their horses mounted riderless horses. A percentage of one in six or
seven had been hit, which was the most amazing part of it; indeed, the
most joyful part, completing the likeness to the days when war still had
the element of sport. There had been killed and wounded or it would not
have been a battle, but not enough to cast a spell of gloom; just enough
to be a part of the gambling hazard of war and give the fillip of danger
to recollection.
XV
ENTER THE ANZACS
Newfoundland sets the pace--Australia and New Zealand lands that
breed men--Australians "very proud, individual men"--Geographical
isolation a cause of independence--The "Anzacs'" idea of
fighting--Sir Charles Birdwood--How he taught his troops
discipline--Bean and Ross--Difference between Australians and New
Zealanders--The Australian uniform and physique--A dollar and a half
a day--General Birdwood and his men--Australian humor.
It was British troops exclusively which started the Grand Offensive if
we except the Newfoundland battalion which alone had the honor of
representing the heroism of North America on July 1st; for people in
passing the Grand Banks which makes them think of Newfoundland are wont
to regard it as a part of Canada, when it is a separate colony whose
fishermen and frontiersmen were attached to a British division that went
to Gallipoli with a British brigade and later shared the fate of British
battalions in the attack on the Thiepval-Gommecourt sector.
On that famous day in Picardy the Newfoundlanders advanced into the
smoke of the curtains of fire unflinchingly and kept on charging the
machine guns. Survivors and the wounded who crept back at night across
No Man's Land had no need to trumpet their heroism. All the army knew
it. Newfoundland had set the pace for the other clans from oversea.
It was British troops, too, which took Contalmaison and Mametz, Bernafay
and Trônes Woods and who carried out all the attack of July 15th, with
the exception of the South African brigade which stormed Delville Wood
with the tearing enthusiasm of a rush for a new diamond mine.
Whenever the troops from oversea are not mentioned you may be sure that
it is the British, the home troops, who are doing the fighting, their
number being about ten to one of the others with the one out of ten
representing double the number of those who fought on either side in any
great pitched battle in our Civil War. After the Newfoundlanders and
South Africans, who were few but precious, the Australians, an army of
themselves, came to take their part in the Somme battle.
I have never been in Australia or New Zealand, but this I know that when
the war is over I am going. I want to see the land that breeds such men.
They are free men if ever there were such; free whether they come from
town or from bush. I had heard of their commonwealth ideas, their
State-owned utilities, their socialistic inclinations, which might
incline you to think that they were all of the same State-cut pattern of
manhood; but I had heard, too, how they had restricted immigration of
Orientals and limited other immigration by method if not by law, which
was suggestive of a tendency to keep the breed to itself, as I
understood from my reading.
Whenever I saw an Australian I thought: "Here is a very proud,
individual man," but also an Australian, particularly an Australian.
Some people thought that there was a touch of insolence in his bearing
when he looked you straight in the eye as much as to say: "The best
thing in the world is to be an upstanding member of the human race who
is ready to prove that he is as good as any other. If you don't think
so, well--" There was no doubt about the Australian being brave. This
was as self-evident as that the pine is straight and the beech is hard
wood.
The Australians came from a great distance. This you knew without
geographical reference. Far away in their island continent they have
been working out their own destiny, not caring for interference from the
outside. To put it in strong language, there is a touch of the "I don't
care a rap for anybody who does not care a rap for me" in their extreme
moments of independence. It is refreshing that a whole population may
have an island continent to themselves and carry on in this fashion.
They had had an introduction to universal service which was also
characteristic of their democracy and helpful in time of war. The
"Anzac" had caught the sense of its idea (before other English-speaking
people) not to let others do your fighting for you but all "join in the
scrum." Orientals might crave the broad spaces of a new land, in which
event if they ever took Australia and New Zealand they would not be
bothered by many survivors of the white population, because most of the
Anzacs would be dead--this being particularly the kind of people the
Anzacs are as I knew them in France, which was not a poor trial ground
of their quality.
