowed around 300

previously unseen items to be puton view. A new glass chapel at oneend of the museum looks downinto the school courtyard with itsfamous message.

Villers-Bretonneux has limitedfacilities for tourists but there are afew places to stay and several spotsfor a drink or something to eat.The Sir John Monash Centre has asmall café and just at the bottomof the hill, the Auberge de Fouilloyhas several dining rooms and asunny courtyard garden.

Ecole VictoriaVillers-Bretonneux

Villers-Bretonneux military cemetery

REVIEW OPTIONS -CHANGE SHOT


THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL MEMORIAL

Opened in July 1938, this was one of the last nationalmemorials to be established on the Western Front; it’salso one of the most serene and beautiful, high on ahill and surrounded by a patchwork of fields of wheat.The approach is through a Commonwealth WarGraves Commission cemetery where 779 Australiansare buried among the 2,041 graves.

On the walls of the memorial are the names of morethan 10,700 Australians killed in France and Belgiumwho have no known grave. If the weather is good,climb the tower and you can see Amiens in thedistance. The Sir John Monash Centre below thememorial is designed to be invisible as you approachthrough the cemetery.

The Australian National MemorialVillers-Bretonneux

Southern Region - Villers-Bretonneux 23

NEARBY

ADELAIDE CEMETERY: in November1993, the body of an unknownAustralian soldier was takenfrom here to be reburied in theHall of Memory at the AustralianWar Memorial in Canberra. Anew gravestone in the cemeterycommemorates that soldier’s newrole as The Unknown Soldier.The Adelaide Cemetery is on thewestern outskirts of the village onthe D1029. Tucked in offf the road,it is easy to miss but well wortha visit. There are 519 Australiansburied here, many of whom died atVillers-Bretonneux on 25 April 1918.

CORBIE: a very pretty town whichgrew up around a grand Abbeyestablished in the 7th century.

THE SOMME CANAL: this historic 18th

century canal links Péronne in theeast with Saint-Valery-sur-Somme inthe west, passing through 25 lockson a journey of 155km, to the Bayof the Somme. Most of it now hasa bike path running alongside. Theupper stretches between here andPéronne are some of the prettiestto ride.

THE LITTLE TRAIN OF THE HIGHSOMME: the tracks were built in1916 for the Battle of the Somme. A1940s steam train takes passengersin wooden carriages along a 14kmloop from Froissy via Dompierre.The train runs only from April toSeptember. The tracks start at LaNeuville-les-Brays, offf the D329.

Headstone of the Unknown SoldierAdelaide Cemetery


The Sir John Monash Centre 24

When you walk up the gentle slope of the Villers-BretonneuxMilitary Cemetery, the new Sir John Monash Centre is invisiblebehind the Australian National Memorial. Nothing disturbs thepeace of the cemetery or the solemnity of the Memorial. But thiswas once a blood soaked battlefield.

'There is no spot on the wholeof the tortured soil of Francewhich is more associated withAustralian history and the triumphof Australian soldiers than Villers-Bretonneux' wrote General SirJohn Monash.

That’s why this ground, soimportant to Australia’s history andidentity, was chosen as the sitefor the Sir John Monash Centre, aplace where visitors can immersethemselves in an experienceunlike any other on the formerbattlefields of northern Franceand Belgium. The Centre takes aninnovative approach to telling themoving and harrowing story ofAustralians on the Western Front,much of it in the words of thosewho served here during the FirstWorld War.

The experience is designed to bemuch more than educational – it is

provocative, emotional, imaginative,using state of the art multi mediatechnologies to weave together newand archival footage, animation,maps, music and soundscapes toguide you through the Centre.

Start at the Orientation Building nextto the car park, walk to the Stone ofRemembrance at the western endof the Villers-Bretonneux MilitaryCemetery and on to the Cross ofSacrifice. Across the forecourt,the walls of the Australian NationalMemorial are inscribed withthe names of more than 10,700Australian soldiers missing in Franceduring the Great War. Some areburied here, their gravestonesmarked “Known unto God”; some

Entrance to Sir John Monash CentreVillers-Bretonneux

THE SIR JOHN MONASH CENTRE

View of the grassed roof of the Sir John Monash CentreVillers-Bretonneux


The Sir John Monash Centre 25

went into battle and were never seenagain, their bodies never found.

It is only when you climb the towerof the Memorial that the Centrereveals itself, dug into the hill below.The roof is sown with local grasses sothat it blends into the surroundinglandscape of fields and farms.

The Memorial was designedby architect Sir Edwin Lutyensand built in the 1930s but tougheconomic times meant that some

elements were left undone. Now,new paving work has connectedthe tower and the pavilions ateither end of the forecourt.The hedge of trees around theMemorial has been replanted andthe yew trees reinstated.

From either pavilion, a ramp leadsdown to the Sir John MonashCentre, a little like descending intoa trench on the Western Front. Thesides are lined with bricks, some

imprinted with the daily slang ofAustralian soldiers – words likecobber and smoko and two up -and trench signs like rue de Kangaand Wallaby Lane.

The Centre’s inner walls are linedwith Australian timbers and open onto the centrepiece of the building –a 360o theatre designed to immersevisitors in the stories of Australiansoldiers at the epic battles of Villers-Bretonneux and Le Hamel.

You leave the Centre towards theeast and head into a beautifulcourtyard. From the top of theterrace, you can see Le Hamel,site of Sir John Monash’s signaturevictory, just a few kilometres away.

You can move at your own pacethrough the Centre but allow atleast one and a half hours. The visitis entirely self guided. Downloadthe free Centre App and use yourown mobile device and ear phones.There’s free WiFi on site so that youcan stream content without havingto chew up your mobile data.There’s also a gift shop and a café.

Open every day, closed midDecember to mid January.

Rising sun mosaicVillers-Bretonneux

The Sir John Monash Centre viewed from the western courtyardVillers-Bretonneux

Interior, Sir John Monash CentreVillers-Bretonneux


Central Region 26

By 1917, the British and French generals on the Western Frontthought they had learned the lessons of the Somme. Artillerybarrages had to be more concentrated; the terrible casualtyfigures of 1916 could not be repeated. The casualties hadpolitical consequences: the British prime minister resigned inDecember 1916, followed by the French prime minister in March1917. The Allied generals still believed they could break thestalemate with a Spring Offfensive. Meanwhile the Germans hadbuilt the Hindenburg Line, a system of defences so strong it wassupposed to make any breakthrough impossible. They meantto stay put – at least until they could defeat the Russians on theEastern Front.

The Central Region

5 MILITARY SITES IN THE REGION

1. Fromelles, site of the first major Australian action on theWestern Front (p29)

2. Bullecourt, site of two costly Australian battles in 1917 (p30)

3. Wellington Tunnels, where the New Zealand tunnellers createdan underground barracks before the Second Battle of Arras inMay 1917 (p27)

4. Ring of Remembrance and Notre-Dame-de-Lorette (p28)

5. Vimy Ridge Canadian Memorial (p28)

5 NON MILITARY EXPERIENCES

1. The Saturday market at Arras, fantastic

2.The Boves tunnels, and the view from the belfry at Arras

3.The Louvre-Lens, a magnificent new art gallery, near Lille

4.The St-Vaast Abbey and Cathedral, a large 18th century religiouscomplex built in and around the remains of a 7th centuryBenedictine Abbey

5.The Citadel, a World Heritage-listed fort built by Vauban, now alively communal space

MUSTSEE

DON'TMISS

Arras was in the middle of thesegrand plans – again. In 1914,the French and German armiesbattered each other and the cityin the First Battle of Arras. For thenext four years, Arras was nevermore than 10km from the Front;more than 80% of the city wasdestroyed. The city’s misfortune,like that of Amiens, has been itsstrategic importance over manycenturies.

In April 1917, the British launchedthe Second Battle of Arras, tocoincide with a French offfensivefurther south. The Canadianswould attack north of Arrastowards Vimy, British and NewZealand troops in the middle,and Australian and British troopsto the south towards Bullecourt.The battle was successful inpushing back German lines, butstalemate returned by May. TheCanadians covered themselvesin glory on Vimy Ridge; the NewZealand tunnellers were superbin converting the old chalk minesof the city into an undergroundhighway; and at Bullecourt, theAustralians had a victory that lefta bitter taste. Some lessons hadbeen learned, just not enough.

Arras is still strategically importantfor visitors, midway between theBelgian battlefields around Ypres,70km north, and the Sommebattlefields, 80km south. The

Australian Remembrance Trail sitesat Fromelles and Bullecourt areclose by, and this is a good placeto experience the wider contextof the war, and the contribution ofother countries. French casualties

north of Arras had already beenappalling before the Canadianstook Vimy Ridge. The Frenchcemetery at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, beside the new Ring ofRemembrance, is a sobering place.

View of Arras from the belfry


Arras is one of the jewels of northern France, a cultured city of120,000 people, with 2,000 years of history, a rich tradition ofarchitecture, fine dining, painting and commerce.

It is also like two cities – one aboveground, the other below. TheTown Hall sits on top of a series ofcaves dating from the 10th century,known as Les Boves. The restaurantsaround the two great squares haveancient cellars, where you can tryregional specialties, such as cœurd’Arras (a smelly soft cheese) or achocolate rat. During the GreatWar, New Zealand tunnellers linkedup the old chalk mines east of thecity so that thousands of soldierscould live 20m underground. TheWellington Tunnels are a must visit.

The two main squares, theGrand'Place and Place des Héros,are architecturally unique. In the16th century, King Philip II forbadebuilding here except in stone andbrick. This was partly to ensureagainst fire but the result was auniform façade of 155 houses inFlemish Baroque style. The narrow-fronted houses were occupiedby traders in the Middle Ages,

when the city was famous for itstapestries, wool and lace. Thehouses were damaged and rebuiltafter the Great War. They arespectacularly lit at night, when thebars and restaurants throng withbons vivants.

Arras offfers a great range of activitieswhen you need a break from war.The city has a beautiful Museum ofFine Arts, and the new Louvre-Lens is20 minutes to the north. The ScarpeRiver provides 10km of walkingtracks in the centre of Arras andthe tourist offfice has maps for moreserious hiking outside town. The cityboasts a golf resort, a water sportscentre, some beautiful gardens anda fabulous Saturday market that hasbeen running for 1,000 years.

If you want to visit all of the siteson the Australian RemembranceTrail but don’t want to changehotels, Arras is the place tostay. There is a variety ofaccommodation and food and a

choice of guides who specialise inthe Australian battlefields.

Paris is 50 minutes by fast train, ortwo hours by road. The Eurostarruns through Lille, 50 minutes tothe north, connecting to Brusselsand London. The channel ports ofCalais and Boulogne are an hourto the north-west.

Arras

Don’t Miss

THE SATURDAY MARKET: one of theoldest in France, a rich bazaar offood, wine, beer, cheese, clothing,local produce and crafts.

LES BOVES: a series of tunnelsbeneath the town hall, which havebeen used for protection andstorage for 1,000 years. Take aguided tour, then climb the belfry.

WELLINGTON TUNNELS: The chalkmines of Arras go back centuries. Inlate 1916, with the Western Front instalemate, New Zealand tunnellersconnected various chambers,creating a network that could houseup to 24,000 soldiers for several daysat a time. Here’s your chance to weara tin hat – they’re compulsory on thetour. The tour takes an hour - bring asweater. Rue Deletoille, a short walkfrom the city centre. Open everyday. Closed on Christmas Day andfrom 1 to 27 January.

