The caves in rural France where Anzac heroes scrawled their names after going behind enemy lines
IN caves in a small village just north of Amiens in France, you’ll find the names of Anzac soldiers who went behind enemy lines scrawled on the walls.
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ANZAC DAY services will be held across northern France and Belgium today to honour the 295,000 Australian soldiers who served along the Western Front during World War I.
More than 3000 people are expected to pay homage at a dawn service at the Australian National Memorial site outside the town of Villers-Bretonneux, where the names of more than 10,000 lost soldiers, killed in action and their bodies never found, are engraved upon the walls.
Other services will be held at Bullecourt, where 10,000 Australians died in just two bloody battles in April and May 1917, and at several sites in Belgium.
Veteran’s Affairs Minister Dan Tehan, who is representing the Australian Government in France, said the Western Front had taken a dreadful toll, with more Australian soldiers killed here — 20,000 in all — throughout 1917.
“More Australian lost their lives in that year that at any other time in our history,’’ he told News Corp.
“It was our darkest hour in the loss of life.
“It makes it absolutely compelling that the sacrifices those soldiers made must not be forgotten.
“They couldn’t see the war would ever end yet they were prepared to do their duty on our behalf.’’
The minister yesterday visited the extraordinary caves at Naours, a little village north of Amiens, where Australian soldiers who went behind enemy lines scrawled their names in underground caverns.
The perfectly-preserved writing was only discovered several years ago, and the caves are now a commemorative site.
Across the region, French citizens continue to pay their respects to the Australian soldiers who fought to defend them 100 years ago.
In the cathedral town of Amiens, the Australian flag hangs from the windows of the shops in the town square.
At tiny Bullecourt, an Australian pub, the Hotel Canberra, sits incongruously on the historic main street, while at Villers-Brettoneux, a large sign in English urges students at the Franco-Australian school not to forget Australia.
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The $100 million New Australian Government-funded Sir John Monash Centre at the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Brettoneux which opens next year is expected to encourage a new pilgrimage for generations of young Australians exploring and honouring their family’s military history.
Australia’s Ambassador to France, Stephen Brady, will give one of the speeches at the dawn service today and acknowledge the sacrifice of the Anzacs, and the enduring friendship of the French.
“Incomprehensible numbers of lives (were) lost in the Allied cause; here, at so many places, and for so many, so far from home,’’ he will say.
“France and Australia stand alongside of one another as true friends in this place, an emblem of comradeship.’’
Originally published as The caves in rural France where Anzac heroes scrawled their names after going behind enemy lines
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