Anzac Day: Tony Abbott hails ‘our greatest moment on world stage’

Australians should not let the ‘heroic defeat of Gallipoli obscure the terrible victory of the Western Front’, the former PM says.

Tony Abbott shakes Malcolm Turnbull’s hand as Senator Derryn Hinch looks on at Villers-Bretonneux yesterday. Picture AAP

Tony Abbott says the part played by the Australian Imperial Force on the Western Front in 1918 was “probably the one time thus far in our history when we have dramatically impacted on the wider world”.

The former prime minister told The Australian that Gallipoli “was essentially a sideshow” in the broader sweep of World War I, before taking his first stroll through the Sir John Monash Centre at the Australian national memorial at the French village of Villers-­Bretonneux.

The centre was opened by Malcolm Turnbull on the afternoon before Anzac Day as he wound up his European trip after meetings with leaders in London, Berlin and Brussels.

Mr Abbott, who as prime minister commissioned the centre’s construction, saidthe purpose behind it was to recognise the role of Australian soldiers in shaping world affairs on the Western Front in the final year of the Great War.

He said it was imperative that Australia did not let the “heroic defeat of Gallipoli obscure the terrible victory of the Western Front”. “This was probably the one time thus far in our history when we have dramatically impacted on the wider world,” Mr Abbott said.

“The Western Front was a victory, not a defeat. And it was world-­shaping. Gallipoli, for all of its importance, was essentially a sideshow in the great strategy of the war.”

He said it was “a wonderful moment” to attend the opening of the centre, which paid tribute to the “great men who saved France”.

Mr Abbott said Monash was Australia’s “greatest ever general” and probably the “best Allied general of the Great War”. “Given the scale of that conflict, given its pivotal nature to the modern world, it is important we remember what this one man achieved and what the five divisions of the AIF under him achieved,” he said.

“We can only build a future if we appreciate where we have been and where we are.

‘‘And I would like to think our future will be that much better and stronger if we remember the greatest achievements of the past.

“We were about 10 per cent of the British army. But even if you look at the raw statistics, in the last six months of the war we captured 20 per cent of the territory, 20 per cent of the guns.

“And (on) August 8, the Battle of Amiens, which the German high command described as the ‘black day’ of the German army, was the moment when the German spirit was broken and when their defeat became a matter of when, not if. The Battle of Amiens was Mon­ash’s conception and ­execution. And it was almost ­entirely the work of the first AIF.”