View from the Town Hall towerArras

Central Region - Arras 27


Central Region - Arras 28

Arras continued

NEARBY

VIMY RIDGE

On 9 April 1917, the four Canadiandivisions on the Western Frontfought together for the first timein a battle that has become toCanadians what Gallipoli is toAustralians. The diffference is thatVimy Ridge was a victory but atterrible cost. Canada lost over10,000 men killed or woundedon the 7km ridge. The CanadianMonument is on the highest pointand commemorates both the battleand the 11,285 Canadian soldierswho were killed in all Great Warbattles in France and who have noknown grave. Vimy Ridge Memorialis on the D55, 10km north of Arras.

THE RING OF REMEMBRANCE

This compelling new memorial,opened in 2014, gathers togetherthe names of 579,606 soldiers from40 nationalities, who died in theGreat War in this northern area ofFrance. The names are inscribed

alphabetically without rank or countryon 500 sheets of bronzed stainlesssteel 3m high, mounted inside a345m ring of concrete. The site isnext to Notre-Dame-de-Lorette,the largest French war cemetery inthe world and resting place of morethan 42,000 French soldiers. Justnorth of Ablain-St-Nazaire.

LOUVRE-LENS

The Louvre Museum has openeda spectacular new gallery in acontemporary building on the siteof a former mine head. This newgallery, 20 minutes north of Arras,displays 205 works in chronologicalorder, from the birth of writingmore than 3,000 years ago, to themid 19th century. 99 rue Paul-Bert,62300 Lens. Open daily exceptTuesday, closed 25 December, 1January, 1 May.

LILLE

If you yearn for some city life, takea break in Lille, one of France'slargest cities. Lille has a fascinatinghistory. Since the Middle Ages, ithas been an important industrialand economic centre, its wealthcoveted by its neighbours. That’swhy, at diffferent times, Lille hasbeen part of Flanders, Burgundy,the Spanish Netherlands, France,the Netherlands again and finallyFrance. Since the opening of theEurostar station (a useful gatewayfor visitors to the Great War sites),Lille has shed some of its industrialpast and emerged as a hub fornew technology, educationand tourism.

The Ring of RemembranceNotre-Dame-de-Lorette

Moonrise over the Canadian MemorialVimy Ridge


On the night of 19-20 July 1916, newly arrived Australian andBritish divisions attacked a German strong point known as theSugarloaf across open ground near the village of Fromelles. It wasthe first major attack by Australian troops on the Western Frontand it remains the most catastrophic, with 5,500 casualties inone night (and a further 1,500 British casualties). The attack wasconceived as a feint, to stop the Germans moving more troopssouth to the Somme, and historians are still debating whether itachieved that. All agree the attack gained no significant ground.

Australian bodies lay on thebattlefield for two years withoutburial. The Australian military historianCharles Bean visited in November1918 and wrote in his diary that theformer no man’s land was ‘simplyfull of our dead’. Most of them wereburied in a post-war CommonwealthWar Graves Commission cemeteryknown as VC Corner, but none ofthe remains could be identified, sono headstones were laid.

Just after the battle, the Germansburied 250 Australian and Britishbodies in a mass grave at nearbyPheasant Wood. In 2009, after along campaign by retired Australianschoolteacher Lambis Englezos,those graves were found andexhumed. After taking DNA samples,the bodies were reinterred with fullhonours in a new CommonwealthWar Graves Commission Cemetery– the first in 50 years. That newcemetery stands beside Musée de laBataille de Fromelles, a new museum,opened in 2014 and funded in partby the Australian Government.

Fromelles

WHAT TO SEE

MUSÉE DE LA BATAILLE DEFROMELLES: this tells the story ofthe battle of Fromelles and therecent work to identify some ofthe men who died here. Rue de laBasse Ville. Open most days exceptTuesdays, closed for three weeks inJanuary/February.

FROMELLES (PHEASANT WOOD)MILITARY CEMETERY: next to thenew museum, this opened in 2010to accommodate the 250 Australianand British men exhumed from aGerman mass grave nearby. By late2017, DNA testing had identified150 of these men each now namedon a headstone. One hundred areyet to be identified but testingcontinues.

VC CORNER MILITARY CEMETERY:this is the original Fromelles

Australian 2ndDivision troops in the trenches near FromellesAWM EZ0007

military cemetery and the onlyCWGC cemetery in France thatcontains only Australians – 410 ofthem. Because none of the bodiescould be identified, they have nogravestones. Instead, their namesare inscribed on the walls, in a listof 1,178 Australians missing after thebattle. 2km northwest of the townon the D22C.

THE AUSTRALIANMEMORIAL PARK:right next to VC Corner, this smallmemorial, opened in 1998, is builton top of a German blockhouse.It supports Peter Corlett’s famousstatue ‘Cobbers’, depicting anAustralian soldier carrying his mate infrom the battlefield. Corlett modelledthe standing soldier on Victorianfarmer Simon Fraser, who wentout the day after the massacre atFromelles to help bring in wounded.

Central Region - Fromelles 29


Central Region - Bullecourt 30

Although Bullecourt is less well-known than some places whereAustralian soldiers fought, those who survived the two battlesfor Bullecourt in April and May 1917 never forgot their shatteringexperience. This is where Australian soldiers learned to hatetanks, which failed miserably to protect them or even make it ontime to the battlefield. It’s also where many of the Diggers lostwhatever faith they still had in their British commanders.

Bullecourt was a disaster, from startto finish. The attacks were plannedin haste, without artillery support,but carried out with extraordinaryvalour. The appalling casualtiesdecimated the Australian divisionsand are said to have influenced thevote at home against conscription.Australia sufffered 3,300 casualties inthe first battle, which lasted one day.The second lasted a fortnight andwas one of the most brutal of thewar. ‘We killed till we grew sick of thesight of blood and dead men,’ wroteWilliam Willis of the 4th Battalion.Australian casualties at the SecondBattle of Bullecourt amounted to7,400. The Australians took most oftheir objectives so Bullecourt countsas a victory, but for little strategicvalue, and at hideous cost.

Bullecourt is 18km southeast ofArras. It was obliterated by shelling in1917, then rebuilt. The small farming

community here maintains close tieswith Australia and Anzac Day is wellattended each year. A large bannerin town proclaims ‘Anzacs – we willremember them’. It is opposite asmall pub known as Le Canberra.The Australian Government hasrecently contributed to an upgradeto the small but superb museum,built around the collection of thelate mayor Jean Letaille and hiswife Denise.

Bullecourt

ITINERARY

LE MUSÉE JEAN & DENISE LETAILLE– BULLECOURT 1917 is down aside street offf the main road intoBullecourt, at 1 bis rue d’Arras. OpenTuesday to Sunday. Closed from midDecember to mid January.

THE BULLECOURT DIGGER:the Melbourne sculptor PeterCorlett’s statue of an Australiansoldier stands sentinel over theAustralian Memorial on the ruedes Australiens, on the outskirtsof Bullecourt. He modelled theface on his own father who hadfought at Bullecourt. Corlett wouldlater sculpt the ‘Cobbers’ statue atFromelles. The site is between twoGerman trenches from 1917.

QUÉANT ROAD CEMETERY in nearbyBuissy contains 2,337 military graves,

of which 995 are Australian. Ofthese, only 299 are known by name.In 1995, the remains of SergeantJack White, killed at Bullecourt on

3 May 1917, were reburied here. Hisbody was not found until 1994. Hisdaughter Myrle, who was a babywhen he died, attended the funeral.

Pte Northey and Pte Woodward in EgyptMay 1916 AWM P07641.002

The Bullecourt Digger statue at the Australian Memorial

Two friends

Good friends before the war, PteFrancis Harrup Northey and PteArthur William Woodward enlistedtogether in December 1915, joiningthe 22ndBattalion. On 3 May 1917,aged 25, Northey was killed inaction during the Second Battleof Bullecourt. Woodward waswounded in the same action anddied just three weeks later, aged 28.


Northern Region - around Ypres 31

The northern region of the Australian Remembrance Trail iscentred on Ypres, a beautiful medieval town that, in the FirstWorld War, had the great misfortune to be directly in the pathof the opposing armies. While it was never occupied by Germanforces, it was always in the firing line because it was always on thefront line – constantly shelled and almost obliterated. The landsaround Ypres were hotly contested for four years and some of themost brutal and costly battles of the GreatWar were fought in thevillages and fields close to the city

THE NORTHERN REGION

5 MILITARYEXPERIENCESAROUND YPRES1. The Menin Gate –

Memorial to the Missingand site of the Last PostCeremony, every night at8pm (p33)

2. The new Australian galleryat the Memorial MuseumPasschendaele 1917 atZonnebeke (p36)

3. In Flanders FieldsMuseum, in the rebuiltCloth Hall (p35)

4. Tyne Cot Cemetery – theworld’s largest CWGCCemetery (p37)

5. Toronto Avenue Cemetery– the only all-Australiancemetery in Belgium (p41)

MUSTSEEAustralian troops passing the ruins of Ypres on the way to the front line25 October 1917 AWM E04612

Invasion and conquest were notnew to the region - for hundredsof years, other nations had covetedits wealth and strategic position.The British laid siege to the city in1383, the French conquered Ypres in1678 before giving it to the Spanish;the Hapsburgs took over in 1713and made it part of the AustrianNetherlands until the Frenchreturned in 1794. The Dutch ruledthe region after 1815 until Belgiumseceded from the Netherlands in1830. No wonder the city rampartswere never taken down.

The British soldiers called it Wiperswhen they took it back from theinvading German army in 1914.That established the famous Ypres

salient, pushing the front line outon three sides in a bulge aroundthe eastern end of the city; and thatenabled German artillery to poundthe city from all three sides.

From then on, Ypres was the gatewayto the Flanders battlefields. Between1914 and 1918 hundreds of thousandsof Allied soldiers passed through thecity and along the Menin Road tofight on the front line.

When the first Australian troopsarrived in 1916, the city was alreadyin ruins. While many Australiansoldiers spent the second half of1916 fighting in the Somme, byJanuary 1917 some had returned toYpres to help hold the line north of

the city. More came for the Battle ofMessines in June, the precursor tothe Battle of Passchendaele, a namenow synonymous with bloodshedand sufffering, shelling, mud andmadness. Australian soldiersendured some of the worst fightingof the war in the battles for MeninRoad, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde,Poelcapelle and Passchendaele.All five Australian divisions foughthere in the worst year of the warfor Australia – more than 76,000casualties, nearly double the toll of1916. October 1917 remains the worstmonth in Australia’s history formilitary casualties.

The Australian RemembranceTrail marks several of the mostsignificant sites for Australians inBelgium – from the Menin Gate,through which nearly every soldiermarched on his way to battle, toTyne Cot Cemetery, the 5th DivisionMemorial at Polygon Wood andthe beautiful, Australians-only smallcemetery at Toronto Avenue.


Northern Region - Ypres 32

No city on the Western Front sufffered more damage than Ypresduring the FirstWorldWar. No city is more sacred to Britishmemoryas Winston Churchill observed in 1919 when he suggested thatthe city should be acquired and preserved as a ruin. The Belgiansdisagreed and rebuilt their city brick by brick. Since then, visitorshave come in their thousands to pay homage at the battlefieldsand cemeteries, to hear the buglers play the Last Post at the MeninGate, to stroll the streets and enjoy some fine Belgian hospitality.

In the Middle Ages, Ypres was arich textile trading town. Clothwoven from British wool wastraded throughout Europe, evenas far as Russia. In 1200 AD, thepopulation of the city was 40,000– 5,000 more than it is todayand that wealth built the ClothHall, one of the largest and mostfamous commercial buildings ofmedieval Europe. Traders stored

their cloth on the second floorwhere hundreds of cats protectedthe textiles from mice and rats andwhere the fabulous In FlandersMuseum is now installed. Traderssold cloth on the ground floor andshipped it on the river Ypresleewhich runs beneath the hall. The70m high belfry was a treasurehouse, a lookout and a place ofrefuge in time of war.

