Today our emphasis changed from old things to more recent events.
We were picked up by our tour guide from Arras and set off. As she drove, Jacky our guide gave us a detailed explanation of the build upon to war from the mid 19th century and this was very helpful.
The tour today involves the Australian campaigns on the Somme.
There were 4 others on the tour and they were all Australians with very broad Australian accents. It is a while since we have heard others from home. I hope our accent isn't so broad!
First stop was the Beaumont Hamel Memorial which is a memorial site in dedicated to the commemoration of Newfoundland forces members who were killed during World War I. The 74-acre preserved battlefield park encompasses the grounds over which the Newfoundland Regiment made their unsuccessful attack on 1 July 1916 during the first day of the Battle of the Somme and is the largest area of the Somme battlefield that has been preserved. Along with preserved trench lines, there are a number of memorials and cemeteries contained within the site.
Our guide gave us a detailed description of the way the trenches were set up and what it was like. There are still huge craters everywhere from the shells. The sounds, smells and sights must have been horrific.
Pozieres Mouquet Farm
This is the Mouquet Farm Memorial along the road between Pozieres and Theipval. The original location of the farm can be seen behind the Memorial. It was slightly to the left of the present farm. The farm building had cellars underneath which were extended to make an underground fortress. Between 8th August and 5th September 1916 the Australians attacked Mouquet Farm. The Australians tried to take the farm seven times and suffered horrendous shelling, as the intense fighting was conducted within a relatively small area.
The Australian War Memorial owns a little piece of France – the Windmill site at Pozières. Australia’s official war historian, Charles Bean, suggested the purchase because ‘The Windmill site ... marks a ridge more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth’. Over seven weeks in 1916, at the Battle of the Somme, the Australian Imperial Force suffered 23,000 casualties, more than 6700 of whom died, in the countryside around the Windmill. On 11 November 1993 soil from the Windmill site was cast over the coffin of Australia’s Unknown Soldier during his funeral at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
This mound of earth and concrete is all that remains of the Windmill. This was a formidable German machine gun post and the object of Australian attacks in July and August, 1916. It was captured by by Australian troops on 4th August. They fell more thickly on this ridge than on any other battlefield of the war. The memorial commemorates the 23,000 Australians killed or wounded in the Pozieres battle.
The Lochnagar mine was a mine dug by the 179th Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers, under a German field fortification known as Schwabenhöhe. The mine was sprung at 7:28 a.m. on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The enormous crater has been preserved as a memorial.
We visited the Australian National Memorial, Australian Corps Memorial Park and Le Hamel.
Jacky showed us the battlefields where Monash`s detailed tactic's resulted in all objectives being taken in 93 minutes.
We saw the school that was built from funds raised by a Victorian soldier after the war that encouraged every Victorian to donate a penny to the cause.
Jacky showed us the battlefields where Monash`s detailed tactic's resulted in all objectives being taken in 93 minutes.
It was a full day and a bit surreal to think of this now peaceful French countryside so filled with horror.
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