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THE AUSTRALIAN VICTORIES IN FRANCE IN 1918
[Illustration: Lieut.-General Sir John Monash, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., V.D.,
D.C.L., LL.D.]
THE AUSTRALIAN VICTORIES IN FRANCE IN 1918
by
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR JOHN MONASH,
G.C.M.G., K.C.B., V.D., D.C.L., LL.D.
With 9 Folding Maps in Colour and 31 Illustrations
London: Hutchinson & Co.
Paternoster Row
DEDICATED
to the
AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER
who by his military virtues, and by his deeds
in battle, has earned for himself a
place in history which none
can challenge
PREFACE
The following pages, of which I began the compilation when still
engaged in the arduous work of Repatriation of the Australian troops
in all theatres of war, were intended to be something in the nature
of a consecutive and comprehensive story of the Australian Imperial
Force in France during the closing phases of the Great War. I soon
found that the time at my disposal was far too limited to allow me to
make full use of the very voluminous documentary material which I had
collected during the campaign. The realization of such a project must
await a time of greater leisure. So much as I have had the opportunity
of setting down has, therefore, inevitably taken the form rather of
an individual memoir of this stirring period. While I feel obliged to
ask the indulgence of the reader for the personal character of the
present narrative, this may not be altogether a disadvantage. Having
regard to the responsibilities which it fell to my lot to bear, it may,
indeed, be desirable that I should in all candour set down what was
passing in my mind, and should attempt to describe the ever-changing
external circumstances which operated to guide and form the judgments
and decisions which it became my duty to make from day to day. It may
be that hereafter my exercise of command in the field and the manner in
which I made use of the opportunities which presented themselves will
be the subject of criticism. I welcome this, provided that the facts
and the events of the time are known to and duly weighed by the critic.
My purpose has been to describe in broad outline the part played by
the Australian Army Corps in the closing months of the war, and I have
based upon that record somewhat large claims on behalf of the Corps. It
would have overloaded the story to include in it any larger number of
extracts from original documents than has been done. I may, however,
assert with confidence that the statements, statistics and deductions
made can be verified by reference to authoritative sources.
The photographs have been selected from a very large number taken,
during the fighting and often under fire, by Captain G. H. Wilkins,
M.C. The maps have been prepared under my personal supervision, and are
compiled from the official battle maps in actual use by me during the
operations.
JOHN MONASH.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
PREFACE v
INTRODUCTION--THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY CORPS 1
I.--BACK TO THE SOMME 18
II.--THE DEFENCE OF AMIENS 36
III.--HAMEL 51
IV.--TURNING THE TIDE 69
V.--THE BATTLE PLAN 81
VI.--THE BATTLE PLAN (_continued_) 97
VII.--THE CHASE BEGINS 115
VIII.--EXPLOITATION 133
IX.--CHUIGNES 148
X.--PURSUIT 164
XI.--MONT ST. QUENTIN AND PÉRONNE 182
XII.--A LULL 198
XIII.--HARGICOURT 214
XIV.--AMERICA JOINS IN 235
XV.--BELLICOURT AND BONY 254
XVI.--MONTBREHAIN AND AFTER 271
XVII.--RESULTS 284
APPENDIX A 299
APPENDIX B 300
APPENDIX C 317
INDEX 345
LIST OF MAPS
A--The Advances of the Third Division--March to
May, 1918 _Facing page_ 32
B--Battle of Hamel, July 4th, 1918 " 64
C--Battle of August 8th, 1918 " 144
D--Battle of Chuignes and Bray, August 23rd, 1918 " 160
E--Péronne and Mont St. Quentin " 192
F--Advances of Australian Corps, September 2nd to
17th, 1918 " 208
G--Battle of September 18th, 1918 " 224
H--Breaching of Hindenburg Defences " 272
J--Australian Corps Campaign " 288
LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS
Lieut.-General Sir John Monash, G.C.M.G.,
K.C.B., V.D., D.C.L., LL.D. _Frontispiece_
1.--The Australian Corps Commander--with the
Generals of his Staff _Facing page_ 14
2.--The Valley of the Somme--looking east towards
Bray, which was then still in enemy hands " 15
3.--German Prisoners--taken by the Corps at
Hamel, being marched to the rear " 40
4.--Visit of M. Clemenceau--group taken at Bussy,
July 7th, 1918 " 41
5.--Railway Gun, 11.2-inch Bore--captured near
Rosières on August 8th, 1918 " 66
6.--German Depot of Stores--captured on August
8th, 1918 " 67
7.--Tanks marching into Battle " 96
8.--Morcourt Valley--the Australian attack swept
across this on August 8th, 1918 " 97
9.--Dug-outs at Froissy-Beacon--being "mopped
up" during battle " 112
10.--Péronne--barricade in main street " 113
11.--Burning Villages--east of Péronne " 128
12.--Dummy Tank Manufacture " 129
13.--The Canal and Tunnel at Bellicourt--looking
north " 152
14.--The Hindenburg Line--a characteristic belt of
sunken wire " 153
15.--Final Instructions to the Platoon--an incident
of the battle of August 8th, 1918. The
platoon is waiting to advance to Phase B of
the battle " 176
16.--An Armoured Car--disabled near Bony, during
the battle of September 29th, 1918 " 177
17.--The Hindenburg Line Wire--near Bony " 198
18.--The 15-inch Naval Gun--captured at Chuignes
August 23rd, 1918 " 199
19.--Australian Artillery--going into action at
Cressaire Wood " 218
20.--Battle of August 8th, 1918--German prisoners
being brought out of the battle under the fire
of their own Artillery " 219
21.--Mont St. Quentin--collecting Australian
wounded under protection of the Red Cross
flag, September 1st, 1918 " 240
22.--An Ammunition Dump--established in Warfusee
village on August 8th, 1918, after its
capture the same morning " 241
23.--Australian Light Horse--the 13th A.L.H.
Regiment riding into action on August 17th, 1918 " 256
24.--The Sniper sniped--an enemy sniper disposed
of by an Australian Sharp-shooter,
August 22nd, 1918 " 257
25.--German Prisoners--captured at the battle of
Chuignes, August 23rd, 1918 " 274
26.--Captured German Guns--Park of Ordnance,
captured by the Australians during August, 1918 " 275
27.--The Toll of Battle--an Australian gun-team
destroyed by an enemy shell, September 1st, 1918 " 294
28.--Inter-Divisional Relief--the 30th American
and the 3rd Australian Divisions passing each
other in the "Roo de Kanga," Péronne,
during the "relief" after the capture of the
Hindenburg Line, October 4th, 1918 " 295
29.--Australian Artillery--moving up to the front,
through the Hindenburg wire, October 2nd, 1918 " 316
30.--Advance during Battle--Third Division Infantry
and Tanks advancing to the capture of Bony,
October 1st, 1918 " 317
The Australian Victories in France in 1918
INTRODUCTION
THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY CORPS
The renown of the Australians as individual fighters, in all theatres
of the Great War, has loomed large in the minds and imagination of the
people of the Empire.
Many stories of the work they did have been published in the daily
Press and in book form. But it is seldom that any appreciation can be
discovered of the fact that the Australians in France gradually became,
as the war progressed, moulded into a single, complete and fully
organized Army Corps.
Seldom has any stress been laid upon the fact that because it thus
became a formation fixed and stable in composition, fighting under a
single command, and provided with all accessory arms and services, the
Corps was able successfully to undertake fighting operations on the
grandest scale.
There can be little question, however, that it was this development
which constituted the paramount and precedent condition for the
brilliant successes achieved by these splendid troops during the summer
and autumn of 1918--successes which far overshadowed those of any
earlier period of the war.
For a complete understanding of all the factors which contributed
to those successes, and for an intelligent grasp of the course of
events following so dramatically upon the outbreak of the great
German offensive of March 21st of that year, I propose to trace, very
briefly, the genesis and ultimate development of the Corps, as it
became constituted when, on August 8th, it was launched upon its great
enterprise of opening, in close collaboration with the Army Corps of
its sister Dominion of Canada, that remarkable counter-offensive, which
it maintained, without pause, without check, and without reverse, for
sixty consecutive days--a period full of glorious achievement--which
contributed, as I shall show in these pages, in the most direct and
decisive manner, to the final collapse and surrender of the enemy.
In the days before the war, there was in the British Service no
recognized or authorized organization known as an Army Corps. When
the Expeditionary Force was launched into the conflict in 1914, the
Army Corps organization was hastily improvised, and consisted at first
merely of an Army Corps Staff, with a small allotment of special Corps
Troops and services, and of a fluctuating number of Divisions.
It was the _Division_[1] and not the _Corps_, which was then the
strategical unit of the Army. Even when the necessity for the formation
of Army Corps was recognized, it was still a fundamental conception
that it was the Division, and not the Army Corps, which constituted the
fighting unit.
To each Army Corps were allotted at first only two, but later as many
as four Divisions, according to the needs and circumstances of the
moment. But the component Divisions never, for long, remained the same.
The actual composition of every Army Corps was subject to constant
changes and interchanges, and it was rare for any given Division to
remain for more than a few weeks in any one Army Corps.
The disadvantages of such an arrangement are sufficiently obvious to
require no great elaboration; at the same time, it has to be recognized
that, during the first three years of the war, at any rate, the Army
was undergoing a process of rapid expansion, and that, on grounds of
expediency, it was neither possible nor desirable to adopt a policy of
a fixed and immutable composition for so large a formation as an Army
Corps.
Moreover, the special conditions of trench warfare made it imperative
to create, under the respective Armies, and in the respective zones
of those Armies, a subordinate administrative and tactical authority
with a more or less fixed geographical jurisdiction. Thus, the frontage
held by each of the five British Armies became subdivided into a
series of Corps frontages, and each Corps Commander had allotted to
him a definite frontage, a definite depth and a definite area, for his
administrative and executive direction.
It was within this Corps area that he exercised entire control of all
functions of a purely local and geographical character: such as the
maintenance of all roads, railways, canals, telegraphs and telephones;
the control of all traffic; the apportionment of all billeting and
quartering facilities; the allocation and employment of all means of
transport; the collection and distribution of all supplies, comprising
food, forage, munitions and engineering materials; the conservation
and distribution of all water supply; the sanitation of the area; the
whole medical administration within, and the evacuation of sick and
wounded from the area; the establishment and working of shops of all
descriptions, both for general engineering and for Ordnance purposes;
also of laundries, bathing establishments and rest camps; the creation
of facilities for the entertainment and recreation of resting troops,
and of schools for their military training and for the education of
their leaders.
The Corps Commander was, in addition, directly responsible to the Army
Commander for the tactical defence of his whole area, for the creation
and maintenance of the entire system of field defences covering his
frontage, comprising trench systems in numerous successive zones and
field fortifications of all descriptions; for preparations for the
demolition of railways and bridges to meet the eventuality of an
enforced withdrawal; and for detailed plans for an advance into the
enemy's territory whenever the opportune moment should arrive.
The extensive responsibilities thus imposed upon the Corps Commander,
and upon the whole of his Staff, obviously demanded an intimate study
and knowledge of the whole of the Corps area, such as could be acquired
only by continuous occupation of one and the same area for a period
extending over many months. It would therefore have been in the highest
degree inconvenient to move such a complex organization as an Army
Corps Staff from one area to another at short intervals of time. On the
other hand, the several Divisions allotted to any given Corps for the
actual occupation and maintenance of the defences could not be called
upon to carry out without relief or rest, trench duty for continuous
periods longer than a few weeks at a time.
During the first three years the number of Divisions at the disposal
of the British High Command was never adequate to provide each Army
Corps in the front line with sufficient Divisions to permit of a
regular alternation out of its own resources of periods of trench duty
and periods of rest. For a Corps holding a two-Division frontage, for
example, it would have been necessary to provide a permanent strength
of at least four Divisions in order to permit of such a rotation.
The expedient generally adopted, therefore, was to withdraw altogether
from the Army Corps, each Division in turn, as it became due for a rest
behind the line or was required for duty elsewhere, and to substitute
some other available Division from G.H.Q. or Army Reserve. The broad
result was that such an deal as that of a fixed composition for an Army
Corps proved quite unattainable, and there was a constant interchange
of nearly the whole of the Divisions of the Army, who served in
succession, for short periods, in many different Corps, and under many
different Commanders.
To this general rule there was, from the outset of its formation, one
striking exception, in the case of the Canadian Army Corps, consisting
of the four Canadian Divisions, which, with rare exceptions, and these
only for short periods and for quite special purposes, invariably
fought as a complete Corps of fixed constitution.
It is impossible to overvalue the advantages which accrued to the
Canadian troops from this close and constant association of all the
four Divisions with each other, with the Corps Commander and his Staff,
and with all the accessory Corps services. It meant mutual knowledge
of each other among all Commanders, all Staffs, all arms and services,
and the mutual trust and confidence born of that knowledge. It was the
prime factor in achieving the brilliant conquest of the Vimy Ridge by
that Corps in the early spring of 1917.
The consummation, so long and so ardently hoped for, of a similar
welding together of all Australian units in the field in France into a
single Corps was not achieved in its entirety until a full year later,
and it will be interesting to trace briefly the steps by which such a
result, strongly pressed as it was by the Australian Government, was
finally brought about.
Australia put into the field and maintained until the end, altogether
five Divisions of Infantry, complete with all requisite Artillery,
Engineers, Pioneers and all Supply, Medical and Veterinary Services, in
full conformity with the Imperial War Establishments laid down for such
Divisions. But the method and time of their formation and organization,
the manner and circumstances of their war preparation, and their
employment as part of a Corps varied considerably.
The First Australian Division, together with the Fourth Infantry
Brigade, which was then under my command and subsequently became the
nucleus of the Fourth Australian Division, were raised in Australia
in 1914, immediately after the outbreak of war, were transported to
Egypt, where they underwent their war training in the winter of 1915,
and ultimately formed, with the New Zealand Contingent, the body known
as the "Anzac" Corps, which carried out, on April 25th, the memorable
landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
The Second Australian Division speedily followed, being raised in
Australia during 1915, and the greater part of this Second Contingent
joined the Anzac Corps in the later stages of the Dardanelles
Expedition. Another independent Brigade (the Eighth) was also sent to
Egypt in that year.
The raising of the Third Australian Division, early in 1916, was the
magnificent answer which Australia made when public men and the Press
declared that the Australian people would resent the Evacuation from
Gallipoli, and the seemingly fruitless sacrifices which it entailed.
This Division was shipped direct to England, and assembled on Salisbury
Plain during the summer of 1916, where I assumed the command of
it. There it underwent its war training under conditions far more
advantageous than those which confronted the First and Second Divisions
in the Egyptian desert. The Third Division entered the theatre of war
in France in November, 1916.
In the meantime, the Evacuation of the Peninsula, in December, 1915,
led to the assembly in Egypt of the First and Second Australian
Divisions, the Fourth and Eighth independent Infantry Brigades and some
thirty thousand reinforcements and convalescents.
Out of this supply of fighting material it was then decided to
constitute two additional complete Divisions, the Fourth Brigade
forming the nucleus of the Fourth Australian Division, while the 8th
Brigade formed that of the Fifth Australian Division; the remaining
Brigades and the Divisional troops were drawn from reinforcements,
stiffened by a considerable contribution of veterans taken from the
four Infantry Brigades who had carried out the landing on Gallipoli.
The Fourth and Fifth Divisions were thus formed in Egypt in February
and March, 1916, and the conditions of their war training were
even less satisfactory than those which had confronted the earlier
Divisions. The hot season speedily arrived; equipment, munitions
and animals materialized slowly; training equipment and suitable
training grounds were of the most meagre character; and upon all
these difficulties supervened the urgent obligation to undertake the
strenuous toil of organizing and executing, on the Sinai desert, the
field fortifications required for the defence of the Suez Canal zone.
The method in which the Divisions then available in Egypt were to be
grouped for the purposes of Corps Command was ripe for decision. It
was then that the determination was reached to constitute two separate
Army Corps, to be called respectively "First Anzac" and "Second Anzac."
The former embodied the First, Second and Fifth Australian Divisions,
under General Sir William Birdwood; the latter comprised the Fourth
Australian and the New Zealand Divisions under Lieut.-General Sir
Alexander Godley.
This was the organization of the Australian troops when the time
arrived, in May, 1916, for their transfer by sea from Egypt to the
scene of the titanic conflict which had been for nearly two years
raging on the soil of France and Belgium.
This grouping did not, however, persist for more than a few weeks. The
opening of the great Somme offensive in July 1916 found the First,
Second and Fourth Divisions operating under First Anzac in the valley
of the Somme, while the Fifth Australian and the New Zealand Division
constituted the Second Anzac Corps in the Armentières-Fleurbaix sector.
There followed other interchanges as the campaign developed, and by
November of 1916, the grouping stood with First Anzac employing the
First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Divisions, while Second Anzac comprised
the Third Australian, the New Zealand and the Thirty-Fourth British
Divisions.
The series of offensive operations opening with the great and
successful battle of Messines on June 7th, 1917, found the Fourth
Australian Division once again under the command of General Godley,
only to be again withdrawn before the concluding phases of the
Third Battle of Ypres, in September and October, 1917. The autumn
offensive of 1917, aiming at the capture of the Passchendaele ridge,
was the first occasion on which the whole of the five Divisions were
simultaneously engaged in the same locality in a common enterprise;
but even on that occasion they still remained distributed under two
different Corps Commands, and had not yet achieved the long-desired
unity of command and of policy.
This constant interchange of these Divisions, unavoidable as it
probably was, undoubtedly militated against the attainment of the
highest standard of efficiency. Uniform in scope and purpose as
military administration and tactical policy aims to be when considered
on broad lines, yet in a thousand and one matters of detail, many of
them of dominating importance, the personality and the individual
idiosyncrasies of the Corps Commander and of his principal executive
Staff Officers, are calculated to exercise a powerful influence upon
the functioning of the whole Corps.
Under each Corps Commander there grew up in course of time a particular
code of rules, and policies, of technical methods and even of technical
jargon--most of it in an unwritten form. This nevertheless tended
towards efficiency so long as the whole of the component personnel of
the Corps remained stable, but imposed many difficulties upon Divisions
and other units which joined and remained under the Corps for a short
period only.
The result was that a Divisional Commander and his Staff, accustomed
to work in one environment, often found great difficulty, and occupied
some appreciable period of time, in accommodating themselves to a new
environment, in which doctrines of attack or defence, counter-attack or
trench routine, supply or maintenance were, some or all of them, widely
different from those to which they had formerly become accustomed.
But, in the case of Dominion troops, there was a motive far
overshadowing the desire for a removal of difficulties of merely a
technical nature. It was one founded upon a sense of Nationhood, which
prompted the wish, vaguely formed early in the war, and steadily
crystallizing in the minds both of the Australian people and of the
troops themselves, that all the Australian Divisions should be brought
together under a single leadership.
This ideal was associated with the hope that the Commanders and Staffs
should to as large an extent as possible, consist solely of Australian
Officers, as soon as ever men sufficiently qualified became available.
It is difficult to emphasize such a desire without appearing to display
ingratitude to a number of brilliant General and other officers of
the Imperial Regular Service. These men, at a time when Australia was
still able to produce only few officers with the necessary training and
experience to justify their appointment to the command of Divisions
and Brigades, or to the senior Administrative and General Staffs,
bore these burdens in a manner which reflected upon them the greatest
credit, and earned for them the gratitude of the Australian people.
I refer, among many others, particularly to General Sir W. Birdwood,
Major-Generals Sir H. B. Walker, Sir N. M. Smyth, V.C. and Sir H. V.
Cox and Brigadier-Generals W. B. Lesslie and P. G. M. Skene. But as the
war went on, this aspect of the national aspiration became steadily
realized; one by one, the senior commands and staff appointments were
taken over by Australian Officers who had proved their aptitude and
suitability for such responsibilities.
The other ideal of unity of command and close association with each
other of all Australian units, proved slower of realization. All
concerned thought and hoped that it had been, at last, achieved in
December, 1917, when it was decided to abolish the two "Anzac" Corps,
and to constitute a single Australian Army Corps. This was effected
by the transfer of the Third Australian Division from Second to First
Anzac Corps, by altering the title of "Second Anzac" to "XXII. Corps,"
and by substituting for the name "First Anzac" the name "Australian
Army Corps," which name it bore until the termination of the war.
The only regrettable feature of this development was the dissolution
of the close comradeship which had existed between the troops from the
sister Dominions of Australia and New Zealand.
Even then all hopes were doomed to disappointment. For the next four
months the Corps contained five Divisions in name only. Almost at once,
the Fourth Australian Division was withdrawn to serve under the VII.
Corps in connection with the operations before Cambrai. Not many weeks
later, when the German avalanche was loosed, the whole five Divisions
became widely scattered, and, for a time, the Third and Fourth
Divisions served under the VII. British Corps, the Fifth Division under
the III. Corps, and the First Division under the XV. Corps. It was not
until April, 1918, that four out of the five Divisions again came
together under the control of the Australian Corps Commander, at that
time General Sir William Birdwood.
About the middle of May, 1918, this popular Commander was appointed
to the leadership of the Fifth British Army. In deference to his long
association with the Australian Imperial Force, he was asked to retain
his status as G.O.C., A.I.F. His responsibilities as the Commander of
an Army, and its removal to quite a different area in the theatre of
war, made it, however, impossible for him to take any active part in
the direction of the further operations of the Australian Corps.
Owing to the vacancy thus created, the Commander-in-Chief, with the
concurrence of the Commonwealth Government, did me the great honour to
appoint me to the command of the Australian Army Corps, a command which
I took over during the closing days of May and retained until after the
Armistice.
At that juncture the First Australian Division was still involved in
heavy fighting, under the XV. Corps, in the Hazebrouck sector, and no
amount of pressure which I could bring to bear succeeded in prevailing
upon G.H.Q. to release this Division. It was not until early in August,
1918, on the very eve of the opening of the great offensive, that, at
long last, all the five Australian Divisions became united into one
Corps, never to be again separated. From that date onwards all five
Divisions embarked (for the first time in their history) upon a series
of combined offensive operations, the story of which I have set myself
the task of unfolding in these pages.
The Australian Army Corps had by that time evolved from a mere
geographical organization into one which, over and above its component
Infantry Divisions, had acquired a large number of accessory arms and
services, called Corps Troops, which formed no part of a Division. It
is desirable for the complete understanding of the battle plans of the
offensive period, to consider the extent and nature of the whole of the
fighting and maintenance resources of the Corps.
These fell theoretically into two categories, comprising on the one
hand those units properly designated as "Corps Troops," which possessed
a fixed and unalterable constitution, and, on the other hand, those
additional units, known as "Army Troops," whose number and character
fluctuated in accordance with the varying needs of the situation, and
with the requirements of the various operations.
These Army Troops, whenever detailed to act under the orders of the
Corps Commander, became an integral part of the Corps, and were
to all intents and purposes Corps Troops, until such time as they
had completed the tasks allotted to them. The Corps Troops were
multifarious in character, and amounted in the aggregate to large
numbers, occasionally exceeding 50,000, a number as great as that of
three additional Divisions, whose normal strength in the closing phases
of the war never exceeded 17,000.
The Headquarters of the Army Corps comprised upwards of 300 Staff
and assistant Staff Officers, clerks, orderlies, draughtsmen, motor
drivers, grooms, batmen, cooks and general helpers. The Corps Cavalry
consisted, in the case of the Australian Army Corps, of the 13th
Regiment of Australian Light Horse, and was employed, in conjunction
with the Australian Cyclist Battalion, for reconnaissance, escort and
dispatch rider duty.