The modern city reflects theincredible resilience of thepopulation. It took more than 40years after the First World War tofinish rebuilding the Cloth Hall.Nowhere else in the world is therea living tribute to the dead like theLast Post ceremony at the MeninGate. It has been performed everynight since 1928, except duringGerman occupation in the SecondWorld War.

Ypres is a great walking town withcharming cobbled streets that looklike they have never heard a shotfired. All the bars and restaurantsare within a few minutes of eachother in the centre. Walking theramparts at dusk gives you a senseof the city’s rich history. AustralianGeneral John Monash had hisheadquarters in the ramparts nearthe Menin Gate in 1917 and woundedmen sheltered in the galleries.

You can rent a boat and row on thelake, once part of a moat aroundthe town. The major landmarksinclude the rebuilt St Martin’sCathedral and City Hall, bothbeside the Cloth Hall. The City Hall,dating from 1619, was restored in1862 then flattened in November1914. A new museum of Ypres willopen in 2018.

Ypres

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Reading the names of the missingMenin Gate, Ypres

5 GREAT EXPERIENCES AROUND YPRES1. Join a group to lay a wreath at the Menin Gate (you’ll need toapply for this well before you start your trip)

2.Climb the belfry at the Cloth Hall for spectacular views

3.Starting at the new City Museum, take the Ypres Heritage Walkfor an overview of the town’s medieval history

4.Rent a bike and choose one of the many cycle trails into thecountryside around Ypres

5.Visit the Old Cheese Factory at Passchendaele for anintroduction to cheese making and some fine tastings

DON'TMISS

In Flanders Fields museumCloth Hall, Ypres


the MENIN GATE

The Ypres Memorial commemorates more than54,500 British and Commonwealth soldiers who diedbefore 16 August 1917 and have no known grave. It’sone of four Memorials to the Missing in Flanders –the names of soldiers missing later in the war arerecorded across the other three, most of them atTyne Cot (p37). Menin Gate has become one of themost famous war memorials in the world, partlybecause of the Last Post Ceremony performed hereevery night at 8pm. Usually three buglers performthe Last Post, followed by a laying of wreaths anda minute’s silence. Buglers play Reveille to end theceremony. Most nights the ceremony attracts at leasta thousand visitors – get there early to secure a goodposition.

The buglers are members of the Last Post Association,a group of Ypres citizens who started the ceremonyin 1928, after hearing buglers of the SomersetLight Infantry band perform at the opening of thememorial the year before. The current presidentof the association is the great-grandson of one ofthe founders. There are normally between six andeight buglers, all volunteer firemen. They take turnsto perform and, except for the four-year Germanoccupation during the Second World War, they havenot missed a night since the Association began. In allthat time, there have been only 16 or 17 buglers. One oftheir members performed the ceremony for 60 years.

THE LIONS OF MENIN GATE

When British soldiers arrived in 1914, the Meenseportwas a gap in the 17th century French ramparts; theoriginal gate had been torn down in 1862. Two lionscarved from bluestone stood sentinel on plinths,either side of the gap and soldiers going up to theFront passed between them. Some locals are saidto have tied straw in the mouths of the lions in 1914,vowing that the Germans would not enter the cityuntil the lions had eaten the hay.

In fact, a German cavalry unit passed into the city on7 October 1914 – but only for a day. The British retookthe city in the First Battle of Ypres in October andNovember. The lions survived that and the SecondBattle of Ypres in 1915 but had disappeared by theThird Battle of Ypres in 1917. No one knew wherethey went. Much damaged, they reappeared in 1919and were donated to the Australian War Memorialin 1936. The Memorial was inaugurated in 1939 butthe Lions remained in storage. Restored by sculptorLucas Zywuszko in 1987-88, they have guarded theentrance to the Memorial since then. In 2017, the lionsreturned to Ypres on loan, to stand guard at MeninGate again from Anzac Day (25 April) to ArmisticeDay (11 November). In September 2017, the AustralianGovernment announced that Australia would givereplicas of the Lions to the city of Ypres in recognitionof the 100th anniversary of the sacrifice of Australiansduring the Great War.

The Last Post CeremonyMenin Gate

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One of the Menin Gate LionsAWM P05777.001


Northern Region - Taste of Belgium 34

LOCAL DELICACIES

MOULES – Belgians eat mussels bythe tonne, mostly imported fromDutch farms in the North Sea.Moules frites (mussels and chips)seems to be the national dish,washed down with an excellentBelgian beer, of which there aremany. Best time to eat mussels – anymonth ending in ‘er’ (ie Septemberto December). Don’t eat the onesthat didn’t open during cooking.

EELS – either cooked fresh orpreserved in a terrine.

TAPJESVLEES – veal or pork stuffedwith bacon and braised in a pot ofvegetables.

KATTENKLAUW – This Danishpastry shaped like a cat’s claw isstuffed with cream, apple andraisins.

MACAROONS – Crunchy onthe outside, gooey on theinside. There’s only an ‘o’ in itbut the Belgian macaroon isquite different from the Amiensmacaron.

Taste of Belgium

ChocolateBelgian chocolate is legendary.The industry goes back to the 17th

century when the Spanish rulersbrought the ingredients back fromMesoamerica. Chocolate becamepopular with the wealthy in the20th century, it became a majorindustry. The Belgians inventedthe praline and perfected anexotic array of handmade trufffles,chocolate animals, birds, figurinesand Easter eggs. There are now

over 2,000 chocolatiers in thecountry, producing a massive172,000 tonnes of chocolate eachyear, much of it for export.

There are dozens of specialitychocolate shops in and aroundYpres and lots of restaurantswhere chocolate desserts are atemptation. Put the diet on holdand try everything – a hike or abike ride around the battlefieldswill help to burn offf a few calories!

What’s Belgian for beer?Beer is to Belgium what wine is toFrance. It’s not just that Belgianslove it and make some of the bestbrews on earth, it’s part of theiridentity. UNESCO even recognisedthat formally in 2016, placingBelgian beer culture on the list ofthe intangible cultural heritage ofhumanity, alongside such things asthe tango and Chinese calligraphy.Belgium makes at least 1,600diffferent beers. Their history isentwined with the Catholic Church,going back to the 12th century,when monasteries were grantedthe right to brew and sell beer.Beer was considered cleaner andhealthier than drinking water, soit was drunk in vast quantities. The

alcohol level was much lower than itis now; some modern Belgian beersare seriously strong. The variety isstaggering and covered by complexrules. Trappist beers can only bemade in Trappist monasteries withdirect involvement of monks. Abbeybeers can be made by other ordersbut Certified Abbey beers mustbe brewed under licence from anexisting or abandoned abbey. Thereare hundreds of brands and stylesto explore, and lots of bars andcafés that specialise in serving onlyBelgian beer.

Visit the city brewery in Yeper.Brouwerij De Kazematten brews twodiffferent beers, Wipers Times 14 andGrottenbier. Reservation is advised.



JOHN MCCRAE, A CANADIAN DOCTOR’S LEGACYThe museum was refurbished in1998 and renamed after the famouspoem “In Flanders Fields” byLieutenant Colonel John McCrae, aCanadian poet, physician, author,artist and soldier during the FirstWorld War. He was a field surgeonduring the Second Battle of Ypreswhere one of his close friends, Lt.Alexis Helmer was killed. It is widelybelieved that Helmer’s burialinspired the poem.

It was written on 3 May, 1915 –the day after Helmer’s funeral- as McCrae sat on the back of amedical field ambulance near anadvance dressing post at EssexFarm, just north of Ypres. Poppies

grew everywhere around in thedevastated ground of Flanders’battlefields and cemeteries.

McCrae died of pneumonia inlate January 1918 and was buriedwith full military honours in theCommonwealth War GravesCommission section of WimereuxCemetery near Bologne.

Since 1921, the poppy has becomea symbol of remembrance formilitary personnel who have diedin war. Initially adopted by theAmerican Legion, the poppy isnow mostly worn in the UnitedKingdom, Canada, New Zealandand Australia in the lead up to 11November, Armistice Day.

'IN FLANDERS FIELDS'

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Ypres

IN FLANDERS FIELDS MUSEUM

This state-of-the-art museum, on thefirst floor of the Cloth Hall, is oneof two great museums in Flanders– the other being at Zonnebeke.The museum offfers a thoughtful,immersive experience with highquality displays – documents, maps,photographs, and moving images –and a comprehensive collection ofartefacts. It places the visitor withinthe period in a stunning wide-screenfilm with actors recreating the wordsof soldiers, doctors, nurses, artistsand poets experiencing the war inBelgium. Visitors receive a poppybracelet containing a microchipthat activates their chosenlanguage and introduces them tofour personal stories as they movethrough the museum.

The permanent exhibition tells thestory of Belgium during the FirstWorld War and the remembrance

ever since. There are new exhibitionseach year and there’s a new researchcentre, home to the Names ListProject – an attempt to compilea list of all those who died in theWesthoek region as a result of theFirst World War. For a small extracharge, visitors can gain access to

the belfry – from the top, there’s amagnificent view of the town andthe surrounding landscape.

Open every day April toNovember. Closed Mondays inlow season and 25 December, 1January and 9 to 23 January.



Northern Region – Polygon Wood 36

Thewarwasverydiffferent inBelgium in1917. Bothsidesbroughtup more artillery than they had used in the Somme a year earlier.The bombardments destroyed centuries old drainage channelsin the low-lying fields, creating bogs that just got worse as menfought across them. August rains turned the area east of Ypres intoa treacherous quagmire in which men and horses could drown ifthey fell offf the network of duckboards and timber log roads.

Australian and British troops hadfought their way to Zonnebeke bylate September, when they wereordered to take Polygon Wood, aspart of the Third Battle of Ypres.There was no wood left – just afield of craters and the stumpsof trees. The attack was a successbut with significant losses. Britishcasualties totalled more than15,000, more than a third of whichwere Australian. The Australian 4th

Division sufffered 1,700 casualties;the 5th Division, more than 4,000.

That is why the 5th Division Memorialis here at the eastern end ofPolygon Wood, on top of a formerGerman strongpoint known as TheButte. The Memorial was designedby Lieutenant General Sir TalbotHobbs, who commanded thedivision at Polygon Wood. He diedwhile en route to France in 1938for the opening of the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial.

The nearby Polygon Wood WarCemetery was a frontline burialground. That is why the gravestonesare irregularly placed. A path leadsinto Polygon Wood, now regrown,past the 5th Division obelisk tothe Buttes New British Cemetery,where 2,000 graves were broughtin after the war. Almost 1,700 ofthese are unidentified, including afew Australians. One known gravebelongs to Australian Leslie CleggMcMurdo, who was 17 years and5 months old when he died atPolygon Wood.

Polygon Wood

Polygon Wood Cemetery

Photo displayMemorial Museum Passchendaele 1917

MEMORIAL MUSEUM PASSCHENDAELE 1917

The war here was partlyunderground. This wonderfulmuseum offfers a chance toexperience that terrible battle,both above and below ground.The collection is extensive andthe displays are innovative - youcan experience the smells of thepoisonous gases in one display andwalk through a full-size recreationof a bunker, extensive recreated

trenches and dugouts. There’sa new gallery dedicated to theAustralian experience and sevennew remembrance gardens, eachbuilt by a diffferent country. Themuseum’s research departmentcan help you find out about arelative who fought here. Openevery day of the year. At BertenPilstraat, just offf the main roadthrough Zonnebeke.

