Australian Battles at Ypres, 1917  

Multilocus developed a touch screen exhibit for the Australian War Memorial called Australian Battles at Ypres, 1917.

The touch screen exhibit is an official gift from the Australian Government to the In Flanders Field Museum, Ieper (Ypres), Belgium and describes in English, Flemish, French and German the experiences of Australian diggers and how they endured the muddy battlefields near Ieper in 1917.

The Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon John Howard, announced this gift during his visit to Ieper in July 2002.

The Minister for Veteran’s Affairs, the Hon Danna Vale opened the exhibit in Ieper on ANZAC Day, 25 April, 2003. The exhibit was installed in the Australian War Memorial for ANZAC Day 2003.

In 1917 the ANZAC divisions spearheaded 5 of the 11 major assaults against the German lines in the Third Battle of Ypres (Ieper). The September attacks were made in dry conditions. They went well, though the cost in casualties was high. By October the weather had changed dramatically. The drainage system in this low lying region had been destroyed by months of shelling and the heavy autumn rains turned the ground into a morass. Under these conditions the Australians fought at Broodseinde Ridge, Poelcappelle (Poelkappelle) and Passchendaele (Passendale). At the end of the campaign some 38,000 Australians had been killed or wounded. By the end of 1917 the heavy losses suffered at Passchendaele, coupled with a dwindling supply of reinforcements, left the AIF with a manpower crisis that threatened its ability to maintain the Australian divisions in the field at fighting strength.

The exhibit features images, stories and film from the Australian War Memorial’s collections and is divided into 3 sections:

Battles
This section provides details of each of the battles with maps, photographs and film. The film includes footage of the Australian tunnellers preparing the huge charges prior to the battle of Messines. The resulting explosions were felt as far away as London. Two of these mines failed to explode. One mine was set off by a lightening strike in the 1950s. The location of the remaining unexploded mine is unknown.

Stories
This section features 25 unique “Australian Stories” about people such as:

	Frank Hurley the photographer who survived Shackelton’s Antarctica expedition.
	Kit McNaughton who served with the Australian Army Nursing Service,
	Lieutenant Frederick Birks, VC, MM who was awarded the Victoria Cross on 20 September 1917 only to be killed the next day by a German shell.
	Theo, George and William Seabrook, brothers who were all killed within 2 days of each other.
	Lance Corporal Ted Smout a stretcher-bearer with the 3rd Sanitary Section in the Medical Corps. The exhibit includes a series of interviews with the 105 year old veteran who returned to Ieper on two pilgrimages during the 1990s.

Remembering
This section documents the ways that Australians and Belgians remember and commemorate the sacrifice of those who fought and died in World War 1. The “Then and Now” section documents the changed landscape around Ieper. Using photographs from the Memorial’s collections, the In Flanders Field Museum staff went to the same spots to photograph what is there today. Hellfire corner is just a country intersection; a sea of mud is now a woodland, a German pillbox is a quiet farm, the destroyed town of Ypres is now the rebuilt city of Ieper.