Day 9 – All Quiet on the Western Front

Today we discovered that transport in Paris is so much more difficult than it is in Germany. We wanted to simply buy a ticket to Amiens to meet up with our tour to the battlefields. But no…getting a ticket became a nightmare. Machines would not dispense, ticket booths were unavailable or didn’t speak English, but finally a ticket and time to grab a quick croissant and coffee before boarding the train to Amiens.

One hour later we arrived in Amiens, where there is extensive renovation happening at the railway station. Finding a WC was no mean feat and then we went to find our tour.
We were collected by Silvestre in a mini bus, joining 6 other Aussies. Destination battlefields.
Our first stop was Le Hamel. In the middle of a farm, here we made our first stop at the Le Hamel monument. It recalls Monash’s first involvement in leading the allied forces where the integration of tank, land and air forces saw the German position on the hill outside the town taken in just 93 minutes in 1918. The monument is very simple and very moving. In parts of it there is still evidence of the German trenches and , growing wild on the edges of them, small red poppies. We also saw an unexploded shell, dug up the day before from a farmer’s property. They simply leave them by the side of the path and a disposal team comes along and collects them. The fields are full of unexploded shells, even all this time after World War I. Standing on the hill and looking down at the town of Le Hamel, the photos on the memorial show the countryside to be much the same as it was back then. One photograph shows the town, damaged significantly by bombing and one pylon standing. That pylon can still be seen today, part of a fence in the town. Just amazing.

Our second stop was the tiny town of Bray en Somme. Here we took a deviation from the Aussie sites to visit a German cemetery. This cemetery, on the outskirts of town was virtually hidden from the road, fenced in and covered in broad leafed trees. Silvestre told us that German cemeteries were, by enlarge like that, as the locals did not want them to be particularly visible. The dark metal simple crosses or Jewish headstones were quite different to what we expect of a military cemetery and there is an absence of flowers. The standards of trees were very beautiful and shed shade and made the area very peaceful. Leaving Bray en Somme we came across a roadblock ( yep feels like we are on the Amazing Race). A large metal tank like structure was being carried on the back of a truck. It was so large that the road was going to remain blocked until the police could find the people to move their cars so that the truck could travel along the narrow road. So having gone around the road block we saw the Somme canal, dug by the Germans during the war because the Somme River was not navigable. Next stop was Le Grande Mine. This is the remains of a huge crater made when the Allied forces dug a tunnel for 1km under the German trenches, loaded the tunnel with explosives and blew it up. They used a huge 28 tones of explosives.. had the desired effect but they probably didn’t need quite so much. The hole is massive, and it has filled in a lot since due to erosion.

The Great Mine

Our lunch stop was the tiny village of Albert. Albert had a population of 12000 before WWI. At the end of the war its population was only 129 and the town was literally flattened. The beautiful church has been totally rebuilt in a very old style with mosaic work everywhere. It looks a lot older than its 80 or so years. Inside the church there were 3 small wooden panels from the original church altar. These were rescued by a local Jewish family and were returned to the church as a monument. Very moving. Today the town boasts a population of about 10000 although Chris and I were quite convinced that 9500 of them were all on summer vacation as everything was closed. Albert has been featured on a recent year’s Tour de France. It looks just like a TDF village. Silvestre told us that it is very very expensive for towns to host a stage of the tour. His town of Peronne hosted a stage some years ago and it cost the town over a million euro!

After lunch we headed off in the direction of Poziers. We visited the Australian 1st division monument. It is located on a ridge line, which today is hidden by cornfields. But when you climb to the top of the observation post which is built just in front of where the German bunker and emplacement was…Wow what a commanding view. This was obviously an important strategic position, earlier in WWI round 1916.

1st Division Memorial

Another little detour saw us visit a German Command bunker in middle of farm property. Farmer even tractored by as we were there. The bunker consisted of two “rooms”, reinforced with corrugated iron and covered in very very thick concrete. Evidence of heavy shelling was seen on the bunker and this one, being a command bunker was not actually on the front line. Along the side of the dirt road next to the bunker, Silvestre found two small balls of shrapnel, left over from explosions. The fields are covered with this sort of stuff.. little tiny, exceptionally heavy round balls smaller than a jaffa. The stories grew more and more chillingly real.

Moving on to the 2nd Division Memorial we came to the site of the Windmill at Pozieres. I knew about the Windmill at Poziers and imagined a huge hill!!! What it was in fact was a tiny little rise. It is a beautiful monument and Aussie tourists who have visited have left tiny Australian flags fluttering in the breeze on the windmill site. In an area of less than 1 square kilometre between the 1st div and 2nd div memorials there were 23000 Aussies killed injured or lost in less than 2 months during 1916. This was a fierce and bloody time.

We passed the Ulster and British memorials at Theierval, and moved onto the New Foundland monument. It is a pile of rocks with a large Caribou on top of it that looks out over preserved parkland bought by the New Foundland chaplain from French farmers after war. Because this is a preserved site we saw trenches, shell holes and the like and we were told that approx 300 soldiers are still buried, unidentified in no man’s land, a stretch of land only about 200 metres if that. At this point in the tour we had a change of drivers. We bid bye bye to Silvestre and said hello to Lea.

It was then a long drive 30km to Villers-Bretonneux.



This is a Commonwealth war grave site with an Australian monument to the 11000 fallen who have no known grave across the Somme. This is such a moving place. Its aspect looks out over beautiful lush pastureland. It is quiet and peaceful on the top of the hill and yet it marks the site of a very significant Australian victory in WWI where the Aussie forces stopped the German advance to Amiens at Villers-Bretonneux and saved the town. The stories on the gravestones talk of valor and love and deep respect and some of utter futility. It is just such a moving place.

We then entered the town of V-B which is covered in kangaroos and Aussie memorabilia. It is here that we went to the Victoria school, hall and museum. This is a school that was built for the town’s children by the people of Victoria. The school also has an assembly hall, not very common in France, and it is made of Aussie hardwoods and decorated with carvings of Australian animals and the like. On the upper level is the Museum which has a very interesting collection of memorabilia, in conjunction with the war memorial in Canberra. What a place. Over the playground there is a big sign “Never forget Australia.” It is a special place there is no doubt about that.

Whilst in the museum we found an Amiens cathedral brochure. Once more we had a long drive, this time along the route of a Roman road - very straight and quick until we hit the outskirts of Amiens. We said farewell to our guide and fellow Aussies then bolted up the town square to the cathedral . Wow was that worth the trip. It is actually the largest gothic cathedral in France in terms of its length. Although undergoing extensive renovation, we could see beautiful stained glass and amazing carving. What a find and we just stumbled upon it too :)

We flopped onto the train bound for Paris and had a little nap, exhausted from everything we had seen and experienced today. All is now quiet on the western front… it is a truly beautiful place.