Australian Pioneers construct a plant road at Chateau Woodnear Polygon Wood, September 1917 AWM E00800


Tyne Cot

A SOLDIER’S STORY: LEWIS MCGEE

Sergeant Lewis McGee, a 29-year-old member of the 40th Battalion,won a posthumous Victoria Crossfor his valour at Broodseinde. Inthe 40th Battalion history, CaptainFrank Green wrote about theevent: ‘Sergeant McGee rushedstraight at the pillbox in the faceof what seemed like certain deathbut he got across that 50 yardsof open ground and shot the

crew with his revolver’. McGeewas from Campbell Town inTasmania, where he had been arailway engine driver. He enlistedin March 1916 and took part inthe battle of Messines. He waskilled at Passchendaele eight daysafter the action that won him theVictoria Cross. He was one of 11children and left behind a wife anddaughter.

Tyne Cot Cemetery at dawn

Tyne Cot is both a former battlefield and a cemetery. In 1915, theNorthumberland Fusiliers had named a barn that stood here TyneCottage. Five German pillboxes surrounded it, occupying the highground. On 4October 1917, as part of the Battle of Broodseinde,one New Zealand and three Australian divisions attacked side byside towards this point, together with eight other British divisions.The Australian troops were brimming with confidence, aftervictories at Menin Road and Polygon Wood. This was the first timethat four Anzac divisions had fought together, in a line.

Towards the end of the battle,Tasmanian troops of the 40th

Battalion attacked the five Germanpillboxes. They faced murderousfire from German machine gunson top of the pillboxes. The lastpillbox to be taken is beneath theGreat Cross at the centre of theTyne Cot cemetery. The Australianhistorian Charles Bean called thisvictory ‘an overwhelming blow’that drove the Germans ‘from oneof the most important positions onthe Western Front’. Australian unitssufffered nearly 6,500 casualties inthis battle – another costly victory.

After the war, this became thelargest Commonwealth WarGraves Commission Cemetery inthe world, with more than 11,900Commonwealth graves. There are1,369 Australian soldiers buriedhere, 791 of them unknown.This makes Tyne Cot the largestAustralian cemetery of the FirstWorld War. The walls of theMemorial contain the names of35,000 men with no known grave.Tyne Cot also incorporates a NewZealand Memorial with 1,200names of men who died in thebattles of October 1917.

The visitor centre on the easternside of the Memorial is open daily,1 February to 30 November.

AWM A02623

Northern Region – Tyne Cot 37


Northern Region - Messines 38

MessinesByJune 1917, the front linearoundYpreshadhardlychanged intwo years. Ypres was in British hands but German forces held thehigh ground south of the city along Messines Ridge, their defencesrunning from Ploegsteert Wood to Mt Sorrel. The Germancommanders ordered “that the salient be held at all costs”; forthe Allies, Messines Ridge was the key to the planned advance onPasschendaele Ridge further north (the 3rd Battle of Ypres).

Langemark German War Cemetery

Shells bursting over message runners at MessinesJuly 1917 AWM E00599

Drawing on their recentexperiences around Arras, the Allieslooked to sophisticated artilleryplans, better coordination withplanes and tanks and tunnelling tobreak through. It would be the firstbattle for the AIF in Belgium andthe first time since Gallipoli thatAustralian and New Zealand troops

fought side by side. After threeyears of mining by British, Canadianand Australian companies throughclay, sand and silt, the ridge was ahoneycomb of tunnels, galleriesand caverns.

At Hill 60, just after 3am on7 June 1917, Captain OliverWoodward of the 1stAustralian

Tunnelling Company detonatedtwo huge underground mines,the northernmost of a string of19 mines detonated in series overabout 20 seconds. This was thebeginning of the Battle of Messines.The event ranks as the largest andloudest non-nuclear explosion of alltime, and devastated the Germanlines along Messines Ridge. Around10,000 German troops were killedwhen the mines were detonatedand German commanders laterdescribed it as one of the worstGerman tragedies of the war.

The site is now one of the mostvisited in the Ypres salient, andone of the most untouched.Many miners of both sides werekilled underground in the work toprepare these mines, and remainburied here. The site is considereda mass grave and is tended bythe Commonwealth War GravesCommission. There is a memorialto the 1stAustralian TunnellingCompany near the entrance. Hill 60was man-made from spoil dug outin the 19th century for the railwaycutting that runs beside it. TheCaterpillar crater, on the other sideof the railway, is even larger. TheAustralian film - Beneath Hill 60 -dramatises the extreme tension ofthis period of the war.

Hill 60 is on Zwarteleenstraat, southof the village of Zillebeke, about7kms south of Ypres.

In October 1914, during the FirstBattle of Ypres, youthful Germanunits were decimated here in a futilefrontal attack on British and Frenchlines. As many as 3,000 Germanhigh school students died in whatthe Nazis would later glorify as theKindermord, or Massacre of theInnocents. The site became a smallGerman graveyard in 1915, but itwas greatly enlarged after the warwith the consolidation of moreGerman war dead – partly because

the Belgian government of the timewas reluctant to grant land for otherenemy cemeteries. Langemark nowcontains 44,000 burials, making itone of the largest cemeteries onthe Western Front. Almost 25,000Germans are buried in the massgrave near the entrance.

The cemetery is on Klerkenstraat, onthe northern outskirts of the villageof Langemark-Poelkapelle, about10kms north of Ypres.

The First World War was not the first to be photographed but itwas the first where photography played a crucial role, both asa weapon – in aerial reconnaissance and propaganda - and as apowerful record of Australian history. The Australian War Memorialholds almost 305,000 photographs from the GreatWar, still inhigh demand from researchers, media, historians and families.

ImageAncillary information

Capt Frank Hurley beside anunexploded German shell

near Pozières, September 1917 AWM E01059Capt Wilkins, Stafff Sgt Joyce recording an Australian troop advance on theHindenberg line, October 1918 AWM E03915

The ‘mad photographers’

British soldiers were forbiddento carry cameras on the WesternFront. This was a shock for manyAustralian soldiers, who had usedtheir own Kodak Pocket camerasfairly openly at Gallipoli. Theywere told to throw their camerasaway when they reached France;if a soldier was captured with acamera, the images might proveuseful to the enemy.

The Australian war correspondentand offficial historian, Charles Bean,took more than 700 photographson Gallipoli, but he too wasforbidden to use his camera oncehe arrived in France. The WarOfffice loaned him British pressphotographers instead, but herepeatedly clashed with them overtheir tendency to fake pictures.

Bean argued strongly that Australianeeded its own photographers –and in 1917, he got them.

Frank Hurley and Hubert Wilkinswere both tough and resourcefulmen. Both had recently returnedfrom polar expeditions – Hurley inAntarctica, Wilkins in the Arctic.Both were excellent photographictechnicians and they had becomefirm friends, despite wildlydiffferent temperaments. Wilkinswas quiet, unassuming and modest;no one ever attributed those traitsto Hurley. Their images are amongthe most outstanding of the war,from any country.

They arrived in late August 1917,and soon earned respect amongthe troops for their willingnessto work in the front lines. The

soldiers called them the madphotographers because of the risksthey took. Hurley’s job was to takeaction and propaganda picturesfor immediate use in newspapersback home. Wilkins worked moreclosely with Bean to documentevery place where Australian forcesfought. He was the photographerof record, serving history.

In practice, both men took superbimages on the Western Front. Afterclashing with Bean over his desireto make composites – combiningseparate negatives in the darkroom- Hurley left France to work withthe Australian forces in Palestine.Wilkins stayed on through much of1918. He was wounded several timesand decorated for bravery. Theimages made by both men are nowan important part of the extensivecollection of photographs held bythe Australian War Memorial. Bothmen survived the war, to continuetheir adventures as explorer-photographers.


The ‘Mad Photographers’ 39


Northern Region - Ploegsteert 40

PloegsteertThe soldiers called it Plug Street. By late 1916, the farming villageof Ploegsteert had already sufffered for two years, sandwichedbetween Ypres to the north and Armentières to the south. Inlate 1916, the 1stAustralian Tunnelling Company got to work atHill 63, north of Ploegsteert, digging what became known asthe Catacombs of Hyde Park Corner – a tunnel system largeenough to accommodate 1,200 men in 19 streets lined withbunks. A life-size carved kangaroo stood over the entrance(now on private land).

In June 1917, the German trenchesran east of the Ploegsteert Wood,up onto the Messines Ridge.General Monash’s 3rd Division arrivedfresh from training in England,

determined to prove themselves.They were hit by a German gasbarrage while crossing the wood,even before arriving at their startpositions for the Battle of Messines.

PLUGSTREET 14 – 18 EXPERIENCE

This is a small but engagingmuseum, documenting thewar in this area. Part of it isbelow ground, inspired bythe Catacombs. The museumreflects both military and civilianexperience, covering the waysoldiers and civilians interacted –their entertainments, diversionsand tragedies. Part of the famous

Christmas Truce of 1914 occurrednearby at St-Yvon. The AustralianGovernment contributed to thedevelopment of the museum.

The museum is at rue de Messines156. A Last Post ceremony takesplace on the first Friday of eachmonth, at 7pm.

A DAY OUT

If you’re staying in Ypres, take a dayto visit the area around Messinesand Ploegsteert, taking in the NewZealand Memorial at Messines,the Peace Pool (site of the largestmine blown up on 7 June 1917) andthe Island of Ireland Peace Park,which commemorates all Irish-bornsoldiers who fought in the war. Allof these places are easily accessibleby bicycle from Ypres, alongmarked bicycle trails. Continue toPlug Street 14 – 18 Experience, andpick up a walking trail map for thePloegsteert Wood, which includesthe Toronto Avenue Cemetery andone site of the Christmas Truce.

The Pool of Peace

Australian Engineers at the entrance tothe Catacombs, the tunnels at Hill 63,

Messines, January 1918 AWM E04486

The Christmas truce

By December 1914, after months offighting, the war was in stalemateand troops on both sides hadbegun digging trenches – oftenso close that German and Britishsoldiers could shout to each otheracross no man’s land.

As Christmas approached, PopeBenedict XV called for an offficialtruce, for “the guns to fall silentupon the night the angels sang”but this was refused.

Then on Christmas Eve andChristmas Day 1914, around 100,000German and British soldiersunoffficially stopped fighting alongthe Western Front. Both sides sangcarols, the Germans put candleson the trees, soldiers went into noman’s land to exchange gifts of

tobacco, newspapers and alcohol,some swapped souvenirs, someplayed football, while others heldjoint burial services. So, as someunits were still fighting, othersshook hands and shared cigaretteswith their enemies.

Captain Robert Miles wrote: ‘Weare having the most extraordinaryChristmas Day imaginable … thething started last night … theGermans started shouting MerryChristmas Englishmen to us. Ofcourse our fellows shouted backand presently large numbers ofboth sides had left their trenches,unarmed, and met in debatable,shot riddled no man’s landbetween the lines … not a shot wasfired all night.'


TORONTO AVENUE CEMETERY

This is one of the most tranquiland beautiful war cemeteries inBelgium, although rarely visited.It’s also one of the smallest, with78 burials. This and VC CornerCemetery at Fromelles are the onlyexclusively Australian cemeterieson the Western Front. All buttwo of the men buried here areknown by name; the gravestonesarranged in conjoined lines signifya communal burial. Most of thesemen were from General Monash’s3rd Division, newly arrived in Francefrom training in England. Mostdied between 7 and 10 June 1917.There are five teenagers namedamong them.

