Le Hamel

 The final day of our tour. Another early 8am start, and the weather is looking decidedly unpromising today.

There's time for a quick walk from our hotel to the imposing Amiens Cathedral, 100m away.

A front door is open, welcoming pilgrims, penitents and tourists alike. I'm not sure what group best describes me. Apparently Amiens Cathedral is bigger than Notre Dame, in Paris. I'm not sure what dimensions that refers to.

Inside, it is a massive space. The ceiling soars high above. The nave - the body of the church - is a mixture of pews and open space, and individual altars are scattered around the internal perimeter of the building. It is 'standard cathedral', and it is big!! And it is fortunate that the German advance on Amiens in 1918 was halted, at a place I will be visiting today, Villers Bretonneux. There is a grandeur to this building that inspires, but is it a prayerful place? I'm not sure. But I'm certainly pleased to have had the opportunity to visit it.

Leaving Amiens, we're quickly onto the old Roman Road, now of course just another numbered national road, which runs straight as an arrow for at least 60km. Through Villers Bretonneux we see the Australian Memorial off to the left. We will be back here in a few hours. For now we turn off into the narrow country lanes we are now very familiar with, heading to Le Hamel.

The road meanders down a valley. Reaching open fields, we stop at this track heading off through the paddocks. This is the starting off point of the battle of Le Hamel, and is where Australian troops have marched along in arriving at their jumping off points. It is July 4 1918.

Looking down the slope, the village of Le Hamel lies between this start line and the ridge beyond the town. History will be made here in a battle planned for 90 minutes and all over in 93 minutes. At least that's what the histories say. Jo, our tour leader / historian, has walked the battlefield and says it's impossible. Looking at the distance, I'm starting to wonder, myself. Perhaps it all depends on where you set that 93 minute mark.  Resolving that is a research task for another day.

For today, it's enough just to see this site and remember what Monash has accomplished here. Combining tanks, air power, artillery and infantry, he has achieved the first integrated use of these various elements in a fully-planned and co-ordinated way. He is establishing a template that will be used successfully in bigger battles to come. He has already been promoted to Commander of the AIF, and he is now establishing his reputation as a military planner and leader.

I'm beginning to look at these Great War paddocks with "x-ray vision", imagining the bodies which may still lay buried and the detritus of war still to work its way to the surface.

Maybe I'm becoming too imaginative, as this battle lacked the ferocity of other places we have walked - Ypres Salient, Bullecourt, Somme. But who knows what secrets these peaceful paddocks may still guard. 800 lives were lost in this battle, perhaps some are still here.

The bus takes us through the village, navigating impossibly narrow lanes and sharp turns, and up the road beyond the village to the ridge above.

I've been here before, as this 1998 photo shows.

A simpler place then, and I didn't fully understand its significance at the time, and would have known nothing about the battle for this ridge. In fact, this Memorial Park was only opened weeks before this photo was taken. But the Memorial itself was poorly constructed, and was re-built about 10 years later.

Then, 1998

Now, 2024

It was thrilling to see, in 1998, these remains of the trench system in the Memorial Park. These were the German trenches, the final objective for that attack on 4 July 1918. Once captured, they became the start line for the major allied offensive of 8 August 1918 - "the black day for the German army" - which led finally to the Armistice on 11 November 1918.

And these are those same trenches today, 26 years later.

The path from the car park to the Memorial is lined with a series of excellent interpretive panels.

There is a simplicity to this Memorial Park, and you need to take the time to know its story, to read the panels, to understand its significance. I am grateful that I could return here today.