WHAT’S THE PLAN?
As you can see above we have a rough plan of where we are going. Namely the start and finish of the tour. Boronia Tours are going to be helping us with the exact locations of the tour. Below is a listing of some of the locations that we will deffinately we visiting on the tour.
YPRES AND THE MENIN GATE
The sounding of the last post at the Menin Gate at Ypres in Belgium is a must for the tour. The last post has been played every day at the Menin gate since the 11th of November 1929. During the German occupation of Ypres from the 20th of May to the 6th of September 1944 the ceremony was conducted in England at Brookwood Military Cemetary. This will be one of our first stops on the tour.
THE YPRES SALIENT
During the First World War many major battles took place around Ypres in Belgium. The battlefield has become known as the Ypres Salient. The Salient is a great arc of defensive lines running from Boesinghe in the north, almost to Ploegsteert in the South, with the ancient city of Ypres at it’s center. It was formed in late 1914 after Britsh Expeditionary Force and it’s French Allies clashed with German force in the First Battle of Ypres. By the time the last shells fell on Ypres in October 1918, the Salient had claimed 185,000 Commonwealth lives.
VILLERS BRETONNEUX
On the 21st of March 1918 the German Army staged a stunning breakthrough of the British Lines in the St Quentin area near Peronne France. Their intention was to drive a wedge between the British Empire and French Forces on the Western Front and capture key ports. The Australian Corp north of the German breakthrough, was ordered south to assist British and Canadian forces. Over the next month the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Australian Divisions fought at a number of locations in the area of the Ancre and Somme rivers. One of the key battles was by the 5th Division at Villers-Bretonneux on the 24th-25th of April1918. The battle for Villers-Bretonneux was dubbed by a British observer as ‘perhaps the greatest individual feat of the war’ up to that time. The cost to Australia was some 2500 men killed or wounded. It never again, during World War I, fell into enemy hands. The Villers Bretonneux Military Cemetary will be one of the highlights of the tour for Doug as one of his ancestors, Archibald Dixon, was killed at Villers Bretonneux and his name is on the wall at the Memorial.
FROMELLES
The importance of this battlefield in Australian History is that it was where the 1st Australian Imperial Force (AIF) fought it’s first major battle in Europe. The Australian Memorial Park is situated around the remains of German fortificationson the part of their line that was captured by the 14th Australian Brigade and held overnight on 19-20 July 1916. The Park now contains a major bronze sculpture entitled ‘Cobbers’ depicting the recue of a wounded soldier.
Pozieres
The obelisk is a memorial to the 1st Division. The battle of Pozieres was one of a large number of separate battles that together made up the battle of the Somme. The Somme operation remains one of the most controversial, and least understood, battles in the history of the British Empire. Day one of the battle still holds the distinction of being the bloodiest day for the British Army, with nearly 60,000 casualties, including 20,000 killed.
Pozieres village, and its adjacent windmill, occupied the highest ground on the Thiepval-Ginchy ridge and was thus the key to the German defences in the whole area. It was one of the highest priority objectives on day one of the Somme attack. It had still not been captured two weeks later.
The main British attacks by the Fourth Army were aimed to the south of Pozieres, with responsibility for taking the village itself being left to the British Third Army. Third Army conducted four unsuccessful attacks against Pozieres in the first two weeks of the Somme operation. When 1 ANZAC Corps were transferred to Third Army on 17 July, 1st Australian Division was ordered to attack the village the very next day. This was deferred to enable preparations to be made and the first attack by the Australians was launched at 12.30 am on Sunday 23 July. The attack was mounted in 3 stages by the Australian 1st and 3rd Infantry brigades. The first, to capture the German ‘Pozieres’ Trench, was up the slope south of the village. Once the Trench was captured, the attackers moved on to the back hedges on the southern outskirts of Pozieres and the third stage involved capturing the whole south-east of the village up to the line of the Old Roman Road.
The division achieved all its objectives by about 5.30 am on the 24th and then successfully cleared the Germans from the rest of the village. Unfortunately, the attacking formations on either side had not kept pace and the Australians now found themselves dangerously exposed and subject to counter-attacks from the front and either flank. Attack now became defence as for the next four days the division beat off repeated determined German counter-attacks and was subject to the heaviest and most concentrated shelling of the war. Despite this, the Division held on and was relieved by the 2nd Australian Division on 27 July.
The second part of the battle, involving the 2nd Division, was the capture of the German defences north of the village, known as the ‘Old German (OG) Lines’. The first attempt, on 29 July, was an expensive failure. Pressure for a quick attack meant preparations had been poor. In particular, failure to construct ‘jumping off’ trenches close to the enemy lines left the assaulting infantry exposed to artillery and machine gun fire for too long. The second attempt, on 4 August, was much better planned and executed. Of particular importance was the capture of the Windmill on 5th August, which enabled the Australians to overlook the German defensive positions. Casualties were so great however, that the Division had to be relieved by the 4th Australian Division on the 6th.
The Windmill at Pozieres was the site to which Australia’s Official War Historian, Charles Bean, was referring when he said: “[this site] marks a ridge more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth.” Bean was correct, the battle cost the ANZAC Corps the following casualties:
1st Australian Division 5,285 officers and men
2nd Australian Division 6,846 officers and men
4th Australian Division* 4,649 officers and men
(*as at 16th August when relieved.)
The intensity of the fighting can be estimated from the number of Victoria Crosses awarded during the battle for Pozieres.
23 July Lieutenant A.S. Blackburn 10th Battalion
23 July Private J. Leak 9th Battalion
24/25 July Private T. Cooke 8th Battalion
28 July SGT C.C. Castleton 5th Machine Gun Coy
This is one of the reasons Pozieres will be a major stop for us all.
Le Hamel
The Battle of Hamel (4 July 1918) was a successful attack launched by the Australian Corps of the Australian Imperial Force against German positions in and around the town of Hamel in northern France during World War I.
The battle was planned and commanded by Lieutenant General John Monash (later knighted). Many of the tactics used were illustrative of the departure from the largely unsuccessful tactics of earlier years and the development of modern military tactics such as the use of combined arms. In preparation, Monash made the men from the different tank and infantry divisions mix and form friendships, and each infantry battalion painted its insignia on a tank. As well as fostering camaraderie, this made it easier to plan movements, as each tank and battalion were colour-coded and would advance together.
Arras
A museum has been opened in Arras, France to commemorate the astonishing work of 450 New Zealanders who built a network of tunnels between Arras and the German front lines during World War 1. The museum, Carrière Wellington, 22 metres underground, is named after the cavern where it is situated. Many of the tunnellers were recruited from gold and coal mining districts in New Zealand. They used place-names from home to navigate the complex underground passages, from Russell in the north to Bluff in the south.
About 20 kilometres of tunnels could accommodate 20,000 men. Facilities included running water, electric lighting, kitchens, latrines, a light rail system and a medical centre with a fully equipped operating theatre. 15,000 troops assembled safely for the planned attack in April 1917 without alerting German troops in the front line. In the ensuing Battle of Arras they broke through to the surface, pushing German lines back 11 kilometres. Our brothers and sisters across the ditch sacrificed as much as Australia did in the war and their courage and bravery should be sung as loud as ours.
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the following for the above information:
- Australian Government, Department of Veterans affairs
- www.greatwar.co.uk
- The Australian War Memorial
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission
- www.diggerhistory.info
- www.defence.gov.au
- www.scoop.co.nz