The cemetery is about 2km southof Messines, before you get toPloegsteert. Drive south fromMessines on the N365, turn leftat Chemin du Mont de la Hutte,and park at the Prowse PointMilitary Cemetery, where there isa memorial to the Christmas Truceof 1914, sponsored by the European

A YOUNG SOLDIER’S STORY: CECIL SHARP WISE

Cecil Sharp Wise is the youngestsoldier buried in the cemetery. Alabourer from Tamworth, he was17 when he enlisted in ArmidaleNew South Wales in April 1916. Hewas short and stout, according toone of his comrades, weighing inat 68kg. He arrived at the Frontin Belgium at the beginning ofFebruary 1917 as a reinforcementfor the 33rd Battalion, and wassoon serving in a machine guncompany. He made it through thebombardment on the way up toMessines only to be killed threedays later, when a piece of a highexplosive shell hit him in the head.

Private A H Darcy wrote afterwardsthat he was right beside PrivateWise when he was hit – “such a nice

young boy”. Private Convery, writingfrom a military hospital in Randwickin December of that year, said: “Iknew him well. He was a good lad,only a boy. He was killed at Messinesat Grey Farm a few days after thebig stunt… A shell killed him at onceabout 10pm. I was wounded at thesame time.” One hundred yearslater, a relative, Christine Anderson,found his photo in a Tamworthnewspaper – the only known photo– and had it placed at the graveby a Belgian man who volunteeredto help. While Commonwealthgraves in Belgium are cared for bythe Commonwealth War GravesCommission, many are also adoptedand tended by local individuals andfamilies.Grave marker of Pte Cecil Sharp Wise

football Association (UEFA) becausethe British and German soldiersplayed football during the truce.Walk down the hill past the Mud

Corner Cemetery then follow thesigns on the left into the wood –about another 250 metres. You arenot allowed to park on this road.

Northern Region - Ploegsteert 41

The Silent Cities 42

The silent citiesAt war’s end in 1918, the Western Front had many morecemeteries than it does now. Men were buried where they diedon the battlefield, or in small temporary cemeteries just behindthe lines. Others were left unburied in the field, sometimesfor years, as at Fromelles. Those who died of wounds would beburied near where they were treated. That’s why some of thehospital cemeteries like Lijssenthoek near Ypres, are huge. Eachside would bury the enemy’s dead, after removing identity tagsto send back as proof of death.

The task of counting, identifyingand reburying the dead after thewar took years. Many of the bigcemeteries are consolidations ofsmaller cemeteries, as at Villers-Bretonneux. The smaller thecemetery, the more likely it is original.Australian families were initiallysent photographs of grave sites, ifknown. Many parents came to visitthose graves; others came lookingfor clues and answers, or to see theplace where a son went missing.

Each country had diffferentpolicies. The British decided thatbodies were not to be repatriatedand that all graves should lookthe same. It was, said WinstonChurchill, a fellowship of the deadthat avoided all boundaries ofrace, creed or wealth. The newlyformed Commonwealth WarGraves Commission (CWGC) triedto standardise the design of thecemeteries, and yet each one tellsa diffferent story that can be read.

VC Corner near Fromelles contains410 Australian graves but noheadstones. None of the bodiescould be identified, so their namesare inscribed on the walls instead.Gravestones placed hard upagainst each other in a line, as atToronto Avenue, means that themen were buried side-by-side atthe same time, not in individualgraves. Gravestones arranged ina circle as at Hedge Row TrenchCemetery in Belgium tell us that thecemetery was destroyed by shellfire,making it impossible to pinpointindividual graves. Graves arrangedin no discernible order, as atPolygon Wood, indicate a front-linecemetery where men were buriedquickly. Occasionally a grave standsapart – sometimes a lone Germansoldier, buried during fighting.

The original cemetery designemulates an English walled garden.This was an attempt to givecomfort to the many families who

Thistle Dump Military Cemeterythe Somme

Cross of SacrificeVC Corner, Fromelles

came looking for their sons’ graves.All but the smallest cemeterieshave a register, giving some historyand the names and locationof the graves. The cemeteriesnear hospitals have the highestproportion of identified gravesbecause a wounded soldier’s namewas usually recorded.

Most cemeteries have a Cross ofSacrifice, in recognition of theChristian faith of the majorityof the dead. Larger ones alsohave a Stone of Remembrance,which looks more like an altar,representing those of other faithsor no faith. The famous words: ‘ASoldier of the Great War Knownunto God’ are by Rudyard Kipling,the Commission’s first literaryadviser. Kipling lost his only sonin the war. He also described thecemeteries as ‘the silent cities’.

The Commission employs 400full-time gardeners on the WesternFront alone. Any gravestone thatis damaged or illegible is replaced;CWGC headquarters for WesternEurope near Arras produces up to22,000 new gravestones per year,which they ship to cemeteriesaround the world. Every year alongthe Western Front, the remainsof soldiers are found in fields andexcavations. CWGC stafff will usuallyattend on the same day to collectand protect the remains. Some areidentified, some remain unknown.All are reburied with full honours.


Plan Your Visit 43


INFORMATION

IN THE SOUTH

Tourism Information Offices

Amiens – Somme Tourisme21 Place Notre-Dame, 80000Amiens+33 (0) 322 [email protected]

Amiens – Offfice de Tourismed'Amiens Métropole (city tourisminformation)23 Place Notre-Dame, 80000 Amiens+33 (0) 322 716050www.amiens-tourisme.com/accueil

MARKETS

Amiens – Wednesday and Saturday,Place du Befffroi; Tuesday morningand Friday afternoon, Place deGorlitz; second Wednesday ofthe month, Place de Bourgogne);Saturday morning, Place Parmentierand Ave de Picardie

Amiens – La Grande Réderied’Amiens, twice a year in April andOctober (check website for dates)held across 51 streets in the centreof Amiens www.grade-rederie-amiens.com

Albert – Saturday morning and firstWednesday of the month

Corbie – Friday morning, Place de laRépublique

Fouilloy (nr Villers-Bretonneux) –Sunday morning Place de l’Eglise

Le Crotoy – Friday morning, PlaceJeanne d’Arc all year round, Tuesdaymorning, rue de la République inJuly/August

Saint-Valery-sur-Somme – Sundaymorning, Place des Pilotes;Wednesday morning, Place du Jeude Battoi

Péronne – Saturday morning,centre of town

Villers-Bretonneux – Wednesdaymorning, Place Charles de Gaulle

PLACES TO STAY

AMIENS

Hôtel Marotte3 rue Marotte, 80000 Amiens+33 (0) 360 [email protected]

Le Prieuré17-6 rue Porion, 80000 Amiens+33 (0) 322 711671www.hotel-prieure-amiens.com

Mercure21-23 rue Flatters, 80000 Amiens+33 (0) 322 [email protected]/gb/hotel-7076-mercure-amiens-cathedrale-hotel/

La chambre d’Amiens1 Avenue de l'Hippodrome, 80000Amiens +33 (0) 322 [email protected]

OUTSIDE AMIENS

ALBERT

Hôtel de La Paix43 rue Victor Hugo, 80300 Albert+33 (0) 322 754417www.hoteldelapaixalbert.com

Chez Louise,4 rue Pierre Curie, 80300 Albert+33 (0) 658 986419chezlouisechambresdhotes@gmail.comwww.chezlouise-chambresdhotes.com

This section provides travellers with information about tourismofffices, places to stay or to eat, local markets, tours andguides. It doesn’t provide a definitive list of services, just somesuggestions that travellers could find helpful.

Here we’ve listed just a smallselection of hotels, cafés, bars andrestaurants, chosen for variety,quality and value – but there arehundreds in the area. Most ofthe tourist offfice websites offferrecommendations too. Checkthe latest reviews before you goand check websites for hours ofoperation - some restaurants havefairly strict hours for lunch anddinner in France.

Opening hours for any of themuseums or battlefield sites alsovary so check before you go, someopen all day, some close for lunch,some close in winter or operaterestricted hours, some close forone day a week and on localfestival days as well as nationalpublic holidays.

If you are travelling in high season,think about booking tours or guideswell in advance. You can find details

of group tours and private guides onthe main tourism information sitesfor each region.

Most major car rental companiesoperate in Amiens, Arras and Ypres,often located close to the mainstations. Their websites will help youto find the most convenient for you.

There are many tourism informationofffices across the regions; we’veprovided details for each regionalcentre’s tourist offfice – theirwebsites should provide detailsabout offfices in smaller towns.

Like the Guide, the information isorganised by region – South, Centre,North.

Information 43

Information 44


information

BALZIEUX (near Albert)

Chambres d’hôtes au Château desMarronniers17 rue du Château, 80300 Balzieux+33 (0) 322 405533castrique.olivier80@gmail.comwww.chambres-hotes-chateau-marronniers-baizieux-somme.com

BAPAUME

Hôtel de la Paix11 Avenue Abel Guidet, 52450Bapaume+33 (0) 321 222828contact@hoteldelapaix-bapaume.frwww.hotel-de-la-paix-bapaume.com

BAIE DE SOMME – ST-VALERY-SUR-SOMME

Hôtel-Restaurant les Pilotes62 rue de la Ferté, 80230 Saint-Valery-sur-Somme+33 (0) 322 608039www.lespilotes.fr

BAIE DE SOMME – LE CROTOY

Les Tourelles2-4 rue Pierre Guerlain, 80550, leCrotoy+33 (0) 322 [email protected]

CORBIE

Le Macassar8 Place de la République, 80800Corbie+33 (0) 322 [email protected]

PÉRONNE

Le St Claude42 Place du Commandant LouisDaudre, 80200 Péronne+33 (0) 322 794949www.hotelsaintclaude.com

Noir Lion16 rue Noir Lion, 80200 Péronne+33 (0) 687 [email protected]

POZIÈRES

Butterworth FarmRoute de Bazentin-Chemin GeorgeButterworth, 80300 Pozières+33 (0) 322 [email protected]

VILLERS-BRETONNEUX

Le Relais de l’Aube18 rue d’Herville, 80800 Villers-Bretonneux+33 (0) 322 [email protected]

PLACES TO EAT

AMIENS

Brasserie Jules,18 Boulevard d'Alsace Lorraine,80000 Amiens+33 (0) 337 11840www.brasserie-jules.fr

Le Quai13-15 Quai Belu, 8000 Amiens+33 (0) 322 721080

Big Ben12 rue Cormont, 80000 Amiens+33 (0) 322 529849www.restaurant-bigben.fr

La CoupolePlace Longueville, 80000 Amiens+33 (0) 322 [email protected]

CAFÉ/BAR

AMIENS

Le Rétroviseur16 rue des Bondés, 80000 Amiens+33 (0) 322 919270www.leretroviseur.fr

Atelier d’Alex12 rue des Orfèvres, 80000 Amiens+33 (0) 698 876764

OUTSIDE AMIENS

ALBERT

Hôtel-Restaurant de la Basilique3-5 rue Gambetta, 80300 Albert+33 (0) 322 [email protected]

Hygge Café29 Place d’Armes, 80300 Albert+33 (0) 322 [email protected]

BAIE DE SOMME - ST-VALERY-SUR-SOMME

Hôtel-Restaurant les Pilotes62 rue de la Ferté, 80230 St-Valery-sur-Somme+33 (0) 322 608039www.lespilotes.fr

CORBIE

La Table d’Agathe6 rue Marcellin Truquin, 80800Corbie+33 (0) 322 [email protected]/latabledagathe

Hôtel Restaurant La Caroline6 Place Roger Salengro, 80800Corbie+33 (0) 322 480151

LE CROTOY

Hôtel-Restaurant les Aviateurs18 rue Victor Petit, 80550 Le Crotoy+33 (0) 322 279074hotelrestaurantlesaviateurs80@gmail.comwww.aviateurs-baiedesomme.com

PÉRONNE

Bistrot d’Antoine8 Place André Audinot, 80200Péronne+33 (0) 322 [email protected]

Plan Your Visit 45


POZIÈRES (nearby, at Authuille)

L'Auberge Val d’Ancre6 rue du Moulin, 80300 Authuille+33 (0) 322 [email protected]

VILLERS-BRETONNEUX

Auberge de Fouilloy(near the Australian Memorial andthe Sir John Monash Centre)79 rue Aristide Briand, 80800 Fouilloy+33 (0) 322 695230

Le Victoria1 rue d’Amiens, 80380 Villers-Bretonneux+33 (0) 322 481507

BICYCLE HIRE

Like most French cities, thereare bicycles for hire around thetown. Ask at the tourist offfice howthis works. They will also have

information about hiring a bicyclefor longer rides along the SommeCanal or to the Baie de Somme.

