The term ‘Western Front’ is a very general term -
there’s so many things to see and do on the Western Front.
You know, there’s, there’s 1800 cemeteries or more on the Western Front
which is a pretty intimidating number, I guess.
Being the Master of Ceremonies at Villers-Bretonneux for me was an amazing and very solemn experience
because it’s quite interesting to see how when we hold these commemorations and these
memorial services, how, not only the tour group really comes together to pay that respect.
But we also have members of the public, and members of the defence forces coming to attend
those ceremonies – provides a great opportunity for people to get behind that remembrance.
Earlier that day we’d been walking through the town of Villers-Bretonneaux and, in a
local school, painted across their playground was ‘Don’t Forget Australia’. And that
was really running through all our minds as we were standing there, singing, the songs
that we had. And in Anzac Memories, it says ‘a forgotten hero in a world that doesn’t
care’, and when we were in Villers-Bretonneux it really came through that there are still
places out there who still care and it was amazing to be able to sing to that.
One of the cemeteries that stayed with me for quite a long time after we visited it
on the Western Front was the Langmark German Cemetery. And, as I’ve talked about before,
I think it’s really important to hear those other voices from the First World War and
the German voice was often all too absent from official accounts. But going to that
cemetery and seeing what was a very different tone to allied cemeteries, seeing flat headstones
and seeing oak trees as a sign of remembrance, seeing the gate that Adolf Hitler stood in
before World War 2, was a really moving moment. Hearing our historians explain how the Germans
also sacrificed, and hearing them tell us the story of the battle that had raged there
and how that for them was a national symbol of courage and sacrifice, like, The Nek, for
example, was for us, was really important. Entering that German cemetery and seeing a
pit in front of us, knowing that in that one pit potentially lay more soldiers than in
an entire allied cemetery was also a really moving and a really solemn moment for us as
we realised that the Germans had made such massive sacrifice as well, and yet had such
modest commemoration for their service people, but commemoration that none the less resonated
with their people and their leaders and was to them an amazing sign of remembrance.
Tyne Cot is probably one of the most moving places to visit. It’s a massive cemetery,
it’s the largest cemetery on the Western Front. There are thousands and thousands of
people buried there and it’s also a memorial to the missing. And to see the scale of it
and to see so many headstones is, is very moving – you know, you walk out amongst
all those headstones and you’re just surrounded by grave after grave after grave – each
with an individual story behind it. One place that definitely had an impact on
me was Tyne Cot, which was a cemetery in Belgium. That, for me that was the one cemetery that
I really looked at and was like wow, there are so many soldiers here. There were just
so many rows and so many soldiers – it just really had a massive impact on me.
Many of the memorials we visited like the Thiepval Memorial and Villers-Bretonneau were
dedicated only to those with no known grave, those whom war had denied a grave, as the
Menin Gate put is so nicely, and I think it’s really important to remember that for many
of those soldiers we will never know those stories. Their parents will never be able
to visit those graves and it’s important to have these memorials where people can pay
their respects in lieu for their lost sons and daughters, imagining that perhaps they are one of
the few that are lying beneath these memorials and that they are commemorating them.