A guide to Australian Memorials on the Western Front

Following the end of the Gallipoli campaign, April– December 1915, the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) began to move to France in March 1916. The 1st and 2nd Divisions were in trenches near Armentiéres by April and the 4th and 5th Divisions joined them in June. Meanwhile, the other Division, the 3rd, was being formed in England. All five were to see much action on the Western Front.

What we call the Western Front was actually the German western front—their eastern front was in Russia—but the French, British and Commonwealth troops accepted the label as their own. The Western Front ran continuously, in irregular and multiple lines of trenches, from the English Channel near Ostende to Belfort on the French–Swiss border, a distance of 760 kilometres. The AIF Divisions were engaged at various times on relatively short lengths of this long front, notably in the Ypres Salient of Belgian Flanders, sections of the line in northern France and also in the Somme and Aisne sectors, east of Amiens...