AMIENS

Vélo Station,26 rue Sire Fermin Leroux, 80000Amiens+33 (0) 322 [email protected]/-amiens-

Vélo Service47 Place Alphonse Fiquet, 80000Amiens+33 (0) 980 [email protected]

BAIE DE SOMME

Vélo en Baie de SommeGare de Noyelles-sur-Mer, 19 routede Crotoy, 80860 Noyelles-sur-Mer+33 (0) 322 290751www.velo-baie-somme.com

TOUR GUIDES

There are plenty of English speakingguides and guided tours in English,based out of Amiens and some ofthe other towns in the region. Pickup a copy of The Somme Guidefrom one of the tourism offfices – itincludes an extensive list of English-speaking guides including somethat specialise in sites of interest forAustralians. Or go to the website –www.visit-somme.com. Under themenu tab – Explore – and the listing- The Great War – there’s a link toSomme Battlefields’ Partners – anetwork of 215 partners includingtour operators and guides that havebeen certified by the SBP (www.somme-battlefields-partner.com).If you prefer to guide yourself,download one of the mobile apps –Somme 14-18 or Victoria Cross.

IN THE CENTRE

TOURISM INFORMATION OFFICES

ARRAS

Offfice de Tourisme d’ArrasHôtel de Ville – Place des Héros,62000 Arras+33 (0) 321 [email protected]

LILLE

Offfice de Tourisme et des Congrèsde LillePalais Rihour, Place Rihour, 59000 Lille+33 (0) 891 562004www.lilletourism.com

MARKETS

ARRAS

Place des Hérosevery Wednesday and Saturdaymorning

LILLE

Wazemmes MarketLa Place du Concert (Vieux-Lille)indoor market daily, outdoormarket Tuesday, Thursday andSunday mornings

La Braderie de Lille(biggest flea market in Europe with10,000 sellers) 3 days 1stweekend inSeptember on Boulevard Louis XIV,Boulevarde de la Liberté, rue de laPorte de Roubaixwww.braderie-de-lille.fr

PLACES TO STAY

ARRAS

L’Hôtel Particulier8 rue du Péage, 62000 Arras+33 (0) 966 [email protected]. hotelparticulierarras.com

Hôtel les Trois Luppars49 Grande'Place, 62000 Arras+33 (0) 321 [email protected]

Les Clés des Places7 rue du Puits Saint-Josse, 62000Arras+33 (0) 614 [email protected]

La Corne d’Or1 Place Guy Mollet, 62000 Arras+33 (0) 321 [email protected]/bienvenue-a-la-corne-dor/

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Information

OUTSIDE ARRAS, NEAR FROMELLES

Holiday InnImpasse de la Bertha, 59320 Englos,Lille West+33 (0) 32 [email protected]

L’Escapade Violainoise28 rue Louis Bauchet, 62138Violaines+33 (0) 605 432817escapade.violainoise@gmail.coml-escapade-violainoise.webnode.fr

Le Couvent des MinimesChemin des Jeux de Mai, 04300Mane (near Lille)+33 (0) 492 747777reservations@couventdesminimes-hotelspa.comwww.couventdesminimes-hotelspa.com

L’Hermitage Gantois224 rue de Paris, 59000 Lille+33 (0) 320 [email protected]

PLACES TO EAT

ARRAS

La Bulle d’O1 Boulevard de Strasbourg, 62000Arras+33 (0) 321 [email protected]

L’oeuf ou la poule13 rue des Balances, 62000 Arras+33 (0) 321 [email protected]

Mezzaluna (vegetarian)10 rue Gambetta, 62000 Arras+33 (0) 321 [email protected]

Le Petit Rat Porteur11 rue de la Taillerie, 62000 Arras+33 (0) 321 512970

OUTSIDE ARRAS

FROMELLES

Le Bistrot Dit-Vin24 rue Neuve, 59249 Fromelles+33 (0) 320 506077

Near FROMELLES

Le Maisnil Mon Temps50 rue du Haut Quesnoy, 59134 LeMaisnil+33 (0) 320 308517contact@restaurant-lemaisnilmontemps.frwww.restaurant-lemaisnilmontemps.fr

HERLIES

L’Auberge Fleurie29 route d’Aubers, 59134 Herlies+33 (0) 320 293838www.la-ferme-fleurie.fr

FOURNES-EN-WEPPES

L'Auberge des Vieilles Poutres1270 rue Faidherbe, 59134 Fournes-en-Weppes+33 (0) 320 [email protected]

BICYCLE HIRE

Check out this website forservices in the Arras region: www.freewheelingfrance.com/bike-hire-

in-france/bike-hire-in-nord-pas-de-calais.html for much of whatyou need to know about hiring abike and cycling in this area. Wehave listed a couple of places inArras and Lille.

Arras à véloPlace du Théâtre, 62000 Arras+33 (0) 629 [email protected]

MCF Lille4 rue du Professeur Langevin,59000 Lille (online bookings only)+33 (0) 982 [email protected]

Locauto114 rue du Molinel, 59160 Lille+33 (0) 320 575899www.locauto.fr

CAR HIRE

All the major car rental agenciesoperate in Arras and the offfices aremostly near Arras station.

If you are coming into Lille on theEurostar, you can collect your carat the Eurostar station so that youdon’t have to head into the centreof town.

TOUR GUIDES

While the majority of visitors tothe Western Front tend to basethemselves in the Somme region orin Ypres, Arras is a good alternative –only 80km or so from the northernand southern Great War sites.The main tourism offfice in Arras hasinformation about local English-speaking guides, including somewho specialise in the AustralianFirst World War sites. There are alsoa number of organised tours andprivate guides listed on the webfor example www.tourhq.com/france/arras-tours-guide or www.battlefield-guides.com.

Plan Your Visit 47


IN THE NORTH, AROUND Ypres

TOURISM INFORMATION OFFICES

Ypres Tourist Offfice(in the Cloth Hall)Grote Markt 34, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 57 [email protected]

MARKETS

Ypres - every Saturday in the GroteMarkt (main square)

PLACES TO STAY

YPRES

Ariane HotelSlachthuisstraat 58, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 57 218 [email protected]

Albion HôtelSint-Jacobsstraat 28, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 57 200 [email protected]

Hotel Kasteelhof ’t HoogheMeenseweg 481, BE-8902 Ypres-Zillebeke+32 (0) 57 468 [email protected]

AmbrosiaD’Hondtstraat 54, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 57 366 [email protected]

OUTSIDE YPRES

Zonnebeke

B&B De KlaprooYpressteenweg 17A, B-8650 Merkem(West-Vlaanderen)+32 (0) 51 545 [email protected]

B&B AfroditeWolvestraat 11, BE-8980 Zonnebeke+32 (0) 496 [email protected]

POPERINGE

Talbot HouseGasthuisstraat 43, BE-8970 Poperinge+32 (0) 57 [email protected]

PLOEGSTEERT

La Ferme du RozenbergNachtegaalstraat 14, BE-7782Ploegsteert+32 (0) 57 [email protected]

PLACES TO EAT

YPRES

À l’EnversPatersstraat 2, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 489 026 [email protected]

In ’t Klein StadhuisGrote Markt 32, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 57 [email protected]

De FonderiePolenlaan 3, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 57 [email protected]

Het MomentBoterstraat 42, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 57 364 [email protected]

BAR/CAFÉ

De HopperieDiksmuidestraat 33, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 57 [email protected]

Les HallesGrote Markt 35, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 57 [email protected]

OUTSIDE YPRES

De Volksbond,Ypresstraat 26, BE-8980 Zonnebeke+32 (0) 51 [email protected]

De KoklikooYpresstraat 7, BE-8980 Zonnebeke+32 (0) 51 727413www.koklikoo.com

Talbot HouseGasthuisstraat 43, BE-8970 Poperinge+32 (0) 57 [email protected]

L'Auberge de Ploegsteertrue de Messines 159, BE-7782Ploegsteert+32 (0) 56 [email protected]

Au Fond de l’eaurue de Messines 50, BE-7782Ploegsteert+32 (0) 56 587759

CAR HIRE

Most of the major car hirecompanies operate in the majorcities, airports, ferry terminalsand railways stations in Belgium.Travellers to Flanders often pickup a rental car in Antwerp, Brusselsor Charleroi before driving on toYpres. Ypres has a number of localcar hire agencies - search on theweb or contact Ypres Tourism.

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Information

BEFORE YOU LEAVE HOME

When you are planning your trip to France and/orBelgium and the Western Front, there are some usefulwebsites to consult; they will help you to work out whereyou want to go and what you want to see and do. Youmight also like to do a bit of background reading so thatyou know a bit more about the Australian experience onthe Western Front before you arrive.

The lists below suggest some websites, books and a fewApps you can download before you start your trip.

USEFUL WEBSITES

Department of Veterans' Afffairs websites:• Anzac Portal

www.anzacportal.dva.gov.au/• A guide to the Australian Remembrance Trail

www.anzacportal.dva.gov.au/history/conflicts/australians-western-front-19141918/australian-remembrance-trail

The Sir John Monash Centrewww.sjmc.gov.au

The Australian War Memorialwww.awm.gov.au

Commonwealth War Graves Commissionwww.cwgc.org

National Archives of Australia - First World War recordswww.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/defence/service-records/army-wwi.aspx

France Tourismwww.francetourism.com/

Belgium Tourismwww.belgium-tourism.be/

USEFUL APPS

Three First World War apps via Somme Tourisme

www.somme-battlefields.com/circuit-du-souvenir-lieux-memoire-visiter-circuit-du-souvenir/three-first-world-war-themed

CWGC app

www.cwgc.org/learn/our-apps/war-graves-app

The Great War UK site has links to 13 diffferent appswww.greatwar.co.uk/trip-info/battlefield-app.htm

BACKGROUND READING

Les Carlyon – The Great War

Peter Pedersen – Anzacs on the Western Front

Mat McLachlan – Walking with the Anzacs – A Guide toAustralian Battlefields on the Western Front

Geofffrey Serle - John Monash A Biography

Peter FitzSimons – Victory at Villers-Bretonneux

Peter Barton – The Lost Legions of Fromelles

Ross Coulthart - The Lost Diggers

Paul Ham - Passchendaele Requiem for Doomed Youth

BICYCLE HIRE

As cycling is a Belgian passion,there are plenty of places in Ypresthat rent bikes to tourists, both forcity cycling and for country andcobbled roads. Some also offferguides or GPS for self-guidedtours. A few are listed below butcheck with the Ypres tourism for afull list and check out websites tosee what’s on offfer.

Biking Box Cycle ToursMeensestraat 12, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 477 [email protected]

Chez MarieNeermarkt 6, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 57 [email protected]

AmbrosiaD’Hondtstraat 54, BE-8900 Ypres+32 (0) 57 366 [email protected]

TOUR GUIDES

There are many English-speakingguides and guided tours in English,based in Ypres. The TourismInformation Offfice in Ypres has

a good list and can help you tochoose something to suit yourneeds - an organised tour or aprivate guide who can design a tourspecific to your interests.

If you want to book in advance, goto the website – www.toerismeieper.be/en. Go to the menu tab – Ypresand the Great War – and the listingsunder - Explore WW1; there’s usefulinformation about battlefieldtours and guides and advice aboutcycling through the Great War sitesin Flanders.

