Pozières is where Australia suffered horrific losses in the summer of 1916, with over 23,000 casualties (killed, wounded or missing in action). We will visit three memorials to Australian troops: the First Division Memorial, the Windmill Memorial, and the A.I.F. Memorial at Mouquet Farm. We will also stop for a brief walk around the near-by Thiepval Memorial, which commemorates over 72,000 mostly British soldiers whose bodies were never found, lost between 1915 and 1918.

We then drive in the direction of Villers-Bretonneux, stopping along the way for lunch, which we suggest limiting to an hour so that we can include all of the key Australian sites in the Somme Valley (it can be longer, if you wish). The Australian Memorial outside Villers-Bretonneux commemorates all Australian soldiers who fought in France between 1916 and 1918. It also lists the names of 10,982 Australian soldiers whose bodies were never found (6 were found since the creation of the memorial).

We then proceed to the Sir John Monash Center, which is adjoined to the memorial. Named after the general who rose to assume command of the entire Australian Corps, it focusses on the Australia’s participation on the Western Front of World War I, and uses inter-active multi-media to evoke the record. There is extensive input from participants, and visitors are encouraged to down-load the application that was created specifically for the purpose of visiting the center.

At the time that Monash assumed over-all command, the Australia Corps was the largest body of Allied troops in the Western front. An advocate of meticulous planning and the coordination and simultaneous action of multiple forces (air, artillery, infantry and armor), he achieved brilliant victories. In a war often remembered for commanders who cavalierly ordered hundreds of thousands of their troops to their deaths, his advocacy of the necessity to protect them as much as possible was unique.

We continue your tour of Australian WWI battle sites in France by driving into Villers-Bretonneux, where Australian troops on April 4, 1918, stopped a German offensive that threatened Amiens. Many believe that this success eventually led to the collapse of the German forces in the Western front and changed the course of the war. We will visit the Franco-Australian Museum in town, and then drive to and visit the Adelaide Australian Cemetery outside of town.