Posted on 02/05/2016 2:40:36 PM PST by naturalman1975
THE relatives of slain British soldiers have accused the Department of Veterans' Affairs of banning them from attending centenary commemorations for a catastrophic WWI battle that killed thousands of Australian soldiers.
The Battle of Fromelles is among Australia's bloodiest military encounters and the brutal loss has long been blamed on a disastrous incompetence of British military strategy.
A special service to mark the battle's 100th anniversary is to take place on July 19 this year at the Pheasant Wood military cemetery in Fromelles, northern France.
The slaughter is viewed by historians as the darkest 24 hours in the Australia's history after 5533 Australian troops were killed, wounded or taken prisoner in a single day.
Within minutes of attacking, thousands of soldiers were decimated by German machine gunfire. More than 2000 Australians died.
The British suffered 1547 killed or wounded soldiers, and the Germans, who had been lying in wait for the attack, had about 1000 casualties.
In what is being seen as a sign of continued simmering Australian resentment, the relatives of British casualties say they have been 'unfairly' blocked from joining the centenary ceremony.
The Australian War Memorial describes the attack as "a complete failure .... (that) had no impact whatsoever upon the progress of the Somme offensive."
But a spokesman from the Department of Veterans' Affairs did not draw on historic tensions, and told News Corp Australia the number of visitors had to be limited due to the small size of the Fromelles site.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Then do it by death proportionality but don just wholesale ban a whole group
You've got that right. For the sake of argument, let's assume that a single Canadian soldier died in that battle. That man would deserve to be respected, and remembered. So in that case, at least one Canadian should be allowed to attend the ceremony.
The British have taken the same approach at their Thiepval memorial. It’s the only practical way countries are finding to do it.
This was the height of the Battle of the Somme. From this time forward, the Dominions (Australia and Canada) got the feeling that the British were using their soldiers as the “shock troops” in their offensives. It has been a touchy subject since then.
In a quick read in Wiki it does appear the attack was unnecessary and incompetently planned and led. It's not much comfort for the Aussies to note there was plenty of that in all the WWI armies.
Gallipoli is a focus because it was the first large scale action in which Australians were involved (although not, as some people believe, the first Australian action - 2000 Australian troops as the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) had captured German New Guinea in September 1914 - New Zealand troops had conducted a similar operation to seize German Samoa. In terms of losses, though, while Gallipoli was not a small campaign, it was smaller than some that came later.
Well, at the very least Australians still remember their war dead. The US lost almost exactly the same number of soldiers - in less than 6 months - and no one gives a crap about them here. So it seems, anyways.,
well then what goes around comes around
I am just glad the British are not tearing down monuments to the Australian war dead the way Southern monuments are being destroyed in this country.
Almost worse, “some” of the Aussie troopers did get through the German lines and out of the machine gun fire from in front of them. (Several hundreds of the thousands who attacked initially)
Then they were abandoned to the Germans over the next few days by the British command. True, the Brits faced communication and coordination problems with the own trenches, much less through to the front zones where the furthest forward soldiers were, but the Brit’s did abandon living men behind enemy lines, and the remaining Canadians will not forget.
It’s really not intended as any sort of slight. It does come down to practical concerns and is to a great extent based on where the War Memorials are located - the main British memorial to the Battle of the Somme is at Thiepval, which is why they have ‘ownership’ of that site for the centenary commemorations. Australia’s main memorial is at Fromelle, so that is ours. New Zealand has its main memorial at Longueval, so they have responsibility there. Canada’s is at Courcelette. There really is an intention to allow each nation to commemorate its war dead. And it has to be remembered that all these places are in France - which also therefore has an interest in what happens there. Whatever jokes we may make about the French (and I certainly have) they are very generous in allowing access by foreigners to these sites, but they do ask that the governments of those countries keep things manageable.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, it was a British victory.
I had a good friend who was the British Liaison Officer at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas (British Army of the Missouri he was known). He was a Colonel, late of the Gloucester Regiment, well loved by the Americans for their Korean exploits and wearers of the U.S. Presidential Citation. When they amalgamated and became the ungodly name of Gloucestershire, Berkshire, and Wiltshire Regiment (GBWR) I asked him if he would be wearing the Brandywine Flash (from the Berkshires).
Those who knew the story of the flash took umbrage when it was worn on American soil, but end the end we raised a glass to all the fallen and remembered comrades. Then I would tell my tales of my 3d Great Grandfather at New Orleans.
Our greatest allies have always (at least after the War of 1812) been the British, Canadians, and Australians, and now once again the Kiwis as we have gotten over our squabble.
Cousins argue, but they fight together. I hope that the Aussies will welcome some British Delegation.
I got the impression from the Wiki article that more men may have died after the initial assault than died in the assault for the reasons you described.
I understand, but that means that the communication from those “arranging” the stuff need to ensure that these types of tradeoffs and decisions WILL be made and then when those that still complain do so - that prior announcement should be well exercised and not underplayed.
People who’ve been told the rules - when they have - should not be allowed to then moan and groan about them.
Good heavens if those who fought in these battles had acted in this way we’d all be speaking German (not to sleight those germans who bravely fought for their own country).... but instead to sleight those who should look to their predecessors sacrifices. After all the memorials and commemorations are to acknowledge and consider what THEY did.
Ok, but then i wouldn’t expect that they would erect something for the victor in the territory of the defeated.
I guess I’m more disappointed in the follower-ons of these brave men and their lack of consideration/behavior then I am about the details behind where/when. It just feels they’ve lost sight of the whole purpose.
“I feel for the relatives of dead British soldiers who want to attend, but Australian casualties in this battle were far more significant numerically”
Hmm... During the Gallipoli campaign the British suffered 74,000 casualties, the Australians ‘only’ suffered 21,000. By this logic, the Australians should have been excluded from the Gallipoli commemorations because of the relatively few casualties they suffered.
The battle of the Somme was fought because the French were losing at Verdun (and losing there would have seriously broken the front); they asked Britain to relieve the pressure by drawing off German troops, and they obliged by pissing away thousands upon thousands of lives in an attack that was never designed to succeed - just to take German troops from Verdun. Over 60K troops (mainly British) were lost on the first day, but it worked - pressure on Verdun was relieved, and France remained in the war. A year later, the French troops mutinied in response to the callousness of the high command that frittered away their lives in similar futile attacks. The mutiny was kept from the Western press at the time, since it would be hard to ask Americans to die for France while their own soldiers wouldn’t do so anymore.
A lot of the apathy by the European public to WWII had its roots in cynicism bred in WWI.
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