Itineraries 49


A walk in the SommeThe Somme and Ancre rivers are surrounded by gently rollingfarmlands, small towns and villages, hills and woods; it’s greatwalking country. For much of the First World War, towns likeAlbert, Dernancourt and Villers-Bretonneux were behind thelines; soldiers took a break from battle here, some Australianseven helped communities with the autumn harvest. But during1917 and 1918, this peaceful landscape saw some of the fiercestfighting and Australian troops were in the thick of it.

This walk takes you from Albertsouth to Dernancourt, past thevillages and ponds alongside theriver Ancre to Mericourt l’Abbé,then south across the famous riverSomme to le Hamel. From there,it’s a short walk along the hill tothe Australian National Memorialand the Sir John Monash Centre. Ifyou’re still feeling energetic, you cancontinue on to Villers-Bretonneux,the French town that has one ofthe closest and most enduringrelationships with Australia. The walkis fairly easy, approx. 22 kms anddepending how long you spend ateach site, might take around 5 hours.

Download the App: Australians inthe Somme 16 & 18 for an audioguide to parts of this walk aroundPozières and Dernancourt.

Don’t forget to check the touristofffice in Amiens or Albert for mapsto local walking and cycling tracks.

Itinerary

Start your walk from the pretty mainsquare in❶Albert (maybe fortifyyourself with a cofffee and croissantat one of Albert’s cafes before youstart out). Follow the signs to theD52/D64 the road to Dernancourt,just 4kms south.

At❷Dernancourt, Australian troopsstopped the German advance inMarch 1918 but at great cost. There’sa new walking track with markersthat tell this story. After the war,Dernancourt was ‘adopted’ andhelped by the people of SouthAustralia. Don’t miss the Communal

Cemetery and Extension and lookout for rue d’Australie and thePavillon Adelaide.

Head south west alongside theAncre to Mericourt l’Abbé and at theCafé de la Place turn left along therue de Vaux, that will take you all theway to❸Vaux sur Somme whereyou cross the famous river.

On the other side, head south westalong the D71 to❹le Hamel, site ofthe Australian Corps Memorial thatcommemorates a short but bloodybattle in July 2018. In less than 100minutes the allies over-ran Germandefences and cleared the enemyfrom the hill. From the top of the hill,you can see right across the Somme

Valley to the Australian NationalMemorial.

From le Hamel turn left at the signto La Poste and Villers-Bretonneux,follow this road over the ridge toa T-junction. Then right onto D122,after 1.5kms turn left until youreach the D23. Turn right to the❺Australian National Memorial.The names on the memorialwalls commemorate some 11,000Australian soldiers of the Great Warwho have no known grave.

Take one of two paths from theMemorial to discover the new❻SirJohn Monash Centre burrowed intothe slope of the hill. The beautifulAustralian designed buildingincludes several innovative Appdriven exhibitions, good visitorfacilities and a lovely café.

From here you can walk on to❼Villers-Bretonneux to see thefamous Victoria school and theFranco-Australian Museum and get atrain or bus back to Albert.

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Itineraries 50


Belgium is one of the best countries in the world to go for aride. Cycling is a national passion, the region has some greatbike paths, and motorists are very conscious and respectful ofcyclists.

In Flanders, you can tour manyof the important sites on theAustralian Remembrance Trail bybike. Use Ypres as your base as thereare plenty of places to hire a bike,several operators offfer customisedcycling tours and the Tourist Offficein the Cloth Hall has maps of bikepaths and suggested cycling routes.Ask for Vredes Fietsroute maps –they use country lanes, minor roadsand dedicated cycling paths toguide you through the battlefields.

This itinerary takes you on an easycircuit east out of Ypres to thePasschendaele battlefields and TyneCot cemetery, south to PolygonWood and then back to Ypres pastthe Hooghe Crater. The route isplotted along roads that aren’t verybusy but it’s worth checking at theTourist Offfice for any dedicatedbike paths that follow parts of thisitinerary. The ride is approx. 27 kmlong, across easy terrain. You canride it in an hour or two or spenda leisurely day cycling around thepoints of interest.

Itinerary

Head north east out of Ypresthrough the❶Menin Gate. In theGreat War, hundreds of thousandsof soldiers marched past this spotto the Flanders battlefields.

Follow the signs to the N332 andhead north east towards Potijze tovisit the❷Chateau Wood Cemetery.

From Potijze, the N332 takes youdirectly to❸Zonnebeke. Visit theMemorial Museum Passchendaele1917 and its open air trenches,located in the grounds of theZonnebeke Chateau on Ieperstraat.

Take the cycle path fromZonnebeke to❹Tyne Cot, thelargest Commonwealth War GravesCemetery in the world and justa few kms north of the town.Many of those buried here died inautumn 1917, in the infamous Battleof Passchendaele.

From Tyne Cot, head south to theN303 towards Molenaareist and onto❺Polygon Wood. More than

5,700 Australian soldiers died inthe battle at Polygon Wood inSeptember 1917.

Follow the same road throughto Vanderwalle where you haveto take a major road (A19) for ahundred metres or so but quitequickly you can turn west on tothe N8 towards Front Line Hooghe.In the grounds of the ChateauHooghe, you can see trenchlines, enter a bunker and see theHooghe Crater – the site of terriblefighting for more than three years.

Around 4km past the museum, theN8 rejoins the N332 and you areback at the Menin Gate.

A bike ride through Flanders Fields

Menin GateYpres

Itineraries 51


On 1 July 1916, the Allied Forces launched the summer offfensive,a coordinated attack along 40 km of the Western Front in theSomme Valley. The battle began just after 7am with a series ofmassive mine explosions, the largest created the LochnagarCrater at La Boiselle. Three weeks later, Australian troops wentinto battle for the first time on the Western Front to take thestrategic high point at Pozières, then on to the heavily fortifiedMouquet Farm. In the attempt to get to Thiepval Ridge frombehind, these actions proved to be among the most importantand most costly for Australian Forces in France.

Pozières and the 1916 front line

This walk takes you through thosekey battle sites of July 1916. Youstart at La Boiselle, head north fromthe Lochnagar Crater to Pozières,westwards to Mouquet Farm andthe Thiepval Memorial and returnalongside the river Ancre, throughAuthuille to La Boiselle. The totalwalk is around 16 km, about 4 to 5hours. If you are feeling energetic,you could add in a visit to the UlsterTower and the NewfoundlandMemorial just a few kilometresbeyond Thiepval.

Download the App: Australians inthe Somme 16 & 18 for an audioguide to walks around Pozières,following the markers.

And don’t forget to check the touristofffice in Amiens or Albert for mapsto local walking and cycling tracks.

Itinerary

Start from the village of❶LaBoiselle and follow the signs to the❷Lochnagar Crater, less than akilometre to the south east.

Retrace your steps to the D929,the old Roman road from Albert toBapaume. Head north west, about4 kms until you reach the outskirtsof❸Pozières and the PozièresMemorial and British Cemetery.The Memorial commemoratesmore than 14,000 British and SouthAfrican troops who died betweenMarch and September 1918 andhave no known grave. The cemeterymostly contains Australian graves.

At this western end of the villageyou’ll also see an obelisk, theAustralian 1st Division Memorialalso commemorating soldierslost between July and September1916. Almost 70% of them werewounded or killed in just four days– 23-26 July 1916.

Walk about 1 km through thevillage and beyond in the directionof Bapaume to the❹Windmill.The Windmill site is on “a ridgemore densely sown with Australiansacrifice than any other placeon earth” according to Offficial

War Historian Charles Bean. Overseven weeks in 1916, the AustralianImperial Force sufffered 23,000casualties near this spot.

Retrace your steps into Pozières andturn west along the D73 towardsThiepval ( just over 3kms), passingthrough the valley where Australiansfought at❺Mouquet Farm.

You can see the❻ThiepvalMemorial ahead of you. You’ll wantto spend at least an hour visitingthe Memorial and the new museum.Don’t miss the new mural by JoeSacco; and maybe take a break inthe museum café. You can go onfrom here to the Ulster Tower andthe Newfoundland Memorial. Orturn south east and walk either onthe D151 or along the canal that runsbeside the river Ancre.

Stop at the village of❼Authuille.If you’re feeling hungry, there aresome good restaurants here. Thencontinue south until you meet upwith the D20. Turn right and you’reback at La Boiselle.

Itineraries 52


Trace the steps of Australian soldiers along 200 km of theWestern Front – from Ypres to Amiens – and to many of theimportant sites along the Australian Remembrance Trail.

You can also visit beautiful memorialsdedicated to soldiers from othernations who fought here between1914 and 1918 – British, Irish, German,New Zealander, Indian, Canadianand French. Recommendedovernight stops at Ypres, Arras,Albert and Amiens ensure you canenjoy some good food, wine andbeer, lively markets, historic squares,cafés and bars.

The ride is planned for a 5 day trip,avoiding the big cities and majorroads. Around Ypres and in theSomme Valley you’ll find new bikepaths and cycleways. Check at thetourist offfice for updated maps.

A regular cyclist will find the riderelatively easy. You can split anystage by stopping at one of manysmall hotels and B&Bs along the way.

Before you leave, check out theAnzac Portal (anzacportal.dva.gov.au) for more historical informationabout the route and download acopy of this Traveller’s Guide to theAustralian Remembrance Trail andthe Audio Guide App: Australians inthe Somme 16 & 18.

A detailed itinerary can be foundat: anzacportal.dva.gov.au

ItineraryThe day before you start your ride,spend the afternoon in Ypres: ClothHall, In Flanders Museum, an earlydinner in order to get a good spotat the Menin Gate for the 8pm LastPost Ceremony. Overnight Ypres.

Day❶: Flanders Fields (25kms withlots of bike paths). Menin Gate –Chateau Wood – Zonnebeke –TyneCot – Polygon Wood – HoogheCrater – Ypres. Overnight Ypres.

Day❷: Ypres to Fromelles (40kms).Early start. Lille Gate – Pool of

Peace – Messines – Toronto Avenue– Ploegsteert – Armentieres –Fromelles for VC Corner cemeteryCobbers statue; Battle of FromellesMuseum and Pheasant Wood.Overnight Fromelles or nearby inAubers or le Maisnil.

Day❸: Fromelles to Arras (52 kms,mostly flat, avoiding major roadsaround Lens). Fromelles – NeuveChapelle Indian Memorial – Lens14–18 War Museum – NecropoleNationale Notre Dame de Loretteand Anneau de Memoire (Ring ofRemembrance) – add Vimy RidgeCanadian Memorial) – or straight toArras. Overnight Arras.

Day❹: Arras to Albert (60 kms).Arras – Wellington Tunnels –Bullecourt Memorial and BullecourtDigger statue – Thiepval – MouquetFarm – Pozières, the Windmill, the1st Division Memorial and Gibralterblockhouse, Lochnagar Crater –Albert. Overnight Albert.

Day❺: Albert to Amiens (49 kms).Albert – Dernancourt, Australian 3rdDivisionMonument – Vaux sur Somme– Le Hamel – Villers-Bretonneux,the Victoria School and the Franco-AustralianMuseum – AustralianNational Memorial and the Sir JohnMonash Centre – Fouilloy – Amiens.Overnight Amiens (or Corbie).

Day❻ option: Corbie to SaintQuentin (71 kms) Corbie – Sailly leSec – Bray sur Somme – Cappy –Péronne 2nd Division Memorial–Bellenglise – SaintQuentin (Saint Quentinto Amiens by train).

