France - Western Front

This morning we drove our to Mont St Quentin. The Battle of Mont St Quentin took place from 31 August - 2 September 1918 and was ‘the beginning of the end of the First World War’. It was this battle that was also considered by many veterans as the greatest Australian action of WW1.

We started at the 2nd Division Memorial which is a Digger in full kit standing astride a stone plinth. This memorial originally was a Digger bayonetting an Eagle (the symbol of the German Army) and was erected in 1925 but this monument was removed during WW2 when Germans occupied this town. The 2nd Division Memorial, along with each Division’s Memorials, contains an honour list of the battles in which the Division took part. This battle involved 2 soldiers who performed VC winning actions, one of which cost the soldier his life.

We also explored some of the nearby woods where some German trenches captured by the Australians in this battle and craters from the Australian Gunners are still visible amongst the trees.

After finishing at Mont St Quentin we made our way to Pozieres. The Battle of Pozieres took place from 23 July - 5 September, 1916, and claimed nearly as many lives in 6 weeks as Gallipoli did in 8 months. It was also the site of 5 VC winning actions. The village of Pozieres is the highest point in the 1916 Somme Battlefield, sitting between Albert and Bapaume, and therefore was strategically very important. 

Here we visited the 1st Division Memorial which lies on the site of the ‘K-trench’, a communication trench for the German Army, and one of the first captured at Pozieres. Across from this memorial is a wooden platform which sits next to the remains of ‘Gibraltar’, a massive double storey German blockhouse used as a machine gun post and for artillery observation. The wooden platform allows a fabulous view across the battlefield. We then made our way to the Windmill Memorial which is now a rough mound, but was a windmill that had stood for centuries until 1916. It marks the highest point of the entire Somme Battlefield and was captured by Australian troops on August 4, 1916. This Memorial unofficially represents the 23,000 Australians killed or wounded during The Battle of Pozieres.

Across the road we also paid our respects to the British Tank Corps at the Tank Corps Memorial which has 4 miniature tanks surrounding it and is fenced by original tank chains.

Our last stop in the Pozieres region was the Newfoundland Memorial Park at Beaumont-Hamel. This park is a Newfoundland-Canadian memorial and was fantastic. It consists of 72 acres of preserved battlefield complete with trenches, both German and ‘British’, and no-mans land in the middle with a multitude of shell holes. Despite its grassed over appearance (unlike the bare muddy field the troops would have had to contend with), they have preserved the field exceptionally well and set up a few of the trenches for walking through giving you an even more realistic experience. 

From here we drove north to the northern end of the Hindenburg Line and Bullecourt. The Hindenburg Line was a well constructed German trench system which was behind the German front line and Bullecourt was a village which was integrated directly in the Line. The Battles of Bullecourt were among the most ferocious endured by the Australian soldiers and cost the 4 Divisions who were there over 10,000 men.

The first stop in Bullecourt was the memorial to the 4 Divisions who took part in the 2 battles. This memorial is a bronzed WW1 Slouch Hat - it was very cool. We also took ourselves through the battlefields, past the sites of the German trenches which formed the Hindenburg Line, and also to the sites of the 2 Australian VC winning actions which happened during these battles. There were 2 other memorials along the way, one which has been embellished with private plaques and commemorates the 2423 soldiers who were killed here and have no known grave. The other memorial is the Australian Memorial Park which lies on the ground between the German trenches which is for all 10,000 men killed or wounded in the 2 battles.

And at this point came the end of another emotionally charged day with our ANZACs.