Peronne museum and Le Hamel

lhprophet
Oct 27, 2024
3 min read

We first went to the museum in Peronne but couldn’t get near the museum to park as it was all blocked off due to a market. We found another place to park and checked out the market first.

It had fruit, veg, fish, cheese and some clothes but were closing up.

We got a couple of things before going off to the museum.

The museum is in a renovated 12th century castle. There were only 2 towers left and they had rebuilt other areas with bricks - and added a big modern concrete museum section on the back.

We first saw an exhibition about the old town with its old city walls that are no longer there. But most buildings in Peronne were destroyed in the war.

The exhibition about the Australian soldiers showed a bit of the aftermath.

The Roo De Kanga sign is now in Canberra.

There were Australian personal effects found - and a model of the original monument that the Germans didn’t like and pulled down.

Going outside to the main section of the museum was one of the original French mini tanks used in Peronne - the second type of tank ever used.

The other part of the museum was about the Great War in general with uniforms, weapons and information about the different stages it went through.

The wooden screen has Scottish regiments all over it. I wonder how it ended up in France?

The second last section were many etchings by Otto Dix, a German art student and soldier who had been traumatized by the Great War. Afterwards he used art to deal with the trauma. His etchings are well done but depressing.

The last section was about the aftermath of war. One chap had collected war memorabilia in his shed - and ended up with a mountain of it. It is presented just like it was in his shed. At least the museum were happy to take it all - a relief to whoever had to clean it out!

We went out the back of the museum to a nice quiet duck pond.

We walked up the road to the van for lunch - there are a few houses that look older than 100 years but maybe it’s just made to look like that.

After a van lunch it was a 5 minute walk to the military cemetery to visit the men who were killed here. There were a lot of Australians but with a mix of British.

There was a Frankland Bailey up the front with a poignant little plaque on a brick beside it.

It’s good that family are still remembering and visiting.

This is the view from the memorial at the front. There were maybe 30 German graves up the back properly named and honoured.

It was then onwards from Peronne to the next Australian battle at Le Hamel. This was the first very well organised battle by Monash. He planned it to be over in 90 minutes - it took 93!

Everyone was trained meticulously in how to work together including tanks and aircraft dropping ammunition supplies. Many small French tanks were brought in that were noisy. In order to maintain the surprise Monash got lots of planes to fly over the Germans to hide the noise. The monument is very well organised with a long path with many information plaques. 2 men received Victoria Crosses for their remarkable bravery in disabling German guns.