Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin
The Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin was a battle on the Western Front during World War I. As part of the Allied Hundred Days Offensive on the Western Front in the late summer of 1918, the Australian Corps crossed the Somme River on the night of 31 August and broke the German lines at Mont Saint-Quentin and Péronne. The British Fourth Army's commander, General Henry Rawlinson, described the Australian advances of 31 August – 4 September as the greatest military achievement of the war. During the battle Australian troops stormed, seized and held the key height of Mont Saint-Quentin, a pivotal German defensive position on the line of the Somme.
Mount St Quentin painting by Arthur Streeton (1918)
Capture of Mont Saint Quentin painting by Fred Leist (1920)
"The gaps in the wire near Anvil Wood were death traps", reads the caption of a contemporary photograph of the battlefield.
The Hundred Days Offensive was a series of massive Allied offensives that ended the First World War. Beginning with the Battle of Amiens on the Western Front, the Allies pushed the Imperial German Army back, undoing its gains from the German spring offensive.
Allied gains in late 1918
1 September 1918, Péronne, Somme. A machine gun position established by the Australian 54th Battalion during its attack on German forces in the town
Troops of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 36th (Ulster) Division, advancing from Ravelsburg Ridge to the outskirts of Neuve Eglise, 1 September 1918
Canadian troops shelter in a ditch along the Arras-Cambrai road