Strange Notations From a Laborious Life

 I’m breaking cover today to mention that it is the 97th anniversary of the tragic Australian involvement in the Battle of Fromelles during the Great War. As you lay down tonight remember it was around the same time on the other side of the world, on a clear and sunny day in the fields of France, that Australian soldiers first strode into action on the Western Front.

 Near the little village of Fromelles in northern France, 7000 Diggers of the Fifth Division were ordered to attack German lines, supported by British troops on their flanks and given an objective of three German trench lines to capture. It was the first show of force of Australian manhood on the continent and by fresh troops, men who had not seen the horrors of Gallipoli. A new baptism of fire.

 In a typical show of shoddy British army staff work, the British support on the flanks never arrived and the third line of trenches in fact never existed, leaving thousands of Australians, those who had survived initial contact with the enemy, surrounded, cut off and doomed. Of the men who went into action that day, 5500 became casualties as they struggled to fight their way back to their own lines. Over 2000 were killed. It was the bloodiest few hours in Australian history. 27 sets of brothers died. Most lay in what was then no man’s land, doomed to pass eternity unnoticed and unaccounted for.

 A few years ago a mass grave was located on what was the battlefield of Fromelles and many Australian soldiers who died that day have been miraculously identified through DNA and laid in marked graves by grieving and loving relatives whom they never knew but who never forget them or their sacrifice. A fitting end for brave men who gave more than they should have had to.

 Of course it was only the beginning of the tragedy of Australian involvement in France and Belgium in World War One and even the sanguine result of Fromelles was overshadowed by the devastation of Australian manhood at Pozieres and other places in France and Belgium which until then had no bearing on the Australian psyche or any mark on the history of our little country.

 So, on this wet and miserable Canberra day I will leave you with a quote from a wounded Australian soldier who, lying prone and dying, shouted to his mates in the midst of his great travail, calling on that instinct which lies at the heart of every man of this great nation. He asked, “Don’t forget me cobber”. And all these years later, we haven’t. Lest we forget.