When they went to Gallipoli it was said that they had no discipline; and
certainly at first discipline did irritate them as a snaffle bit
irritates a high-spirited horse. "Little Kitch," as the stalwart Anzacs
called the New Army Englishman, thought that they broke all the military
commandments of the drill-grounds in a way that would be their undoing.
I rather think that it might have been the undoing of Little Kitch, with
his stubborn, methodical, phlegmatic, "stick-it" courage; but after the
Australians had fought the Turk a while it was evident that they knew
how to fight, and their general, Sir Charles Birdwood, supplied the
discipline which is necessary if fighting power is not to be wasted in
misplaced emotion.
Lucky Birdwood to command the Australians and lucky Australians to have
him as commander! It was he who in choosing a telegraph code word made
up "Anzac" for the Australian-New Zealand corps, which at once became
the collective term for the combination. What a test he put them to and
they put him to! He had to prove himself to them before he could develop
the Anzacs into a war unit worthy of their fighting quality. Such is
democracy where man judges man by standards, set, in this case, by
Australian customs.
When he understood them he knew why he was fortunate. He was one of them
and at the same time a stiff disciplinarian. They objected to saluting,
but he taught them to salute in a way that did not make saluting seem
the whole thing--this was what they resented--but a part of the routine.
It was said that he knew every man in the corps by name, which shows how
stories will grow around a commander who rises at five and retires at
midnight and has a dynamic ubiquity in keeping in touch with his men.
Such a force included some "rough customers" who might mistake war for a
brawler's opportunity; but Sir Charles had a way with them that worked
out for their good and the good of the corps.
Though they were of a free type of democracy, the Australian government,
either from inherent sense or as the result of distance, as critics
might say, or owing to General Birdwood's gift of having his way, did
not handicap the Australians as heavily as they might have been
handicapped under the circumstances by officers who were skilful in
politics without being skilful in war.
As publicist the Australians had Bean, a trained journalist, a
red-headed blade of a man who was an officer among officers and a man
among men and held the respect of all by Australian qualities. If there
could be only one chronicler allowed, then Bean's choice had the
applause of a corps, though Bean says that Australia is full of just as
good journalists who did not have his luck. The New Zealanders had Ross
to play the same part for them with equal loyalty and he was as much of
a New Zealander as Bean was an Australian.
For, make no mistake, though the Australians and the New Zealanders
might seem alike to the observer as they marched along a road, they are
not, as you will find if you talk with them. The New Zealanders have
islands of their own, not to mention that the Tasmanians have one, too.
Besides, the New Zealanders include a Maori battalion and of all
aborigines of lands where the white races have settled in permanence to
build new nations, the Maoris have best accustomed themselves to
civilization and are the highest type--a fact which every New Zealander
takes as another contributing factor to New Zealand's excellence. Quiet
men the New Zealanders, bearing themselves with the pride of Guardsmen
whose privates all belong to superior old families, and New Zealanders
every minute of every hour of the day, though you might think that civil
war was imminent if you started them on a discussion about home
politics.
Give any unit of an army some particular, readily distinguishable
symbol, be it only a feather in the cap or a different headgear, and
that lot becomes set apart from the others in a fashion that gives them
_esprit de corps_. With the Scots it is the kilt and the different
plaids. All the varied uniforms of regiments of the armies of olden days
had this object. Modern war requires neutral tones and its necessary
machinelike homogeneity may look askance at too much rivalry among units
as tending toward each one acting by itself rather than in co-operation
with the rest.
All the forces at the front except the Anzacs were in khaki and wore
caps when not wearing steel helmets in the trenches or on the
firing-line. The Australians were in slate-colored uniform and they
wore looped-up soft hats. The hats accentuated the manner, the height
and the sturdiness of the men whose physique was unsurpassed at the
British front, and practically all were smooth-shaven. For generations
they had had adequate nutrition and they had the capacity to absorb it,
which generations from the slums may lack even if the food is
forthcoming.