The Corps Signal Troops were an extensive organization, and controlled
the whole of the Signal communications throughout the Corps area
(except within the Divisions themselves), being responsible for the
establishment, upkeep and working of every method of communication,
whether by telegraph, telephone, wireless, pigeons, messenger dogs,
aeroplane, or dispatch rider. Apart from telegraphists, mechanics and
electrical experts in considerable numbers, adequate for the very heavy
signal traffic during battle, and even during periods of comparative
quiet, Corps Signals also operated two Motor Air Line and two Cable
Sections, for the laying out and maintenance of wires. Those within the
Corps Area, at any one place and time, amounted to several hundreds of
miles.
The whole of the Mechanical Transport, consisting of hundreds of motor
lorries, for the collection and distribution of ammunition, food,
forage and ordnance stores of all descriptions, was also under the
direct control of Corps Headquarters. So also were some half-dozen
mobile Ordnance Workshops, for the repair of weapons and vehicles of
all kinds. All these were permanent Corps Troops, but represented only
a fraction of those serving under the orders of the Corps Commander.
Among the Administrative Services there was a large contingent of the
Labour Corps comprising some 20 Companies, for the construction and
maintenance of all roads, and water supply installations, and for
the handling, daily, of a formidable bulk and weight of Artillery
ammunition; also two or more Motor Ambulance Convoys, for the
evacuation of the sick and wounded out of the Corps area, and a number
of Army Troops Companies of Engineers, as well as two Companies of
Australian Tunnellers, who were usually employed upon the construction
and maintenance of bridges, locks, water transport mechanism, deep
dug-outs and battle stations.
But the fighting units of the Corps Troops formed by far the
largest proportion, and comprised Artillery, Heavy Trench Mortars,
Air Squadrons and Tanks. The Artillery alone merits more detailed
consideration. It comprised a vast array of many different classes
of guns for many different purposes, and classified into various
categories by reference either to their calibres, their mobility or
their tactical purposes.
Grouped according to calibre, all guns and howitzers of 4½-inch bore
or less were strictly considered as Field Artillery which, although
administered by the Divisions, was almost invariably fought under the
direct orders of the Corps Commander. All guns and howitzers of greater
bore, up to the giant 15-inch, were known as Heavy and Siege Artillery.
Regarded from the point of view of mobility, all field guns and that
wonderfully useful weapon, the 60-pounder, were horse-drawn, the larger
ordnance were tractor-drawn, and the very largest were mounted on
railway trains and hauled by steam locomotive.
Finally, as regards tactical utilization, some natures of ordnance
were invariably employed for barrage or harassing fire, others for
bombardment, others for counter-battery fighting, and yet others for
anti-aircraft purposes.
The total ordnance under the orders of the Australian Army Corps
naturally fluctuated according to the daily battle requirements, but
amounted at times, during the period of the war under consideration, to
as many as 1,200 guns of all natures and calibres, grouped in Brigades
each of four to six Batteries, each of four to six guns.
This very formidable Artillery equipment far transcended in quantity
and dynamic power anything that had been envisaged in the previous
years of the war, or in any previous war, as possible of administrative
or tactical control under a single Commander. It undoubtedly became
a paramount factor in the victories which the Corps achieved. The
Artillery of the Corps is entitled to the proud boast that it earned
the confidence and gratitude of the Infantry.
It must be left to the imagination to conceive the complexity of the
task of keeping this enormous mass of Artillery regularly supplied
with its ammunition, of multifarious types and in adequate quantities
of each, of allocating to each Brigade and even to each Battery its
appropriate task in the general plan, and of advancing the whole
organization over half-ruined roads and broken bridges, in order to
keep up with the Infantry as the battle moved forward from day to day.
It would defy a detailed description intelligible to any but gunnery
experts.
The Air Force had, by the summer of 1918, also achieved a great
development. The numerous Air Squadrons had embarked upon a policy of
specialization in tactical employment, in accordance with the build
and capacities of the aeroplanes with which they were equipped. Thus
gradually the whole range of utilization became covered, from the
small fast single-seater fighting scout, intended to engage and drive
off enemy 'planes, to the slower two-seater reconnaissance machines,
employed chiefly for photography and for the direction of Artillery
fire, and the giant long-distance bombing machines.
The Australian Corps had at its exclusive disposal at all times the
No. 3 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps, and employed the
machines for reconnaissance prior to and after battle, and for contact
and counter-attack work and Artillery observation during battle.
But, whenever the scope of the operations rendered it necessary, the
resources of the Corps in aircraft were enormously increased, and as
many as a dozen squadrons were on occasions employed, during battle,
in low flying pursuit of enemy infantry and transport, in production
of smoke screens, in bombing, in ammunition carrying, and in dispatch
bearing--over and above usual reconnaissance work designed to keep
Corps and Divisional Headquarters rapidly and minutely informed, from
moment to moment, of the situation of the Infantry in actual contact
with the enemy.
Another branch of the Air Force activities under the direct control
of the Corps was the Captive Balloon Service. Some five large captive
or kite balloons, carrying trained Artillery Observers, regularly
ascended along the Corps front whenever the weather and the conditions
of visibility permitted, to a height of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, and
with the aid of powerful telescopes and of telephone wires woven into
the anchoring cables, kept the Artillery regularly notified of all
visible enemy movement, and of the occurrence of all suitable targets
of opportunity, such as the flashes from enemy guns in action.
During battle one such balloon was invariably sent up well forward
to observe as closely as possible the progress of the fighting, but
the results were almost uniformly disappointing, because the smoke
and dust of the barrage and the general murk of battle usually proved
impenetrable to the air observer, tied as he was to a fixed position.
The reports of these observers were usually confined to the laconic
observation: "Can't see much, but all apparently going well."
The last of the major fighting units of Corps Troops remaining to
be mentioned are the Tanks. These extraordinary products of the war
underwent a remarkable evolution during the two years which followed
their first introduction on the battlefield in the Somme campaign of
1916. The standard of efficiency which had been reached by the early
summer of 1918, in the most developed types of these curious monsters,
as far outclassed that of the earlier types in both mechanical and
fighting properties as the modern service rifle compared with the old
Brown Bess of the Peninsular War. The Tank crews had improved in like
proportion, both in skill, enterprise and adaptability.
[Illustration: The Australian Corps Commander--with the Generals of his
Staff.]
[Illustration: The Valley of the Somme--looking East towards Bray,
which was then still in enemy hands.]
Nothing can be more unstinted than the acknowledgment which the
Australian Corps makes of its obligation to the Tank Corps for its
powerful assistance throughout the whole of the great offensive.
Commencing with the battle of Hamel, a large contingent of Tanks
participated in every important "set-piece" engagement which the Corps
undertook. The Tanks were organized into Brigades, each of three
Battalions, each of three Companies, each of twelve Tanks. During the
opening phases, early in August, the Tank contingent comprised a whole
Brigade of Mark V. Tanks, a Battalion of Mark V. (Star) Tanks, and
a Battalion of fast Armoured Cars; in the later phases, during the
assault on the Hindenburg Line, a second Brigade of Mark V. Tanks and
a Battalion of Whippets also co-operated.
Such was the formidable array of fighting resources under the direct
orders of the Australian Corps Commander, and, together with the five
Australian Divisions, formed a fighting organization of great strength
and solidarity. It became an instrument for offensive warfare, as has
been said by a high authority, which for size and power excelled all
Corps organizations which either this or any previous war had produced.
It was an instrument which it was a great responsibility, as also a
great honour, to wield in the task of shattering the still formidable
military power of the enemy. For in the early summer of 1918, that
power appeared to be still unimpaired, and still capable of inflicting
serious reverses upon the Allied cause.
Early in 1918, owing to the depletion of human material, the Imperial
Divisions were reconstituted by a reduction of their Infantry Brigades
from a four-battalion to a three-battalion basis, thus reducing the
available infantry by twenty-five per cent. But in this reduction, the
Australian Divisions during the fighting period shared only to a very
small extent. In March the strength of the 15 Brigades of Australian
Infantry in the field was still 60 Battalions. The heavy fighting of
March and April compelled the extinction of 3 Battalions, one each
respectively in the 9th, 12th and 13th Infantry Brigades; but the
remaining 57 Battalions of Infantry remained intact until after the
close of the actual fighting operations early in October. The Corps was
therefore enabled to maintain an additional twelve battalions over and
above the then prevailing corresponding Imperial organization.
It was thus the largest of all Army Corps ever organized, in this or
any other war, by any of the combatants--the largest both in point of
numbers and of military resources of all descriptions, approaching, and
in one case exceeding, a full Army command.
But even these great resources and responsibilities were added to,
during the course of the operations, by the allocation, at successive
times, to the Australian Corps of the 17th Imperial Division, the 32nd
Imperial Division and the 27th and 30th American Divisions. Thus,
during the closing days of September, 1918, the Corps numbered a total
of nearly 200,000 men, exceeding more than fourfold the whole of the
British troops under the command of the Duke of Wellington at the
Battle of Waterloo.
Of this total about one-half comprised Australian troops, the Heavy
Artillery and other Army units attached to the Corps consisting of
Imperial troops. The Commanders and Staffs from June, 1918, until the
end consisted almost entirely of Australian officers, among whom the
following were the senior:
Corps Commander Lieut.-General Sir J. Monash,
G.C.M.G., K.C.B., V.D.
Corps Chief-of-Staff Brigadier-General T. A. Blamey,
C.M.G., D.S.O.
Corps Artillery Commander Brigadier-General W. A. Coxen,
C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.
Chief Engineer Brigadier-General C. H. Foott,
C.B., C.M.G.
1st Div. Commander Major-General Sir T. W. Glasgow,
K.C.B., D.S.O.
General Staff Officer Lieut.-Colonel A. M. Ross, C.M.G.,
D.S.O.
Chief Admin. Officer Lieut.-Colonel H. G. Viney,
C.M.G., D.S.O.
2nd Div. Commander Major-General Sir C. Rosenthal,
K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.
General Staff Officer Lieut.-Colonel C. G. N. Miles,
C.M.G., D.S.O.
Chief Admin. Officer Lieut.-Colonel J. M. A. Durrant,
C.M.G., D.S.O.
3rd Div. Commander Major-General Sir J. Gellibrand,
K.C.B., D.S.O.
General Staff Officer Lieut.-Colonel C. H. Jess, C.M.G.,
D.S.O.
Chief Admin. Officer Lieut.-Colonel R. E. Jackson,
D.S.O.
4th Div. Commander Major-General E. G. Sinclair-Maclagan,
C.B., D.S.O.
General Staff Officer Lieut.-Colonel J. D. Lavarack,
C.M.G., D.S.O.
Chief Admin. Officer Lieutenant-Colonel R. Dowse,
D.S.O.
5th Div. Commander Major-General Sir J. J. T. Hobbs,
K.C.B., K.C.M.G., V.D.
General Staff Officer Lieut.-Colonel J. H. Peck, C.M.G.,
D.S.O.
and later Lieut.-Colonel J. T. McColl,
O.B.E., M.C.
Chief Admin. Officer Colonel J. H. Bruche, C.B., C.M.G.
All the above were Australian Officers, and most of them were of
Australian birth. There were also two senior staff officers of the
Regular Army, Brigadier-General R. A. Carruthers, C.B., C.M.G., who
was Chief of the Administrative Services, and Brigadier-General L.
D. Fraser, C.B., C.M.G., who was in immediate command of the Heavy
Artillery of the Corps.[2]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A _Division_ consists of three Infantry Brigades, Divisional
Artillery, three Field Companies of Engineers, three Field Ambulances,
a Pioneer Battalion, a Machine Gun Battalion, together with Supply,
Sanitary and Veterinary Services. Its nominal strength is 20,000.
An _Infantry Brigade_ consists of four Infantry Battalions, each of
1,000 men, and a Light Trench Mortar Battery.
Divisional Artillery comprises two Brigades each of four batteries,
each of six guns or howitzers, also one Heavy and three medium Trench
Mortar Batteries, and the Divisional Ammunition Column.
This composition of a Division was modified in detail during the course
of the war.
[2] For grouping of Australian Brigades into Divisions, see Appendix
"A."
CHAPTER I
BACK TO THE SOMME
The early days of the year 1918 found the Australian Corps consisting
of the First, Second, Third and Fifth Australian Divisions, while
the Fourth had been transferred far south to co-operate in the later
developments of the Cambrai fighting. The Corps was then holding,
defensively, a sector of the line in Flanders, which had in the
previous years of the war become, at various times, familiar to all
our Divisions, and which extended from the river Lys at Armentières,
northwards, as far as to include the southern half of the Messines
Ridge.
It was, indeed, that very stretch of country, which in June, 1917,
had been captured by our Third Division, in co-operation with the New
Zealanders. Opposite its centre lay the town of Warneton, still in the
hands of the enemy. Excepting for a small area of undulating ground in
the extreme north of the Corps sector, the country was a forbidding
expanse of devastation, flat and woebegone, with long stretches of
the front line submerged waist deep after every freshet in the river
Lys, and with the greater part of our trench system like nothing but a
series of canals of liquid mud.
This unsavoury region formed, however, the most obvious line of
approach for an enemy who, debouching from the direction of Warneton,
aimed at the high land between us and the Channel Ports; so that,
tactically useless as were these mud flats, it was imperative that
they should be strongly defended, in order to protect from capture
the important heights of Messines, Kemmel, Hill 63, Mont des Cats and
Cassel.
During the fighting of the preceding summer and early autumn, which
gave the Australian troops possession of this territory, the locality
was dry, practicable for movement, and reasonably comfortable for the
front line troops. Now it was water-logged, often ice-bound, bleak
and inhospitable. The precious months of dry weather, between August
and October, 1917, had been allowed to pass without any comprehensive
attempt on the part of those Divisions which had relieved the Second
Anzac Corps after its capture of this ground to perfect the defences of
the newly-conquered territory. At any rate, there was little to show
for any work that may have been attempted.
Now, in the very depth of the worst season of the year, the demand
came to prepare the region for defence and resistance to the last;
for the threat of a great German offensive in the opening of the
1918 campaigning season was already beginning to take shape. It was
the Australian Corps which was called upon to answer that demand.
There followed week after week of heart-breaking labour, much of it
necessarily by night, in draining the flat land, in erecting acre upon
acre of wire entanglements, in constructing hundreds of strong points,
and concrete machine gun emplacements. Trenches had to be dug, although
the sides collapsed unless immediately revetted with fascines or sheet
iron; roads had to be repaired, and vain attempts were made to provide
the trench garrisons with dry and bearable underground living quarters.
The monotony of all this labour, which long after--when the Australians
had disappeared from the scene and were again fighting on the
Somme--proved to have been undertaken all in vain, was relieved only
by an occasional raid, undertaken by one or other of our front line
Divisions, for the purpose of molesting the enemy and gathering
information. The Corps front was held by two Divisions in line, one in
support, and one resting in a back area; the rotation of trench duty
gave each Division about six weeks in the line.
My own command at that juncture still comprised the Third Australian
Division, which I had organized and trained in England, eighteen
months before. Although this Division had never been on the Somme,
it had seen a great deal of fighting in Flanders during 1917. During
this period, therefore, and until the outbreak of the storm in the
last days of March, 1918, my interest centred chiefly in the doings of
the Third Division, although for a very short period I had the honour
of commanding the Corps during the temporary absence of Sir William
Birdwood.
The information at our disposal led to the inevitable conclusion that,
during January and February, the enemy was busy in transferring a great
mass of military resources from the Russian to the Western Front. No
one capable of reading the signs entertained the smallest doubt that he
contemplated taking the offensive, in the spring, on a large scale. The
only questions were, at what point would he strike? and what tactics
would he employ?
Every responsible Australian Commander, accordingly, during those
months, applied himself diligently to these problems, formulated his
doctrines of obstinate defence, and of the defensive offensive; and saw
to it that his troops received such precognition in these matters as
was possible at such a time and in such an environment. The principles
of defence in successive zones, of the rapid development of Infantry
and Artillery fire power, of the correct distribution of machine guns,
of rearguard tactics, and questions of the best equipment for long
marches and rapid movement were debated and resolved upon, in both
official and unofficial conferences of officers.
All this discussion bore good fruit. Among the possible rôles which
the Australian Divisions might be called upon to fill, when the great
issue was joined, were those which involved these very matters. And so
the event proved; and the Australians then approached their new and
unfamiliar tasks, not wholly unprepared by training and study for the
difficulties involved.
It was on March 8th that the Third Division bade a last but by no
means a regretful farewell to the mud of Flanders and Belgium--regions
which it had inhabited almost continuously for the preceding sixteen
months. The Division moved back for a well-earned rest, to a pleasant
countryside at Nielles-lez-Blequin, not far from Boulogne. It was lying
there, enjoying the first signs of dawning spring when, on March 21st,
the curtain was rung up for a great drama, in which the Australian
troops were destined to play no subordinate part.
There followed many weeks of crowded and strenuous days, and the
story of this time must, of necessity, assume the form of a personal
narrative. Events followed one upon the other so rapidly, and the
centre of interest changed so quickly from place to place and from hour
to hour, that no recital except that of the future historian writing
with a wealth of collected material at his disposal, could take upon
itself any other guise than that of a record of individual experience.
The Germans attacked the front of the Fifth British Army on March
21st. The information which was at the disposal of our High Command
was not of such a nature that the promulgation of it would have been
calculated to elevate the spirits of the Army; consequently Divisions
situated as we were, in Reserve, and, for the time being, entirely out
of the picture, had to depend for our news partly upon rumour, which
was always unreliable, and partly upon severely censored communiqués,
framed so as to allay public anxiety. Nothing definite emerged from
such sources, except that things were going ill and that fighting was
taking place on ground far behind what had been our front line near
St. Quentin. This hint was enough to justify the expectation that my
Division would not be left for long unemployed; and on the same day,
March 21st, instructions were issued for all units to prepare for a
move, to dump unessential baggage, to fill up all mobile supplies, and
to stand by in readiness to march at a few hours' notice.
Orders came to move on March 22nd. The Division was to move _east_,
that is, back into Flanders, and not south to the Somme Valley, as all
had hoped. The prescribed move duly started, but by March 24th had
been arrested, for orders had come to cancel the move and await fresh
orders. Advanced parties, for billeting duty, were to proceed next
morning by motor lorry to Doullens, and there await orders. Later came
detailed instructions that the Division was to be transferred from the
Australian Corps to the Tenth Corps, which latter was to be G.H.Q.
Reserve, and that the whole Division was to be moved the next night to
the Doullens[3] area, the dismounted troops by rail, and the Artillery
and other mounted units by route-march.
It was evident that the plans of the High Command were the subject
of rapid changes, in sympathy, probably, with fluctuations in the
situation, which were not ascertainable by me. There followed a night
and day of strenuous activity, during which arrangements were completed
to entrain the three Infantry Brigades and the Pioneers at three
different railway stations, to start off the whole of the mounted units
on their long march by road, and to ensure that all fighting troops
were properly equipped with munitions, food and water, all ready for
immediate employment. It was well that my Staff responded capably to
the heavy demands made upon them, and that all this preparatory work
was efficiently done.
The entrainments commenced at midnight on the 25th and continued all
night. At break of day on the 26th, after assuring myself that everyone
was correctly on the move, I proceeded south by motor-car, in the
endeavour to find the Tenth Corps Headquarters, and to report to them
for orders. My fruitless search of that forenoon revealed to me the
first glimpse of the true reason for that far-reaching disorganization
and confusion which confronted me during the next twenty-four hours.
Over three years of trench warfare had accustomed the whole Army to
fixed locations for all Headquarters, and to settled routes and lines
of inter-communication. The powerful German onslaught and the recoil of
a broad section of our fighting front had suddenly disturbed the whole
of this complex organization. The Headquarters of Brigades, Divisions,
and even Corps, ceased to have fixed locations where they could be
found, or assured lines of telegraph or telephone communications, by
which they could be reached. Everything was in a state of flux, and the
process of getting into personal contact with each other suddenly took
responsible leaders hours where it had previously taken minutes.
In its broad result, this disorganization affected most seriously
the retiring troops, by depriving them of the advantages of rapidly
disseminated orders for properly co-ordinated action by a large number
of Corps and Divisions withdrawing side by side. The consequence
was, I am convinced, that the recoil--which may have been inevitable
at first by reason of the intensity of the German attack, and
because the defensive organization of the Fifth Army had been unduly
attenuated--was allowed to extend over a much greater distance, and to
continue for longer, in point of time, than ought to have been the case.
Between Albert and St. Quentin there were in existence several lines
of defence, which by reason of their topographical features, or the
existence of trenches and entanglements, were eminently suitable for
making a stand. Yet no stand was made, at any rate on a broad front,
because there was no co-ordination in the spasmodic attempts to do so.
I subsequently learned of more than one instance where Brigades of
Infantry or of Artillery found themselves perfectly well able to hold
on, but were compelled to a continued retirement by the melting away of
the units on their flanks.
I sought the Tenth Corps at Hautcloque, where they were to be. They
were not there. I proceeded to Frevent, where they were said to have
been the night before. They had already left. In despair, I proceeded
to Doullens, resolved at least to ensure the orderly detrainment of my
Division and their quartering for the following night, and there to
await further orders. A despatch rider was sent off to G.H.Q. to report
my whereabouts, and the fact that I was without orders.
Arriving at Doullens, I tumbled into a scene of indescribable
confusion. The population were preparing to evacuate the town _en
masse_, and an exhausted and hungry soldiery was pouring into the
town from the east and south-east, with excited tales that the German
cavalry was on their heels. Influenced by the persistency of these
reports, I determined to make, immediately, dispositions to cover the
detrainment of my troops, so that some show of resistance could be made.
In the midst of all this stress and anxiety, I was favoured by a run
of good luck. Within half an hour of my reaching Doullens, the first
of my railway trains arrived, bringing Brigadier-General Rosenthal
and a battalion of the 9th Brigade, sufficient troops, at any rate,
to furnish a strong outpost line for covering the eastern approaches
of Doullens, while the remainder of the Brigade should arrive. These
arrangements made, I motored to Mondicourt, where almost immediately
afterwards a train arrived, bringing Brigadier-General McNicoll and the
first battalion of the 10th Brigade.
There also arrived, almost simultaneously, that rumour with the
ridiculous _dénouement_, that German armoured motor-cars were
approaching along the road from Albert and were within three miles of
that point. Those Armoured Cars proved ultimately to be a train of
French agricultural implements which a wheezy and rumbling traction
engine was doing its best to salve. McNicoll likewise received orders
to put out a line of outposts to cover Mondicourt railway station.
At this point, too, endless streams of dust-begrimed soldiers were
straggling westwards. McNicoll collected many hundreds of them, and did
not omit, by very direct methods, to prevail upon all of them who had
not yet lost their rifles and essential equipment, to call a halt and
join his own troops in the defensive dispositions which he was making.
My next business was to select a suitable central point at which to
establish my Headquarters, preferably where I could find a still intact
telephone service. Again by good luck I found a most suitable location
in a small château at Couturelle, whose owner hospitably provided a
much needed meal.
It was there, soon after my arrival, that I learned of the presence
in the neighbourhood of Major-General Maclagan; this news, implying
as it did the presence also of some at least of the Fourth Australian
Division, was a gleam of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy prospect.
Report said that he was at Basseux, and thither I proceeded, in order
to arrange, by personal conference with him, some plan for co-ordinated
action.
Basseux rests on the main road from Doullens to Arras, which lies
roughly parallel to the line along which, as subsequently transpired,
the vanguard of the enemy was endeavouring to advance at that part of
the front. That main road I found packed, for the whole of the length
which I had to traverse, with a steadily retreating collection of
heterogeneous units, service vehicles and guns of all imaginable types
and sizes, intermingled with hundreds of civilian refugees, and farm
waggons, carts, trollies and barrows packed high with pathetic loads of
household effects. The retrograde movement was orderly and methodical
enough, and there was nothing in the nature of a rout, but it was
nevertheless a determined movement to the rear which evidenced nothing
but a desire to keep moving.
