France: WW1 tour
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The Battle of Polygon Wood took place during the second phase of the Battle of Passchendaele in World War I . The battle was fought near Ypres , Belgium , in an area named the Polygon Wood after the layout of the area. Much of the woodland had been under intense shelling during the Battle of Passchendaele, and the area had changed hands several times. British General Herbert Plumer replaced the ambitious general assaults that had previously been employed with a series of small attacks with limited objectives, which he named his "Bite and hold" plan.
Battle of Polygon Wood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Everything is so quiet – The ‘Nursery’ The countryside to the south-west of Armentières is flat and criss-crossed by numerous French departmental roads. To navigate here, where the Australians were first sent when they arrived on the Western Front in March–April 1916, it is advisable to have a good map such as the Serie Bleue, Cart Topographique 1:25000:1cm=250m, Armentières, No2404E. The D945 leads south from Armentières and soon crosses the A25 Autoroute where it becomes the D222 to Bois Grenier.
Fromelles, VC Corner Australian Cemetery and Memorial
The village of Le Hamel is 17 kilometres east-north-east of Amiens. When in Lamotte-Warfusee on the N29, turn left to get to the village. More American and Australian soldiers in Pear Trench, Le Hamel, 4 July 1918. The ruined village of Le Hamel is in the background.
Le Hamel, Australian Corps Memorial
Montbrehain, Calvaire Cemetery
Montbrehain is 10 kilometres south-west of Bohain on the D28. Calvaire Cemetery is at the northern most point of the village, on high ground, near to the Civil Cemetery. It is signposted close to the church in the centre of Montbrehain.
One way to approach Fifth Australian Division Memorial in Polygon Wood is from the small side road that leads off the Meenseweg, the ‘Menin Road’, the N8. This road can be found on the left not far beyond the Bellewaerde Park. It then runs fairly straight across country with housing developments at Nonnebossen to the left until it reaches and passes over the freeway, the A19. Polygon Wood is dead ahead and the road skirting the wood to the left leads to the entrance to Buttes New British Cemetery and the Fifth Division Memorial. Within a year of the end of World War I, Captain Alexander Ellis, late 29th Battalion, 8th Brigade, Fifth Australian Division, had produced his history of the division, the only Australian divisional history to come out of the ‘Great War’.
Zonnebeke, Fifth Australian Division Memorial
Nous vous proposons des circuits à la journée ou la demi-journée, pour groupes et individuels, entièrement personnalisable, n'hésitez pas à nous contacter. • Pour les petits groupes (2 à 7 personnes), individuels etc. le transport est assuré par Chemins d'Histoire à bord d'un confortable minibus Citroën Jumpy Atlante climatisé. • Groupes voyageant dans leur propre car (scolaires, autocaristes, associations, comité d'entreprise etc.). Chemins d'Histoire vous guide également sur les différents circuits dans votre propre car.
Chemins d'Histoire - Battlefield Tours - Australian Tours - Visites guidées des champs de Bataille : Somme - Picardie - Artois
Street sign: Tynecotstraat, Tyne Cot Street. [DVA] A side road off the N303 between Broodseinde and Passandale (Passchendaele) leads to Tyne Cot, the largest British and Commonwealth war cemetery in the world. Here are 11,953 headstones of men killed, or who died of wounds, in the defence of Ieper between 1914 and 1918. They died especially during the months of that epic struggle known as the ‘Flanders Offensive’ of 1917 when the British and French tried to roll back the German positions along these low–lying ridges and break through beyond them towards the Channel coast.
Zonnebeke, Tyne Cot Cemetery
The 30th Battalion was raised as part of the 8th Brigade at Liverpool in New South Wales on 5 August 1915. Most of its recruits hailed from the Newcastle region and other parts of country New South Wales, but almost an entire company was composed of former RAN ratings from Victoria. The 8th Brigade joined the newly raised 5th Australian Division in Egypt and proceeded to France, destined for the Western Front, in June 1916. The 30th Battalion’s first major battle was at Fromelles on 19 July 1916.
30th Battalion: Australian War Memorial
Australian War Memorial - First World War Official Histories
The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 is a 12-volume series covering Australia’s involvement in the First World War. The series was edited by the official historian Charles Bean, who also wrote six of the volumes, and was published between 1920 and 1942. The books, with their familiar covers, “the colour of dried blood” in the words of one reviewer, rapidly became highly regarded internationally. Bean’s work established the tradition and set the standard for all subsequent Australian official war histories. This preface was written for the University of Queensland Press editions which were published in the 1980s and is applicable to all volumes.
Australians on the Western Front 1914-1918 : The Journey
An Australian journey on the Western Front From Ieper (Ypres) in Belgium to Péronne in France is 133 kilometres by road. The landscape between the two towns – across West Flanders in Belgium and the French departments of the Nord, Pas-de-Calais and the Somme – is strewn with reminders that this was a vast and historic battleground. In the middle of fields, around bends in country roads, on hillsides and in villages, towns and cities are hundreds of cemeteries. They hold the victims of battles whose names were once known throughout the English-speaking world – Somme, Ypres, Arras, Vimy, Bullecourt, Loos, Amiens.The Battles of the Somme 1916
In this opening phase, the British assault broke into and gradually moved beyond the first of the German defensive complexes on the Somme. Success on the first day in the area between Montauban and Mametz led to a redirection of effort to that area, for the initial attack was defeated with huge losses north of Mametz. There was a stiff fight for Trones Wood and costly, hastily planned and piecemeal attacks that eventually took La Boisselle, Contalmaison and Mametz Wood. By 13 July the British advance had taken it to a point where it was now facing the second German defensive complex. A well planned and novel night attack on 14 July took British troops through that line but they now ran into stiffening enemy defence at Guillemont, Delville Wood and Longueval, High Wood and Pozieres. Attack and counter attack ground relentlessly on as the British edged forward.Impossible to stop them – the 4th Division Memorial Close to the A26 Autoroute, and along minor roads from the village of Bellenglise, the memorial to the Fourth Division is the most easterly and isolated of the four Australian divisional memorials in France. Erected on the heights of Les Chaudriès it can also be found by a side road leading up into the countryside to the left off the D31at Le Petit Arbre, a small settlement about 1.5 kilometres short of Bellenglise. Bridge over the A26 Autoroute with the Fourth Division Memorial, Les Chaudriès, in the background.
Bellenglise, Fourth Australian Division Memorial
Hindenburg Line and Montbrehain 27 September – 5 October 1918
Captain John Harry Fletcher MC (Military Cross), Lieutenant Joseph Lindley Scales MM, DSO (Distinguished Service Order) and Captain John Austin Mahony MC, all of the 24th Battalion, photographed in 1918. Captains Fletcher and Mahony both died as a result of the fighting at Montbrehain on 5 October 1918. [AWM P03688.006] By late September 1918 the alliance of the so-called Central Powers – the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria – was in trouble.Villers-Bretonneux, Australian National Memorial
World War II bullet holes made by German aircraft on the tower of the Australian National War Memorial, Villers–Bretonneux. [DVA] Site of the present Australian War Memorial, between the towns of Corbie and Villers–Bretonneux, France, c.1920.Adelaide Cemetery is west of Villers-Bretonneux township, on the north side of the main road from Amiens to St. Quentin. Villers-Bretonneux is 16 kilometres east of Amiens. More Adelaide Cemetery is on the outskirts of Villers-Bretonneux, on the left of the N29 when you are travelling from Amiens. The cemetery is up an incline along a narrow grass path with trees to the right and emerging views of large fields and woods to the left.