There was no reason why every man in Australia should not have enough to
eat and, whether bush or city dweller, he was fond of the open air where
he might exercise the year around. He had blown his lungs; he had fed
well and came of a daring pioneer stock. When an Anzac battalion under
those hats went swinging along the road it seemed as if the men were
taking the road along with them, such was their vigorous tread. On leave
in London they were equally conspicuous. Sometimes they used a little
vermilion with the generosity of men who received a dollar and a half a
day as their wage. It was the first time, in many instances, that they
had seen the "old town" and they had come far and to-morrow might go
back to France for the last time.
My first view of them in the trenches after they came from Gallipoli was
in the flat country near Ypres whose mushiness is so detested by all
soldiers. They had been used to digging trenches in dry hillsides,
where they might excavate caves with solid walls. Here they had to fill
sandbags with mud and make breastworks, which were frequently breached
by shell fire. At first, they had been poor diggers; but when democracy
learns its lesson by individual experience it is incorporated in every
man and no longer is a question of orders. Now they were deepening
communication trenches and thickening parapet walls and were
mud-plastered by their labor.
Having risen at General Birdwood's hour of five to go with him on
inspection I might watch his methods, and it means something to men to
have their corps commander thus early among them when a drizzly rain is
softening the morass under foot. He stopped and asked the privates how
they were in a friendly way and they answered with straight-away
candor. Then he gave some directions about improvements with a
we-are-all-working-together suggestiveness, but all the time he was the
general. These privates were not without their Australian sense of
humor, which is dry; and in answer to the inquiry about how he was one
said:
"All right, except we'd like a little rum, sir."
In cold weather the distribution of a rum ration was at the disposition
of a commander, who in most instances did not give it. This stalwart
Australian evidently had not been a teetotaler.
"We'll give you some rum when you have made a trench raid and taken some
prisoners," the general replied.
"It might be an incentive, sir!" said the soldier very respectfully.
"No Australian should need such an incentive!" answered the general, and
passed on.
"Yes, sir!" was the answer of another soldier to the question if he had
been in Gallipoli.
"Wounded?"
"Yes, sir."
"How?"
"I was examining a bomb, sir, to find out how it was made and it went
off to my surprise, sir!"
There was not even a twinkle of the eye accompanying the response, yet I
was not certain that this big fellow from the bush had been wounded in
that way. I suspected him of a quiet joke.
"Throw them at the Germans next time," said the general.
"Yes, sir. It's safer!"
Returning after that long morning of characteristic routine, as we
passed through a village where Australians were billeted one soldier
failed to salute. When the general stopped him his hand shot up in
approved fashion as he recognized his commander and he said contritely,
with the touch of respect of a man to the leader in whom he believes:
"I did not see that it was you, sir!"
The general had on a mackintosh with the collar turned up, which
concealed his rank.
"But you might see that it was an officer."
"Yes, sir."
"And you salute officers."
"Yes, sir."
Which he would hereafter now that it was General Birdwood's order,
though this everlasting raising of your hand, as one Australian said,
made you into a kind of human windmill when the world was so full of
officers. Gradually all came to salute, and when an Australian salutes
he does it in a way that is a credit to Australia.
After a period of fighting a tired division retired from the battle
front and a fresh one took the place. Thus, following the custom of the
circulation of troops by the armies of both sides, whether at Verdun or
on the Somme, the day arrived when along the road toward the front came
the Australian battalions, hardened and disciplined by trench warfare,
keen-edged in spirit, and ready for the bold task which awaited them at
Pozières. This time the New Zealanders were not along.