I found Maclagan at about four o'clock. His Division had already been
on the move, by bus and route march, for three days without rest. The
position to the east and south-east of him was obscure, and he also had
posted a line of outposts in the supposed direction of the enemy, and
was arranging to despatch his 4th Brigade to Hebuterne (which the enemy
was reported to have entered), with orders to recapture that town. That
the enemy was not very far away became evident from the fact that the
vicinity of the hut in which we were conferring presently came under
desultory long-range shell-fire.
There was nothing to be done except to arrange jointly to keep up
an effective and as far as possible continuous line of outposts
towards the south-east, and to await developments. Having made these
arrangements I returned along the same crowded road, which was now also
being leisurely shelled by the enemy, to Couturelle. There I found that
the principal officers of my Staff had arrived.
Thereupon orders were issued for the concentration, after detrainment,
of my three Brigades in the following areas, each with due outpost
precautions, viz.: 9th Brigade at Pas, 10th Brigade at Authie, and 11th
Brigade at Couin. My Artillery was still distant a full day's march by
road.
About nine o'clock that evening I received, by telephone, my first
order from the Tenth Corps. It ran as follows: "A Staff Officer has
left some time ago on his way to you, carrying instructions for you to
report personally at once to Corbie for orders. We have since heard
that you are to go to Montigny instead."
It was nearly an hour before the Staff Officer arrived, having been
delayed on the road by congestion of traffic. The instructions he
carried transferred my Division from the Tenth to the Seventh Corps,
to whom I was to report personally, without delay, at Corbie. It was
evident from the later telephone message that the Seventh Corps had
been compelled to withdraw from Corbie, and was proceeding to Montigny.
This was the second stroke of good luck that day; for if the telephone
message above recited had not overtaken the Staff Officer, it is quite
probable that I should have already started for a wrong destination,
and have had to waste valuable time at a most critical juncture. Had
I failed to find General Congreve, the Seventh Corps Commander, _that
same night_, it is almost certain that my Division would have arrived
on the Somme too late to prevent the capture of Amiens.
Setting out from Couturelle shortly after ten o'clock that night,
accompanied by four of my Staff and two despatch-riders, with two
motor-cars and two motor cycles, in black darkness, on unfamiliar roads
congested with refugee traffic, I did not reach Montigny until after
midnight. I found General Congreve in the corner of a bare salon of
stately proportions, in a deserted château by the roadside, seated
with his Chief of Staff at a small table, and examining a map by the
flickering light of a candle. The rest of the château was in darkness,
but heaps of hastily dumped Staff baggage impeded all the corridors.
General Congreve was brief and to the point. What he said amounted to
this: "At four o'clock to-day my Corps was holding a line from Albert
to Bray, when the line gave way. The enemy is now pushing westwards
and if not stopped to-morrow will certainly secure all the heights
overlooking Amiens. What you must try and do is to get your Division
deployed across his path. The valleys of the Ancre and the Somme offer
good points for your flanks to rest upon. You must, of course, get as
far east as you can, but I know of a good line of old trenches, which
I believe are still in good condition, running from Méricourt-l'Abbé
towards Sailly-le-Sec. Occupy them, if you can't get further east."
At that juncture General Maclagan arrived and received similar crisp
orders to bring his Division into a position of support on the high
land in the bend of the Ancre to the west of Albert. I gleaned further
that the Seventh Corps was now the south flank Corps of the Third Army,
and that as the Fifth Army, south of the Somme, had practically melted
away, while the French were retiring south-westerly and leaving an
hourly increasing gap between their north flank and the Somme, General
Byng had resolved to make every effort not only to maintain the flank
of his Third Army on the Somme, but also to prevent it being turned
from the south, while the Commander-in-Chief was taking other measures
to attempt next day to fill the gap above alluded to.
It was already 1 a.m. of March 27th, and I had left my Division twenty
miles away. Everything depended now on quick decision and faultless
executive action. It was fortunate that a telephone line to G.H.Q.
had been found in good working order, and that the services of three
large motor bus convoys could be arranged for to proceed at once to
the Doullens area, in order to transport my Infantry during the night
to the place appointed. I worked with my Staff till nearly break of
day, considering and settling all detailed arrangements, and we then
separated in various directions to our appointed tasks.
I proceeded myself a little after dawn, with one Staff Officer, to
Franvillers, which had been decided upon as the point for leaving the
buses. There was yet no sign of any Australian troops, and the village
was being hastily evacuated by the terror-stricken inhabitants. But
there were ample and visible signs, far away on the high plateau beyond
the Ancre Valley, that the German line of skirmishers was already on
the move, slowly driving back the few troops of British Cavalry who
were, most valiantly, trying to delay their advance.
The next hour was one of intense suspense and expectancy; but my
anxiety was relieved when there rolled into the village from the
north, a motor bus convoy of thirty vehicles, crowded with good
staunch Australian Infantry of the 11th Brigade, and bringing also
Brigadier-General Cannan and some of his Brigade Staff. It was not the
first time in the war that the London motor-bus--after abandoning the
population of the great metropolis to enforced pedestrianism--had
helped to save a most critical situation.
Almost immediately after, there arrived McNicoll, with a battalion of
his 10th Brigade. Hour after hour a steady stream of omnibus convoys
came in. No time was lost in assembling the troops, and in directing
the Infantry--company after company--down the steep, winding road to
the little village of Heilly, and thence across the Ancre, to deploy on
the selected line of defence indicated in the orders above recited.
The spectacle of that Infantry will be ever memorable to me, as one
of the most inspiring sights of the whole war. Here was the Third
Division--the "new chum" Division, which, in spite of its great
successes in Belgium and Flanders, had never been able to boast, like
its sister Divisions, that it had been "down on the Somme"--come into
its own at last, and called upon to prove its mettle. And then there
was the thought that they were going to measure themselves, man to man,
against an enemy who, skulking behind his field works, had for so long
pounded them to pieces in their trenches, poisoned them with gas, and
bombed them as they slept in their billets.
That, at any rate, was the point of view of the private soldier, and no
one who saw those battalions, in spite of the fatigue of two sleepless
nights, marching on that crisp, clear spring morning, with head erect
and the swing and precision of a Royal review parade, could doubt
that not a man of them would flinch from any assault that was likely
to fall upon them. Nor was there a man who did not fully grasp that
upon him and his comrades was about to fall the whole responsibility
of frustrating the German attempt to capture Amiens and separate the
Allied Armies.
By midday, the situation was already well in hand, and by four o'clock
I was able to report to the Seventh Corps that no less than six
Battalions were already deployed, astride of the triangle formed by the
Ancre and the Somme, on the line Méricourt--Sailly-le-Sec, distributed
in a series of "localities" defended by rifles and Lewis guns. As yet
no Artillery was available.
The 11th Brigade occupied this line to the south of the main road from
Corbie to Bray, the 10th Brigade continued it to the north of the road,
while the 9th Brigade was leaving the buses and assembling in the
neighbourhood of Heilly.
So far, the pressure of the enemy upon my front had not been serious.
It was obvious that he had, as yet, very little Artillery at his
disposal. We had not, however, found our front totally devoid of
defenders. During the forenoon, a few troops of our cavalry, and a
force under Brigadier-General Cummings, comprising about 1,500 mixed
infantry, the remnants of a large number of different units of the
Third Army, were slowly withdrawing under pressure from the advancing
German patrols. These valiant "die-hards," deserving of the greatest
praise in comparison with the many thousands of their comrades who had
withdrawn from any further attempt to stem the onflowing tide, were now
ordered to retire through my outpost line, thus leaving the Australian
Infantry at last face to face with the enemy.
These dispositions were completed only in the nick of time. All that
afternoon the enemy appeared over the sky-line in front of us, both in
lines of skirmishers and in numerous small patrols, endeavouring to
work forward in the folds of the ground, and to sneak towards us in the
gullies. But all of them were received with well directed rifle fire
and the enemy suffered many losses. Towards nightfall the attempts to
continue his advance died away.
That was, literally, the end of the great German advance in this part
of the field, and although, as will be told later, the enemy renewed
the attempt on several subsequent occasions to reach Amiens, he gained
not a single inch of ground, but, on the contrary, was compelled in
front of us to undertake a slow but steady retrograde movement.
Our reconnoitring patrols discovered, however, that the enemy already
had possession of the village of Sailly-Laurette, and of Marett and
Treux Woods, but that he was not yet in great strength on the crest
of the plateau. Orders were issued to perfect the organization of our
defensive line, put out wire entanglements, dig-in machine guns, and
rest the troops in relays during the coming night, but not to attempt
any forward movement until the next night.
My Artillery and other mounted units were still half a day's march
away; but Brigadier-General Grimwade, their Commander, had been
instructed to push on in advance, with the whole of the Commanders of
his Brigades and Batteries. They arrived on the scene in sufficient
time to enable the whole situation to be examined in the daylight, and
for detailed action to be decided upon. The Artillery kept coming in
during the whole of the following night, and although men and horses
were almost exhausted after two days of forced marching, their spirits
were never higher. Next morning found the guns already in action, and
engaging all bodies of the enemy who dared to expose themselves to view.
I must now turn to the Fourth Australian Division. They had been less
fortunate in several respects. Maclagan was directed to leave behind
his 4th Brigade, which had on the 26th speedily become committed to
important operations under the 62nd Division in front of Hebuterne,
from which village this Brigade had driven the enemy. This left him
with only two Brigades, the 12th and 13th. He was faced with the
obligation of bringing his already over-tired infantry, by route march,
down from the Basseux area, to the high ground west and south-west of
Albert. That town had fallen and the situation there had, by the 26th,
also become very critical.
This march was, however, accomplished in strict accordance with orders,
and was a remarkable feat of endurance by the troops of the 12th and
13th Brigades. There can be no doubt, however, that the effort was more
than justified, for the mere presence, in a position of readiness,
of these two Australian Brigades, did much to steady the situation
opposite Albert, by heartening the line troops and stimulating their
Commanders to hang on for a little longer. It was this last effort
which brought to a standstill the German advance north of the Ancre, as
the entry of the Third Division had stopped that to the south of that
river.
After his two Brigades had had only four hours' rest, Maclagan
took over, with them, the control of the fighting front, opposite
Dernancourt and Albert, which the Seventh Corps had allotted to him.
Thus, by the night of the 27th, as the result of the rapid movements
which I have described and the ready response of the troops, there was
already in position the nucleus of a stout defence by five Australian
Brigades, stretching almost continuously from Hebuterne to the Somme,
while another Australian Brigade, the 9th, remained still uncommitted.
But the situation south of the Somme gave cause for the gravest
anxiety. The north flank of the French was hourly retiring in a
south-westerly direction, and the ever widening gap was filled only by
a scratch force of odd units supported and assisted by a few elements
of the First Cavalry Division. The right flank of our Third Army,
therefore, lay exposed to the danger of being turned, if the enemy
should succeed in pressing his advantage as far west as Corbie, and in
crossing the river at or west of that town.
It was for this reason that, after a conference with General Congreve,
late in the day, I decided to deploy my 9th Brigade along the Somme
from Sailly-le-Sec westward as far as Aubigny,[4]--far too extended a
front for one Brigade, but at least an effort to dispute the passage by
the enemy of the existing bridges and lock-gates over the Somme.
The two following days were full of toil and hard travelling in
establishing touch with Divisional Headquarters to the north and south
of me, in arranging for co-ordinated action with them, and in gleaning
all possible information as to the situation, and as to the number and
condition of other troops available in an emergency.
It was an especial pleasure for the Australian troops to find
themselves fighting in these days in close association with famous
British Cavalry Regiments, and that these feelings were reciprocated
may be gathered from the following letter from Major-General Mullens,
who commanded the First Cavalry Division, which was devoting its
energies to covering the gap between the Somme and the French flank:
"MY DEAR MONASH,
"I was hoping to have come to see you, when the battle allowed, to
thank you, your Artillery Commander, and your Brigadiers who were
alongside of my Division, for your most valuable and encouraging
support and assistance, especially on the 30th March, when we
had a hard fight to keep the Bosche out of our position. I was
very much struck by the courtesy of yourself and your officers
in coming to see me personally, and for your own and their keen
desire to do everything in their power to help. As you know, we
had a curious collection of units to deal with, and it was a very
real relief to know that I had your stout-hearted fellows on my
left flank and that all worry was therefore eliminated as to the
safety of my flanks. Your order for the placing of your heavy guns
and batteries so as to cover my front was of very real assistance,
and incidentally they killed a lot of Huns, and what they did was
much appreciated by us all. Will you convey to all concerned my own
appreciation, and that of all ranks of the 1st Cavalry Division. It
was a pleasure and an honour to be fighting alongside troops who
displayed such magnificent _moral_. I only hope we may have the
chance of co-operating with you again, and under more favourable
circumstances.
"Yours sincerely,
(Sgnd.) "R. L. MULLENS."
On the night of March 29th I advanced my line, pivotting on my right,
until my left rested on the Ancre east of Buire, an extreme advance of
over 2,000 yards, meeting some opposition and taking a few prisoners.
This deprived the enemy of over a mile of valuable vantage ground on
the crest of the plateau along which ran the main road from Corbie to
Bray.
[Illustration: MAP A.]
By that time it was apparent that the enemy's Artillery resources
were hourly accumulating, and on the next afternoon he delivered a
determined attack along my whole front, employing two Divisions. The
attack was completely repelled, with an estimated loss to the enemy of
at least 3,000 killed. My Artillery were firing over open sights and
had never in their previous experience had such tempting targets.
On the previous day, however, the situation between the Somme and
Villers-Bretonneux, and still further to the south, had become
desperate; and much to my discomfiture I was ordered to hand over my
9th Brigade (Rosenthal) for duty with the 61st Division, in order to
reinforce that dissolving sector. My importunity as to the necessity
for maintaining the defence of my river flank, however, led the
Seventh Corps Commander to let me have, in exchange, the 15th Brigade
(Elliott), which was the first Brigade of the Fifth Australian Division
to arrive from Flanders on the present scene of operations. This
interchange of Brigades was completed by the 30th.
That day was further marked by a concentrated bombardment of the
village of Franvillers, in which I had established my Headquarters.
Although no serious loss was suffered, the responsible work of my Staff
was disturbed. On reporting the occurrence to General Congreve, he
insisted upon my moving my Headquarters back to St. Gratien, which move
was completed the next day.
On April 4th the enemy attacked, in force, south of the Somme, and the
village of Hamel was lost to us by the rout of the remnants of a very
exhausted British Division which had been sent in the night before to
defend it. This success gave the enemy a footing upon a portion of Hill
104, and brought him to the eastern outskirts of Villers-Bretonneux.
Three months later it cost the Australian Corps a concentrated effort
to compel him to surrender these advantages.
One last and final attempt to break through the Australian phalanx
north of the Somme was made by the enemy on April 5th. The full weight
of this blow fell chiefly upon the gallant Fourth Australian Division.
The battle of Dernancourt will live long in the annals of military
history as an example of dogged and successful defence. The whole day
long the enemy expended Division after Division in the vain endeavour
to compel two weak Australian Brigades to loosen their hold on the
important high ground lying west of Albert. He well knew that the
capture by him of these heights involved the inevitable withdrawal of
the Third Australian Division also, and that thereby the path to Amiens
would again lie open.
The great German blow against the important railway centre of Amiens
had been parried, and from this time onwards interest in this sphere
of operations rapidly waned. It blazed up again for a few hours only
when, three weeks later, the enemy made his final attempt to reach
his goal, on this occasion by way of Villers-Bretonneux. North of
the Somme, his activity quickly died down, and the attitude of both
combatants gradually assumed the old familiar aspect of trench warfare,
with its endless digging of trenches, line behind line, its weary
trench routine, and its elaborate installation of permanent lines of
communication and of administrative establishments of all descriptions.
South of the Somme, the Fifth Australian Division came into the line on
April 5th, relieving a Cavalry Division on a frontage of about 5,000
yards, and thereby obviating any further necessity for the maintenance
of my flank river defence. This duty had been performed for me in
succession by the 15th Australian, the 104th Imperial and the 13th
Australian Brigades (the latter then under Glasgow). My 9th Brigade
still remained detached from me, operating under both the 18th and 61st
British Divisions, and performed prodigies of valorous fighting in a
series of desperate local attacks and counter-attacks, which took place
between Villers-Bretonneux and Hangard, where the French northern flank
then lay. In this service the 9th Brigade received gallant co-operation
from the 5th Australian Brigade (of the 2nd Australian Division), which
was now also arriving in this area, after having been relieved from
trench garrison duty in the Messines--Warneton sector in Flanders.
The Fifth Division and these two detached Brigades were, during
this period, serving under the Third Corps (Butler), which had been
reconstituted to fill the gap between the Somme and the flank of
the French Army. The First Australian Division was already well on
the way to follow the Second Division, when, on April 11th, it was
hurriedly re-transferred to Flanders to assist in stemming the new
German flood which was inundating the whole of that region, and which
was not arrested until it had almost reached Hazebrouck. This task the
First Australian Division performed most valiantly, thereby upholding
the reputation already earned by its younger sister Divisions for a
capacity for rapid, ordered movement and decisive intervention at a
critical juncture.
For some days there had been rumours that the Australian Corps
Headquarters would shortly be transferred to the Amiens area, and
would once again gather under its control the numerous elements of
the four Australian Divisions which were by now widely scattered, and
had been fighting under the orders of three different Army Corps.
There was the still more interesting and pregnant rumour that General
Lord Rawlinson--relinquishing his post of British representative on
the Supreme War Council at Versailles--was soon to arrive and to form
and command a reconstituted Fourth British Army,[5] which was to be
composed of the Australian and the Third (British) Army Corps.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The majority of the place-names mentioned in the remainder of this
chapter will be found on Maps A or J.
[4] Two miles west of Corbie.
[5] The Fourth Army had disappeared when, in 1917, General Rawlinson
went to Versailles. The Fifth Army was not revived until June, 1918.
CHAPTER II
THE DEFENCE OF AMIENS
The Australian Corps Headquarters, under General Birdwood, commenced
its activities at Villers-Bocage on April 7th, but soon after removed
to the handsome seventeenth-century Château at Bertangles, with its
pleasant grounds and spacious parks. One by one the detached Australian
Brigades rejoined their Divisions, and the Divisions themselves came
back under the orders of their own Corps.
The comparative calm which had supervened upon all the excitement of
the closing days of March and the first weeks of April was rudely
broken when, before daybreak on April 24th, the enemy began a furious
bombardment of the whole region extending from opposite Albert to a
point as far south as Hangard. It was certain that this demonstration
was the prelude of an infantry attack in force, but it was not until
well after midday that the situation clarified, and it became known
that the attack had been confined to the country south of the Somme,
that it had struck the southern flank of the Fifth Australian Division,
which had stood firm and had thereby saved the loss of the remainder of
the tactically important Hill 104. But the town of Villers-Bretonneux,
lying beyond the Australian sector, had fallen and the Germans were in
possession of it.
It was imperative to retrieve this situation, or at least to make an
attempt to do so. The nearest available reserve Brigades of Infantry
were Australian, the 13th under Glasgow, and the 15th under Elliott.
They were placed under the orders of the Third Corps, and by them
directed to recapture the town.
Both Brigades had to make long marches to reach the battleground. It
was already dark before they had deployed on the appointed lines of
departure. The details of this enthralling and wonderful night attack
form too lengthy a story to find a place in this brief narrative;
suffice it to say that when the sun rose on the third Anniversary of
Anzac Day, it looked down upon the Australians in full possession of
the whole town, and standing upon our original lines of twenty-four
hours before, with nearly 1,000 German prisoners to their credit.
In this summary fashion, the last German attempt to split in two the
Allied Armies failed ignominiously, and the attempt was never again
renewed.
A comprehensive rearrangement of the whole Front in this much-contested
region then took place. The appointment of Marshal Foch as Supreme
Commander on the Western Front bore, as one of its first fruits, a
clear decision as to the final point of junction between the French and
the British Armies. This was fixed just south of Villers-Bretonneux,
and not at the Somme Valley, as was thought desirable by some of the
British Commanders.
The new Fourth Army became the flank British Army in contact with the
French. The Australian Corps became the south flank of that Army. Its
sector extended, from the point named, northwards as far as the Ancre.
The Third Corps was transferred to the north of the Ancre, opposite
Albert, and those two Corps comprised, for some time to come, the whole
of the Fourth Army resources.
The Australian Corps now organized its front with three Divisions in
line and one in reserve. My occupation, with the Third Australian
Division, of the original sector between the Ancre and the Somme
remained undisturbed, and my front line remained for a time stationary
on the alignment gained on March 29th.
But the Third Division had had enough of stationary warfare, and
the troops were athirst for adventure. They were tired of raids,
which meant a mere incursion into enemy territory, and a subsequent
withdrawal, after doing as much damage as possible.
Accordingly, I resolved to embark upon a series of minor battles,
designed not merely to capture prisoners and machine guns, but also
to hold on to the ground gained. This would invite counter-attacks
which I knew could only enhance the balance in our favour, and would
seriously disorganize the enemy's whole defensive system, while wearing
out his nerves and lowering the _moral_ of his troops.
Four such miniature battles[6] were fought in rapid succession, on
April 30th and May 3rd, 6th and 7th, by the 9th and 10th Brigades, who
were then in line. These yielded most satisfactory results. Not only
did we capture several hundred prisoners and numerous machine guns, but
also advanced our whole line an average total distance of a mile. This
deprived the enemy of valuable observation, and forced back his whole
Artillery organization.
But these combats, and the numerous offensive patrol operations, which
were also nightly undertaken along my whole front, did a great deal
more. They yielded a constant stream of prisoners, who at this stage of
the war had become sufficiently demoralized by their disappointments to
talk freely, and impart a mass of valuable information as to movements
and conditions behind the German lines.
The following list of 41 separate identifications, covering a total
of over 300 prisoners, represents the fruits of these efforts during
the period from March 27th to May 11th. From these it will be seen
that during these six weeks I had been confronted by no less than six
different German Divisions:
_No._ _Date._ _Identification._
1 28.3.18 3 Gren. R. 1st Div.
2 " 13 I.R. 13 "
3 " 3 Gren. R. 1st "
4 " 1 I.R. 1st "
" 13 I.R. 13 "
5 " 86 Fus. R. 18 "
6 " 1 I.R. 1st "
7 30.3.18 13 I.R. 13 "
8 " 31 I.R. 18 "
9 31.3.18 18 "
10 1.4.18 20 Foot Arty.
11 2.4.18 3 " "
12 2/3.4.18 1 R.R.Bav. Ft. Arty.
13 " 13 I.R. 13 Div.
14 4/5.4.18 1 M.W.Coy. 1st Div.
15 6/7.4.18 3 Jäger Bn.
16 9/10.4.18 31 I.R. 18 "
17 11/12.4.18 31 I.R. 18 "
18 13/14.4.18 86 Fus. R. 18 "
19 " 31 I.R. 18 "
20 14/15.4.18 85 I.R. 18 "
21 " 31 I.R. 18 "
22 17/18.4.18 229 R.I.R. 30 "
23 18/19.4.18 231 R.I.R. 50 "
24 " 85 I.R. 18 "
25 19/20.4.18 85 I.R. 18 "
26 25/26.4.18 246 R.I.R. 54 Res. Div.
27 27/28.4.18 229 R.I.R. 50 " "
28 28/29.4.18 247 R.I.R. 54 " "
29 30/1.5.18 247 R.I.R. 54 " "
30 3/4.5.18 357 I.R. 199 Div.
