Australians didn't sacrifice themselves at Fromelles. The British sacrificed them | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on Tue, 19/07/2016 - 9:35am

The 100th anniversary of the darkest day in Australia’s military history gives us pause to ponder the utter pointlessness of what happened, as well as what, if anything, we’ve learned from it

French Flanders in summertime, especially around the small village of Fromelles, always seems so improbably beautiful when you consider the vast horror that unfolded there a century ago.

The peal of church bells converges with endless lark song, lending this unsettling place a discordant languor. The milky light, those corn-coloured fields, the poppies, so vivid and so perfectly poppy-shaped they seem a cliche, are the backdrop on the European western front for all those picture-postcard villages flattened during the global cataclysm we’ve come to refer to incongruously as the “great war”.

The novelty of being a soldier wore off in about five seconds … it was like a bloody butcher’s shop