XVI
THE AUSTRALIANS AND A WINDMILL
The windmill upon the hill--Pozières--Its topography--Warlike
intensity of the Australians--A "stiff job"--An Australian
chronicler--Incentives to Australian efficiency--German complaint
that the Australians came too fast--Clockwork efficiency--Man-to-man
business--Sunburned, gaunt battalions from the vortex--The fighting
on the Ridge--Mouquet Farm--A contest of individuality against
discipline--"Advance, Australia!"--New Zealanders--South Africans.
When I think of the Australians in France I always think of a windmill.
This is not implying that they were in any sense Quixotic or that they
tilted at a windmill, there being nothing left of the windmill to tilt
at when their capture of its ruins became the crowning labor of their
first tour on the Somme front.
In their progress up that sector of the Ridge the windmill came after
Pozières, as the ascent of the bare mountain peak comes after the
reaches below the timber line. Pozières was beyond La Boisselle and
Ovillers-la-Boisselle, from which the battle movement swung forward at
the hinge of the point where the old first-line German fortifications
had been broken on July 1st.
To think of Pozières will be to think of the Australians as long as the
history of the Somme battle endures. I read an interview in a New York
paper with the Chief of Staff of the German Army opposite the British in
which he must have been correctly quoted, as his remarks passed the
censorship. He said that the loss of Pozières was a blunder. I liked his
frankness in laying the blame on a subordinate who, if he also had
spoken, might have mentioned the presence of the Australians as an
excuse, which, personally, I think is an excellent one.
Difficult as it now becomes to keep any sequence in the operations when,
at best, chronology ceases to be illuminative of phases, it is well here
to explain that the attack of July 15th had not gained the whole Ridge
on the front ahead of the broad stretch of ruptured first line. Besides,
the Ridge is not like the roof of a house, but a most illusive series of
irregular knolls with small plateaus or valleys between, a sort of
miniature broken tableland. The foothold gained on July 15th meant no
broad command of vision down the slope to the main valley on the other
side. Even a shoulder five or ten feet higher than the neighboring
ground meant a barrier to artillery observation which shells would not
blast away; and the struggle for such positions was to go on for weeks.
Pozières, then, was on the way to the Ridge and its possession would
put the formidable defenses of Thiepval in a salient, thus enabling the
British to strike it from the side as well as in front, which is the aim
of all strategy whether it works in mobile divisions in an open field or
is biting and tearing its way against field fortifications. Therefore,
the Germans had good reason to hold Pozières, which protected first-line
trenches that had required twenty months of preparation. Wherever they
could keep the Briton or the Frenchman from forcing the fight into the
open which made the contest an even one in digging, they were saving
life and ammunition by nests of redoubts and dugouts.
The reason that the Australians wanted to take Pozières was not so
tactical as human in their minds. It was the village assigned to them
and they wished to investigate it immediately and get established in the
property that was to be theirs, once they took it, to hold in trust for
the inhabitants. I had a fondness for watching them as they marched up
to the front looking unreal in their steel helmets which they wore in
place of the broad-brimmed hats. There was a sort of warlike intensity
about them which may come from the sunlight of an island continent
reflecting the histrionic adaptability of appearances to the task in
hand.
Their first objective was to be the main street. They had a "stiff job"
ahead, as everybody agreed, and so had the British troops operating on
their right.
"This objective business has a highly educated sound, which might limit
martial enthusiasm," said one Australian. "As I understand it, that's
the line where we stop no matter how good the going and which we must
reach no matter how hard the going."
Precisely. An Australian battalion needed a warning in the first
instance lest it might keep on advancing, which meant that commanders
would not know where it was in the shell-smoke and it might get
"squeezed" for want of support on the right and left, as I have
explained elsewhere. Certainly, warning was unnecessary in the second
instance about the hard going.
Bean has all the details of the taking of Pozières; he knows what every
battalion did, and I was going to say what every soldier did. When the
Australians were in he was in making notes and when they were out he was
out writing up his notes. His was intimate war correspondence about the
fellows who came from all the districts of his continent, his home
folks. I am only expressing the impressions of one who had glimpses of
the Australians while the battle was raging elsewhere.
