90th Anniversary of Le Quesnoy
4 November 2008
The War to End all Wars
The New Zealand Division spent two and a half years on the Western Front during World War One with over 13,000 men dying from wounds or sickness as a direct result of the campaign. Now 90 years on, the Army Museum Waiouru is remembering the efforts of the New Zealand Division in 1918 and their return home after four gruelling years of war, with two new exhibitions titled “The Final Push” (currently on display) and “The Last 100 Days” (opening 13 October 2008).
The Army Museum’s latest exhibition tells the story of the New Zealander’s heroic stand against the German’s Spring Offensive in March 1918 and will follow the ensuing key battles until victory at Bapuame in August 1918. While “The Last 100 Days” will focus on the march to Le Quesnoy, a town the New Zealanders liberated in November 1918 only seven days before the end of World War One.
“One of the Division’s most outstanding single feats was the storming of the medieval fortress of Le Quesnoy in October 1918, climbing the 60 foot high outer ramparts with ladders. A defiant German garrison commander refused to surrender, and the New Zealanders attacked, overcoming a series of barricades until the besieged town was finally forced to submit. The New Zealand Herald of Friday 8 November 1918 reported that Le Quesnoy was taken in ‘old-fashioned style’, using ladders, and it was only ‘new-fashioned’ machine guns that prevented the New Zealanders from storming the keep of the fortress. They fought with ‘resistless speed and achieved one of the most outstanding feats in the war’, and it was claimed to be the first occasion a besieged town had been formally summoned to surrender to British troops. One New Zealander who took part in the liberation, Lawrence Morris ‘Curly’ Blyth, was awarded France’s highest military decoration, the Legion of Honour, and in 2000 he also had the distinction of having a street in the village of Beaudignies, near Le Quesnoy, named after him”.
(Excerpt from “With Honour: Our Army, Our Nation, Our History” by Richard Wolfe)
To say thanks, the French town of Le Quesnoy presented the New Zealand Rifle Brigade a special banner along with autographed letter of thanks for the deliverance of their town. This banner is housed within the Army Museum’s collection and will be on display for the first time since restoration.