The Australian Remembrance Ride


Credits 53

Cover: Amiens Cathedral Tyler Farrelley

Inside Cover: AWM E028441 Australian soldiers intrenches in front of the village of Le Hamel after thebattle on 4 July 2018

1 Australian recruiting poster AWM poster ARTV 00039A soldier sounds his bugle for assistance on the frontline while civilians listen in the background. Designedby Norman Lindsay (1879-1969), painter, draughtsman,illustrator, cartoonist, printmaker, writer and sculptor.

1 Cycling along the Somme Somme Tourism

2 Baie de Somme at dusk Somme Tourism

3 Chroma light show on Amiens Cathedral SommeTourism

4 Boating around the hortillonages Somme Tourism

4 The Cloth Hall, Ieper Visit Flanders

5 Saturday market, Arras Nelson Lai

6 Lt Frank Watts Davis AWM PAFU2013/185.01 Studiophotograph of Lt Frank Watts Davis, 50th Battalion,killed in action on 2 February 1917

7 Somme 1916 AWM E20122 Members of the 6th

Brigade halted in a congested part of a sunken roadduring their march to Fricourt in a rear area of theSomme battlefield

8 Restaurants at St Leu Dale Starr

8 Sandbags protecting Amiens cathedral AmiensMétropole

9 Inside the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing PaulByrnes

9 Detail from the Joe Sacco mural Paul Byrnes

9 Robert Warner AWM P05301.244 Studio portrait of4927 Private Robert Warner, 13th (later 4th PioneerBattalion) Battalion, of Kiama, NSW. He died on 16September 1916 at the 44th Casualty Clearing Station,France, of wounds received in action, on 15 August1916, aged 18.

10 Artillery at Pozieres AWM E20141 Gunners of anAustralian battery use an 18 pounder British field gunto rain 'barrage fire' on the enemy trenches. Note thepile of empty shell cases on the right.

11 First Division Memorial Somme Tourism

11 Albert Jacka AWM A03408 Studio portrait of LanceCorporal (L Cpl) (later Captain) Albert Jacka (later VCMC and bar) of the 14th Battalion. L Cpl Jacka wasawarded the Victoria Cross for 'conspicuous braveryon the night of 19 and 20 May, 1915 at Courtney'sPost, Gallipoli Peninsula.'. He was the first Australianrecipient of the Victoria Cross in the First World War.

11 Ulster Memorial Somme Tourism

11Newfoundland Paul Byrnes

11 Lochnagar Crater Paul Byrnes

12 The Leaning Virgin, Albert AWM C03260 The Basilicaof Notre Dame de Brebieres at Albert photographedtowards the end of 1916, after heavy artillery shelling.

12 Rue d’Australie Paul Byrnes

12Musee Somme Somme Tourism

12M Betrancourt Paul Byrnes

13 Tunnels at Naours Jérôme Halatre

13Naours graffiti Jérôme Halatre

14 Vignacourt AWM P10330.006 Group portrait of eightunidentified members of the 2ndDivision holding asign that reads 'We want our Mumie' [sic]. Several ofthe soldiers wear identity bracelets in the shape ofAustralia. From the Thuillier collection of glass platenegatives. Taken by Louis and Antoinette Thuillier inVignacourt, France during the period 1916 to 1918.

15 Bert Mouat AWM H06113 Portrait of 4671 Private(Pte) Herbert Alexander Mouat, 6th Battalion. He waswounded in action, receiving a gunshot wound to thespine, on 28 October 1917 and transferred to hospitalin England where he later died, on 28 September1918. An inscription on the back of the postcardreads: "4671 Pte Herbert Alexander Mouat, 6th

Battalion, holding the 'Xmas Dinner'. Taken in France."

15 Regional specialities Somme Tourism

16 2ndDivision Memorial Paul Byrnes

16 Australian soldiers after the battle of PeronneAWM E03183 A machine gun position established bythe 54th Battalion during the morning of the attackthrough Peronne. The photograph was taken thefollowing day, after the capture of the town, whenpositions close to it had been taken.

17 Bellenglise AWM E03260 Troops of D Company, 45th

Battalion, at their newly captured objective betweenBellenglise and Le Verguier, overlooking AscensionGully, in front of the Hindenburg Outpost Line. Theyare seen sniping the retreating enemy, who at thetime were scampering up the opposite hill slope, inan effort to escape the gun and rifle fire. Identified,first from the right is Private J. O'Hehir.

17Wines in a shop in Boulogne Ville Haute FranceMark Bassett / Alamy Stock Photo

18Market, Corbie Somme Tourism

18 Abbey Church of St Pierre AWM H15599 Corbie,France. 1918. A ruined church photographed late inthe year. (Donor Brigadier General H.E. Elliott)

19 Casualty clearing station AWM E00672 Unidentifiedwounded soldiers being treated at an advanced fielddressing station, 2ndAustralian Division. Many of thewounded of the 2ndDivision passed through thisstation after the advance on 31 July 1917.

20 le Hamel - Australian Corps MemorialSomme Tourism

20 Le Hamel – quotation on the wall Somme Tourism

21 Portrait of Sir john Monash National Portrait Gallery

21Monash escorts Australian PM William Hughes AWME03851 The Prime Minister of Australia, the RightHonourable W. M. Hughes, with Lieutenant GeneralSir John Monash, Brigadier General (Brig Gen) E.Tivey, and party, during a visit to the Australian front.Identified, left to right, in the foreground: Brig GenTivey (foreground); the Right Honourable W. Hughes;Sir John Monash and Mr Marlowe, Editor, Daily Mail.

22 Villers-Bretonneux Military CemetaryLisa Michele Burns

22 Ecole Victoria Nelson Lai

23 Australian National Memorial Somme Tourism

23Headstone from Adelaide Cemetery VB Paul Byrnes

24 View of the grassed roof of the Sir John MonashCentre Lisa Michele Burns

24 Entrance to Sir John Monash CentreLisa Michele Burns

25 The Sir John Monash Centre viewed from thewestern courtyard Tyler Farrelley

25 Interior, Sir John Monash Centre Lisa Michele Burns

25 Rising sun mosaic Lisa Michele Burns

26 View from the belfry, Arras Explore Arras

27 View from Town Hall Tower, Arras Nelson Lai

27 Arras Saturday Market Nelson Lai

27Wellington Tunnels Paul Byrnes

28 The Ring of Remembrance Paul Byrnes

28 Canadian National Memorial at Vimy Ridge PaulByrnes

29 Fromelles AWM E20007 Members of the 2nd

Australian Division, and possibly the 17th Battalion,in the trenches in the Bois Grenier sector. The soldierin the foreground is looking through a periscope;the man to his left is holding a Lewis gun. The 17th

Battalion entered the Bois Grenier sector on 3 June1916, and Charles Bean's diary records this image asbeing staged by Brooks.

29New museum and cemetery at Fromelles PaulByrnes (caption within text)

29 Cobbers statue Paul Byrnes (caption within text)

30 The Bullecourt Digger Paul Byrnes

30 Two Friends AWM P07641.002 Studio portrait of4178 Private (Pte) Francis Harrup Northey (left) and

4231 Pte Arthur William Woodward, both of the 22nd

Battalion. While serving in France, Pte Northey waskilled in action during the Second Battle of Bullecourton 3 May 1917, aged 25. During the same battle PteWoodward was wounded in the upper leg on 5 May1917, and died at the 5th General Hospital at Rouen18 days later, aged 28.

31 Australian troops passing the ruins of Ypres AWM– E04612 Ypres Sector, Belgium. 25 October 1917.Australians on the way to take up a front line positionin the Ypres Sector. The ruins of Ypres, includingthe Cloth Hall, can be seen in the background.(photographer Frank Hurley)

32 Reading the names on the walls, Menin GateVisit Flanders

32 Ieper, Cloth Hall Visit Flanders

33 The Last Post Ceremony, Menin Gate Visit Flanders

33 Lions of Menin Gate AWM P05777.01 An unidentifiedman stands beside one of the two carved lions at theMenin Gate entrance. 1920

34 Belgian beer Visit Flanders

34 Belgian chocolate Nelson Lai

34Moules and other shellfish Visit Flanders

35 In Flanders Fields museum Visit Flanders

35 Poppy tributes Visit Flanders

36 Polygon Wood Cemetry Lisa Michele Burns

33 Polygon Wood AWM E00800 Members of the 2nd

Australian Pioneer Battalion making a wagon trackfrom planks of wood at Chateau Wood, in the YpresSector, to allow the passage of traffic deeper intothe freshly captured ground, and to facilitate afurther advance.

36Museum Passchendaele Visit Flanders

37 Tyne Cot Military Cemetery Visit Flanders

37 Sgt Lewis McGee AWM A02623 Portrait of Sgt LewisMcGee VC 40th Battalion Australian Infantry, killed inaction on 23 November 1917

38 Shells bursting over message runners, MessinesAWM E00599 Two message runners proceedingtoward Hill 63, in Belgium, during the battle ofMessines on 7 July 1917. Whilst this photo was beingtaken three shells burst one on top of the hill on theleft; one on the extreme right of the picture, nearPloegsteert Wood; and one uncomfortably close tothe camera.

38 Langemark German War cemetery Visit Flanders

39Wilkins and Joyce on a tank AWM E03915 AustralianOfficial Photographer, Captain George Hubert Wilkins,MC, (right) with Staff Sergeant William Joyce (left),standing with tripod and camera on a British MarkV tank, as the pair record the advance of Australiantroops through the Hindenburg Line. 4 October 1918

39 Frank Hurley with unexploded shell AWM E01059Informal portrait of Captain James Francis (Frank)Hurley, Australian Official Photographer, standingbeside a big German shell which had failed to explodewhen it fell on the Pozieres Road in France, during thefighting some time earlier. 29 September 1917

40 Entry to Hill 63 AWM E04486) An outdoors informalgroup portrait of unidentified members of 7th FieldCompany of Australian Engineers standing outside theentrance to the Catacombs in Hill 63. The Catacombswere a system of tunnels of considerable length,fitted to accommodate over 1,000 men. A woodensilhouette of a kangaroo is attached to the tunnelentrance which is signposted 'Plumer Road'. 22January 1918

41 Pool of Peace Paul Byrnes

41 Toronto Avenue Cemetery Lisa Michele Burns

41 Grave stone of Cecil Sharp Wise Paul Byrnes

42 Cross of Sacrifice, VC Corner Fromelles Paul Byrnes

42 Thistle Dump Military Cemetery, Somme Paul Byrnes

45Market Rooftops, Arras Lisa Michele Burns

46 Horses on Beach, Somme Tourism

CREDITS

Australian Remembrance TrailTheWestern Front(early 1917)

B E L G I U M

F R A N C E

River

Somme

River

Yser

RiverLys

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0

50kilometres

20miles

N

Calais

Ieper/Ypres

Lille

Amiens Péronne

PARIS

BRUSSELS

LONDONENGLAND

BELGIUM

F R A N C E

River

Somme

StraitofDo

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0

80kilometres

40miles

sir john monash centreAustralian National Memorial

Polygon Wood

Langemark

Toronto Avenue

Dunkirk

Passchendaele

Hill 60

Amiens

Albert

Naours

Corbie

Saint Valerie sur Somme

Beaumont-Hamel Ulster Tower

Lochnagar crater

Péronne

Lille

Vimy

Arras

Notre Dame De LoretteLens

Mont St-Quentin

Villers-Bretonneux

PozièresThiepval

Le HamelBellenglise

Dernancourt

Tyne Cot CemeteryYpres

Ploegsteert

Fromelles

Bullecourt

Brussels

Paris

Ostend

Documents

Australia n Remembranc e Trail alongth e WesternFront · ar ran geagu ide topick you up in Am iens. Visit the ma gnificent Amie nsCathed ral,Viller s-Bretonneux andthe Sir John Mona