31 4/5.5.18 114 I.R. 199 "
32 " 31 I.R. 18 "
33 5/6.5.18 237 R.I.R. 199 "
34 " 114 I.R. 199 "
35 6/7.5.18 237 R.I.R. 199 "
36 7/8.5.18 114 I.R. 199 "
37 8/9.5.18 114 I.R. 199 "
38 " 237 R.I.R. 199 "
39 " 31 I.R. 18 "
40 " 357 I.R. 199 "
41 " 357 I.R. 199 "
I.R.=Infantry Regiment; R.I.R.=Reserve ditto.
While I was thus exerting a steady pressure on the enemy and gaining
ground easterly, the Australian Corps line south of the Somme remained
stationary, and each successive advance north of the river served only
to accentuate the deep re-entrant which had been formed on the day when
the loss of Hamel forced the British front line back along the Somme as
far as Vaire-sous-Corbie.
While this was not very serious from the point of view of observation,
because I was in possession of much the higher ground, and was able to
look down, almost as upon a map, on to the enemy in the Hamel basin,
yet I was beginning to feel very seriously the inconvenience of having,
square on to my flank, such excellent concealed Artillery positions as
Vaire and Hamel Woods, which the enemy did not long delay in occupying.
Moreover, the whole of the slopes of the valley on my side of the river
remained useless to me, because they were exposed to the full view of
the enemy, so long as he was permitted to occupy the Hamel salient,
which he had on April 5th driven into the very middle of what was now
the Corps front. I therefore made more than one attempt to persuade the
then Corps Commander to undertake an operation for the elimination in
whole or in part of this inconvenient bend, but, for reasons doubtless
satisfactory at that time, he declined to accept the suggestion. It
fell to my lot myself to carry out this operation nearly two months
later.
The Third Division was, however, relieved in the line by our Second
Division on May 11th, and was withdrawn for a short but well-earned
rest after six weeks of trench duty, following its first fateful rush
into the thick of the battle.
It was on May 12th that I received the first intimation from General
Sir William Birdwood that he was to be appointed to the command of a
new Fifth Army, which the British War Council had decided to form, and
that, upon his taking up these new duties, the task of leading the
Australian Army Corps would devolve upon me.
In consequence of this and other changes, it was shortly afterwards
decided, in consultation, that Glasgow should take over the command of
the First Division, then still fighting at Hazebrouck, that Rosenthal
should command the Second Division, and that Gellibrand should succeed
me at the head of the Third Division.
Far, therefore, from being permitted a little respite from the
strenuous labours of the preceding six weeks, I found myself confronted
with responsibilities which, in point of numbers alone, exceeded
sixfold those which I had previously had to bear, but which, in point
of difficulty, involved an even higher ratio.
There were numerous Arms and Services, under the Corps, with whose
detailed functions and methods of operation I had not been previously
concerned. The other Divisional Commanders had hitherto been my
colleagues, and I was now called upon to consider their personalities
and temperaments as my subordinates. There was a vastly increased
territory for whose administration and defence I would become
responsible. I had to be prepared to enter an atmosphere of policy
higher and larger than that which surrounded me as the Commander of a
Division. And finally there was the selection of my new Staff.
[Illustration: German Prisoners--taken by the Corps at Hamel, being
marched to the rear.]
[Illustration: Visit of Monsieur Clemenceau--group taken at Bussy on
July 7th, 1918.]
My last executive work with the Third Division was the process
of putting this Division back into the line, this time in the
Villers-Bretonneux sector of our front. After handing over the Division
and all its outstanding current affairs to Major-General Gellibrand,
I assumed command of the Australian Army Corps on May 30th, with
Brigadier-General Blamey as my Chief-of-Staff.[7]
I very soon became aware that, as Corps Commander, I was privileged to
have access to a very large body of interesting secret information,
which was methodically distributed daily by G.H.Q. Intelligence. This
comprised detailed information of the true facts of all happenings
on the fronts of all the Allies, the gist of the reports of our
Secret Service, and very full particulars from which the nature and
distribution of the enemy's military resources could be deduced with
fair accuracy.
The numberings and locations of all his Corps and Divisions actually
in the front line, on all the Allied fronts, was, of course, quite
definitely known from day to day. The numberings of all Formations
lying in Reserve were known with equal certainty, although their actual
positions on any date were largely a matter of deduction by expert
investigators. Of particular importance were the further deductions
which could be drawn as to the condition of readiness or exhaustion
of such reserve Divisions, from known facts as to their successive
appearance and experiences on any active battle front.
Our experts were thus able to classify the enemy Divisions, and to
determine from day to day the probable number, and even the probable
numberings, of fit Divisions actually available (after one, or after
two, or after three days) to reinforce any portion of the front which
was to be the object of an attack by us. They could also compute the
number of fit Divisions which the enemy had at his disposal at any time
for launching an offensive against us.
All such data had a very direct bearing, not only on the probable
course of the campaign in the immediate future, but also upon the
responsibility which always weighed upon a Corps Commander of keeping
his own sector in preparedness to meet an attack or to prevent such an
attack from coming upon him as a surprise. He must therefore be alert
to watch the signs and astute to read them aright.
One striking feature of the information at our disposal during the
early part of June was the steady melting away of the enemy reserves
as the consequence of his resultless, even if locally successful,
assaults during the preceding two and a half months, against Amiens,
in Flanders, and on the Chemin des Dames. But it was apparent that he
still held formidable Reserves of Infantry, and a practically intact
Artillery, which he was bound to employ for at least one great and
final effort to gain a decision.
The junction of the French and British Armies still offered a tempting
point of weakness. As mine was now the flank British Corps, in
immediate contact with General Toulorge's 31st French Corps, I could
not afford to relax any of the precautions of vigilance or preparation
which had been initiated by my predecessor for meeting such an attack.
Consequently, during June, 1918, I ordered on the part of all my line
Divisions a maintenance of their energetic efforts to perfect the
defensive organizations. I also undertook out of other Corps labour
resources the development of further substantial rear systems of
defence, so that Amiens need not, in the event of a renewed attack, be
abandoned to its fate without a prolonged struggle.
The First Australian Division was not yet a part of my new Command,
its continued presence in the Hazebrouck and Merris area, under the
Fifteenth Corps, being still considered indispensable. My Corps front
now extended over a total length of ten miles, and I had but four
Divisions at my disposal to defend it. Three Divisions held the line,
one to the north and two to the south of the Somme. Only one Division
at a time could therefore be permitted a short rest, and this Division
formed my only tactical reserve.
All this added to the anxieties of the situation, and focussed the
energies of the whole command on a constant scrutiny of all signs and
symptoms that the enemy might be preparing to deliver his next blow
against us. Active patrolling was maintained and continued to yield
a steady stream of prisoners. A well conceived and planned minor
enterprise by the Second Division, which was carried out on June 10th,
and was Rosenthal's first Divisional operation, gave us possession
of a further slice of the important ridge between Sailly-Laurette
and Morlancourt. It gained us 330 prisoners and 33 machine guns. But
no sign of any preparations on the part of the enemy for an attack
upon us, in this zone, emerged from the careful investigations which
followed this operation.
The days passed and evidences increased that the enemy was now
beginning to devote his further attentions to the French front far to
the south of us. At any rate, he continued to leave us unmolested, and
the interrogations of our numerous prisoners all confirmed the absence
of any preparations for an attack.
The defensive attitude which the situation thus forced upon us did
not for long suit the present temper of the Australian troops, and
I sought for a promising enterprise on which again to test their
offensive power, on a scale larger than we had yet attempted in the
year's campaign. There had been no Allied offensive, of any appreciable
size, on any of our fronts, in any of the many theatres of war, since
the close of the Passchendaele fighting in the autumn of 1917.
It was high time that the anxiety and nervousness of the public, at
the sinister encroachments of the enemy upon regions which he had
never previously trodden, should be allayed by a demonstration that
there was still some kick left in the British Army. It was high time,
too, that some Commanders on our side of No Man's Land should begin to
"think offensively," and cease to look over their shoulders in order to
estimate how far it still was to the coast.
I was ambitious that any such kick should be administered, first,
at any rate, by the Australians. A visit which I was privileged to
pay to General Elles, Commander of the Tank Corps, when he gave me
a demonstration of the capacities of the newer types of Tanks, only
confirmed me in this ambition. Finally, the Hamel re-entrant had for
two months been, as I have already explained, a source of annoyance and
anxiety to me. It was for these reasons that I resolved to propose an
operation for the recapture of Hamel, conditional upon being supplied
with the assistance of Tanks, a small increase of my Artillery and an
addition to my air resources.
I thereupon set about preparing a general plan for such a battle,
which was to be my first Corps operation. Having mentioned the matter
first verbally to Lord Rawlinson, he requested me to submit a concrete
proposal in writing. The communication is here reproduced, and will
serve to convey an idea of the complexities involved in even so
relatively small an undertaking:
Australian Corps.
21st June, 1918.
_Fourth Army._
HAMEL OFFENSIVE
1. With reference to my proposal for an offensive operation on the
front of the "A" and "B" Divisions of this Corps, with a view to
the capture of HAMEL Village and VAIRE and HAMEL WOOD, etc., the
accompanying map shows, in blue, the proposed ultimate objective
line. This line has been chosen as representing the minimum
operation that would appear to be worth undertaking, while offering
a prospect of substantial advantages.
2. These advantages may be briefly summarized thus:
(a) Straightening of our line.
(b) Shortening of our line.
(c) Deepening our forward defensive zone, particularly east of Hill
104.
(d) Improvement of jumping-off position for future operations.
(e) Advancement of our artillery, south of the SOMME.
(f) Denial to enemy of observation of ground near VAUX-SUR-SOMME,
valuable for battery positions.
(g) Facilitating subsequent further minor advances north of the
SOMME.
(h) Disorganization of enemy defences.
(i) Disorganization of possible enemy offensive preparations.
(j) Inflicting losses on enemy personnel and material.
(k) Improvement of our observation.
(l) Maintenance of our initiative on this Corps front.
3. The disadvantages are those arising from the necessity of bringing
into rapid existence a new defensive system on a frontage of 7,000
yards and also the particular incidence, at the present juncture, of
the inevitable losses, small or large, of such an operation in this
Corps.
4. In view of the unsatisfactory position of Australian reinforcements,
any substantial losses would precipitate the time when the question of
the reduction in the number of Australian Divisions would have to be
seriously considered. It is for higher authority to decide whether a
portion of the present resources in Australian man-power in this Corps
would be more profitably ventured upon such an operation as this, which
is in itself a very attractive proposition, rather than to conserve
such resources for employment elsewhere.
5. Detailed plans can only be prepared after I have had conferences
with representatives of all Arms and Services involved, but the
following proposals are submitted as the basis of further elaboration:
(a) The operation will be primarily a Tank operation--at least one
and preferably two Battalions of Tanks to be employed.
(b) The whole battle front will be placed temporarily under command
of one Divisional Commander--by a temporary readjustment of
inter-Divisional boundaries.
(c) The infantry employed will comprise one Division plus a
Brigade, _i.e._, 4 Infantry Brigades, totalling, say, 7,500
bayonets; about one-half of this force to be employed in the
advance and the other half to hold our present front defensively,
taking over the captured territory within 48 hours after Zero.[8]
(d) The action will be designed on lines to permit of the Tanks
effecting the capture of the ground; the rôles of the Infantry
following the Tanks will be:
(i) to assist in reducing strong points and localities.
(ii) to "mop up."
(iii) to consolidate the ground captured.
(e) Apart from neutralizing all enemy artillery likely to engage our
troops, our artillery will be employed to keep under fire enemy
centres of resistance and selected targets--in front of the advance
of the Tanks. Artillery detailed for close targets will work on a
prearranged and detailed time-table which will be adjusted to the
time-table of the Tank and Infantry advance. Sufficient "silent"
field artillery supplied before the battle should be emplaced in
advanced positions, to ensure an effective protective barrage
to cover consolidation on the blue line,[9] and to engage all
localities from which enemy counter-attacks can be launched. It is
estimated that, in addition to the resources of the Corps, four
Field Artillery Brigades will be required for, say, four days in
all.
(f) Engineer stores in sufficient quantities to provide for the
complete organization of the new defences will require to be dumped
beforehand as far forward as practicable.
(g) No additional machine guns, outside of Corps resources, will be
required,
(h) Contact and counter-attack planes and low-flying bombing planes
prior to and during advance must be arranged for.
(i) Artillery and mortar smoke to screen the operations from view of
all ground north of the Somme in the SAILLY-LAURETTE locality are
required.
6. As to the date of the operations, the necessary preparations will
occupy at least seven days after authority to proceed has been given.
As an inter-Divisional relief is planned to occur on June 28th-29th and
29th-30th, it would seem that this operation cannot take place earlier
than the first week in July. The postponement of this relief would not
be desirable for several reasons.
7. Valuable training in the joint action of Tanks and Infantry can be
arranged, probably in the territory west of the HALLUE Valley--provided
that one or two Tank Companies can be detached for such a purpose.
Thorough liaison prior to and during the operation between all Tank
and all Infantry Commanders would have to be a special feature. For
this reason only Infantry units not in the line can be considered as
available to undergo the necessary preparation.
(Sgd.) JOHN MONASH,
Lieut.-General.
Cmdg. Australian Corps.
Approval to these proposals was given without delay; the additional
resources were promised, and preparations for the battle were
immediately put in hand. As I hope, in a later context, to attempt to
describe the evolution of a battle plan, and the comprehensive measures
which are associated with such an enterprise, it will not be necessary
to do so here.
It was the straightening of the Corps front, as an essential
preliminary to any offensive operations on a still larger scale, to
be undertaken when the opportune moment should arrive, that made the
Hamel proposal tactically attractive; it was the availability of an
improved type of Tank that gave it promise of success, without pledging
important resources, or risking serious losses.
The new Mark V. Tank had not previously been employed in battle. It
marked a great advance upon the earlier types. The epicyclic gearing
with which it was now furnished, the greater power of its engines,
the improved balance of its whole design gave it increased mobility,
facility in turning and immunity from foundering in ground even of the
most broken and uneven character. It could be driven and steered by one
man, where it previously took four; and it rarely suffered suspended
animation from engine trouble.
But, above all, the men of the Tank Corps had, by the training which
they had undergone, and by the spirited leadership of Generals Elles,
Courage, Hankey and other Tank Commanders, achieved a higher standard
of skill, enterprise and moral; they were now, more than ever, on their
mettle to uphold the prestige of the Tank Corps.
All the same, the Tanks had become anathema to the Australian troops.
For, at Bullecourt more than a year before, they had failed badly,
and had "let down" the gallant Infantry, who suffered heavily in
consequence; a failure due partly to the mechanical defects of the
Tanks of those days, partly to the inexperience of the crews, and
partly to indifferent staff arrangements, in the co-ordination of the
combined action of the Infantry and the Tanks.
It was not an easy problem to restore to the Australian soldier his
lost confidence, or to teach him the sympathetic dependence upon the
due performance by the Tanks of the rôles to be allotted to them, which
was essential to a complete utilization of the possibilities which were
now opening up. That the Tanks, appropriately utilized, were destined
to exert a paramount influence upon the course of the war, was apparent
to those who could envisage the future.
This problem was intensified because the battalions of the Fourth
Division who were to carry out the Infantry tasks at Hamel were the
very units who had undergone that unfortunate experience at Bullecourt.
But, on the principle of restoring the nerves of the unseated rider by
remounting him to continue the hunt, it was especially important to
wean the Fourth Division from their prejudices.
Battalion after battalion of the 4th, 6th and 11th Brigades of Infantry
was brought by bus to Vaux, a little village tucked away in a quiet
valley, north-west of Amiens, there to spend the day at play with the
Tanks. The Tanks kept open house, and, in the intervals of more formal
rehearsals of tactical schemes of attack, the Infantry were taken
over the field for "joy rides," were allowed to clamber all over the
monsters, inside and out, and even to help to drive them and put them
through their paces. Platoon and Company leaders met dozens of Tank
officers face to face, and they argued each other to a standstill upon
every aspect that arose.
Set-piece manoeuvre exercises on the scale of a battalion were designed
and rehearsed over and over again; red flags marked enemy machine-gun
posts; real wire entanglements were laid out to show how easily the
Tanks could mow them down; real trenches were dug for the Tanks to
leap and straddle and search with fire; real rifle grenades were fired
by the Infantry to indicate to the Tanks the enemy strong points
which were molesting and impeding their advance. The Tanks would throw
themselves upon these places, and, pirouetting round and round, would
blot them out, much as a man's heel would crush a scorpion.
It was invaluable as mere training for battle, but the effect upon the
spirits of the men was remarkable. The fame of the Tanks, and all the
wonderful things they could do, spread rapidly throughout the Corps.
The "digger" took the Tank to his heart, and ever after, each Tank
was given a pet name by the Company of Infantry which it served in
battle, a name which was kept chalked on its iron sides, together with
a panegyric commentary upon its prowess.
There remained, however, much to be arranged, and many difficult
questions to be settled, as regards the tactical employment of the
Tanks. I can never be sufficiently grateful to Brigadier-General
Courage, of the 5th Tank Brigade, for his diligent assistance, and
for his loyal acceptance of the onerous conditions which the tactical
methods that I finally decided upon imposed upon the Tanks.
These methods involved two entirely new principles. Firstly, each
Tank was, for tactical purposes, to be treated as an Infantry weapon;
from the moment that it entered the battle until the objective had
been gained it was to be under the exclusive orders of the Infantry
Commander to whom it had been assigned.
Secondly, the deployed line of Tanks was to advance, _level with the
Infantry_, and pressing close up to the barrage. This, of course,
subjected the Tanks, which towered high above the heads of the
neighbouring infantry, to the danger of being struck by any of our own
shells which happened to fall a little short. Tank experts, consulted
beforehand, considered therefore that it was not practicable for Tanks
to follow close behind an artillery barrage. The battle of Hamel proved
that it was.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] See Map A.
[7] A farewell order to the Third Division was issued in the following
terms:
"As I am about to take up other duties the time has come when I must
relinquish the command of the Division.
"Closely associated with you as I have been, since the days of your
first assembly and War Training in ENGLAND, and, later, throughout all
your magnificent work during the past nineteen months in the war zone,
it is naturally a severe wrench for me to part from you.
"I find it quite impossible to give adequate expression to my feelings
of gratitude towards all ranks for the splendid and loyal support which
you have, at all times, accorded to me. I am deeply indebted to my
Staff, to all Commanders and to the officers and troops of all Arms and
Services for a whole-hearted co-operation upon which, more than upon
any other factor, the success of the Division has depended.
"It is my earnest hope, and also my sincere conviction, that the fine
spirit and the high efficiency of the Division will be maintained
under the leadership of my successor, Brigadier-General Gellibrand;
and if the men of the Division feel, as I trust they do, an obligation
to perpetuate for my sake the traditions built up by them during the
period of my command, they can do so in no better way than by rendering
to him a service as thorough and a support as loyal as I have been
privileged to enjoy at their hands.
"In formally wishing the Division good-bye and good luck, I wish
simply, but none the less sincerely, to thank each and all of you, for
all that you have done.
"(Signed) JOHN MONASH,
Major-General."
[8] "Zero" refers to the day and hour, not yet determined, on which the
battle is to begin.
[9] "Blue Line," arbitrarily so called, because this line was drawn on
the accompanying map in blue. It was to be the final objective for the
day.
CHAPTER III
HAMEL
The larger questions relating to the employment of the Tanks at the
battle of Hamel having been disposed of, the remaining arrangements
for the battle presented few novel aspects. Their manner of execution,
however, brought into prominence some features which became fundamental
doctrines in the Australian Corps then and thereafter.
Although complete written orders were invariably prepared and issued by
a General Staff whose skill and industry left nothing to be desired,
very great importance was attached to the holding of conferences, at
which were assembled every one of the Senior Commanders and heads of
Departments concerned in the impending operation. At these I personally
explained every detail of the plan, and assured myself that all present
applied an identical interpretation to all orders that had been issued.
Questions were invited; difficulties were cleared up; and the
conflicting views of the different services on matters of technical
detail were ventilated. The points brought to an issue were invariably
decided on the spot. The battle plan having been thus crystallized,
no subsequent alterations were permissible, under any circumstances,
no matter how tempting. This fixity of plan engendered a confidence
throughout the whole command which facilitated the work of every
Commander and Staff Officer. It obviated the vicious habit of
postponing action until the last possible moment, lest counter orders
should necessitate some alternative action. It was a powerful factor
in the gaining of time, usually all too short for the extensive
preparations necessary.
The final Corps Conference for the battle of Hamel was held at
Bertangles on June 30th, and the date of the battle itself was fixed
for July 4th. This selection was prompted partly by the desire to allow
ample time for the completion of all arrangements; but there were also
sentimental grounds, because this was the anniversary of the American
national holiday, and a considerable contingent of the United States
Army was to co-operate in the fight.
For some weeks previously the 33rd American Division, under
Major-General John Bell, had been training in the Fourth Army area,
and its several regiments had been distributed, for training and
trench experience, to the Australian and the III. Corps. I had applied
to the Fourth Army and had received approval to employ in the battle
a contingent equivalent in strength to two British battalions, or a
total of about 2,000 men, organized in eight companies. The very proper
condition was attached, however, that these Americans should not be
split up and scattered individually among the Australians, but should
fight at least as complete platoons, under their own platoon leaders.
All went well until three days before the appointed date, when General
Rawlinson conveyed to me the instruction that, the matter having been
reconsidered, only 1,000 Americans were to be used. Strongly averse,
as I was, from embarrassing the Infantry plans of General Maclagan, to
whom I had entrusted the conduct of the actual assault, it was not then
too late to rearrange the distribution.
The four companies of United States troops who, under this decision,
had to be withdrawn were loud in their lamentations, but the remaining
four companies were distributed by platoons among the troops of the
three Australian Brigades who were to carry out the attack--each
American platoon being assigned a definite place in the line of battle.
The dispositions of the main body of Australian infantry were based
upon this arrangement.
In the meantime, somewhere in the upper realms of high control, a
discussion must have been going on as to the propriety of after
all allowing any American troops at all to participate in the
forthcoming operations. Whether the objections were founded upon
policy, or upon an under-estimate of the fitness of these troops for
offensive fighting, I have never been able to ascertain; but, to my
consternation, I received about four o'clock on the afternoon of July
3rd, a telephone message from Lord Rawlinson to the effect that it had
now been decided that _no_ American troops were to be used the next day.
I was, at the moment, while on my daily round of visits to Divisions
and Brigades, at the Headquarters of the Third Division, at Glisy, and
far from my own station. I could only request that the Army Commander
might be so good as to come at once to the forward area and meet me at
Bussy-les-Daours, the Headquarters of Maclagan--he being the Commander
immediately affected by this proposed change of plan. In due course we
all met at five o'clock, Rawlinson being accompanied by Montgomery, his
Chief-of-Staff.
It was a meeting full of tense situations--and of grave import. At that
moment of time, the whole of the Infantry destined for the assault at
dawn next morning, including those very Americans, was already well
on its way to its battle stations; the Artillery was in the act of
dissolving its defensive organization with a view to moving forward
into its battle emplacements as soon as dusk should fall; I well knew
that even if orders could still with certainty reach the battalions
concerned, the withdrawal of those Americans would result in untold
confusion and in dangerous gaps in our line of battle.
Even had I been ready to risk the success of the battle by going ahead
without them, I could not afford to take the further risk of the
occurrence of something in the nature of an "international incident"
between the troops concerned, whose respective points of view about the
resulting situation could be readily surmised. So I resolved to take a
firm stand and press my views as strongly as I dared; for even a Corps
Commander must use circumspection when presuming to argue with an Army
Commander.
