Bullecourt

 Bullecourt battlefields

Tuesday 8 October 2024, and we are leaving Belgium for northern France and the big battlefields of Bullecourt and The Somme. Two places synonymous with massive Australian casualties.  It doesn't take long to arrive at Bullecourt, and the roads Phillippe takes us down are the narrowest yet. Farmers or lost tourists are surely the only drivers to use these roads and fortunately we encounter neither.

As always, there is a point to this cross-country driving.  We stop on a track through a paddock, just over the raised embankment of a long-disused railway line. In front of us are the killing fields of Bullecourt. 

On the distant ridge is the village of Bullecourt, destroyed in the fighting.. Stretching in front of us, these now peaceful, productive paddocks belie their brutal and bloody history. How many unrecovered bodies still lie in this fertile earth? There's a cold breeze of early Autumn today, a reminder of that cold 1917.

Australians attacked the Hindenburg Line, that heavily reinforced final line of German defences, near Bullecourt in April and May 1917, in two separate actions.

The first attack, on April 11th, was carried out before supporting tanks could arrive and when insufficient artillery resources were available. It was a disaster. Exposed to murderous machine-gun and artillery fire, the Australians were forced back to their own lines while tanks stood burning on the battlefield. 3000 were either killed or wounded on that day. The bitterness about such a futile waste of men remained for a long time. Charles Bean, in his monumental History of the AIF, commented that "Bullecourt, more than any other battle, shook the confidence of Australian soldiers in the capacity of the British command : the errors, especially on April 10th and 11th, were obvious to everyone."

The second attack, between 3 - 10 May was even more costly, with 7000 casualties. This time, enemy trenches were reached and held. The bush on the slope in the upper middle of the photograph shows the line of a partially submerged road taken by Australians.  It was reconnoitred by Albert Jacka, VC recipient from Gallipoli, and equally deserving of another a year earlier at Pozieres.

In the end, the allies front line was advanced in this district by one kilometre or so, at a total cost of 10,000 casualties. It is sobering to gaze upon. Somehow the brutal history of this place remains, although clearly  not now as a stain or scar on the land. How is it that you can simultaneously see in your mind's eye the black and white images of a desolate battlefield 100 years ago, and this now peaceful agricultural scene? Maybe it's helped by knowing that bodies and the detritus of war still rest below these crops.

Phillippe, our driver, is navigating yet another incredibly narrow track as we head towards the village of Bullecourt. "Have a look to your left", says Jo.

These rusted shells, and other bits and pieces of the machinery of war, are still being retrieved, over 100 years later. The better preserved ones have found their way into both the bigger town museums and  little local cafe museums all over the place, for many years now.  These ones are mute witness near where they were found.  It's quite a different experience seeing these things here, lying on the ground, resting on the earth which has held them for so long, and seeing similar objects in museums. It somehow links, again, this ground with these events we are learning about. And I am drawn to the human dimension of this - the men sheltering from the bombardments, advancing through the curtain of death , the wounded, the dying, the dead.

Bullecourt Village

It's a lovely little French village, totally rebuilt after the war, and with a strong, pervasive air of commemoration of that time. Australians are especially honoured in this village.

Entering the village, we stop at the Memorial Cross. It's a far more "rustic" memorial than any other we have seen. It seems more 'home-grown', the work of a group wanting to establish a memorial with their own hands.

There are two engraved plaques on this memorial. One reads : "To the glory of God and in the memory of 2423 Officers and other ranks serving the Australian Imperial Forces who fell in these fields and have no known grave, April - May 1917, R.I.P".

The other reads : " In memory to all the officers and men of the 18th Battalion First AIF who served and fell on the battlefields of France 1914 - 1918. We forever remember the debt we owe".

This memorial was indeed built by local men, and the stones on the slope of the hill and comprising the plinth, were salvaged from the destroyed roads of Bullecourt.

The conception and inspiration for this memorial was due to the persistent enquiries from a Mrs Gladys Stafford of Port Melbourne who searched, in vain, for many years to find her brother, 2675 Private Alfred William King, 57th Battalion, listed as Killed in Action, 12 May 1917. The location of the Memorial is based on being as close as possible to the place where A W King was lost and, at that time, believed to be still lying across the road, in the nearby Battlefield. (source DVA website)

Bullecourt is a small village and it's a short drive to the Memorial Park in its centre. We are on a rise overlooking the battlefield we have just walked on. It's a dull, overcast day and the wind carries the chill of mid-Autumn.  Just the right conditions for the sombre reflection required of a Memorial such as this.

The few words on this plaque tell a story we are now too familiar with.

The central, and dominating,  feature of the Park is a bronze statue, the "Bullecourt Digger". He looks out over the killing fields below, unmistakenly Australian in that familiar uniform. I study his stance : resigned? determined? fatalistic? It is the relaxed stance of a man who knows what is expected of him, who knows what has happened so far in these battles, and knows his own chances of survival. It is perfect in this place.

There is one remaining memorial to see, close by and in the grounds of the local church. By any account, "The Australian Slouch Hat Memorial" is unique, and uniquely Australian. Perhaps no other symbol in these battlefields more clearly speaks of Australian soldiers, the diggers who carried the brunt of the fighting. I've looked up the story of this memorial to get more information, and this story is best told on the DVA website :

"A Bullecourt school teacher, Claude Durand, began to translate Charles Bean’s account of the battles, partly for his own interest, partly for the benefit of his students. He was struck by the scale of the British and Australian casualties and realised that they had no local memorial. He and the mayor Jean Letaille started a campaign to build one. The funds were raised locally and the memorial was unveiled outside the village church on 24 May 1981. The ceremony was attended by the Australian ambassador John Rowland.

An Australian contribution was arranged by the AWM from a donation by the RSL and the Department of Foreign Affairs. As the cairn already displayed the Rising Sun badge, it was agreed that the slouch hat was a unique and distinctively Australian commemorative device."

And again, the stones in this cairn were from the roads of Bullecourt destroyed all those years ago.

Bullecourt has been a special experience. I wonder if there is any other place where the spirit of remembrance and memorialisation of Australian loss is so pervasive in the life of a town. I will soon find out. We are now heading to The Somme.