The Battle of Pozieres 1916

The Battle of Pozières has reverberated throughout Australia’s military history, long regarded as a costly battle that produced little meaningful gain. Pozières was characterised by the most intense artillery bombardment the Australians had experienced in the war thus far and ‘the hell that was Pozières’ became the yardstick by which subsequent bombardments were measured. The 13th Battalion’s Frank Massey described men who became ‘blithering idiots … Crying and weeping and — absolutely usel...