Member for Wannon and Minister for Veterans' Affairs Dan Tehan speaks at Battle of Fromelles ceremony

Mr Tehan, as Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, represented the Australian government at the centenary of the Fromelles action in the First World War.

Australia suffered more than 5500 casualties, including 1900 dead, in less than a day as Commonwealth forces charged heavily defended positions in a attempt to divide German resources on the Western Front.

During his speech on Friday night Australian time, Mr Tehan used the words of ordinary soldiers to recount the horror of trench warfare.

Mr Tehan read from an account by Sergeant Simon Fraser.

“I could not lift him on my back, but I managed to get him into an old trench and told time to lie quiet while i got a stretcher,” Mr Tehan said

“Then I heard another man yell out ‘don’t forget me, Cobber’.”

Mr Tehan said the battle involved unimaginable death and mass grief.

“The industrial scale of the killing, the machines and weapons that swept away life created little time for recognition, recovery or even burial,” he said.

“This resulted in the moments that upon death we take for ourselves and our loved ones, being lost.

“We remember the unknown soldiers here at Fromelles for their service, we honour them for their sacrifice and ensure they live on in the memory of all Australians.”

Mr Tehan said Fromelles was the first time that Australia was exposed to the horror of industrialised warfare.

He read from a report by official Australian war historian Charles Bean.

“It was a field of men stripped of names, features and identity by the brutal destruction of artillery, guns and bayonets,” Mr Tehan said,

“After the battle, a chorus of nameless voices crying in pain or agony could be heard by the survivors.”

Mr Bean also wrote that soldiers were killed or wounded trying to rescue their fallen mates from the no man’s land between trenches.

Mr Tehan thanked the people of France for the continued respect they had shown to Australian war cemeteries.

The Fromelles ceremony included the unveiling of six new headstones with the names of previously unknown Australian soldiers who had been identified via DNA testing.

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