LEST WE FORGET THE WESTERN FRONT A GUIDE TO FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE FIRST AIF IN BRITAIN, BELGIUM AND FRANCE. RON INGLIS LEST WE FORGET THE WESTERN FRONT A guide to following in the footsteps of the first AIF in Britain, Belgium and France. Researched and written by Ron Inglis National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Inglis, Ronald William, 1948- Title: Lest we forget the Western Front: a guide to following in the footsteps of the first AIF in Britain, Belgium and France / Ron Inglis. ISBN: 9780646519920 (pbk.) Notes: Bibliography. Subjects: Australia. Army. Australian Imperial Force (1914-1921) World War, 1914-1918 – Campaigns - Western Front - Guidebooks. World War, 1914-1918 – Monuments - Western Front - Guidebooks. World War, 1914-1918 – Battlefields - Western Front - Guidebooks. World War, 1914-1918 - Participation, Australian - Guidebooks. Dewey Number: 940.46544 ISBN 978 0 646 51992 0 © Ronald W Inglis 2010 This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests and inquiries regarding reproduction and rights should be addressed to the publisher, Ron Inglis. This guide has been posted on the web site of the Auburn Sub Branch, Returned and Services League (RSL) www.rslnswauburnsubbranch.com.au Copies of the guidebook may be obtained from selected bookshops or from the Auburn Sub Branch RSL, 33 Northumberland Rd, Auburn, New South Wales, 2144, Australia. Email [email protected] 2 LEST WE FORGET THE WESTERN FRONT They whom this roll commemorates were numbered amongst those who answered the call of King and Country, left all that was dear to them, endured hardships and dangers, were prepared to pass out of the sight of man by the path of duty and sacrifice that others may live in freedom. Let those who come after see to it that their names be not forgotten. Inscription on the Soldiers Memorial Institute, Bendigo, Australia. The names of our family ancestors who fought on the Western Front: 20478 Corporal William Inglis Born: Montrose, Scotland 1883 Enlisted: 5 January 1915 Highland Light Infantry City of Glasgow Regiment. Discharged: 1 August 1919 3466 Private Abram Unicomb Born: Taree, Australia 1896 Enlisted: 29 September 1916 41st Battalion, 3rd Division, Australian Imperial Force (AIF) Embarked from Sydney on HMAT Ayrshire: 24 January 1917 Discharged: Brisbane 8 April 1919 3 Foreword Ken Inglis, AO, Emeritus Professor, Australian National University, author of Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape. Although Ron Inglis and I share Scottish genes, we are not, as far as we know, related to each other on this side of the water. I am delighted by the coincidence that we share an interest in the commemoration of Australians at war. Ron is generous in his comments on my book and pays me the compliment of finding it useful for his own purposes. This guidebook is a productive labour of love. As its arresting title implies, Ron has been provoked to authorship by what strikes him as an over-emphasis on Gallipoli in Australian scholarly and popular writing about the First World War at the expense of what happened in France and Belgium. He offers the bold judgment that if the war had ended in December 1915, our history books would have given Gallipoli no more attention than they devote to the war in South Africa 1899-1902. Ron is determined to correct that imbalance. Like much good historical writing, this book is an essay in self-education. Ron and his wife Joy discover for themselves and make accessible to others the lives and deaths of Australians who served in Belgium and France and in the United Kingdom between 1916 and 1919. What he has learned, Ron sets out to pass on to young Australians, hoping to encourage in them the custom of making pilgrimages to sacred places other than Anzac Cove. He has made his book a guide to their journeys as well as a companion at their destinations. He acknowledges here the influence of Lonely Planet publications which `inspired the adventure of independent travel’. Ron has a sharp eye, a nimble pen, and a voracious curiosity. As well as placing Australian commemoration within the context of that astonishing British institution, the Imperial (later Commonwealth) War Graves Commission, he will take you on instructive detours to the memorials of other combatant countries, Allied and enemy. He will provoke you not only to take War memorials an interest in commemoration on the other side of the world but to look afresh such as this one in at memorials in your own neighbourhood. the New South Wales town of He is an alert detector of myths, observing for example Carcoar are an that Scotland had higher per capita casualties than Australia and that our official integral part of the historian Charles Bean, whose work he knows and respects, was prone to physical and sanitise the ruffianly aspect of Australian soldiers’ behaviour. cultural landscape Ron is pleased to discern a recent increase in historians’ of Australia and and journalists’ attention to the Western Front. This book is well calculated to New Zealand increase the numbers of Australians who travel to Pozières and Fromelles, to Passchendaele and Ypres, to Horseferry Road and Harefeld. Ron’s words and helpfully captioned photographs will equip them to return home with an enriched understanding of how, amid the carnage of a terrible war, those places on the other side of the world became sacred in Australian memory. 