Pozières - a Debt as yet Unpaid..... by Grant Turrill
The
Battle of Pozières was a two-week struggle for the French village of Pozières
and the ridge on which it stands, during the middle stages of the 1916 Battle
of the Somme. Though British divisions were involved in most phases of the
fighting, Pozières is primarily remembered as an Australian battle.
The
Battle of Pozières saw Australian soldiers enter the battle on the 23rd
July 1916.
Just
after midnight on the 23rd, the 1st and 3rd
Brigades of the 1st Australian Division commenced the assault from
positions to the south of the village, and captured German positions, including
a strong point which became known as the Gibraltar Blockhouse. The Division held
their positions throughout three days of intense German bombardment and counterattacks.
The
1st Division suffered its heaviest casualties of the war at the
Battle of Pozières, and for this reason, the village was chosen as the site of
their memorial, which stands opposite the ruins of the Gibraltar Blockhouse.
The
1st Division was relieved on the 27th July, by which time
they had lost 5,285 men killed, wounded or missing. They were to return a few
weeks later to fight at Mouquet Farm.
The
2nd Division was ordered to take Pozières heights. The attack
commenced on the 29th July, but the attack failed at a cost of 3,500
Australian casualties. The Australian commander of the 2nd Division
asked that his men might attack again, rather than be withdrawn after failure.
Following an intense bombardment on the 4th August, the Australians
seized Pozières heights. The 2nd Division was relieved, and the 4th
Division secured the hard won positions. Attacking north along the ridge, the
Australians in ten days of continuous action reached Mouquet Farm.
The
Battle of Mouquet Farm, also known as the Fighting for Mouquet Farm, took place
as part of the Battle of Pozières.
For
four weeks, until relieved by the Canadians on the 5th September
1916, the men of the 1st, 2nd and 4th
Australian Divisions took part in seven major attacks to dislodge the Germans
from deep defences at the farm and surrounding trench systems.
One
of the last actions before being relieved, the struggle for one German trench,
the ‘Fabeck Graben’, between 3rd and 5th September, was
described by Charles Bean as ‘one of the bitterest fights in the history of the
AIF’.
The
Men of Pozières
The
Soldiers who fought and died at Pozières were, for the most part, survivors of
the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign.
Thrown
into battle at Pozières, the men of the 1st, 2nd and 4th
Divisions suffered what is said to have been the most concentrated artillery
barrage of all time.
With
German Forces on three sides, and their own artillery firing from the rear,
these men lived and fought in a constant rain of shells. At its peak, the
German bombardment of Pozières was the equal of anything yet experienced on the
Western Front, and far surpassed the worst shelling previously endured by any
Australian divisions.
Australian
forces suffered intense military bombardment in subsequent battles, but none of
them compared to the duration or effect as seen at Pozières.
The
scale of the barrage can be noted from the Rolls of Honour, with over 4,000 of
the 7,000 killed being listed as missing, and commemorated at the Australian
National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.
They
lie in the fields to this day, and every so often, the remains of another
soldier are recovered, as was the case in 2011 and 2013.
Genesis
of the Australian War Memorial
As
soon as he was able after the beginning of the Australian actions around
Pozières, Charles Bean, Australia’s official war correspondent and later
official historian, began touring the battlefield.
Despite
the constant danger, he visited as much of it as he could. He described the new
landscape of Pozières that had been created by modern artillery. His words give
meaning to the expression, ‘war torn’,
“Imagine a
gigantic ash heap, a place where dust and rubbish have been cast for years
outside some dry, derelict, God–forsaken up–country township.
Imagine some
broken–down creek bed in the driest of our dry central Australian districts,
abandoned for a generation to the goats, in which the hens have been scratching
as long as men can remember.
Then take away the
hens and the goats and all traces of any living or moving thing. You must not
even leave a spider. Put here, in evidence of some old tumbled roof, a few roof
beams and tiles sticking edgeways from the ground, and the low faded ochre
stump of the windmill peeping over the top of the hill, and there you have
Pozières.”
CEW Bean Letters from
France Melbourne, 1917, pp.113–4
And
it was during these hellish weeks that Bean became convinced of the need to
tell people in faraway Australia of the achievements, endurance and suffering
of their family members and friends in France.
Bean’s
dream eventually resulted in the building of the Australian War Memorial in
Canberra, a memorial conceived amidst the devastated landscape of the Somme
battlefields.
The
Windmill Site
The Windmill
Site, bought later by the Australian War Memorial Board – with the old mound
still there – marks a ridge more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than
any other place on earth
CEW Bean Anzac to Amiens,
1961, p 264.
The 2nd
Australian Divisional Memorial (foreground) and site of the Pozieres Windmill (background)
marked by a small tripod shaped flag pole.
On the 11th
November 1993, soil from the Windmill site was cast over the coffin of
Australia’s Unknown Soldier during his funeral at the Australian War Memorial
in Canberra.
Pozières
Remembered
On
the Centenary of the day that Australian soldiers commenced their assault, Grant and Pennie attended the inauguration of the Pozières Memorial Park Stage One, and
a feature of this event will be 7,000 crosses in place in the formation of “The
Rising Sun”, representing a cross for each Australian killed in the battle.
This
will be the first time in 100 years that 4,112 of these men, never found, will
have a cross to represent their sacrifice in the fields of Pozières, where they
rest to this day.
These
crosses, each holding a red knitted poppy, were hand crafted in Australia and
shipped to France, and is an initiative of Ormiston College in Queensland, and
represents over 10,000 hours of volunteer work.
The
work of the Pozières Remembrance Association will continue, and I urge everyone
to visit their page and contribute to this very worthy project.
Plan of
the Pozières Memorial Park
I swiped this picture off Grant's Facebook page this morning!
And just to prove that we are everywhere!!!
Pennie and Grant bumped into Jacqui L halfway across the world!!! another Aussie Hero Quilter! They had not met before!
Thanks very much Grant and Pennie.
Lest we forget!
Beautifully written. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteLoved reading this piece about our history. Thankyou for sharing it with us.
ReplyDelete