How often, do you think, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull can take delight in bringing to fruition a policy started by his predecessor, Tony Abbott? By my reckoning you could count such occasions on the fingers of one finger, and it will be this Anzac Day when Mr Turnbull will open the Sir John Monash Centre in Villers-Bretonneux, a modern interpretive centre to commemorate both the extraordinary achievements of the 300,000 Diggers who served on the Western Front, and those of their superb commander, Sir John Monash.
To give Abbott his due, he was the first Australian prime minister to push the truth, as he did in 2015: “Gallipoli has dominated our imagination, but the Western Front was where Australia’s main war was fought. This is where our thoughts must dwell if we are truly to remember our forebears, pay homage to their sacrifice and honour their achievements.”
Despite the move, there remains a long way to go for Australians to recognise just how extraordinary were the achievements of both the Diggers and Monash. Four years ago, I was as ignorant as most, but as one who has since done books covering the battles of Fromelles, Pozieres, Villers-Bretonneux – and this week release a book on Monash – allow me to make a few remarks.
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Sir John Monash, a brilliant engineer from Victoria, indeed had to overcome both terrible anti-Semitism and a reluctance to have an Australian instead of an Englishman, in charge of the Diggers. But once he achieved the position, his success was extraordinary. His first battle came at Le Hamel, on July 4, 1918 – the first time American troops went into battle, side by side with Diggers, under Australian command – and he unleashed an entirely different kind of warfare. Counting on tanks to crack the line, Monash’s battle plan had such extraordinary sophistication, that instead of advancing two miles for the loss of 6800 Australian lives, over six weeks, as had happened at Pozieres, the Diggers advanced a mile-and-a-half, in just 93 minutes, for the loss of just … 300 lives.
The Allies had just found their greatest general of the war, and it was Monash, leading Australian troops, who would be at the pointy end of the Allied spear for the rest of the war, achieving extraordinary success.
A century on, both Monash and the Diggers he led deserve to be honoured in this manner.
Vale, and, yes, good move, Tony Abbott.
The article is by Peter FitzSimons whose book, Monash’s Masterpiece, The Battle of Le Hamel and the 93 Minutes that changed the World, is to be released on April 24.
The article has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald.