Bentley To The Battlefields

FOUNDED IN THE SHADOW OF THE GREAT WAR, BENTLEY SHARES AN UNBREAKABLE BOND WITH THIS TRAGIC ERA. WE PAY A FITTING TRIBUTE TO THE FALLEN WITH A UNIQUE MOTORING JOURNEY INTO THE PAST

- Mel Nichols

THE D1 IN NORTHERN France is one of those perfect roads. It lopes across the plains above the River Somme, at the heart of the WWI battlefields. It’s open, inviting, and flows to the horizon with just a few kinks that won’t impede your progress. If you’re in a fast car like the Bentley Continental GT Convertible, you can let it rip here. But then, heading east towards Bray-sur-Somme, you crest a rise and an imposing, grey stone cenotaph bearing a Rising Sun emblem looms beside the road. If you’re Australian, it will stop you in your tracks.

It commemorates the First Australian Imperial Force’s Third Division. It is one of the emotive memorials that honour the Diggers who so distinguished themselves in France between 1916 and 1918. As you drive this country – and it is a pleasant country to drive, now – they’re constant reminders of the enormity of what happened here and, most especially, of the Australians’ crucial role in the battles that led to Germany’s defeat.

Photo boards around the pillar’s base tell you why the Third Division chose this spot for the memorial to its 6220 men killed and more than 24,000 wounded on the Western Front. The city of Amiens, a crucial transport hub 24 kilometres west, was a key target in the Germans’ massive 1918 Spring Offensive. Capturing it would grab the Allies’ vital supply base and split the British Empire armies and incoming Americans from the French. As battered British battalions were shoved back, Australian divisions – with many of the troops crammed into cattle trucks – were rushed down from Belgium to plug the gap. On March 28, the Third Division dug in here, on the heights above the Somme at Sailly-le-Sec. Two days later the Germans attacked. And were stopped. One of the display boards tells the story: