In cave graffiti near battle of the somme site, soldiers live on

A hand pointing at soldier’s graffiti inside the Naours underground ‘city’. [Photos By Francois Nascimbeni/AFP]

3,000 bits of etchings record the presence of soldiers on break from the hell of battle

A century after World War I, an archeologist exploring ancient tunnels in northeast France made a moving discovery - thousands of scrawlings by Allied soldiers, notably Australians, as they took a break from the hell of the Battle of the Somme.

And now, the public can visit them too.

"LR Blake lieut 105t How Btry 7-1-17," reads one, with the help of a torch, carved into the vast underground network in the town of Naours, near Amiens.

Translation: Leslie Russel Blake, a lieutenant hailing from near Melbourne and fighting with the 105th Howitzer Battery who left his mark on the chalk walls on Jan 7, 1917.

He was to die in battle the following year and is buried nearby.

Archeologist Giles Prilaux has recorded nearly 3,000 bits of graffiti, mostly etched by Australians from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC).

They paint a vivid picture of young men sent to join a war far from home, something Australia celebrates every April 25 as Anzac Day to remember compatriots who served on the Western front, including the 11,000 with no known graves.

For the past two years, Prilaux and his colleagues at France's National Institute for Preventative Archeological Research (INRAP) have painstakingly scrutinized and logged their finds, looking for clues of what life was like on the nearby Somme battlefields.