4 Preface I would be honoured if I could claim a family relationship to the distinguished historian Professor Kenneth Inglis who wrote Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape. Unfortunately our surname is far too common in Scotland, the homeland of our ancestors. Reading Sacred Places was my inspiration to travel in Britain and along the Western Front in search of those places so significant in Australian history and so influential in the emergence of our national identity. My interest focused not so much on the First World War itself but on how both Europeans and Australians reacted to the war experience: the memorials they built, the nature and type of cemeteries they laid out, the ceremonies and rituals they established, the works of art they produced, the myths and legends they created, the heroes they placed on pedestals and the meanings they sought to fashion out of their terrible experience. Above all, I sought to understand what it all means for the young Australians I teach in 21st century Australia. I made several independent study journeys to Britain, Belgium and France and then took my family to see the places, so sacred in our nation’s history yet largely unknown to the present generation of young Australians. We went beyond the battlefields and took in the fascinating variety of sacred places associated with the AIF. In addition we visited the sacred places of other nations as well as enjoying the variety of present day tourist attractions to be found along the Western Front. We immersed ourselves in the heritage of local communities and we looked at the Great War experience from a more international perspective. My adult children were amazed. They couldn’t believe that such fascinating places, so significant to Australia lay so close to London yet so few young Australians consider them worth a visit or even know of their existence. This guide was written to encourage Australians, both young and old to include the Western Front experience in their European travels. They will not be disappointed. What and When The horrific conflict that took place predominately in Europe during the second decade of the twentieth century was referred to in various ways during the 1920s and 1930s. It was the Great War, the War to end all Wars, the Great War for Civilisation, and the War of 1914-1918. All such descriptors may be found on various Australian war memorials. In everyday discourse the conflict was simply and most commonly referred to as the War (La Guerre in French). After war raged again in Europe and elsewhere from 1939 to 1945, terms to distinguish the two conflicts were needed by journalists, historians and the general population. The terms First World War and Second World War quickly became standard, sometimes abbreviated to WWI and WWII. In this book I have used the titles Great War (La Grande Guerre) and First World War (La Première Guerre mondiale) interchangeably. Another area of apparent inconsistency is in the years given for the duration of the conflict. Most memorials and textbooks carry the years 1914-1918 but others display 1914-1919. The discrepancy is also seen on the medals received by Australian soldiers who served in that war. The reverse side of the British War Medal has the dates 1914-1918. The reverse side of the Victory Medal has the statement The Great War for Civilisation and the dates 1914-1919. The 1918 date comes from the day the armistice took effect and the guns fell silent on the Western Front: 11am on 11 November 1918. In Britain and France 11 November (originally Armistice Day now Remembrance Day but referred to in France simply as 11 Novembre) is still the day of solemn commemoration of the fallen from all conflicts. The 1919 date comes from the official end of the Great War, 28 June 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles was signed at the Paris Peace Conference. Most Australian First World War soldiers did not get back to Australia until well into 1919. There was yet another ‘end’ to the war on 11 November 2009 when, for the first time the German Chancellor joined the French President for Remembrance Day ceremonies in Paris.