Of course, skeptics had said that Gallipoli was one thing and the Somme
another and the Australian man-to-man method might receive a shock from
Prussian system; but, then, skeptics had said that the British could not
make an army in two years. The Australians knew what was in the
skeptics' minds, which was further incentive. They had a general whom
they believed in and they did not admit that any man on earth was a
better man than an Australian. And their staff? Of course, when it takes
forty years to make a staff how could the Australians have one that
could hold its own with the Germans? And this was what the Australians
had to do, staff and man: beat the Germans.
When with clockwork promptness came the report that they had taken all
of their objectives it showed that they were up to the standard of their
looks and their staff signals were working well. They had a lot of
prisoners, too, who complained that the Australians came on too fast.
Meanwhile, they were on one side of the street and the Germans on the
other, hugging débris and sniping at one another. Now the man-to-man
business began to count. The Australian got across the street; he went
after the other fellow; he made a still hunt of it. This battle had
become a personal matter which pleased their sense of individualism; for
it is not bred into Australians to be afraid if they are out alone after
dark.
Having worked beyond their first objective, when they were given as
their second the rest of the village they took it; and they were not
"biffed" out of it, either. What was the use of yielding ground when you
would have to make another charge in order to regain what had been lost?
They were not that kind of arithmeticians, they said. They believed in
addition not subtraction in an offensive campaign.
So they stuck, though the Germans made repeated daring counter-attacks
and poured in shell fire from the guns up Thiepval way and off Bapaume
way with hellish prodigality. For the German staff was evidently much
out of temper about the "blunder" and for many weeks to come were to
continue pounding Pozières. If they could not shake the Australian out
of the village they meant to make him pay heavy taxes and to try to kill
his reliefs and stop his supplies. How the Australians managed to get
food and men up through the communication trenches under the unceasing
inferno over that bare slope is tribute to their skill in slipping out
and in between its blasts.
Not only were they able to hold, but they kept on attacking. Every day
we heard that they had taken more ground and whenever we went out to
have a look the German lines were always a little farther back. One day
we were asking if the Australians were in the cemetery yet; the next
day they were and the next they had more of it as they worked their way
uphill, fighting from grave to grave; and the next day they had mastered
all of it, thanks to a grim persistence which some had said would not
comport with their highstrung temperament.
The windmill was a landmark crowning the Ridge; as fair a target as ever
artillery ranged on--a gunner's delight. After having been knocked into
splinters the splinters were spread about by high explosives which
reduced the stone base to fragments.
Sunburned, gaunt battalions came out of the vortex for a turn of rest.
With helmets battered by shrapnel bullets, after nights in the rain and
broiling hot days, their faces grimy and unshaven, their clothes torn
and spotted, they were still Australians who looked you in the eye with
a sense of having proved their birthright as free men. Sometimes the old
spirit incited by the situation got out of bonds. One night when a
company rose up to the charge the company next in line called out,
"Where are you going?" and on the reply, "We've orders to take that
trench in front," the company that had no orders to advance exclaimed,
"Here, we're going to join in the scrum!" and they did, taking more
trench than the plan required.
The fierce period of the battle was approaching when fighting on the
Ridge was to be a bloody, wrestling series of clinches. Now trenches
could not be dug on that bold, treeless summit. As soon as an aeroplane
spotted a line developing out of the field of shell-craters the guns
filled the trench and then proceeded to pound it into the fashionable
style for farming land on the Ridge.
Trenches out of the question, it became a war among shell-craters. Here
a soldier ensconced himself with rifle and bombs or a machine gunner
deepened the hole with his spade for the gun. This was "scrapping" to
the Australians' taste. It called for individual nerve and daring on
that shell-swept, pestled earth, creeping up to new positions or back
for water and food by night, lying "doggo" by day and waiting for a
counter-attack by the Germans, who were always the losers in this grim,
stealthy advance.