However, disguised in the best diplomatic language that I was able to
command, my representations amounted to this: firstly, that it was
already too late to carry out the order; secondly, that the battle
would have to go on either with the Americans participating, or not
at all; thirdly, that unless I were expressly ordered to abandon the
battle, I intended to go on as originally planned; and lastly, that
unless I received such a cancellation order before 6.30 p.m. it would
in any case be too late to stop the battle, the preliminary phases of
which were just on the point of beginning.
As always, Lord Rawlinson's charming and sympathetic personality made
it easy to lay my whole case before him. He was good enough to say
that while he entirely agreed with me, he felt himself bound by the
terms of a clear order from the Commander-in-Chief. My last resource,
then, was to urge the argument that I felt perfectly sure that the
Commander-in-Chief when giving such an order could not have had
present to his mind the probability that compliance with it meant the
abandonment of the battle, and that, under the circumstances, it was
competent for the senior Commander on the spot to act in the light of
the situation as known to him, even to the extent of disobeying an
order.
Rawlinson agreed that this view was correct provided the
Commander-in-Chief was not accessible for reference. Repeated attempts
to raise General Headquarters from Bussy eventually elicited the
information that the Field Marshal was then actually on his way from
Versailles, and expected to arrive in half an hour. Thereupon Rawlinson
promised a decision by 6.30, and we separated to rejoin our respective
Headquarters.
In due course, the Army Commander telephoned that he had succeeded
in speaking to the Field Marshal, who explained that he had directed
the withdrawal of the Americans in deference to the wish of General
Pershing, but that, as matters stood, he now wished everything to go on
as originally planned. And so--the crisis passed as suddenly as it had
appeared. For, to me it had taken the form of a very serious crisis,
feeling confident as I did of the success of the forthcoming battle,
and of the far-reaching consequences which would be certain to follow.
It appeared to me at the time that great issues had hung for an hour or
so upon the chance of my being able to carry my point.
An interesting episode, intimately bound up with the story of this
battle, was the visit to the Corps area on July 2nd of the Prime
Minister of the Commonwealth, Mr. W. M. Hughes, and Sir Joseph Cook,
the Minister of the Navy. They arrived all unconscious of the impending
enterprise, but only by taking them fully into my confidence could I
justify my evident preoccupation with other business of first-class
importance. Most readily, however, did they accommodate themselves to
the exigencies of the situation.
Both Ministers accompanied me that afternoon on a tour of inspection
of the eight battalions who were then already parading in full battle
array, and on the point of moving off to the assembly positions from
which next day they would march into battle. The stirring addresses
delivered to the men by both Ministers did much to hearten and
stimulate them. As they were on their way to an Inter-Allied War
Council at Versailles, the personal contact of the Ministers with the
actual battle preparations had the subsequent result of focussing upon
the outcome of the battle a good deal of interest on the part of the
whole War Council.
The fixing of the exact moment for the opening of a battle has always
been the subject of much controversy. As in many other matters, it
becomes in the end the responsibility of one man to make the fatal
decision. The Australians always favoured the break of day, as this
gave them the protection of the hours of darkness for the assembly of
the assaulting troops in battle order in our front trenches. But there
must be at least sufficient light to see one's way for two hundred
yards or so, otherwise direction is lost and confusion ensues.
The season of the year, the presence and altitude of the moon, the
prospect of fog or ground mist, the state of the weather, and the
nature and condition of the ground are all factors which affect the
proper choice of the correct moment. To aid a decision, careful
observations were usually made on three or four mornings preceding the
chosen day. A new factor on this occasion was the strong appeal by the
Tanks for an extra five minutes of dawning light, to ensure a true line
of approach upon the allotted objective, whether a ruined village, or
a thicket, or a field work.
The decision actually given by me was that "Zero" would be ten minutes
past three, and every watch had been carefully synchronized to the
second, to ensure simultaneous action. A perfected modern battle plan
is like nothing so much as a score for an orchestral composition, where
the various arms and units are the instruments, and the tasks they
perform are their respective musical phrases. Every individual unit
must make its entry precisely at the proper moment, and play its phrase
in the general harmony. The whole programme is controlled by an exact
time-table, to which every infantryman, every heavy or light gun, every
mortar and machine gun, every tank and aeroplane must respond with
punctuality; otherwise there will be discords which will impair the
success of the operation, and increase the cost of it.
The morning of July 4th was ushered in with a heavy ground mist.
This impeded observation and made guidance difficult, but it greatly
enhanced the surprise. The unexpected occurrence of this fog lessened
the importance of the elaborate care which had been taken to introduce
into the Artillery barrage a due percentage of smoke shell, and to form
smoke screens by the use of mortars on the flanks of the attack. But
the fog largely accounted for the cheap price at which the victory was
bought.
No battle within my previous experience, not even Messines, passed off
so smoothly, so exactly to time-table, or was so free from any kind of
hitch. It was all over in ninety-three minutes. It was the perfection
of team work. It attained all its objectives; and it yielded great
results. The actual assault was delivered, from right to left, by two
battalions of the 6th Brigade, three battalions of the 4th Brigade,
and three battalions of the 11th Brigade. It was also part of the plan
that advantage was taken by a battalion of the 15th Brigade to snatch
from the enemy another slice of territory far away in the Ancre Valley,
opposite Dernancourt, and so, by extending the battle front, further to
distract him.
The attack was a complete surprise, and swept without check across the
whole of the doomed territory. Vaire and Hamel Woods fell to the 4th
Brigade, while the 11th Brigade, with its allotted Tanks, speedily
mastered Hamel Village itself. The selected objective line was reached
in the times prescribed for its various parts, and was speedily
consolidated. It gave us possession of the whole of the Hamel Valley,
and landed us on the forward or eastern slope of the last ridge, from
which the enemy had been able to overlook any of the country held by us.
Still more important results were that we gathered in no less than
1,500 prisoners, and killed and disabled at least as many more, besides
taking a great deal of booty, including two field guns, 26 mortars
and 171 machine guns--at a cost to us of less than 800 casualties
of all kinds, the great majority of whom were walking wounded. The
Tanks fulfilled every expectation, and the suitability of the tactics
employed was fully demonstrated. Of the 60 Tanks utilized, only 3 were
disabled, and even these 3 were taken back to their rallying points
under their own power the very next night. Their moral effect was also
proved, and, with the exception of a few enemy machine-gun teams,
who bravely stood their ground to the very last, most of the enemy
encountered by the Tanks readily surrendered.
Shortly after the battle, G.H.Q. paid the Australian Corps the
compliment of publishing to the whole British Army a General Staff
brochure,[10] containing the complete text of the orders, and a
full and detailed description of the whole of the battle plans and
preparations, with an official commentary upon them. The last paragraph
of this document, which follows, expresses tersely the conclusions
reached by our High Command:
"81. The success of the attack was due:
(a) To the care and skill as regards every detail with which the
plan was drawn up by the Corps, Division, Brigade and Battalion
Staffs.
(b) The excellent co-operation between the infantry, machine
gunners, artillery, tanks and R.A.F.
(c) The complete surprise of the enemy, resulting from the manner
in which the operation had been kept secret up till zero hour.
(d) The precautions which were taken and successfully carried out
by which no warning was given to the enemy by any previous activity
which was not normal.
(e) The effective counter-battery work and accurate barrage.
(f) The skill and dash with which the tanks were handled, and the
care taken over details in bringing them up to the starting line.
(g) Last, but most important of all, the skill, determination and
fine fighting spirit of the infantry carrying out the attack."
Of the extent to which the tactical principles, and the methods of
preparation which had been employed at Hamel, came to be utilized by
other Corps in the later fighting of 1918 no reliable record is yet
available to me. But within the Corps itself this comparatively small
operation became the model for all enterprises of a similar character,
which it afterwards fell to the lot of the Corps to carry out.
The operation was a small one, however, only by contrast with the
events which followed, although not in comparison with some of the
major operations which had preceded it--by reference to the number
of troops engaged, although not to the extent of territory or booty
captured. Although only eight Battalions (or the equivalent of less
than one Division) were committed in the actual assault, the territory
recovered was more than four times that which was, in the pitched
battles of 1917, customarily allotted as an objective to a single
Division. The number of prisoners in relation to our own casualties was
also far higher than had been the experience of previous years. Both
of these new standards which had thus been set up may be regarded as
flowing directly from the employment of the Tanks.
Among other aspects of this battle which are worthy of mention is the
fact that it was the first occasion in the war that the American
troops fought in an offensive battle. The contingent of them who joined
us acquitted themselves most gallantly and were ever after received by
the Australians as blood brothers--a fraternity which operated to great
mutual advantage nearly three months later.
This was the first occasion, also, on which the experiment was made of
using aeroplanes for the purpose of carrying and delivering small-arms
ammunition. The "consolidation" of a newly-captured territory implies,
in its broadest sense, its organization for defence against recapture.
For such a purpose the most rapidly realizable expedient had been
found to be the placing of a predetermined number of machine guns in
previously chosen positions, arranged chequer-wise over the captured
ground. According to such a plan, suitable localities were selected by
an examination of the map and a specified number of Vickers machine-gun
crews were specially told off for the duty of making, during the
battle, by the most direct route, to the selected localities, there
promptly digging in, and preparing to deal with any attempt on the part
of the enemy to press a counter-attack.
The main difficulty affecting the use of machine guns is the
maintenance for them of a regular and adequate supply of ammunition.
Heretofore this function had to be performed by infantry ammunition
carrying parties. It required two men to carry one ammunition box,
holding a thousand rounds, which a machine gun in action could easily
expend in less than five minutes. Those carrying parties had to travel
probably not less than two to three miles in the double journey across
the open, exposed both to view and fire. Casualties among ammunition
carriers were always substantial.
It was therefore decided to attempt the distribution of this class of
ammunition by aeroplane. Most of the machines of the Corps Squadron
were fitted with bomb racks and releasing levers. It required no great
ingenuity to adapt this gear for the carrying by each plane of two
boxes of ammunition simultaneously, and to arrange for its release,
by hand lever, at the appropriate time. It remained to determine, by
experiment, the correct size and mode of attachment for a parachute for
each box of ammunition, so that the box would descend from the air
slowly, and reach the ground without severe impact.
It was Captain Wackett, of the Australian Flying Corps, who perfected
these ideas, and who trained the pilots to put them into practice. Each
machine-gun crew, upon reaching its appointed locality, spread upon
the ground a large V-shaped canvas (V representing the word "Vickers")
as an intimation to the air of their whereabouts, and that they needed
ammunition. After a very little training, the air-pilots were able
to drop this ammunition from a height of at least 1,000 feet to well
within 100 yards of the appointed spot. In this way, at least 100,000
rounds of ammunition were successfully distributed during this battle,
with obvious economy in lives and wounds. The method thus initiated
became general during later months.
The Corps also put into practice, on this occasion, a stratagem which
had frequently on a smaller scale been employed in connection with
trench raids. Our Artillery was supplied with many different types
of projectile, but among them were both gas shell and smoke shell.
The latter were designed to create a very palpable smoke cloud, to be
employed for the purpose of screening an assault, but were otherwise
harmless. The former burst, on the other hand, with very little
evolution of smoke, but with a pronounced and easily recognized smell,
and their gas was very deadly.
My practice was, therefore, during the ordinary harassing fire in
periods between offensive activities, always to fire both classes of
shell _together_, so that the enemy became accustomed to the belief
at the least that our smoke shells were invariably accompanied by gas
shell, even if he did not believe that it was the smoke shell which
alone gave out the warning smell. The effect upon him of either belief
was, however, the same; for it compelled him in any case to put on his
gas mask in order to protect himself from gas poisoning.
On the actual battle day, however, we fired smoke shell _only_, as we
dared not vitiate the air through which our own men would shortly pass.
But the enemy had no rapid means of becoming aware that we were firing
only harmless smoke shell. He would, therefore, promptly don his gas
mask, which would obscure his vision, hamper his freedom of action,
and reduce his powers of resistance. On July 4th both the 4th and 11th
Brigades accordingly took prisoner large numbers of men who were found
actually wearing their gas masks. The stratagem had worked out exactly
as planned.
The battle was over, and when the results were made known there
followed the inevitable flow of congratulatory messages from superiors,
and colleagues and friends, from all parts of the Front and from
England. The following telegrams received from the Commonwealth Prime
Minister were particularly gratifying:
1. "On behalf of Prime Minister of Britain, and also of Prime
Ministers of Canada, New Zealand and Newfoundland, attending
VERSAILLES Council, I am commissioned to offer you our warmest
congratulations upon brilliant success of Australian Forces under
your command, and to say that the victory achieved by your Troops
is worthy to rank with greatest achievements of Australian Armies."
2. "My personal congratulations and those of the Government of
Commonwealth on brilliant success of battle. Please convey to
Officers and Men participating in attack warmest admiration of
their valour and dash and manner in which they have maintained
highest traditions of Australian Army. I am sure that achievement
will have most considerable military and political effect upon
Allies and neutrals, and will heighten _moral_ of all Imperial
Forces."
3. "In company with Mr. Lloyd George and General Rawlinson to-day
saw several hundred of prisoners taken by Australian Troops in
battle before Hamel. Rawlinson expressed to me the opinion that
the operation was a brilliant piece of work. Please convey this to
troops."
The following message transmitted to me by the Commander of the Fourth
Army was also received from the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief:
"Will you please convey to Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash and
all Ranks under his command, including the Tanks and the detachment
of 33rd American Division, my warm congratulations on the success
which attended the operation carried out this morning, and on the
skill and gallantry with which it was conducted.
"D. HAIG."
A steady stream of visitors also set in, including numbers of General
Staff Officers, who had been sent down from other Corps and Armies to
gather information as to the methods employed. Everyone, of course,
recognized that there was only one War, and that it was to the mutual
benefit of all that all expedients calculated to accelerate the end of
it should become the common property of all. My Staff were accordingly
kept busy for many days with maps and diagrams explaining the lines on
which the enterprise had been carried out.
The most distinguished and most welcome of all our visitors, however,
was Monsieur Clemenceau, the veteran statesman of France, who, in spite
of the physical effort, immediately after the sitting of the Versailles
War Council had closed, made haste to travel to the Amiens area, and
to visit the Corps for the special purpose of thanking the troops. He
arrived on July 7th, and a large assemblage of Australian soldiers who
had participated in the battle, and who were resting from their labours
near General Maclagan's Headquarters at Bussy, were privileged to hear
him address them in English in the following terms:
"I am glad to be able to speak at least this small amount of
English, because it enables me to tell you what all French people
think of you. They expected a great deal of you, because they have
heard what you have accomplished in the development of your own
country. I should not like to say that they are surprised that you
have fulfilled their expectations. By that high standard they judge
you, and admire you that you have reached it. We have all been
fighting the same battle of freedom in these old battlegrounds.
You have all heard the names of them in history. But it is a great
wonder, too, in history that you should be here fighting on the old
battlefields, which you never thought, perhaps, to see. The work of
our fathers, which we wanted to hand down unharmed to our children,
the Germans tried to take from us. They tried to rob us of all
that is dearest in modern human society. But men were the same in
Australia, England, France, Italy, and all countries proud of being
the home of free people. That is what made you come; that is what
made us greet you when you came. We knew you would fight a real
fight, but we did not know that from the very beginning you would
astonish the whole Continent with your valour. I have come here
for the simple purpose of seeing the Australians and telling them
this. I shall go back to-morrow and say to my countrymen: 'I have
seen the Australians; I have looked into their eyes. I know that
they, men who have fought great battles in the cause of freedom,
will fight on alongside us, till the freedom for which we are all
fighting is guaranteed for us and our children.'"
The French inhabitants of the Amiens district were also highly elated
at the victory. The city itself had been, for some weeks, completely
evacuated, by official order. Not only had it become the object of
nightly visitations by flights of Gothas; but also, somewhere in the
east and far beyond the reach of my longest range guns, the enemy had
succeeded in emplacing a cannon of exceptionally large calibre, range
and power, which took its daily toll of the buildings of this beautiful
city.
The anniversary of the French national fête was approaching, and the
Prefect of the Department of the Somme, Monsieur Morain--appreciating
the significance of the Hamel victory as a definite step towards the
ultimate disengagement of the city from the German terror--determined
to make the celebration of this fête not only a compliment to the
Australian Corps, but also a proof of the unquenchable fortitude of the
people of his Department.
Accordingly, in the Hôtel de Ville, in the very heart of the deserted
city, amidst the crumbling ruins of its upper stories, and of the
devastation of the surrounding city blocks, he presided at a humble
but memorable repast, which had been spread in an undamaged apartment,
inviting to his board a bare twenty representatives of the French and
British Armies, and of the city of Amiens. While we toasted the King
and the Republic, and voiced the firm resolve of both Allies to see
the struggle through to the bitter end, the enemy shells were still
thundering overhead.
But other matters than rejoicings in a task thus happily accomplished
compelled my chief attention during the remaining days of this July. I
had to study and gauge accurately the tactical and strategical results
of the victory of Hamel, and to lose no time in using the advantage
gained. The moral results both on the enemy and on ourselves were far
more important, and deserve far more emphasis than do the material
gains.
It was, as I have said, the first offensive operation, on any
substantial scale, that had been fought by any of the Allies since the
previous autumn. Its effect was electric, and it stimulated many men
to the realization that the enemy was, after all, not invulnerable, in
spite of the formidable increase in his resources which he had brought
from Russia. It marked the termination, once and for all, of the purely
defensive attitude of the British front. It incited in many quarters an
examination of the possibilities of offensive action on similar lines
by similar means--a changed attitude of mind, which bore a rich harvest
only a very few weeks later.
But its effect on the enemy was even more startling. His whole front
from the Ancre to Villers-Bretonneux had become unstable, and was
reeling from the blow. It was only the consideration that I had still
to defend a ten-mile front, and had still only one Division in reserve
in case of emergency, that deterred me from embarking at once upon
another blow on an even larger scale. But I seized every occasion to
importune the Army Commander either to narrow my front, or to let the
First Division from Hazebrouck join my command, or both; but so far
without result.
[Illustration: MAP B.]
The only course that remained open to me was to initiate immediate
measures for taking the fullest advantage of the enemy's demoralization
by exploiting the success obtained to the utmost possible extent. No
later than on the afternoon of the battle of Hamel itself, orders were
issued to all three line Divisions to commence most vigorous offensive
patrolling all along the Corps front, with a view not merely to prevent
the enemy from re-establishing an organized defensive system, but
also ourselves to penetrate the enemy's ground by the establishment
therein of isolated posts, as a nucleus for subsequent more effective
occupation.
Enterprise of such a nature appeals strongly to the sporting instinct
of the Australian soldier. Divisions, Brigades and Battalions vied
with each other in predatory expeditions, even in broad daylight, into
the enemy's ground, and a steady stream of prisoners and machine guns
flowed in. On the nights of July 5th and 6th, the Fifth Division, now
in the sector between the Ancre and the Somme, possessed themselves
with very little effort of a strip of some three hundred acres of
hostile positions, bringing our front line so near to Morlancourt as to
make that village no longer tenable by the enemy.
On the same nights, and again on July 8th and 9th, the Second and
Fourth Divisions advanced their lines by an average of two hundred to
three hundred yards along their respective fronts, and this advance
was, in the case of the Second Division, particularly valuable in
carrying our front line over the crest of the plateau of Hill 104, and
giving us clear and unbroken observation far into the enemy's country,
in the directions of Warfusee and Marcelcave.
It was a period replete with instances of individual enterprise and
daring adventure. One incident, characteristic of the varied efforts
of these days, was the capture, single-handed, and in broad daylight,
by Corporal W. Brown, V.C., of the 20th Battalion, Second Division, of
an officer and eleven men of the German Army, whom he stalked as they
lay skulking in a trench dug-out not far from his observation post, and
terrorized into submission by the threat of throwing a bomb at them.
But perhaps the best testimony of the successful activities of my
troops during this period, and of the serious impression which
they made upon the enemy, can be gathered by extracts from his own
documents, a number of which were captured during this and subsequent
fighting. Of these, the following, issued by the Second German Army
Headquarters (Von der Marwitz), are among the more interesting:
"The enemy has in his minor enterprises again taken prisoner a
complete front line battalion and part of a support battalion. The
reason is our faulty leadership."
"The enemy penetrated the forward zone of the 108th Division
by means of large patrols at midnight, on July 8th, 1918,
without any artillery preparation, and again on the same
night at 11 p.m., with artillery preparation, astride of the
Marcelcave--Villers-Bretonneux railway. He occupied the trenches
where our most advanced outposts lay, and took the occupants,
comprising fifteen men, prisoner. The larger part of the forward
zone has been lost."
"In the case of the present trench Division, it has often happened
that _complete_ picquets have disappeared from the forward zone
without a trace."
All the above refers to the period between July 4th and 12th. We read
again under date July 13th:
"During the last few days the Australians have succeeded in
penetrating, or taking prisoner, single posts or picquets. They
have gradually--sometimes even in daylight--succeeded in getting
possession of the majority of the forward zone of a whole Division."
"Troops must fight. They must not give way at every opportunity and
seek to avoid fighting, otherwise they will get the feeling that
the enemy are superior to them."
[Illustration: Railway Gun, 11.2-inch Bore--captured near Rosières on
August 8th, 1918.]
[Illustration: German Depot of Stores--captured on August 8th, 1918.]
One last extract from these interesting papers:
"The best way to make the enemy more careful in his attempt to
drive us bit by bit out of the outpost line and forward zone is to
do active reconnaissance and carry out patrol encounters oneself.
In this respect absolutely nothing seems to have been done. If the
enemy can succeed in scoring a success without any special support
by artillery or assistance from special troops, we must be in a
position to do the same."
Our line in front of Villers-Bretonneux had for months run very close
to the eastern outskirts of that town, a circumstance which cramped and
embarrassed our defence of it. The enemy could peer into its streets
and sweep them with machine guns. He had held in strength a locality
known as Monument Wood, the ruins of a once prosperous orchard, and his
possession of it had been a source of annoyance both to us and to the
French, for it lay just opposite the international boundary posts.
The time seemed opportune for a set-piece operation designed to
advance our line opposite the town by 1,000 yards, on a broad front,
to dislodge the enemy from Monument Wood, gain valuable elbow room,
and obtain mastery of the remainder of the plateau on which the town
was built. I had actually completed the draft of a plan for such an
operation, and had held a preliminary conference with my Staff to
discuss it, when it became apparent that the nightly encroachments
which the Second Division were effecting in this region would, in
the course of a few days, achieve the capture of the whole of this
territory without any special organized effort at all.
And so it proved; for before the middle of July, Rosenthal had
succeeded in possessing himself, by such a process of "peaceful
penetration," of the whole of the coveted area. It was a further
evidence of the serious demoralization which our aggressive attitude of
the preceding months had wrought among the German forces opposed to us.
The era of minor aggression by the Australian Corps was, however, about
to draw to a close, and the situation was rapidly beginning to shape
itself for greater events.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Staff-Sheet No. 218: "Operations of the Australian Corps against
Hamel, etc.," published July, 1918.
CHAPTER IV
TURNING THE TIDE
The course of events during June and July pointed to the conclusions,
firstly, that the enemy contemplated no further offensive operations in
the Somme Valley, and, secondly, that the condition of the whole German
Second Army, astride of the Somme, offered every temptation to us to
seize the initiative against it.
