Sunday, April 25, 2010

Villers-Bretonneux catafalque - no weapons?

Just curious - watching the Anzac Day dawn service from the Australian War Memorial Cemetary in Villers-Bretonneux I wonder that the guard have no weapons.

On April 24th 1918 the Germans had taken Villers-Bretonneux and were driving the allies back.

Something else to remember about the battle at Villers-Bretonneux is that it was a victory, the ANZACs and the French drove back the Germans and won the battle, the allies eventually winning the war.

The battle won, the ANZACs realised it was three years to the day that the landing at Gallipoli took place.

The Last Post and Reveille were very well played at this service.

6 comments:

Richard Sharpe said...

pssst..kae...did you mean catafalque?

kae said...

Yes, Mr Sharpe, I did. Thanks.

I've fixed it, not a word I use a lot...

At least I got the name of the place correct (I checked!).

It's freezing here tonight, 13 deg. Supposed to get down to 10 tomorrow's lowest temp... reckon it'll be single digits soon. I have jeans and furry ugg slippers on now.

Hope noone's freezing their bits off where you are...

Eagerly awaiting anything you want to post on your blog...

Pedro the Ignorant said...

Hmmm. Military pedants.
(Disclaimer; I am one also, listen to me bleat when watching historically incorrect war movies. No one will accompany me any more).

Speculating here:
While it is traditional for catafalque parties to be armed, it can be a long and difficult process to get approval to import military weapons (even inert versions) to some countries, and the alternative "unarmed" drill is a Plan B option.
I suspect this may be the case at Villiers Bretonneux.

kae said...

Hi Pedro.
I do appreciate being told when I stuff up - sometimes I'm typo retarded, and others just sloppy.
I knew there was a trick with that word...
Sheesh!

Lee of Mid North Coast NSW said...

Kae - great minds...! I also wondered "wtf" at the Catafalque Party sans-rifles - it looked quite ridiculous. Perhaps a protocol-lackey forgot to arrange weapons (even faux-rifles)to be included in checked luggage? Or, maybe the Federation Guard is a "no-weapons" ceremonial group...

kae said...

Lee, I was thinking it looked strange, however, I think that Pedro is right, similar to his idea Australia would not let some people bring their own weapons into the country even for ceremonial purposes, and I'd imagine that Europe/France may have the same rules.