Australia must honour the diggers who changed the course of World War I by supporting its current generation of servicemen and women, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has told a dawn service in northern France.
Mr Turnbull has joined French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, Prince Charles and a crowd of about 8000 people to remember the Australians killed and wounded as they fought to retake the Western Front town of Villers-Bretonneux from advancing German forces 100 years ago.
It was a stunning victory that revealed itself as dawn broke on the third anniversary of Anzac Day in 1918.
But it was also a defining victory of the war, and stopped German troops from taking nearby Amiens, a vital supply point for British and allied troops with a rail line to Paris, just 150km to the south.
Mr Turnbull told the crowd Australians were trusted with a crucial task and they did not fail.
Within a day of German forces overrunning Villers-Bretonneux, the Australians had pushed them out again, removing the threat to Amiens.
The town was never again held by German forces, and the people of Villers-Bretonneux have never forgotten what the Australians did that day, at terrible human cost, Mr Turnbull said.
"The cost was great - 3900 Australian men were ordered to fight. There were about 2,500 casualties," the prime minister said.
"But Villers-Bretonneux was saved. The architect of victories Sir John Monash described it as the turning point in the war. The Australians had come from the other side of the world to defend the freedom of France.
"The best way to honour the courage and sacrifice of the diggers of World War I is to support the service men and women, the veterans and the families of today."
The Prince of Wales said the traits displayed by Australian troops on the battlefields of northern France helped forge a nation.
"Those who survived would return to rebuild their lives and forge their character into the great country they would help build," Prince Charles said.
"They would remember forever their many mates, their fellow diggers they left behind here and before in places like Gallipoli and whose spirit will forever be part of Australia's identity.
"Those men and their loved ones trusted that such costly sacrifice would be honoured."
Earlier, Australia's Defence Force chief Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin said Australian troops had shown extraordinary courage in reclaiming Villers-Bretonneux.
"Late on the evening of 24 April, as they approached their start lines, word passed between the Australians in a few hours it would be Anzac Day. They determined to mark the anniversary with a significant victory," Air Chief Marshal Binskin said.
In darkness they pushed towards the town.
"A medical officer going forward with the infantry recalled, 'the darkness in front started to tap, tap, tap and bullets whistled round and the line shuffled forward with rifles at the ready. The whistle of bullets became a swish and a patter, and boys fell all round me, generally without a sound'," the defence force chief said.
As Anzac Day dawned in 1918, it was with a stunning victory at a terrible cost, the bodies of two Australian battalions left tangled in the German wire.
Australian Associated Press
