Wind farm to tower over Australian National Memorial at Villers-­Bretonneux in France

The Australian National Memorial at Villers-­Bretonneux in France, where thousands of Diggers lie buried, will soon have a giant wind farm as a backdrop.

The Australian National Memorial at Villers-­Bretonneux, where thousands of Diggers lie buried, will soon have a giant wind farm as a backdrop.

Every classroom in the local school carries the message: “N’oublions jamais l’Australie” — never forget Australia — for our role in saving the town, but a French appeals court still decided it was a great idea to plonk eight 156m-high turbines overlooking our war dead.

The memorial at Villers-­Bretonneux.

The memorial, engraved with the names of 10,719 Australian soldiers who died in France in World War I and have no known grave, was the chief reason local officials rejected the wind farm proposal in 2017.

The turbines will be built on the advance line of the battle of Amiens fought on August 8, 1918, in which Australian soldiers played a pivotal role. The casualties of the battle were interred at the Villers-Bretonneux military cemetery about 6km away.

But if more remains of Australian soldiers are found during construction of the wind farm, procedures have been drawn up by the French government and Commonwealth War Graves Commission to afford them a dignified final resting place.

A map of the proposed wind farm, just 6km from the Australian National Memorial.

The French court acc­epted the giant turbines will be visible from the Australian National Memorial but claimed they would not “undermine the character” of the most important marker of our nation’s immense sacrifice on the Western Front.

The Australian government is counting on assurances from the French that the Sir John Monash Centre museum, the Australian National Memorial, war cemeteries and monuments along the Australian Remembrance Trail will be preserved, protected and respected.

“These sites will continue to commemorate into perpetuity those who fought and died for all of us,” a spokesman for Veterans’ Affairs Minister Darren Chester said.

“This is a decision for the French government.”

Tony Abbott, then-prime minister, lays a wreath at the Australian National Memorial in Villers-Brettoneux in 2014. Picture Jake Nowakowski

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has gone further and appealed directly to French President Emmanuel Macron, asking him to step in and permanently halt the wind farm’s construction.

“These are sacred sites and as far as possible should be left as they are, rather than scarred,” Mr Abbott told The Sunday Telegraph.

“We all have to live and generate power, but wind turbines on battlefields — particularly battlefields ­sacred to the memories of 46,000 Australians who died defending France in the Great War — is just a desecration.”

In a letter to Mr Macron, Mr Abbott asked the French President to intervene because “the souls of the dead deserve to rest in peace”.

An Australian soldier pays his respects during Anzac Day, 2009. Picture: Michel Spingler/AP

“Not only was Villers-­Bretonneux a decisive battle to defeat the last big ­German push; but so many momentous places are close by, such as the Somme Valley; and Le Hamel, where General Sir John Monash first masterminded the all-arms warfare that subsequently liberated France after August 1918,” Mr Abbott said in the letter.

“The turbine installation has been opposed by local people as surveyed, by all the local councils, by the Somme departmental council, by the local prefect, and by the ­administrative tribunal of ­Amiens but — remarkably — approved by the Douai court of appeal.”

Originally published as Wind farm to tower over Australian National Memorial at Villers-­Bretonneux in France