Sir John Monash Centre

14 March 2023

The Sir John Monash Centre

The Sir John Monash Centre was opened in 2018 and is set on the grounds of the Villers-Bretonneux Cemetery in northern France adjacent to the Australian National Memorial. The Centre is also the hub of the Australian Remembrance Trail along the Western Front.

The Sir John Monash Centre tells the story of Australia’s involvement on the Western Front during the First World War through personal diaries, letters and service records of the men and women who were there.

Visitors are able to access first-hand accounts of the events that shaped a nation and are able to interact with large scale interactive touch screens and tables with a tailored app. At the heart of the Centre lies a 360 degree theatre which assists visitors to understand the experience faced by Australians on the Western Front’s battlefields of Villers-Bretonneux and Le Hamel.

The Sir John Monash Centre establishes a lasting legacy from Australia’s Centenary of Anzac 2014–2018 and ensures the personal experiences and moving stories of those Australians who served on the Western Front continue to be available for future generations.

Sir John Monash

The centre is named after General Sir John Monash who commanded the Australian Imperial Force’s (AIF) 4th Infantry Brigade during the Gallipoli campaign. Later in France, he was promoted to Major General in July 1916 and given command of the 3rd Australian Division.

Monash successfully led the 3rd Australian Division at the Battle of Messines in 1917. Further battlefield command success followed, and in May 1918, Monash was promoted to Lieutenant General and given command of the Australian Corps.

Monash’s first success as commander of the Australian Corps was the Battle of Hamel where he led a combined arms assault consisting of infantry, tanks, artillery and aircraft which resulted in a remarkable victory which took just 93 minutes to achieve.

Monash’s detailed planning and combined arms tactics implemented at Hamel were built on the experience of Allied armies on the Western Front and fed into the tactics that led to subsequent victories in the remaining months of 1918. Monash’s wartime achievements earned him enormous respect and today he is viewed as one of the First World War’s most outstanding Allied commanders.

After the war, Monash spent eight months in London overseeing the AIF Department of Demobilisation and Repatriation, before returning home to Melbourne on Boxing Day in 1919. In 1920 he became the manager of Victoria’s State Electricity Commission, remained an advocate for returned soldiers and became a leading figure in Melbourne’s Jewish community.

On 8 October 1931 Monash died of heart disease and was given a state funeral which was attended by hundreds of thousands of mourners.

His legacy and the legacy of those Monash commanded during the First World War are commemorated at the Sir John Monash Centre.

Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery

The Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery is the final resting place of over 2,100 Commonwealth servicemen from the First World War, of whom over 600 remain unidentified.

Villers-Bretonneux became well-known to Australians after 24 April 1918. On that day the Germans captured the village during their advance towards the crucial rail centre of Amiens. On the evening of 24 April, an aggressive counter-attack was launched by elements of the 4th and 5th Australian Divisions and the 8th and 18th British Divisions, which saw this village recaptured the following morning, Anzac Day, 25 April 1918.

The Australian National Memorial

The Australian National Memorial, located behind the Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery, honours the Australian soldiers who fought in France and Belgium during the First World War.

The memorial consists of a central tower, with views of the surrounding countryside, flanked by wing walls commemorating over 10,000 Australians who lost their lives in France and have no known grave.

During the Invasion of France in the Second World War, the memorial was used as an observation post by the French and sustained damaged by German aircraft and ground fire. Although repairs were carried out post-war, some scarring can still be seen on parts of the Memorial as a testament to these events which occurred in 1940.

The Australian Remembrance Trail along the Western Front

The Australian Remembrance Trail stretches some 200km and links the significant sites of the First World War’s Western Front. It includes battlefields, cemeteries, memorials and museums at the following sites:

Sites in Belgium

Ieper (Ypres)
Messines
Ploegstreet
Polygon Wood
Zonnebeke

More information

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