So far as the Australian Corps was concerned, however, my total
frontage, which had been increased (as the result of our exploitation)
to over eleven miles, precluded the possibility, with only four
Divisions at my disposal, of maintaining, even if I could succeed in
initiating, an ambitious offensive. The time was nevertheless ripe for
action on a scale far more decisive than had become orthodox in the
British Army in the past. Efforts on that method had been confined to a
thrust, limited in point both of distance and of time, and followed by
a period of inaction; they had often given the enemy ample leisure to
recover, and to reorganize his order of battle.
To maintain an offensive, day after day, indefinitely, would require
sufficient resources, particularly in infantry, to allow Divisions to
be used alternatingly. Only in such a way, by having rested Divisions
always available to alternate with tired Divisions, could a continuous
pressure be maintained.
I took every opportunity of pressing these views upon the Army
Commander, and expressed the readiness of the Australian Corps to
undertake and maintain a long sustained offensive, provided that
arrangements could be made to shorten my frontage from a three to a
two-Division battle front, and to increase my resources, from the
present four, to five or even six Divisions. It was further essential
that in any advances attempted by us, other Corps must co-operate on
both flanks.
It would be bad tactics to drive into the enemy's front a salient
with a narrow base, for such a salient would make our situation worse
instead of better, affording to the enemy the opportunity of artillery
attack upon it from both its flanks as well as from its front. The
salient must therefore be broad based in relation to its depth, and the
base must ever widen as the head of the salient advances.
This principle implied that a large-scale operation of such a nature
must be begun on a whole Army front, and that, even at its inception,
at least three Corps must co-operate, to be aided by the entry of
additional Corps on the outer flanks as the central depth developed. In
other words, it was a project implying a large commitment of resources,
and the urgent question was whether the time was yet ripe for taking
the risks involved.
The matter, however, now became a subject at least worthy of practical
discussion, and, during the days which followed Hamel, the Staffs of
both the Corps and Army were kept busy with the investigation of data,
maps, and information, while the availability of additional resources
in guns, tanks and aeroplanes became the subject of anxious inquiry.
A circumstance which troubled me sorely was the fact that my Corps
stood on the flank of the British Army, and that the troops on my right
belonged to the French Army. The relations between the Australian
troops and the Tirailleurs and Zouaves of the 31st French Corps
(General Toulorge) had always been the very friendliest, and the joint
"international" posts had been the scenes of hearty fraternization and
of the evolution of a strange common vernacular.
This comradeship of "poilu" with "digger" did not, however, lessen
the difficulties incidental to the joint conduct of a major Operation
of War by two Corps of different nationalities, speaking different
languages, with diverse tactical conceptions, and, above all, of
substantially divergent temperaments. The French are irresistible in
attack as they are dogged in defence, but whether they will attack or
defend depends greatly on their temperament of the moment. In this
they are totally unlike the British or Australian soldier who will at
any time philosophically accept either rôle that may be prescribed for
him.
In short, it was not possible to hope for an effective co-ordination
of effort, controlled particularly by the minute observance of a
time-table, on the part of the Australian and its adjacent French
Corps, and I felt quite unprepared to count upon it. It was for
this reason that I expressed to the Army Commander the hope that a
British Corps might be obtainable to operate on my right flank in any
undertaking that should be decided upon. Understanding that the greater
part of the Canadian Corps was then unemployed, resting in a back area,
I ventured to hope that this Corps might be made available, in the
event of a decision that the proposal should be proceeded with.
My hesitation to accept the French as colleagues in such a battle
was based not altogether on theoretical or sentimental grounds.
The steady progress in mopping up enemy territory to the east of
Villers-Bretonneux, which had been made by my south flank Division
(the Second) as the aftermath of Hamel, soon produced a contortion of
the Allied front line at this point which bade fair to prove just as
troublesome to me as had been the great re-entrant opposite Hamel,
which that battle had been specially undertaken to eliminate.
No persuasions on my part, or on that of my flank Division, could
induce the adjacent French Division to extend any co-operation in these
advances or to adopt any measures to flatten out the re-entrant which,
growing deeper every day, threatened to expose my right flank. I am
convinced that such hesitation was based upon no timidity, but was the
result wholly of an entirely different outlook and policy from those
which the Australian Corps was doing its best to interpret. But the
experience of it made the prospect of punctual co-operation on their
part in much more serious undertakings distinctly less encouraging.
The proposed offensive involved, therefore, far-reaching
redispositions, comprising a substantial displacement southwards of
the inter-Allied boundary, a lengthening by several miles of the whole
British Western front, and an entire rearrangement of the respective
fronts of the Third and Fourth British Armies. It is not surprising
that a decision was deferred, while the project was being critically
investigated from every point of view.
Then, suddenly, a new situation arose. On July 15th, the enemy opened
a fresh attack against the French in the south. The scale on which
he undertook it immediately made it patent to all students of the
situation that he was probably employing his whole remaining reserves
of fit, rested Divisions; that he meant this to be his decisive blow;
and that whether he gained a decision or not, it would be his last
effort on the grand scale.
It did not succeed; for just as he had once again reached the line
of the Marne and had on July 17th achieved his "furthest south" at
Château-Thierry, a beautifully timed counter-stroke by the French and
Americans upon the western face of the salient, extending from Soissons
to the Marne, resulted on July 18th in the capture by the Allies on
that day alone, of 15,000 prisoners and 200 guns.
It was the end of German offensive in the war. Their mobile reserves
were exhausted, and they were compelled slowly to recede from the
Château-Thierry salient. The appropriate moment, for which Foch and
Haig had doubtless been waiting for months, had at last arrived to
begin an Allied counter offensive, and it was only a question of
deciding at what point along the Franco-British front the effort should
be made, and on what date it should open.
Doubtless influenced by the reasons already discussed, the choice
fell upon that portion of the front of the Fourth Army which lay
south of the Somme; in other words upon the southern portion of the
Australian Corps front. The date remained undecided, but the requisite
redisposition of Armies and Corps was so extensive that no time was to
be lost in making a beginning.
It was on July 21st that General Rawlinson first called together the
Corps Commanders who were to be entrusted with this portentous task.
The strictest secrecy was enjoined, and never was a secret better kept;
with the exception of the Field Marshal and his Army Commanders, none
outside of the Fourth Army had any inkling of what was afoot until the
actual moment for action had arrived.
Yet an observant enemy agent, if any such there had been in the
vicinity, might well have drawn a shrewd conclusion that some
mischief was brewing, had he happened along the main street of the
prettily-situated village of Flexicourt, on the Somme, on that
bright summer afternoon, and had observed in front of a pretentious
white mansion, over which floated the black and red flag of an Army
Commander, a quite unusual procession of motor-cars, ostentatiously
flying the Canadian and Australian flags and the red-and-white pennants
of two other Corps Commanders.
There were present at that conference, General Currie, the Canadian,
General Butler, of the Third Corps, General Kavanagh, of the Cavalry
Corps, and myself, while senior representatives of the Tanks and Air
Force also attended. Rawlinson unfolded the outline of the whole Army
plan, and details were discussed at great length in the light of
the views held by each Corps Commander as to the tasks which he was
prepared to undertake with the resources in his hands or promised to
him.
The conditions which I had sought in my previous negotiations with
the Army Commander were, I found, conceded to me almost to the full
extent. My battle front was to be reduced from eleven miles to a little
over 7,000 yards. It would, in fact, extend from the Somme, as the
northern, to the main Péronne railway, as the southern flank. And--what
was equally important, and profoundly welcome--the First Australian
Division was shortly to be relieved in Flanders, and would at last join
my Corps, thus for the first time in the war bringing all Australian
field units in France under one command.
The Canadians were to operate on my right, and further south again the
First French Army (Debenay) was to supply a Corps to form a defensive
flank for the Canadians. The Third British Corps was to carry out for
me a similar function on my northern flank. Thus, four Corps in line
were to operate, the two central Corps carrying out the main advance,
while the two outer flank Corps would be employed further to broaden
the base of the great salient which the operation would create.
The Cavalry Corps would appear in the battle area also, with all
preparations made for a rapid exploitation of any success achieved.
The utility of the Cavalry in modern war, at any rate in a European
theatre, has been the subject of endless controversy. It is one into
which I do not propose to enter. There is no doubt that, given suitable
ground and an absence of wire entanglements, Cavalry can move rapidly,
and undertake important turning or enveloping movements. Yet it has
been argued that the rarity of such suitable conditions negatives any
justification for superimposing so unwieldy a burden as a large body
of Cavalry--on the bare chance that it _might_ be useful--upon already
overpopulated areas, billets, watering places and roads.
I may, however, anticipate the event by saying that the First Cavalry
Brigade was duly allotted to me, and did its best to prove its utility;
but I am bound to say that the results achieved, in what proved to be
very unsuitable country beyond the range of the Infantry advance, did
not justify the effort expended either by this gallant Brigade or by
the other arms and services upon whom the very presence of the Cavalry
proved an added burden.
For the full understanding of subsequent developments both during and
after the battle it becomes of special importance to consider the
proposed rôle of the Third Corps in relation to my left flank. It is
to be remembered that the Fourth Army decided that the River Somme was
to be the tactical boundary between the two Northern Corps. It was not
competent for me to criticize this decision at the time, but I am free
now to say that I believed such a boundary to have been unsuitable, and
the event speedily proved that it was.
It is always, in my opinion, undesirable to select any bold natural
or artificial feature--such as a river, ravine, ridge, road or
railway--as a boundary. It creates, at once, a divided responsibility,
and necessitates between two independent commanders, and at a critical
point, a degree of effective co-operation which can rarely be hoped
for. It is much better boldly to place a unit, however large or small,
_astride_ of such a feature, so that both sides of it may come under
the control of one and the same Commander.
This was especially the case in this part of the Somme Valley which
is broad, and has an ill-defined central line, tortuous, and with
the slopes on either side tactically interdependent; but most of all
because, as I have already described, the high plateau on the north
completely overlooks the relatively lower flats on the south of the
river. The point I am trying to make should be borne in mind, for I
believe it has been fully borne out by subsequent events.
The decision standing, however, as it did, it fell to the task of
the Third Corps to make an assault (concurrently with that of the
Australian Corps south of the river) for the capture of the whole of
that reach of the river known as the Chipilly Bend, and of all the high
ground on the spur which that bend enfolds. The object was to deprive
the enemy of all ground from which he could look down upon my advancing
left flank, or from which he could bring rifle or artillery fire to
bear upon it.
The Third Corps was to operate on the front of one Division, the 58th,
which, pivoting its left upon the Corbie--Bray road, was to advance
its right--in sympathy with the advance of the left of the Australian
Corps--until it rested upon the river about one mile downstream from
Etinehem. It was a movement the success of which was rendered promising
by the nature of the ground and the disorganized condition of the enemy
between the Ancre and the Somme.
As regards my right flank, this was to rest as stated upon the main
railway. The Canadian Corps, of four Divisions, would take over from
the French a frontage of about 6,000 yards and deliver a thrust
parallel to and south of the railway, in the direction of Caix and
Beaucourt, and would aim at the seizure of the important Hill 102,
immediately to the west of the latter locality. At no time did any
question of the security of my right flank furnish me with any cause
for anxiety; the prowess of the Canadian Corps was well known to all
Australians, and I knew that, to use his own expressive vernacular, it
was General Currie's invariable habit to "deliver the goods."
The comprehensive project thus outlined at the conference of July 21st
involved, as a preliminary step, a far-reaching redisposition of very
large bodies of troops over a very wide front. With the readjustment of
the boundaries between the Third and Fourth British Armies we are not
particularly concerned, because this affected a region, north of the
Ancre, which lay well outside of the battle area. Nor did the internal
readjustment of the northern part of the Fourth Army front present
any difficulty, as it meant nothing more than a routine "relief" by
the 58th Division of the Fifth Australian Division which was at this
juncture holding that part of my Corps sector which lay between the
Somme and the Ancre.
But the southern half was a very different matter. The First French
Army was to give up to the British a section of about four miles,
extending from Villers-Bretonneux to Thennes. This was ultimately to
be taken over by the Canadian Corps as a battle front, but that Corps
still had two of its Divisions in the line in the neighbourhood of
Arras.
Moreover, it was of the utmost importance to conceal from the enemy
until the last possible moment any change in our dispositions. This
meant concealing them from our own troops also, because the loss by us
of a single talkative prisoner would have been sufficient to disclose
to the enemy at least the suspicion, if not the certainty, that an
attack was in preparation.
After examining the problem and discussing several alternative
solutions, it was ultimately decided at this conference that, five
or six days before the date fixed for the attack, the French would
be relieved in this sector by a Division, not of Canadians, but of
Australians; that under cover of and behind this Australian Division,
the Canadian Corps would come in from the north, and would proceed
to carry out its battle preparations; and finally that the actual
appearance of Canadian troops in the front line would not ensue until
three days before the battle.
During the preceding two days, the Australian troops would be gradually
withdrawn from the sector, leaving only one Brigade in occupation of
the line, to be backed up by the incoming Canadians in the unexpected
contingency of an attack by the enemy. This last Brigade would quietly
melt away, leaving the Canadians in full possession of the field.
It was hoped that, during the days of the temporary Australian
occupation of the sector, nothing would happen which might disclose
to the enemy that the French had left it; and even if we were to have
the misfortune to lose from this sector any Australian prisoners to
the enemy, it was further hoped that, if kept in total ignorance of
the inflow of Canadians, such prisoners would be unable to make any
embarrassing disclosures. The _dénouement_, which will be told later,
showed that this judgment of possibilities was a shrewd one, and that
such precautions were not taken in vain.
At this period of the war, large numbers of Americans had already
arrived in France, but only few of them were yet ready to take their
places in the line of battle. The time had not yet arrived, therefore,
when, by taking over large sections of the Western front they could
help to shorten the French and British frontages. The British front
was, therefore, still so extended that the mobile reserve Divisions at
the disposal of the Field Marshal were few.
This consideration made the contemplated reliefs and interchanges
of Corps and Divisions, and their transference from one part of our
front to another a matter of great complexity, and one which required
time to execute. Each stage of the process was contingent upon the
due completion of a previous stage. It is, moreover, a process which
cannot be unduly hastened, without serious discomfort and fatigue to
the troops and animals concerned.
Troops destined for battle must be kept in the highest physical
condition. This means good feeding, comfortable housing, and adequate
rest. A couple of weary days and sleepless nights spent in crowded
railway trains, with cold food and little exercise, are sufficient to
play havoc with the fighting trim of even a crack battalion. So, the
daily stages of the journey must be short, and comfortable billets must
be in readiness for each night's halt. The day's supplies must arrive
punctually and at the right railhead, to ensure hot, well-cooked meals.
With the very limited number of serviceable railway lines which
remained available behind the British front--and with the congestion
of traffic resulting from the daily transportation of many thousands
of tons of artillery ammunition and other war stores--it was not
surprising that as the result of the deliberations of the conference
it was resolved to advise the Commander-in-Chief that it would take
not less than five days to rearrange our order of battle on the lines
decided upon, and another five days, after Corps and Divisions had
taken over their battle fronts, to enable them to complete their
preparations.
Thus, the Fourth Army could be ready at ten days' notice, and the
conference broke up, pledged to secrecy and complete inaction, until
formal approval had been given to the proposals and a date fixed for
their realization.
The remainder of July passed with no very startling occurrences. In the
south the German withdrawal from the Soissons salient and the Marne
continued steadily, with the French and Americans on their heels; but
it was a methodical retreat, which would bring about a substantial
shortening of the German line, and so release Divisions to rest and
refit, which might conceivably become available for a fresh assault
elsewhere.
But there was still no sign of any such design upon that always tender
spot, the Allied junction at Villers-Bretonneux. On the contrary, my
second Division still continued to make free with the enemy's advanced
patrols, and in a very brilliant little infantry operation by the 7th
Brigade captured the "Mound," a long spoilbank beside the railway at a
point about a mile east of the town, which dominated the landscape in
every direction. The ardour of his troops was only enhanced when they
heard that General Rosenthal himself, while reconnoitring from the
Mound, had been sniped at and had received a nasty wound in the arm.
The enemy attempted nothing in the way of infantry retaliation. But
whenever he had been thoroughly angered, he treated my front to a
liberal drenching of mustard gas, fired by his artillery. His supplies
of mustard gas shell seemed inexhaustible, and he would frequently
expend as many as 10,000 of them in a single night upon the half-ruined
town of Villers-Bretonneux or on the Bois l'Abbé and other woods which
he suspected were sheltering my reserve infantry.
These gas attacks were annoying and troublesome, in the extreme. During
the actual bombardments, troops wore their gas masks as a matter of
course, but doffed them when the characteristic smell of the gas
had disappeared. But it was warm weather, and as the sun rose, the
poisonous liquid, which had spattered the ground over immense areas,
would volatilize, and rise in sufficient volume still to attack all
whose business took them to and fro across this ground. In this way
hundreds of our men became incapacitated; although there were a few
serious cases, most of the men would be fit to rejoin in two or three
weeks. But this form of attack, and the constant dread of it, made life
in the forward areas anything but endurable.
I was beset by quite another trepidation also. Prisoners captured
during the German withdrawal from the Marne, which was then in
progress, told tales of contemplated withdrawals on other fronts, and
some even asserted that a withdrawal opposite my own front was being
talked of. Judged by subsequent events, it is more than probable that
these stories were stimulated by the many articles which were at
that time appearing in the German newspapers from the pens of press
strategists, who, in order to allay public anxiety, were representing
these withdrawals as deliberate, and as a masterpiece of strategy,
compelling the Allies to a costly pursuit over difficult and worthless
ground.
Opposite Albert, signs that such a withdrawal was actually in progress
also began to appear, although it subsequently transpired that, in its
early stages, this procedure was merely prompted by a purely local
consideration, namely, the desire of the enemy to improve his tactical
position by abandoning the outposts, which he had been maintaining in
the valley of the Ancre, and transferring them to the higher and better
ground on the east of that river.
It was only natural that those of us who knew of the impending attack,
and of the immense effort which its preparation would involve, felt
nervous lest the enemy might forestall us by withdrawing his whole
line to some methodically prepared position of defence in the rear,
just as he had done once before in 1917 on so large a scale in the
Bapaume region. It would probably have been a sound measure of
military policy, but it would assuredly, at that juncture, have had
as disastrous an effect upon the _moral_ of the German people as his
enforced withdrawal, which was soon to begin, actually produced not
long after.
The order to prepare the attack, and fixing the date of it for August
8th, came in the closing days of July, and at once all was bustle and
excitement in the Australian Corps. Commanders, Staff Officers, and
Intelligence Service, the Artillery, the Corps Flying Squadron, the
map and photography sections spent busy days in reconnaissance, and
toilsome nights in office work. The vast extent of the detailed work
involved, particularly upon the administrative services, can only be
appreciated by a study of the plan for the battle, which it fell to my
lot, as Corps Commander, first to formulate, and then to expound to a
series of conferences which were held at Bertangles on July 30th, and
on August 2nd and 4th.
It is, therefore, perhaps appropriate that I should now attempt to
repeat, in non-technical language, an exposition of the outlines of
that plan.
CHAPTER V
THE BATTLE PLAN
My plan for the impending battle involved the employment of four
Divisions in the actual assault, with one Division in reserve. The
Reserve Division was to be available for use in one of two ways; either
as a reserve of fresh troops to exploit any successes gained upon the
first day, or else to take over and hold defensively the ground won, if
the assaulting Divisions should have become too exhausted to be relied
upon for successful resistance to a counter-attack in force.
The frontage allotted to the Corps was 7,000 yards, and this extent of
front accommodated itself naturally to the employment of two first-line
Divisions, each on a 3,500 yard front, each Division having two
Brigades in the front line, with one Brigade in reserve.
As four Divisions were available to me for immediate use in the
battle, I decided to undertake, for the first time in the war, on
so comprehensive a scale, the tactical expedient of a "leapfrog" by
Divisions over each other.
This term had, long before, passed into the homely phraseology of the
war, in order to describe a procedure by which one body of troops,
having reached its objective, was there halted, as at a completed task,
while a second body of troops, of similar order of importance, but
under an entirely separate Commander, advanced over the ground won,
reached the foremost battle line, took over the tactical responsibility
for the fighting front, and after a prescribed interval of time
continued the advance to a further and more distant objective.
This conception of an advance by a process of "leapfrog" had been
evolved early in 1917 in connection with a method of assault on
successive lines of trenches. It was intended at the outset to be
applied only to very small bodies of infantry, such as platoons. A
normal battle plan for a company of infantry of four platoons was for
the first two platoons to capture and hold the front line trench,
while the next two following platoons would leap over this trench and
over the troops who had gained it, and then pass beyond to the capture
of the second, or support trench. The method was used, for the first
time, on such a modest scale, at the battle of Messines, in June, 1917,
and later on in the same year was adopted for bodies as large even
as Battalions, in the fighting for the Broodseinde and Passchendaele
heights.
But on no previous occasion had such a principle been applied to whole
Divisions. It is true that at the battle of Messines, the Fourth
Australian Division passed through the New Zealand Division after the
latter had completed the capture of the main Messines ridge, but this
was really exploitation, undertaken in order to take advantage of the
temporary confusion of the enemy, and for the purpose of gaining ground
upon the eastern slopes of the captured ridge. It was not a movement
which was really part of the main assault, and it was confined to a
single Division.
On the present occasion my purpose was to carry out a clear and
definite process of "leapfrogging," not only simultaneously by two
Divisions side by side, but also as an essential part of the time-table
programme for the main battle, and before the exploitation stage of
the fighting was timed to be reached. It was, undeniably, a daring
proposal, involving very definite risks, enormously increasing the
labour of preparation and the mass of detailed precautions which had to
be undertaken in order to obviate the possibility of great confusion.
The preparations necessary for a single Division proposing to advance
alone, to a prescribed distance, over country much of which was usually
visible to us from our front line, are sufficiently complex, relating
as they do, not only to the establishment of numerous protected
headquarters for Brigades and Battalions, of miles upon miles of buried
and ground cables, of dumps of all kinds of supplies, and of dressing
stations and medical aid posts; but also to the disposition, in
concealed positions, of all the assaulting units, down to the smallest
of them, of Infantry Engineers and Pioneers. All these preparations
assume a tenfold complexity when a second Division has to make
arrangements exactly similar in character, variety and extent, using
exactly the same territory for the purpose and at the same time, and
planning to advance over more distant country, entirely beyond visual
range and preliminary reconnaissance.
The project also involved a much greater crowding of troops into
the areas immediately behind our line of departure, and, therefore,
enormously increased the risk of premature detection by the enemy,
both from ground and from air observation, of unusual movement and of
other symptoms which presaged the possibility of an attack by us. The
plan also necessitated the closest possible co-ordination of effort,
and mutual sympathy and understanding, between the Commanders and
Staffs of the twin Divisions having a common jurisdiction over one
and the same area of preparation, and one and the same battle front.
This was a degree of co-operation which could not have been looked
for unless the personnel concerned had already established, from long
and close association with each other, the most cordial personal
relations. And dominating all other difficulties were those involved
in the proposal to execute this difficult and untried operation of a
Divisional leapfrog, not singly but in a duplex manner, necessitating
the assurance of exactly similar simultaneous action, similarly timed
in every stage, both before and during battle, by each of two separate
pairs of Divisions.
These threatening difficulties were surely formidable enough, but I
knew that I could rely upon the goodwill of the Divisions towards each
other, and upon the loyal support of them all. This seemed to me to
justify the attempt, and to minimize the risks; having regard above all
else to the results which I stood to gain if the operation could be
executed as planned.
On no previous occasion in the war had an attempt ever been made to
effect a penetration into the enemy's defences at the first blow, and
on the first day, greater than a mile or two. Rarely had any previous
set-piece attack succeeded in reaching the enemy's line of field-guns.
