Pozières France

Pozieres France , (Windmill Site) , The German front line in mid-1916 was on the high ground over-looking the Anche Valley from Thiepval to Pozieres. The British stormed this line on 1 July 1916 and that day suffered 60,000 casualties. Pozieres was not captured and here on 29 July the Australians entered the battle from that date until 5 September, when they were relieved by the Canadians, four Australian divisions, in rotation fought a series of bloody, relentless frontal assaults adainst well-prepared German defences. the heaviest fighting occurred around this area, Mouquet Farm (1 km west) and the site of the 1st Australian Division Memorial (1.5 km south-west along the road)., A wooden windmill once stood on the mound before you but, like Pozieres village, was completely obliterated in the fighting of July 1916. Similarly, the now tranquil landscape was devastated and became a featureless waste land of shellholes and trenches, where men of both sides fought, suffered and died in their thousands. The windmill site stands as a permanent reminder of Australia's role here, and of the agony and sacrifice of all nations in the Battle of the Somme in 1916., The First World War began on 4 August 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved many nationalities fighting in many countries but the longest and bloodiest of the battles were fought in Belgium and France along the Western front., This front ran in a continuous, narrow line for 700 kilometres, from the Belgian coast to Switzerland, the principal Allied nations of France and Great Britain (including the Empire) were in combat with Germany for 4 years along the front, however its position altered little., In 1918 the Australian army entered the Western front with a force of 180,000 men, three times the number that had served at Gallipoli (Turkey) in 1915., The Australian troops won undying fame in the battlefields of France and Belgium during three years of war. In doing so, 48,000 of the 60,000 Australians killed in the war, died on the Western front. From a population of just 4.5 million people 313,000 volunteered to serve during the war and 85% of these became casualties., The relationships formed during the war by France and Belgium with Australia flourish today with cultural, educational and economic exchanges. The friendship extended by local people to visiting Australians is indicative of the fellowship forged in the old battlefields, a fellowship, born of the mutual striving and sacrifice of these nations at that formative time. , Sculptor: Ross J. Bastiaan ,