Alone in the Ruins

After the battle, war correspondent Charles Bean found an elderly woman alone in the ruins.

Late in March 1918 the German army launched an offensive to capture the strategically important area around Amiens, in
northern France. The town of Villers Bretonneux is on the main road and rail line to Amiens, and during April it was reduced to ruins as the Germans fought with British and Australian forces to control the town (see Wartime 42).

An old Frenchwoman at the entrance to her brick house, Villers-Bretonneux — An old Frenchwoman at her house (20 Hes), before the battle of Amiens, in which she had remained alone and without candle or lamp during the day and night of 4 April 1918, while the German attack reduced the village to ruins. 5 April 1918. Villers-Bretonneux, France.

Accession number: E02392

On 4 April the Australians successfully defended Villers-Bretonneux from its first attack. Australian official war correspondent Charles Bean was in the town the next day and he photographed its gutted houses and rubble-strewn streets. In his diary he recorded his amazement when he found that not all the townspeople had fled.

I caught sight of an old woman walking up a side street with a pail of water and I had to go and photograph her. We found the poor old creature sitting alone, in an empty cottage. I asked [her] why she stayed – she said because she was old. I asked where her husband was – she said he was dead and her children were in England … I asked her whether she had food and she said something about the soldiers opposite and asked me to look for them. I did so but could not find them – she said all that she wanted was a light. I gave the poor old thing a box of matches.

Horrified, Bean alerted senior Australian officers to her plight.

It must have been desperately dangerous and miserable for her there alone with night coming on – but I could not understand what she said … I think the neighbours had cleared out and left her … I wish we had brought her out. The idea of a stray fragment catching the poor old thing – of her spending her night amidst the shellflashes – is terrible … I doubt if I should have been justified in trying to get the car into the village – but these things make one loathe and detest the contingencies of war and the whole horrible system.

In his helplessness Bean did the only thing he could do, which was to make a record. With camera and notebook, he captured and preserved this glimpse of a lonely woman who had lost everything to the horror of war.

First World War 1914 - 1918

Charles Bean

Photography

Last updated: 8 July 2025

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