Bolstering the Defence Monday, March 26th, 2018
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The units of 9th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Australian Division began their train journey south, leaving behind the familiar mud of Flanders and the ground they had taken in the Messines Offensive in June 1917. The rest of their Division and the men of 2nd Australian Division were also making a similar journey, heading for the ever retreating front lines as the German Spring offensive continued to drive the Allies back. The trenches and defences in front of Plugstreet Wood and Houplines would soon be occupied by the exhausted and much depleted 25th Division.
100 years ago today 25th Division were relieved from the Old British front line on the Somme, the point from which the big push of July 1916 had been launched. They had been in action for four days, fighting desperately as the German Army has driven them back from the Hindenburg Line across the old battlefields, a distance of more than twenty miles.
On the training grounds of Britain, huge numbers of 18 and 19 year olds, some of whom had not fully completed their courses, were hurriedly equipped and sent on their way to the channel ports. Meanwhile the casualty lists began to be published, list upon list of names of those, killed, captured or missing.
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Filed under: Archaeology, Great War History by
PlugStreetTeam
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