It was the point at which “aerial, mechanical and human courage and ingenuity combined with devastating results” to turn the tide of the first world war, Prince William told the 3,000 people gathered to commemorate the Battle of Amiens in the city’s Notre-Dame cathedral.

Remembrance of the four-day assault – launched at 4.20am, 100 years ago to the day – may live in the shadow of the horrors of the Somme and Passchendaele, but, as Prince William said, it was this “truly coordinated” allied attack and the “great endeavour” of 100,000 British, French, Canadian, Australian and US troops that broke the will of the German army and acted as a springboard for victory.

A reading by Maj Ryan Pearce, of the Royal Australian Armoured Corps, voiced the thoughts of Pte Southey, of the Australian Corps: “Some Germans surrendered quickly, others fought to the end. As we pushed on wondering where we were, the sun broke through and we began to see the countryside that we hadn’t seen for quite some time. It was unscathed, all sorts of cultivated land, and we began to feel, ‘By Jove, the war’s coming to an end. We’re getting through.”’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Willis, a farmer from Victoria, Australia, wrote a poem about the battle as he travelled home by ship in 1919.

The battle was a turning point in the war, when the allies, seeking to protect the city’s key railway connections, made a surprise surge. Supported by hundreds of tanks, operating incongruously alongside cavalry, the allies drove forward through the fog across a front of almost 14 miles, as 900 heavy guns pounded through the air. About 700,000 shells were produced by factories back home for the battle, and half were used before victory was celebrated.

Reading an extract from the war memoirs of David Lloyd George, who was prime minister at the time of Amiens, Theresa May told those at the commemoration, including descendants of the soldiers who fought: “The effect of the victory was moral and not territorial. It revealed to friend and foe alike the breakdown of the German power of resistance.” The armistice was signed about 100 days later.



In a statement to mark the event, May said: “The Battle of Amiens was the turning point which hastened the final, decisive chapter of the first world war.

“A hundred years on, today’s ceremony is a fitting moment to remember those who sacrificed their lives, and reflect on our shared past, present and future.”

Among the descendants in the cathedral was Ashley Schmierer, a 62-year-old pastor whose grandfather LCpl Samuel Dales was shot through the shoulder on the third day. While recovering from his wounds in London, Dales met and married an English woman, Lily. They emigrated to Australia, where he died in 1971, aged 82.

Schmierer, from Brighton, said: “When I was a boy he showed me his war wound. He took off his shirt and he had a scar on both sides of his shoulder where the bullet had entered and gone out. I thought – wow – even bullets can’t kill Grandad. He remained patriotic all his life. He used to say: ‘Ashley, your Queen and country need you.’”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sarah Clarke-Feltham holds a picture of her grandfather George Clarke on his blind horse. Photograph: Daniel Boffey

Schmierer added: “He was a bit of a hero to me. I am here to show gratitude for what he did. He inspired my life. After the war he became a pastor, as I have done. I am here because of the price that was paid for freedom.”

Robert Brownell’s grandfather Jacob Horace Brownell, from Halifax, Novia Scotia, served in the Canadian Corps, and was one of a handful of men to survive a cavalry charge on the so-called Z wood near Amiens, for which he was awarded a military medal on 11 December 1918.

Brownell, 64, also from Halifax, said: “It was the first time that cavalry and tanks were used side by side. There were machine gunners in the trees. He was 19 years old then. Later he spoke a lot about the war to his daughter but not to his four sons. I never heard any stories from father.”

Denis Holden, 65, a retired traffic police officer from Melbourne, told how his grandfather Michael Willis, a wheat and sheep farmer from Victoria who was a Lewis machine gun operator in the war, wrote one poem in his life, on the ship that brought him back from France in 1919, with shrapnel wounds in his back and a collection of pressed red poppies among his papers. “He never wrote anything again. It was called How Amiens was Saved,” said Holden. Willis died in 1972, aged 81.

Sarah Clarke-Feltham’s grandfather George Clarke was in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. Pride of place in his home until he died, aged 91, in 1976, was a photograph of him on a blind horse with which he would take munitions to the front. “He was very proud of that horse, and would tell everyone about it,” said Clarke-Feltham, 42, from Bude in Cornwall. Her great-uncle William – Clarke’s brother-in-law – also served, and watched as his youngest brother, Robert McKeown, 19, was blown up by a German shell, before carrying him to the first-aid station to die.

The middle brother, Thomas, 26, was killed seven weeks later.

“My grandpa was there for the whole war and I know he fought in the Somme,” said Clarke-Feltham. “He had come home in early 1918 when his father died, but returned to the front after that and then fought in Amiens. His pay packet says that even when his mother died he stayed in the field.”

Standing outside the cathedral, Clarke-Feltham said: “I am here because I don’t want that generation to be forgotten. I want people to know what this lot did for them.”