The result had been that the bulk of his Artillery had been withdrawn
at his leisure, and his losses had been confined to a few hundred acres
of shattered territory. But the task I had set myself was not only
to reach, at the first onslaught, the whole of the enemy's Artillery
positions, but greatly to overrun them with a view to obliterating, by
destruction or capture, the whole of his defensive organizations and
the whole of the fighting resources which they contained, along the
full extent of my Corps front.
To achieve this object I prepared my plans upon the basis of a total
advance, on the first day, of not less than 9,000 yards. This was to be
divided into three separate stages, as follows:
Phase A--Set-piece attack with barrage, 3,000 yards.
Phase B--Open-warfare advance, 4,500 "
Phase C--Exploitation, 1,500 "
-----
Total distance to final objective, 9,000 yards.
-----
The opening phase involved no novel or unusual features so far as
the infantry were concerned, and was conceived on lines with which
the fighting of 1917 had familiarized me, modified further by the
accumulated experience gained from earlier mistakes in the technical
details of such an enterprise. The recent battle of Hamel became
the model for this phase, the conditions of that battle being now
reproduced on a much enlarged scale.
But there was one very important feature which distinguished the
present undertaking from the battles of Messines and Broodseinde, and
that was in regard to the frontage allotted for attack to a single
Division. At Messines, the Divisional battle front was 2,000 yards;
in the third battle of Ypres it differed but little from the same
standard. For the present battle, I adopted a battle front of two miles
for each assaulting Division, or a mile for each of the four assaulting
Brigades.
This innovation seemed to me to be justified by four principal
factors. The first of these was that the weather, which was dry, and
the state of the ground, which was hard, made the "going" easy and the
stress upon the infantry comparatively light. Next, the condition of
the enemy's defensive works was undeveloped and stagnant, as clearly
disclosed by the air photographs which the Corps Air Squadron produced
in great numbers on every fine day. No doubt this was due to the
encroachments we had made on his forward works during the fighting
at Hamel and in the remaining weeks of July. Thirdly, the powerful
assistance anticipated from a contingent of four Battalions of Tanks
which General Rawlinson had arranged to place under my orders led me
to estimate that I might greatly reduce the number of men per yard of
front. Lastly, the plan was justified by the known distribution of the
enemy's infantry and guns along the frontage under attack. For all
these reasons, I felt prepared to impose on the infantry a task which,
computed solely upon the factor of frontage, was more than twice that
demanded by me on any previous occasion.
At the same time, so extended a frontage involved the employment of a
much higher ratio of barrage artillery to the number of battalions of
Infantry actually engaged. Success depended more upon the efficiency of
the fire power of the barrage than upon any other factor, and I could
not afford to incur any risk by weakening the density of the barrage.
For this reason, I adhered to the standard which previous experience
of several major battles and many minor raids had shown to be adequate
for covering the assaulting infantry, and for keeping down the enemy's
fire. This standard never fluctuated widely from one field-gun per
twenty yards of front, and involved the employment, on this occasion,
of some 432 field-guns in the barrage alone. This result could not have
been achieved if the Fourth Army authorities had not seen their way to
place at my disposal five additional Brigades of Field Artillery over
and above the thirteen Australian Brigades which formed a permanent
part of the whole Artillery of the Corps.
Phase A, as already stated, involved a penetration of 3,000 yards,
and the objective line for this phase, which came to be known as the
"green" line (from the colour employed to delineate it upon all the
fighting maps propounded by the Corps), was chosen, after an exhaustive
study of all aeroplane photographs, and of the results of numerous
observations, by many diverse means, of the locations of the enemy's
Artillery, so as to make certain that during this phase the whole mass
of the enemy's forward Artillery would be overrun, and captured or put
out of action.
The green line was, in fact, located along the crest of the spur
running north-easterly from Lamotte-en-Santerre in the direction of
Cerisy-Gailly, with the object of carrying the battle well to the east
of the Cerisy valley, in which large numbers of the enemy's guns had
been definitely located. This would give us, by the capture of this
valley, suitable concealed positions in which the Infantry destined
for Phase B could rest for a short "breather;" and would land the
Infantry of the original assault in a position from which they could
detect and forestall any attempt on the part of the enemy to launch a
counter-attack before the time for the opening of Phase B had arrived.
The task of executing Phase A of the battle fell to the Second and
Third Australian Divisions, in that order from south to north, the
southern flank of the Second Division resting upon the main railway
line from Amiens to Péronne, and being there in contact with the
Canadian Corps, under General Currie. The northern flank of the Third
Division rested on the River Somme, and was there in contact with the
Third British Corps under General Butler, while the inter-divisional
boundary was at the southern edge of the Bois-d'Accroche.
These two Divisions were the line Divisions during the period
immediately preceding the battle, and had been holding the line each
with two Brigades in line and one Brigade in support. Three days prior
to the battle, however, it was arranged that each Division should hold
its front with only one Brigade, thereby making available two Brigades
each for the actual carrying out of Phase A of the attack. These
assaulting Brigades were the 7th, 5th, 9th and 11th, in that order from
south to north, each Brigade having its due allotment of Tanks and
machine guns, etc.
The total estimated time for the completion of Phase A was to be 143
minutes after the opening of the barrage at "zero" hour; and there was
then to be a pause of 100 minutes to allow time for the advance and
deployment into battle order of the succeeding two Divisions, who were
to carry out the process of "leapfrogging" and to execute Phases B and
C of the battle.
The planning of Phase B, or the advance from the "green" to the "red"
line, involved a totally different tactical conception and the adoption
of a type of warfare which had almost entirely disappeared from the
Western theatre of war since those far-off days in the late autumn of
1914, when the German Army first dug itself in, in France and Belgium,
and committed both combatants to the prolonged agony of over three
years of stationary warfare. I allude to the moving battle, or as it
is called in text-book language, "open warfare;" a type of fighting in
which few of the British Forces formed since the original Expeditionary
Force had any experience except on the manoeuvre ground under peace
conditions--a disability which applied equally to the Australian
troops. Confident, however, in their adaptability and in their power
of initiative under novel conditions, I did not hesitate to prescribe,
for this second phase of the battle, the adoption of the principles and
methods of open warfare.
In two very important respects in particular, this type of fighting
involved conditions to which the troops had not been accustomed,
and under which they had no previous experience in battle. In
trench warfare, and in a deliberate attack on entrenched defences,
the positions of all headquarters, medical aid posts, supply dumps
and signal stations remained fixed and immovable. The whole of the
internal communications by telegraph and telephone could, therefore,
be completely installed beforehand, down to the last detail, and the
transmission of all messages, reports, orders and instructions, during
the course of the battle, was rapid and assured. But in a moving
battle no such comprehensive or stable signalling arrangements are
possible, and reliance must be placed upon the much slower and much
more uncertain methods of transmission by flag and lamp signalling, by
dispatch riders, pigeons and runners.
Divisional Headquarters would, therefore, almost as soon as the battle
commenced, fall out of touch with Brigades, and they in turn with their
Battalions; information as to the actual situation at the fighting
front would travel slowly, and would reach those responsible for making
consequential decisions often long after an entire alteration in the
situation had removed the need for action. Thus, a greatly enhanced
responsibility would come to be imposed upon subordinate leaders to
decide for themselves, without waiting for guidance or orders from
higher authority, and to grasp the initiative by taking all possible
action on the spot in the light of the circumstances and situation of
the moment.
Again, the nature of the Artillery action is, in the moving battle,
fundamentally different from that which prevails during trench warfare.
To begin with, only that portion of the Artillery which is in the
strictest sense mobile can participate to any extent in open warfare.
The employment of Artillery is, therefore, confined to a few and to
the smaller natures of Ordnance, namely, the 18-pounder field-gun, the
4½-inch field howitzer and the 60-pounder, which are all horse drawn
and which are capable of being moved off the roads and across all but
the most broken country. Heavier guns, from 6-inch upwards, are in
practice confined to roads, and are too slow and cumbersome to keep
pace with the Infantry. The Artillery fire action is also intrinsically
different, because the guns can be sighted directly upon their targets,
while in trench warfare they are always laid by indirect methods, with
the use of the map and compass, and without observation, at any rate by
the crew of the gun, of the objects fired at.
The decision which I had to take of carrying out the second phase of
this great battle on the principles of open warfare was, therefore,
one which also involved a certain element of risk. But it was a risk
which I felt justified in taking, in spite of the fact that the German
High Command had more than once expressed itself in contemptuous
terms of the capacity of any British troops successfully to undertake
any operation of open warfare. My justification lay primarily in my
confidence in the ability of the subordinate commanders and troops to
work satisfactorily under these novel conditions--a confidence which
the event abundantly justified. But I was placed in the position of
having either to accept this risk, or else abandon altogether the
project of a quite unprecedented penetration of enemy country to be
completed on the first day. It would have been clearly impossible to
continue the advance beyond the green line without an interval of at
least forty-eight hours, which would have been necessary to enable the
Artillery to be redisposed for barrage fire in forward positions and
provided with the necessary supplies of ammunition for such a purpose.
The Divisions which were told off to carry out the "leapfrog"
enterprise and to execute Phase B of the battle were the Fifth
Australian Division on the south and the Fourth Australian Division on
the north, the outer flanks of the attack remaining as before, _i.e._,
the Péronne Railway on the south and the River Somme on the north.
Each of these Divisions was directed to deploy, on its own frontage,
two Infantry Brigades. Its third Brigade was to be kept intact and to
advance during Phase B at some distance behind, as a support to the
fighting line, and to be employed in the subsequent phase, if it were
found that Phase B could be completed without calling upon this spare
Brigade. The actual dispositions of the Brigades finally proposed by
the respective Divisional Commanders and approved by me brought about
the arrangement that the four first-line mobile Infantry Brigades were
successively, from south to north, the 15th, 8th, 12th and 4th, while
the 14th and 1st Brigades followed as supports in a second line.
To each of these Infantry Brigades I allotted a Brigade of Field
Artillery, to be employed under the direct orders of the Infantry
Brigade Commander, and, in addition, three Artillery Brigades as
well as one Battery of 60-pounders, to each Divisional Commander. As
my resources in Artillery were not unlimited, the twelve Artillery
Brigades, so disposed of, were necessarily drawn from the original
eighteen Brigades which were to fire the covering Artillery barrage
for Phase A of the battle. The orders to that portion of the Field
Artillery which was to become mobile in pursuance of this plan,
accordingly, were that immediately upon the completion of their
original tasks, by the capture of the green line, they were to "pull
out of the barrage."
This meant, in effect, that all the teams, limbers, battery wagons,
and ammunition wagons of these twelve Brigades, waiting in their wagon
lines far in rear, fully harnessed up and hooked in at the opening of
the battle, had to advance during the progress of the first phase,
so as to reach their guns just at the right time, but no earlier,
to enable these guns to be limbered up, and the batteries to become
completely mobile in order to join and advance with the Infantry of the
second phase.
This was an operation which required the greatest nicety in timing,
and the greatest accuracy in execution. No Australian Artillery had
ever previously undertaken such an operation, except perhaps on the
manoeuvre ground, and then only on the very limited scale of a Brigade
or two at a time. That this rapid transition from the completely
stationary to the completely mobile battle was carried out, during the
very crisis of a great engagement, without the slightest hitch, and
with only the trifling loss of two or three gun horse teams from shell
fire, reflects the very highest credit upon every officer and man of
the Australian Field Artillery.
The open warfare Infantry Brigades were also to be provided, out of
their own divisional resources, each with a Company of Engineers,
a Company of Machine Guns, a Field Ambulance, and a detachment of
Pioneers, so that, in the most complete sense, they became a Brigade
Group of all arms, capable of dealing, out of their own resources
and on their own ground, with any situation that might arise during
their advance of nearly three miles from the green to the red line. A
detachment of nine tanks completed the fighting equipment of each of
the four front line Brigades destined to capture the red line.
I must now briefly describe the nature of Phase C, the third and last
stage in this ambitious and complex battle programme. This phase was
to consist of "exploitation," which implies that it was a provisional
preparation, which was to be carried out only if complete success
attended the two preceding phases. The objective of Phase C was the
"blue" line, which I had located about one mile to the east of the red
line, along a system of old French trenches extending from the river at
a point near Méricourt, and running southerly to the railway at a point
a little to the south-east of Harbonnières. This line gave promise of
furnishing a good defensive position in which to deal with any possible
counter-attack. It also gave a good line of departure for subsequent
operations, and provided ideal artillery positions in a series of
valleys, running parallel and a little to the west of the line itself.
The troops earmarked for this Exploitation Phase were the two second
line Brigades of the two Divisions which were to capture the red line,
namely, the 14th and 1st Brigades, and the orders to the Divisional
Commanders were that if the red line was reached without mishap,
without undue loss of time, and without involving the Reserve Brigades,
but not otherwise, these Reserve Brigades were to push on with the
utmost determination to secure and hold the blue line until such time
as they could be reinforced.
Each of these exploitation Brigades was equipped similarly to the red
line Brigades in all respects except that they were provided with
a special contingent of 18 Mark V. (Star) Tanks of the very latest
design. These differed from the Mark V. Tank employed at Hamel and in
the other stages of the present operation, in that they were longer
and had sufficient internal space to carry, as passengers, over and
above their own crews, two complete infantry Lewis gun detachments
each. It was expected that this infantry fire power, added to the fire
power from the machine guns carried by these 36 Tanks themselves and
operated by the Tank crews, would go far to compensate for the somewhat
attenuated line of probably tired Infantry spread in two Brigades over
an ultimate frontage of over 10,000 yards.
No definite time-table was laid down for the closing phases of the
battle, except for the regulation of the times when our Heavy Artillery
should "lift off" designated targets--such as villages, farms, and
known gun positions--and lengthen its range so as not to obstruct the
further advance of our own Infantry. But it was estimated that, from
the opening of the battle, the green line would be reached in two and
a half hours, the red line in six hours, and the blue line in eight
hours. As the battle was to open at the first streak of dawn, it would,
if all went well, be completed according to plan by about midday.
In every battle plan, whether great or small, it is necessary first of
all to map out the whole of the intended action of the Infantry, at any
rate on the general lines indicated above. When that has been done the
next step is to work backwards, and to test the feasibility of each
body of infantry being able to reach its allotted point of departure,
punctually, without undue stress on the troops, and without crossing
or impeding the line of movement of any other body of infantry. It is
often necessary to test minutely, by reference to calculations of time
and space, more than one alternative plan for marshalling the Infantry
prior to battle, and for the successive movements, day by day, and from
point to point, of every battalion engaged.
The present case was no exception, and, indeed, presented quite special
difficulties. The whole of the area for a depth of many thousands of
yards behind our then front line was open rolling country, devoid of
any cover, and (except in the actual valley of the Somme) with every
village, hamlet, farmhouse, factory and wood obliterated. The plan
involved the assembly, in this confined area, fully exposed by day to
the view of any inquisitive enemy aircraft, of no less than 45 Infantry
Battalions, with all their paraphernalia of war; not to speak of our
600 guns of all calibres, their wagon lines, horse lines and motor
parks, together with Engineers, Pioneers, Tanks, Medical and Supply
Units amounting to tens of thousands of men and animals.
A new factor which, however, ultimately controlled the final decision
which I had to make as to the nature of the dispositions prior to
battle, lay in the consideration of the maximum distances which would
have to be covered by the foot soldiers in such a far-flung battle. I
had little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the obvious and
normal arrangement was on this occasion a totally wrong arrangement.
If the assaulting Brigades had been arranged, from front to rear, in
their assembly areas prior to battle, in the same order as that in
which they would have to come into action, this would have involved
that the individual man, who was to be required to march and fight his
way furthest into enemy country, and, therefore, was to be the last to
enter the fight, would also be called upon to march furthest from his
rearmost position of assembly before even reaching the battle zone. The
maximum distance to be traversed on the day of battle by infantry would
have amounted, according to such a plan, to over ten miles. While this
is an easy day's march on a good road, under tranquil conditions, it
would have been an altogether unreasonable demand upon any infantryman
during the stress and nervous excitement of battle. It would have been
courting a breakdown from over-fatigue, among the very troops upon whom
I had to rely most to defend the captured territory against any serious
enemy reaction.
I therefore adopted the not very obvious course of completely reversing
the normal procedure, and of disposing the Brigades in depth, from
front to rear, in exactly the _reverse_ of the order in which, in point
of time, they would enter the battle.
The following represents, diagrammatically, the disposition of all
twelve Brigades after having been fully _deployed_ in the actual course
of the battle:
^ (4th Division) | (5th Division)
| Direction 4 -- 12 | 8 -- 15
| of North 1 Inter- 14 South
| enemy. (3rd Division) Divisional (2nd Division)
| 11 -- 9 Boundary. 5 -- 7
| | Our front line
|----------------------------------+---------------------------------
| | before battle
| 10 (in our trenches) | 6 (in our trenches)
The next diagram shows how the twelve Brigades were disposed while
Phase A of the battle was in progress, and before the second Phase had
begun:
(3rd Division) | (2nd Division)
11 -- 9 | 5 -- 7
Inter- Our front line
--------------------------------Divisional---------------------------
Boundary. before battle
10 (in our trenches) | 6 (in our trenches)
(4th Division) | (5th Division)
4 -- 12 | 8 -- 15
1 | 14
But the following diagram represents, in a similar manner, the order
of disposition of the same Brigades, in the territory under our own
occupation, immediately _prior_ to the battle:
^ (3rd Division) | (2nd Division)
| | Our front line
|-----------------------------------+---------------------------------
| Direction Inter- before battle
| of 10 (in our trenches) Divisional 6 (in our trenches)
| enemy. (4th Division) Boundary. (5th Division)
| 4 -- 12 | 8 -- 15
| North 1 | 14 South
| (3rd Division) | (2nd Division)
| 11 -- 9 | 5 -- 7
A little consideration will show that this apparently paradoxical
procedure brought about the desired result of more nearly equalizing
the stress upon the whole of the Infantry engaged, in point, at least,
of the maximum distance to be traversed in the day's operations. But it
produced something else, also, of much greater concern, which was that
the scheme involved a leapfrogging of Divisions during the approach
march into the battle, in addition to a second leapfrogging, to which
I was already committed, to occur at a later stage during the battle
itself.
Thus I was confronted with the dilemma that the only scheme of
disposition which promised success for the subsequent battle was
also that scheme which made the greatest possible demands upon the
intelligence of the troops and the sympathetic, loyal and efficient
co-operation of my own Corps Staff, and those of the Commanders acting
under me. Influenced once again by the confidence which I felt in my
whole command, I did not hesitate to increase the complexity of the
plans for the Infantry action by calling upon the four Divisions to
execute a manoeuvre which is unique in the history of war, namely, a
"double leapfrog," simultaneously carried out by two separate pairs of
Divisions, operating side by side. The first leap was to take place
during the approach to the battle, the second during the progress of
the battle itself.
This expedient, which I finally decided to adopt, in spite of the
dangers involved in its complexity and in the absence of any precedent,
was, however, as logical analysis and the event itself proved, the very
keynote of the success of the entire project. The whole plan, thanks to
an intelligent interpretation by all Commanders and Staffs concerned,
worked like a well-oiled machine, with smoothness, precision and
punctuality, and achieved to the fullest extent the advantages aimed at.
On the one hand, the stress upon the troops was reduced to a minimum.
By the reduction of physical fatigue, it conserved the energies
of whole Divisions in a manner which permitted of their speedy
re-employment in subsequent decisive operations. And on the other
hand, by the great depth of penetration which it rendered possible, it
ensured a victory which amounted to so crushing a blow to the enemy
that its momentum hurled him into a retrograde movement, not only
along the whole front under attack, but also for many miles on either
flank. This recoil he was never able to arrest, as we followed up our
victory by blow after blow delivered while he was still reeling from
the effects of the first onslaught of August 8th.
But, so far, I have written of the Infantry plan only; and much remains
to be told of the simultaneous action designed to be taken by all the
other arms, which rendered possible and emphasized the success of the
Infantry. No one can rival me in my admiration for the transcendant
military virtues of the Australian Infantryman, for his bravery, his
battle discipline, his absolute reliability, his individual resource,
his initiative and endurance. But I had formed the theory that the true
rôle of the Infantry was not to expend itself upon heroic physical
effort, nor to wither away under merciless machine-gun fire, nor to
impale itself on hostile bayonets, nor to tear itself to pieces in
hostile entanglements--(I am thinking of Pozières and Stormy Trench and
Bullecourt, and other bloody fields)--but, on the contrary, to advance
under the maximum possible protection of the maximum possible array of
mechanical resources, in the form of guns, machine guns, tanks, mortars
and aeroplanes; to advance with as little impediment as possible; to
be relieved as far as possible of the obligation to _fight_ their
way forward; to march, resolutely, regardless of the din and tumult
of battle, to the appointed goal; and there to hold and defend the
territory gained; and to gather in the form of prisoners, guns and
stores, the fruits of victory.
It is my purpose, therefore, to emphasize particularly the extent to
which this theory was realized in the battle under review, by the
achievement of a great and decisive victory at a trifling cost. That
result was due primarily to the very ample resources in mechanical
aids which the foresight and confidence of the Fourth Army Commander,
General Rawlinson, entrusted to me; but it was due partly, also, to the
manner in which those resources were employed. And that is why I shall
attempt to describe the remainder of the Corps plan.
[Illustration: Tanks marching into Battle.]
[Illustration: Morcourt Valley--the Australian attack swept across this
on August 8th, 1918.]
CHAPTER VI
The battle plan (_continued_)
Surprise has been, from time immemorial, one of the most potent weapons
in the armoury of the tactician. It can be achieved not merely by
doing that which the enemy least anticipates, but also by acting at
a time when he least expects any action. It was a weapon which had
been employed only rarely in the previous greater battles of this war.
The offensive before Cambrai, planned by General Sir Julian Byng, and
the battle of Hamel, were rare exceptions to our general procedure of
heralding the approach of an offensive by feverish and obvious activity
on our part, and by a long sustained preliminary bombardment of the
enemy's defences, designed to destroy his works and impair his _moral_.
The situation on the Fourth Army front, early in August, 1918, offered
a rare opportunity for the employment of surprise tactics on the
boldest scale. The incessant "nibbling" activities of the Australian
troops during the preceding three months had been of such a consistent
nature as to suggest that our resources were not equal to any greater
effort upon such an extended front as we were then holding, from the
Ancre down to and beyond Villers-Bretonneux. On the other hand, the
passivity of the first French Army, to the south of the latter town,
conveyed no suggestion of any offensive enterprise on the part of our
Ally in this region.
The problem, therefore, was to convert an extensive front from a state
of passive defence to a state of complete preparedness for an attack on
the largest scale, and to keep the enemy--who, as always, was alert and
observant both from the ground and from the air--in complete ignorance
of every portion of these extensive preparations, until the very moment
when the battle was to burst upon him. It was, of course, a question
not merely of deceiving the enemy troops in their trenches immediately
opposed to us, but also of arousing in the minds of the German High
Command no suspicions which might have prompted them to hold in a
state of readiness, or to put into motion towards the threatened zone,
any of the reserve Divisions forming part of their still considerable
resources.
The following memorandum, which was issued to the whole of the senior
commanders in the Australian Corps on August 1st, gives in outline some
of the measures adopted to this end:
"SECRECY.
"1. The first essential to success is the maintenance of secrecy.
The means to be adopted are as follows:
(i) No person is to be told or informed in any part or way until
such time as the development of the plan demands action from him.
This is the main principle and will be pursued throughout, down to
the lowest formation.
(ii) Divisional Commanders will work out their reliefs in such a
way as will ensure that the troops in the line know nothing of
the proposed operation until the last possible moment. This will
apply in particular to any troops who may be employed in the area
south of the AMIENS--VILLERS-BRETONNEUX railway.
