BULLECOURT 1917 The remembrance of soldiers past

In April and May 1917, the village of Bullecourt, nearArras, in the north of France, was the scene of one of thebiggest bloodbaths of the First World War. The ground ofthe former battlefield still retains the bodies of hundreds ofmissing Australian, British and German soldiers ...The memory of the deadly combat would have remained buriedas well were it not for the efforts of a couple of schoolteacherswho took an interest in the ordeal of these soldiers in the 1980's.For more than three decades, Claude and Colette Durand havegathered dozens of accounts of Australian veterans which nowallow us to get a clearer picture of the horror that was the battleof Bullecourt. In the process, they formed a long-lasting bondwith Australia about the sacrifice of these men who came fromthe ends of the earth.But the book also shows the hidden face of the commemorativeevents that mark the centenary of World War 1, as the officialtributes mask a shadier reality.