(Above) Fromelles has become the first new Commonwealth War Graves Commission for more than half a century
Exhibition: Remembering Fromelles, Imperial War Museum London, London, until January 30 2011
In May 2008, following six years of lobbying by Australian historian Lambis Englezos, a number of mass graves were formally earmarked at Pheasant Wood, near Fromelles in Northern France.
Researchers from Glasgow University suggested the bodies of 250 soldiers could have been under the soil, buried behind German lines after the Battle of Fromelles in July 1916.
A team of experts were deployed to excavate the sensitive site. Image: iwm.org.uk
A year later, the Australian and British governments ordered excavations of the fields, commissioning osteoarchaeologists, radiographers, mortuary managers, crime officers and forensic specialists to painstakingly pick apart the terrain.
Their task was dangerous, with the risk of live shells meaning the excavation had to stop 20 centimetres above any sign of bodies, allowing the osteo team to move in and remove the clay soil.
Some of the tools used during the investigation are also on display
More than 6,000 items were found, from tubes of toothpaste to annotated bibles, coins, matches cases, notebooks and tiny paper train tickets, used by soldiers to travel to Fromelles from Perth.
DNA testing – the only major element separating archaeologists today from their predecessors on the Western Front 80 years ago – has allowed scientists to name some of the individuals, if only by their regiment in some cases. Others remain unnamed.
A toothbrush and toothpaste found
at Fromelles
The somber, elegant, linear cemetery of their reburial at Fromelles is the first to be created by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in more than 50 years, and the finds left behind are both fascinating and miraculously well-preserved. But the overriding feeling of this display is one of closure for the soldiers involved and their families.
From the outset, when we are told of the "complex, muddled planning" behind what was simply a diversionary effort to distract German reserves from joining the Somme conflict 50 miles away, there's a gut-wrenching sense of tragedy about this failed attack.
Men of the 53rd Battalion waiting to don their equipment for the attack at Fromelles. Image © Commonwealth War Graves Commission, cwgc.org, courtesy Australian War Memorial
Two divisions of infantry attacked a 4,000-metre section of the German frontline, resulting in 5,533 Australian deaths – the heaviest concentration in their military history.
A further 1,547 Britons were killed, making the pictures of troops preparing for combat or being treated by enemy forces seem grimly invasive.
A page from a bible found at the site has sections underlined. Image: iwm.org.uk
At the end of the exhibition, we find the stories of families who have waited so long to discover their loved ones' fate.
An 18-year-old's last letter to his sister speaks of the horror of shelling, and the grandparents of a 24-year-old didn't even receive confirmation of his death until three years after the battle. A distant cousin of the mother who lost her youngest son at Fromelles will travel from Australia to France to lay a poppy from her garden on his grave.
A reburial ceremony at the new cemetery took place in February 2010. Image: iwm.org.uk
Englezos was recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours List last year, and a well-received Facebook group is calling on the title of Australian of the Year to be added to the awards he has won in his native country.
The extraordinary results of his once-fanciful campaign to dig up this faraway land are as important as they are poignant.
Open 10am – 6pm. Admission free. For more from Fromelles visit the project website.
Watch the BBC report from the first dig at Fromelles:
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