Ninety years after the Great War, the bones of those who died are still rattling the consciences of succeeding generations. Two years ago, there were frantic diplomatic exchanges between Australia and Turkey as the possibility emerged that the remains of Anzacs may have been disturbed as a result of road widening – ironically, to enable contemporary pilgrims to ‘pay their respects’ to those very bones. A complex bureaucratic tug-of-war has also been simmering over the whereabouts of the bones of approximately 170 Australians who died behind German lines at the battle of Fromelles on 19–20 July 1916.

Fromelles, in northernmost France, is important for a number of reasons. It was the first major battle that Australians fought on the Western Front, involving the majority of the 15,000-strong Australian 5th Division. Over the course of the night, the Division suffered 5533 casualties, including more than 1800 men killed, making it the bloodiest twenty-four hours in Australian history. Because of the nature of the warfare, 1299 of these men’s remains were never identified. Crucially, it is believed that 170 bodies were not even recovered, and so, like countless thousands, their true fate was never fully established. That is, until Melbourne schoolteacher Lambis Englezos became obsessed with finding them. It is his latter-day search for these 170 that provides the impetus for Patrick Lindsay’s Fromelles.