Historian Peter Bogan delivered a speech on Maitland’s own 34th Battalion to members of the Maitland North Probus Club at the Lorn Park Bowling Club earlier this month.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
About 30 members turned out to the Thursday-meeting where they heard Mr Bogan recount the battalion’s journey from training at Maitland Showground to the war-torn fields of Europe.
Boarding the Honorata in Sydney in May 1916, the Hunter’s finest set sail for England for further training on the Salisbury Plains before enduring Europe’s worst winter for 200 years in France.
Throughout 1917 they continued their campaign through Belgium.
In October, they fought in the bloody battle for Passchendaele.
Only half the men survived.
Withdrawn from the frontline for the next five months to reinforce and rebuild, they returned to battle in March 1918
after the Germans broke through British lines.
“It was a case of, ‘There’s trouble, get the Australians,’” Mr Bogan said.
After the disaster at Passchendaele, the Australian government removed all Anzacs from under British command, preferring the direction and meticulous military planning of Sir John Monash.
On April 4, 1918, requiring his best men to protect the French village Villiers Bretonneux, Sir Monash deployed the 9th Infantry Brigade of which the 34th Battalion was a part.
During a series of savage encounters the village changed hands several times, but Villiers Bretonneux fell into Australian hands for good on Anzac Day.
In the course of World War I five major battles were fought around the Belgian town of Ypres.
All five Australian divisions took part in the Third Battle of Ypres, which was in fact a series of battles culminating in the Battle of Passchendaele.
The Third Battle of Ypres opened on July 31, 1917, but bad weather in August partially flooded the battlefield and a further British attack on August 16 gained little ground.
The Australians were brought into the battle as part of General Plumer’s Second Army, and were given the task, on September 20, of advancing along the Menin Road toward Gheulevelt.
With good planning and efficient artillery, the Battle of the Menin Road was a great success.
Further successful advances followed at the Battle of Polygon Wood on September 26 and at the Battle of Broodseinde, on October 4, although casualties were heavy.
The weather again broke and the constant rain turned the battlefield into a quagmire so that further attacks on October 9 at Poelcappelle and October 12 at Passchendaele failed with heavy loss.
Over 38,000 Australians were killed or wounded in the Ypres battles.
The stone lions that marked the Menin Gate in the Ypres ramparts during the war now flank the entrance hall at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
Source: Australian War Memorial London.
