The Somme Part 1 - Villers-Bretonnneux

It was wet and windy much of the day we travelled to the Somme and some of the sites where Aussie soldiers fought in France in during WW1. But this only served to make us even more aware of the dreadful conditions under which those innocent, idealistic young men fought for and against countries that were on the other side of the world.  

After a drive of about two hours, we arrived at the French-Australian Museum at the small village of Villers-Bretonneux. The museum is housed in a school that was gifted to this French village by Victorian school children who each donated pennies towards it. 

The plaque on the school says:

‘The school building is the gift from the children of the state of Victoria, Australia, to the children of Villers-Bretonneux as proof of their love and good-will towards France. Twelve hundred Australian soldiers, fathers and brothers of these children, gave their lives for the heroic recapture of this town on 24th and 25th April 1918.’ 

The school was typical of the austere kind of building used for schools those days, but it even had an assembly hall, which was not a facility available in other French schools at that time. On the walls of the hall were large pictures of Australian scenes and a sign that translated said ‘Never Forget Australia’. 

Upstairs the museum was a silent and sobering testimony to the Aussie soldiers. We saw copies of a couple of the posters that had enticed these young men to join the army, many photos of the young men in the trenches and elsewhere, and many other very moving memorabilia. One very poignant photo showed a young man in trench reading a letter from home - a lifeline to where he was loved and where there was peace.

I left the museum saddened and yet glad that the sacrifice of those young men was not in vain and was clearly deeply appreciated by the local French people, and still is even today. 

The photos below show the school with its one remaining red poppy growing in the small garden out the front - a very powerful memorial in itself - and some of display in the museum. I have not captioned the photos as I think that it is more appropriate to let them silently speak for themselves.