From Reims we commenced a sobering 2 day journey along the Anzac Remembrance Trail.
It’s a self guided trail, documented by the Australian Department of Veterans Affairs, that takes you on a journey of the many trials and tribulations of Australian soldiers on the Western Front in World War One
We started at the Australian National Memorial in Villers Bretonneux. Villers was the site of one of the great Australian triumphs, with combined Australian divisions successfully liberating Villers Bretonneux through a counter attack against the German forces. But even in victory the losses were huge, and the many dead so very young.
Beneath the monument is the newly built Sir John Monash Centre. It’s a fabulous museum that takes you on a video journey through the heroics of our soldiers, as well as a dedication to the amazing leadership of Sir John Monash who changed the way battles were fought, saving many lives and along with it, achieving victories. Surprisingly, he was the first general to coordinate all armed forces in an attack; infantry supported by aerial cover, tanks and artillery. Famously even planning where shell craters would be for infantry cover.
We were so engaged by the displays that we forgot to take photos.
We then drove the short trip into Villers Bretonneux township and the Victoria School, a school helped to be rebuilt by Australia, and the site of the Franco-Australian museum.
Next stop was Le Hamel, the Australian Corps Memorial built in tribute to Sir John Monash and the victory achieved here by the soldiers under his leadership, including some 800 Americans. It was the first time he had control of all forces and he coordinated an attack down to the minute – 90 minutes was the plan, apparently it took 93 to achieve victory. The quote by the then French Prime Minister sums it up.
Our lunch stop was in a pretty French town called Albert. Which is also the site of the Leaning Virgin (aka Fanny Durack by the Australian troops), so called when the statue was bombed resulting in it leaning at 90 degrees looking like it was about to dive into a pool.
After lunch we drove a few kms to the Lochnager crater, a crater created by tunnelling under German trenches and then packing them with explosives.
From here we made the short drive to Pozières, the site of Australias greatest loss of life during the war; 23000 casualties, 6700 dead. The memorial is called the windmill, which was the main target of the attack and the memorial is now built on the remnants of the Windmill.
What was most startling to us was that many of the Australian soldiers that joined the battles on the Western Front were fresh from their escape from Gallipoli.
Our next stop was the British memorial and museum in Thiepval, the largest Commonwealth War Memorial in the world, commemorating 72,234 British Empire Soldiers missing after the battle of the Somme.
Our last memorial for the of the day was in Bullecourt. It’s only a small French farming village, so we were surprised to see the main street lined with Australian flags as we entered town.
Bullecourt was the site of an Australian victory but again at great cost of life, and was therefore where diggers lost all remaining faith in their British commanders….and thus the need for John Monash.
We arrived in Arras, our stopover point, at around 6pm. It had been a long day and emotionally draining. It’s so hard to comprehend how this could have happened and continues to happen.
We checked in and while having dinner watched the local farmers protesting by driving their tractors through town. Thankfully they didn’t drop manure on our road out, which they are known to do.
Early the next morning we drove to Fromelles, the site of another museum but more importantly the most recent war cemetery, Pheasant Wood, established by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as the result of the discovery of a mass grave and the use of DNA matching the identify many of the soldiers.
There are two main sites, the second is called VC corner which is situated in what was called No Man’s Land between the allied and German fronts.
Toronto Avenue was our next attempted stop but google maps failed us and we ended up on a dirt road in the middle of a farm. We had also crossed the border into Brussels at some point along the way without realising 😂.
Lost and with no signal we back tracked and reset our course for Passchendaele.
The museum is set in a memorial park, in a restored mansion. It’s been renovated quite recently and is very impressive. We both agreed it was the best of all the museums we visited. It documents the many offensives and defensives around Ypres, and its surrounding villages, by the combined commonwealth and French armies. It once again was a story of immense bravery and loss.
They had even recreated the trenches used by both sides, which gave you a real sense of what it would have been like.
After our first Belgian lunch, which was challenging with everything on the menu in Dutch, we stopped by Tyne Cot cemetery before heading to our final destination, Ypres.
We arrived in Ypres at around 3.30pm giving us enough time to check into our hotel and then visit the In Flanders museum before it closed.
The museum was impressive but more of what we had already seen at Passchendaele so we were able to move through it quickly and have some downtime and dinner before the main event we had come for. The playing of the Last Post under the Menin Gate.
At 8pm on every night since 1928, the people of Ypres have played the Last Post in memory of the those that were lost in WW1. It was incredibly moving and the perfect way to end our journey along the ANZAC trail.
What an amazing experience. We learned so much about the war and the efforts of our soldiers, and will see ANZAC day forever through different eyes. Along the way we had the chance to drive through beautiful French and Belgian countryside and villages that we would not have otherwise visited.