'We must remember': PM opens $100m Monash centre in France
Berlin: Malcolm Turnbull has honoured the thousands of fallen Australians who served in the First World War, opening a new centre outside the French village of Villers-Bretonneux to tell their story.
A century after the final year of the war, the Prime Minister prepared for Anzac Day on the western front by opening a new historical centre named after acclaimed Australian general Sir John Monash.
The $99.6 million centre was officially opened on Tuesday after years of work to build an interpretive centre behind the monument that records the names of 11,000 Australian soldiers whose bodies were never found.
The centre tells the story of the Australian experience in the trench warfare of the western front, including the battles where Monash led troops to a series of victories that helped cut short the war.
“We must never forget the lives that are honoured here at Villers-Bretonneux,” Mr Turnbull said.
“We must never forget the 11,000 fallen Australians whose bodies were never recovered - their names etched here on the Australian National Memorial. Brothers, husbands, fathers, sons.
“We must stretch our minds to imagine what it was like for the 320,000 Australians who served overseas in WW1.
“All volunteers, every one of them, from a population of less than 5 million. Sixty thousand never made it home.”
Monash led Australian, British, American and other soldiers at key battles during 1918 at Hamel, Amiens, Bray, Mont St Quentin and Peronne, leading to the successful breaching of the Hindenburg defences by early October.
While Australian forces were crucial to these victories, they were often described as British troops and the full extent of their role was only recognised after the war.
Historian AJP Taylor called Monash “the only general of creative originality” produced in World War I, while UK prime minister David Lloyd George described him as the “most resourceful” general in the British Army.
Mr Turnbull arrived on the western front on Tuesday after meetings in Brussels with NATO and European Union leaders, having come from Berlin where he met German Chancellor Angela Merkel for talks on security and trade.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott led the case to build the Sir John Monash centre, arranging funding when in power. He was expected to attend the opening.
Mr Turnbull sought to remember all Australians who lost their lives in the war.
“You see their names on the stone memorials in almost every Australian country town and you can count the brothers, and the fathers and sons,” he said.
“And the same number again who died before their time from the poison gas and the illness and the trauma known as shell shock before we called it PTSD.
“There was barely a household in Australia that was not deeply and personally affected.
“We must remember all of this - especially us, our nation’s leaders - reminding us why we always strive to resolve conflict by peaceful means.”
“And when we do put our troops in harm’s way, to do so with the resources, the wisdom and the considered strategy that best ensures their success and safe return.
“This new centre expresses our gratitude for all our men and women who fought - and continue to fight - for our values and our interests.
“And in the midst of the stone, and steel, and glass of this serene monument, we know that the best way to honour the diggers of 1918 is to support the servicemen and women, the veterans and the families of today.”