"2. In order to conceal the intention to carry out a large operation on
this front the following plan has been adopted:
"The Australian Corps has been relieved of one divisional sector by
the Third Corps, and takes over a divisional sector from the French
Corps. The object of this is to lead the enemy, and our own people,
too, to believe that the action of the French in the SOISSONS salient
has been so costly as to demand that further French troops had to be
made available, and that this is the apparent cause of the extension of
the Australian Corps front to the south.
"3. (a) The idea is being circulated that the Canadian Corps is being
brought to the south to take over the rôle of Reserve Corps at the
junction of the British and French Armies in replacement of the 22nd
Corps, which occupied that rôle until it was ordered to the CHAMPAGNE
front. In order that the enemy may be deceived as to the destination
of the Canadian Corps in the event of his discovering that it has been
withdrawn from the ARRAS front, Canadian wireless personnel has been
sent to the Second Army area,[11] where they have taken over certain
wireless zones.
"(b) To prevent the enemy from discovering the arrival of the Canadian
Corps in this region, they will not take over from the 4th Australian
Division until 'Y' night. This will necessitate a proportion of the
troops of the Fourth Australian Division remaining in the line in this
sector until 'Y' night. As the Fourth Australian Division will be
required to participate in the attack it is proposed to distribute one
brigade to hold the whole of the line from 'W' night onwards. This will
enable the remaining two Brigades to be withdrawn, given a day or two's
rest, and allow of their part in the operation being fully explained to
them. The place of these two Brigades in rear of the line Brigade will
be taken over by Canadian Divisions.
"(c) In order to deceive our own troops as to the cause of the coming
down here of the Canadians, a rumour is going abroad that the Canadian
Corps is being brought down with the object of relieving the Australian
Corps in the line. To most of the Australian Corps this would appear to
be an obvious reason for their coming, as the idea has been mooted on
former occasions. While it is not intended that this rumour should be
promulgated, it is not desired that anyone should disclose the actual
facts. This idea, together with the idea put forth in paragraph 3 (a),
should do much to prevent the real facts from becoming known."[12]
The references to "W," "X," "Y" and "Z" days and nights in the above
memo, are to the successive days preceding Zero day--known briefly as
"Z" day, on which the battle was to open. The actual _date_ of "Z"
day was kept a close secret by the Army Commander and the three Corps
Commanders concerned, until a few days before the actual date; while
the actual moment of assault, or "Zero" hour, was not determined or
made known until noon on the day preceding the battle, after a close
study of the conditions of visibility before and after break of day, on
the three preceding mornings.
But these arrangements were directed only towards the prevention of
a premature disclosure of our intention to attack to the enemy, to
our own troops, and through them to the civilian public, and to enemy
agents, whose presence among us had always to be reckoned with. It
still remained to carry out our battle preparations in a manner which
would preclude the possibility of detection by enemy aircraft, either
through direct observation, or by the help of photography.
Accordingly I issued orders that all movements of troops and of
transport of all descriptions, should take place only during the
hours of darkness, whether in the forward or in the rear areas; and
in order to keep an effective control over the faithful execution of
these difficult orders, I arranged for relays of "police" aeroplanes,
furnished by our No. 3 Squadron, to fly continuously, by day, over
the whole of the Corps area, in order to detect and report upon any
observed unusual movement.
At the same time, the normal work on the construction of new lines of
defence, covering Amiens, in my rear areas, which had been continuously
in progress for many weeks and was still far from complete, was to
continue, with a full display of activity; so that the enemy should
be unable to infer, from a stoppage of such works, any change in our
attitude.
Orders were also given to discourage the usual stream of officers who
ordinarily visited our front trenches prior to an operation, and who
often, thoughtlessly, made a great display of unusual activity, under
the very noses of the enemy front line observers, by the flourishing
of maps and field-glasses, and by bobbing up above our parapets
to catch fleeting glimpses of the country to be fought over. Such
reconnaissance, however desirable, was to be confined to a few senior
Commanders and Staff Officers. All subordinates were to rely upon
the very large number of admirable photographs, taken regularly from
the air, both vertically and obliquely, by the indefatigable Corps
Air Squadron. These served excellently as a substitute for visual
observation from the ground.
The prohibition against the movement of any transport in the daylight
naturally very seriously hampered the freedom of action of the troops
of all arms and services, but was felt in quite a special degree by the
whole of the Artillery. Over 600 guns of all natures had to be dragged
to and emplaced in their battle positions, and there camouflaged,
each gun involving the concurrent movement of a number of associated
vehicles. A full supply of ammunition had to be collected from
railhead, distributed by mechanical transport to great main dumps, and
thence taken by horsed vehicles for distribution to the numerous actual
gun-pits.
As the amount of ammunition to be held in readiness for the opening of
the battle averaged 500 rounds per gun, it became necessary to handle
a total of about 300,000 rounds of shells and a similar number of
cartridges of all calibres, from 3½ to 12 inches, not to mention fuses
and primers, or the immense bulk and weight of infantry and machine-gun
ammunition, bombs, flares, rockets, and the like, for the supply of all
of which the artillery was equally responsible.[13] The great amount of
movement involved in the handling and dumping of all these munitions,
and the deterrent difficulties of carrying out all such work only
during the short hours of darkness, must be left to the imagination.
The artillery was, however, confronted, for the first time, with a
difficulty of quite a different nature. In the previous years of the
war every gun, _after_ being placed in its fighting pit or position,
had to be carefully "registered," by firing a series of rounds at
previously identified reference points, and noting the errors in line
or range due to the instrumental error of the gun, which error varied
with the gradual wearing-out of the gun barrel. By these means, battery
commanders were enabled to compute the necessary corrections to be
applied to any given gun, at any one time or place, so as to ensure
that the gun would fire true to the task set.
Such registration naturally involved, for a large number of guns, a
very considerable volume of Artillery fire, the extent of which would
speedily disclose to the enemy the presence of a largely increased mass
of Artillery, and would inevitably lead him to the conclusion that
some mischief was afoot. Fortunately, however, the rapid evolution
during the war of scientific methods had by this juncture placed at my
disposal a means of ascertaining the instrumental error of the guns
on a testing ground located many miles behind the battle zone. This
method was known as "calibration," and consisted of the firing of the
gun through a series of wired screens, placed successively at known
distances from the muzzle of the gun. The whole elements of the flight
of the projectile could then be accurately determined by recording the
intervals of time between its passage through the respective screens.
From these data could be deduced the muzzle velocity, the jump, the
droop and the lateral error of each gun.
Simple and obvious as was the principle of such an experiment, the
merit of the new process of calibration lay in the remarkable rapidity
and accuracy with which the electric and photographic mechanism
employed made the necessary delicate time observations, correct to
small fractions of a second, and automatically deduced the mathematical
results required. The calibration hut, in which this mechanism was
housed, became one of the show spots to which visitors to the Corps
area were taken to be overawed by the scientific methods of our gunners.
In the early days of August the calibration range of the Australian
Corps was a scene of feverish activity. All day long, battery after
battery of guns could be seen route-marching to the testing ground,
going through the performance of firing six rounds per gun, and then
route-marching back again the same night to its allotted battle
position. So rapid was the procedure that long before he had reached
his destination the Battery Commander had received the full error sheet
of every one of his guns, and by means of it was enabled to go into
action whenever required without any previous registration whatever.
This great advance in the art of gunnery contributed in the most direct
manner to the result that when these 600 guns opened their tornado of
fire upon the enemy at daybreak on August 8th, the very presence in
this area of most of them remained totally unsuspected.
The manner of the employment of the ponderous mass of Heavy Artillery
at my disposal will be referred to later. The action of that portion of
the Field Artillery which was to become mobile in the concluding phases
of the battle has already been dealt with. It remains only to describe,
in outline, the arrangements made for the normal barrage fire of the
Field Artillery during the first phase.
It has been my invariable practice to reduce the barrage plan to
the simplest possible elements, avoiding in every direction the
over-elaboration so frequently encountered. By following these
principles not only is the actual preparatory work of the Artillery
greatly reduced in bulk and simplified in quality, but also the
liability to mistake and to erratic shooting of individual batteries or
guns, and consequent risks of damage to our own Infantry, are greatly
diminished. These advantages are bought at the small price of calling
upon the Infantry to undertake, before the battle, such rectifications
and adjustments of our front line as would accommodate themselves to
a straight and simple barrage line. This is in sharp contrast to the
much more usual procedure which prevailed (and persisted in other
Corps to the end of the war) of complicating the barrage enormously
in an attempt to make it conform to the tortuous configuration of our
Infantry front line.
For the present battle it was accordingly arranged that the barrage
should open on a line which was _dead straight_ for the whole 7,000
yards of our front, and the Infantry tape lines,[14] which were to mark
the alignment of the Infantry at the moment of launching the assault,
were to be laid exactly 200 yards in rear of this Artillery "start
line." The barrage was to advance, in exactly parallel lines, 100 yards
at a time, at equal rates along the whole frontage. These rates were
100 yards every 3 minutes, for the first 24 minutes, and thereafter 100
yards every 4 minutes, until the conclusion of the time-table at 143
minutes after Zero. By such a simple plan every one of the 432 field
guns engaged was given a task of uniform character.
Great as was the care necessary to conceal all Artillery preparations,
it required still greater thought and consideration to keep entirely
secret the presence behind the battle front of some 160 Tanks, and
particularly to conceal their approach march into the battle. To both
combatants, the arrival of a Tank, or anything that could be mistaken
on an air photograph for a Tank, had for long been regarded as a sure
indication of coming trouble. And, therefore, imputing to the enemy the
same keenness to detect, in good time, the presence of Tanks, and the
same nervousness which we had been accustomed to feel when prisoners'
tales of the coming into the war of enormous hordes of German monsters
had been crystallized by the reports of some excited observer into a
definite suspicion that the fateful hour had arrived, I considered
it wise to repeat on a much elaborated scale all the precautions of
secrecy first employed for this purpose at Hamel.
It is quite easy to detect from an air photograph the broad, corrugated
track made by a Tank, if the ground be soft and muddy enough to record
such an impression. Consequently, Tanks were forbidden to move across
ploughed fields or marshy land, and were confined to hard surface.
They moved only in small bodies, and only at night, and were carefully
stabled, during the daylight, in the midst of village ruins, or under
the deep shade of woods and thickets. Thus, by daily stages, and by
cautious bounds, each Tank or group of Tanks ultimately reached its
appointed assembly ground, from which it was to make its last leap into
the thick of the battle, where it would arrive precisely at Zero hour.
But that last leap was just the whole difficulty. For the Tank is
a noisy brute, and it was just as imperative to make him inaudible
as to make him invisible. By a fortunate chance, the noise and buzz
made by the powerful petrol engines of a Tank are so similar to
those of the engines of a large-sized bombing plane, as for example
of the Handley-Page type, especially if the latter be flying at a
comparatively low altitude, that from a little distance off it is quite
impossible to distinguish the one sound from the other.
It was therefore possible to adopt the conjurer's trick of directing
the special attention of the observer to those things which do not
particularly matter, in order to distract his attention from other
things which really do matter very much. In other words, a flight of
high-power bombing planes was kept flying backwards and forwards over
the battle front during the whole of that very hour, just before dawn,
during which our 160 Tanks were loudly and fussily buzzing their way
forward, along carefully reconnoitred routes, marked by special black
and white tapes, across that last mile of country which brought them up
level with the infantry at the precise moment when the great battle was
ushered in by the belching forth of a volcano of Artillery fire.
The subterfuge succeeded to perfection, as was obvious to observers and
confirmed by the subsequent narratives of prisoners. The German trench
garrisons and trench observers were fully occupied in listening to the
hum of the bombing planes, in watching their threatened visitation for
their customary "egg" dropping performances, in engaging them with
rifle fire, and in holding themselves in readiness to duck for cover
should they come too near. They never suspected for a moment that this
was merely a new stratagem of "noise camouflage," and that the real
danger was stalking steadily and relentlessly towards them over the
whole front, upon the surface of the ground, instead of in the air.
But the trick would not have succeeded so well, or would perhaps have
failed altogether, if the employment of those planes had been confined
to the morning of the battle. Such an unusual demonstration might have
aroused vague suspicions sufficient to justify a "stand to arms" and
a preparedness for some further activity on our part. And what we had
most to fear was the danger of "giving the show away" in the last ten
minutes. For it would have taken much less than that time for nervous
German trench sentries, by the firing of signal rockets, to bring down
upon our front line trenches, crowded as they were with expectant
fighters, a murderous fire from the German Artillery.
Consequently the puzzled enemy was treated to the spectacle of an
early morning promenade by these same bombing planes on every morning,
for an hour before dawn, during several mornings preceding the actual
battle day. Doubtless the first morning's exhibition of such apparently
aimless air activity in the darkness really startled him. After two
or three repetitions, it merely earned his contempt. By the time
the actual date arrived he treated it as negligible. All prisoners
interrogated subsequently agreed that neither the presence nor the
noisy approach of so mighty a phalanx of Tanks had been in the least
suspected up to the very moment when they plunged into view out of the
darkness, just as day was breaking.
The force of Tanks placed at my disposal for the purposes of this
battle comprised the 2nd, 8th and 13th Tank Battalions, commanded
respectively by Lieut.-Colonels Bryce, Bingham and Lyon, all under the
5th Tank Brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Courage. All these
Tanks were of the Mark V. type, as used at Hamel; but there were also
attached to the same Brigade a Battalion of Mark V. (Star) Tanks, of
still later design, under Lieut.-Colonel Ramsay-Fairfax, and also
a full Company of 24 Carrying Tanks, under Major Partington. These
Carrying Tanks were not employed in fighting, but were of wonderful
utility in the rapid transport of stores of all descriptions across the
battle zone; and in carrying the wounded out of the battle on their
return journey. I am confident that each of these Tanks was capable of
doing the work of at least 200 men, with an almost complete immunity
from casualty.
There were thus available to me 168 Tanks in all, and their
dispositions have been already indicated in sufficient detail in
Chapter V. It was a definite feature of the whole plan of battle that
the combined Tank and Infantry tactics which had proved so successful
in the Hamel operation, and which have been described in Chapter II.,
were to be employed and exploited to their utmost. Each Tank became
thereby definitely associated with a specified body of Infantry, and
acted during the actual battle under the immediate orders of the
Commander of that body: the working rule was "one Tank, one Company."
To this was added the second working principle of "one Tank, one task,"
which rules meant, in their practical application, that no individual
Tank was to be relied upon to serve more than one body of Infantry, nor
to carry out more than one phase of the battle. Elementary as this may
sound, it involved this striking advantage that, in the event of any
one Tank becoming disabled, its loss would impair no portion of the
battle plan other than that fraction of it to which that Tank had been
allotted.
Thus, the whole of the Infantry operating in Phases B and C of the
battle had each their own adequate equipment of Tanks, which would
be certain to be available to them, even if the whole of the Tanks
employed during Phase A had been knocked out. At the same time clear
orders were issued, and due arrangements were made, that all Tanks
which survived Phase A, and whose crews were not by then too exhausted,
were to rally (during the 100 minutes' pause on the green line) in
order to co-operate in the succeeding phases of the fight.
There was still another Unit, coming under the jurisdiction of the Tank
Corps, which proved of wonderful utility to me, and which deserved
quite special mention. This was the 17th Armoured Car Battalion,
organized into two companies of eight cars each. Each car carried one
forward and one rear Hotchkiss gun. It was heavily armoured, and the
crew operating the guns, as also the car driver, were protected from
all except direct hits by Artillery. The cars had a speed of 20 miles
per hour, either forwards or backwards. The Battalion was under the
command of Lieut.-Colonel E. J. Carter, an officer of the British
Cavalry. I allotted 12 cars to the use of the 5th Australian Division,
under Major-General Hobbs, who would be likely to find specially useful
employment for them, in scouring the network of roads beyond his final
objective; and retained four cars in Corps reserve for a special
reconnaissance enterprise.
Full of promise of usefulness as were the speed and armament of these
cars, they suffered from one serious disability. Their top hamper was
so heavy compared to their light chassis that they could not be relied
upon to travel without premature breakdown across country, or indeed
on anything but moderately good roads. Now, such roads were certainly
available, as was evident from aeroplane photographs, in the enemy's
back country, after a zone for a mile or two immediately behind his
front line was passed; but all the subsidiary roads in that zone had
been practically obliterated by shell-craters, and even the great main
road from Villers-Bretonneux to Saint Quentin, which is a Roman Road
and substantially constructed throughout, was known to have been cut up
and traversed by numerous trenches both on our side and on the enemy's
side of "No Man's Land." There was also every expectation that the few
remaining trees which flanked this great road would be felled by our
bombardment, and some of them would surely fall across and obstruct the
roadway.
That road was, however, the only possible outlet into enemy country for
the armoured cars, and I resolved upon a special programme, and the
allotment of a special body of troops for its execution. The object
was to ensure that the cars could be taken across the impracticable
and obstructed stretch of roadway already described, and launched at
the enemy at its eastern extremity, at the earliest possible moment of
time. Then, before the numerous enemy Corps and Divisional Headquarters
and all their rear organization had time to get clear intelligence of
what was happening at the front, or to recover from the first shock of
surprise, these Armoured Cars would fall upon them, and, travelling
hither and thither at great speed, would spread death, destruction and
confusion in all directions.
A whole Battalion of Pioneers, and detachments of other technical
troops, with an adequate amount of road-repairing material, were got
ready, under the direct orders of my Chief Engineer, to carry out this
special task. All trenches in that portion of the road lying within our
own zone of occupation were bridged or filled in and all obstructions
cleared away before the day of the battle. But as to the more distant
stretch of the road, still in the hands of the enemy, elaborate
preparations were made, by a careful and detailed distribution of tasks
to small gangs of men, and by a fully worked-out time-table. The plan
was that from the moment of the opening of the battle, this road repair
work was to commence, and its advance was to synchronize with the
advance of the Artillery barrage and Infantry skirmishing line.
A pilot armoured car was to follow the working gangs in order to test
the sufficiency of the repair work, and arrangements were made for
sending back signals to the remainder of the cars, lying waiting in
readiness in the shelter of Villers-Bretonneux. It was planned that the
first two miles of road would, by these means, be cleared and repaired
to a sufficient width, within four hours after the opening of the
battle.
I am tempted to anticipate the narrative of the battle by saying that
the whole plan worked out with complete success to the last detail. The
cars got through punctually to time, and the story of their subsequent
adventures, as told later, reads like a romance. As indicating the
importance which I attached to this little enterprise, which in
magnitude was quite a small "side-show," but which in its results had
the most far-reaching consequence, I reproduce below the full text
(omitting merely formal portions) of one of the several orders issued
by me on this subject:
Australian Corps,
7th August, 1918.
1. The detachment of the 17th Armoured Car Battalion held in Corps
Reserve (2 sections each of 2 cars), will be employed on the
special duty of long distance reconnaissance on "Z" day.
2. These sections will be sent forward under the orders of the
C.O., 17th Armoured Car Battalion, passing the green line as soon
as practicable after Zero plus four hours, and proceeding eastward,
following the lifts of our Heavy Artillery bombardment, so as to
pass the blue line at or after Zero plus five hours.
3. The area to be reconnoitred lies in the bend of the Somme, north
of the Villers-Bretonneux--Chaulnes Railway; but the old Somme
battlefield lying N.E. of Chaulnes need not be entered.
4. Information is required as to presence, distribution and
movement of enemy supporting and reserve troops, and his defensive
organizations within this area.
5. While the primary function of this detachment is to reconnoitre
and not to fight, except defensively, advantage should be taken of
every opportunity to damage the enemy's telephonic and telegraphic
communications.
6. The following information as to enemy organizations is thought
to be reliable:
Vauvillers Billets and Detraining point.
Proyart Divisional H.Q. and billets.
Chuignolles Divisional H.Q. and billets.
Framerville Corps H.Q.
Rainecourt Billets.
Cappy Aerodrome and dumps.
Foucaucourt Corps H.Q., dump, billets.
Chaulnes Important railway junction.
Ommiécourt Dumps.
Fontaine Aerodrome, Div. H.Q. and dump.
The Heavy Artillery of the Corps was divided, for this battle as
normally, into two distinct groups, of which the one, or Bombardment
Group, was to devote its energies to destructive attack, throughout the
course of the battle, upon known enemy centres of resistance, suspected
Headquarters, and telephone or telegraph exchanges, villages believed
to be housing support and reserve troops, railway junctions and the
like. The selection of all such targets depended upon a judicious
choice of many tempting objectives disclosed by the very comprehensive
records of the highly efficient Intelligence Officers belonging to my
Heavy Artillery Headquarters. After that selection was made, all that
remained was to draw up a time-table for the action of all bombardment
guns which would ensure that they would lift off any given target just
before our own Infantry would be likely to reach it, and then to apply
their fire to a more distant locality.
The second group of Heavy Guns was known as the Counter-battery Group,
and was at all times under the direction of a special staff, especially
skilled in all the scientific means at our disposal for determining the
position and distribution of the enemy's Artillery, and in the methods
and artifices for silencing or totally destroying it. Just as it was
the special rôle of the Tanks to deal with the enemy machine guns, so
it was the special rôle of our Counter-battery Artillery to deal with
the enemy's field and heavy guns and howitzers. These--the guns and the
machine guns--were the only things that troubled us; because, for the
German soldier individually, our Australian infantryman is and always
has been more than a match.
Very special care was, therefore, devoted to the whole of the
arrangements, first for carefully ascertaining beforehand the actual or
probable position of every enemy gun that could be brought to bear on
our Infantry, and then for allocating as many heavy guns as could be
spared, each with a task appropriate to its range and hitting-power, to
the destruction or suppression of the selected target. For it served
the immediate purpose of eliminating the causes of molestation to our
advancing Infantry equally well, whether the enemy gun was merely
silenced by a sustained fire of shrapnel or high explosives which drove
off the gun detachment, or by a flood of gas which compelled them to
put on their gas masks, or whether it was actually destroyed by a
direct hit and rendered permanently useless.
The days before the battle were of supreme interest in this particular
aspect. Each day I visited the Counter-battery Staff Officer, in his
modest shanty, hidden away in the interior of a leafy wood, where
in constant touch, by telephone, with all balloons, observers and
sound-ranging stations, and surrounded by an imposing array of maps,
studded with pins of many shapes and colours, he made his daily report
to me of the enemy gun positions definitely identified or located, or
found to have been vacated. And here again there was an opportunity for
the display of a modest little stratagem. Having suspected or verified
the fact that the enemy had altered the location of any given battery,
leaving the empty gun pits as a tempting bait to us, fruitlessly to
expend our energies and ammunition upon them--it would have been the
worst of folly to prove to him that he had failed to fool us, by
engaging his battery in its new position.
On the contrary, we deliberately allowed ourselves to be fooled; and
for several days before the great battle we intentionally committed
the stupid error of methodically engaging all his empty gun positions.
No doubt the German gunners laughed consumedly as they watched, from a
safe distance, our wasted efforts; but they did not, doubtless, laugh
quite so heartily when at dawn on the great day, the whole weight of
our attack from over a hundred of my heaviest Counter-battery guns
fells upon them in the new positions, which they believed that we had
failed to detect.
The Intelligence Service of the Corps was an extensive and highly
organized department, whose jurisdiction extended throughout all the
Divisions, Brigades and Battalions. Its routine work comprised the
collection and collation of the daily flow of information from a
large staff of observers in the forward zone, from the interrogation
of prisoners, from the examination of documents and maps, and from
neighbouring Corps and Armies. Before and during battle, however, a
greatly added burden fell upon the shoulders of the Intelligence Staff.
Closely associated with this branch of the Staff work were two
activities of quite special interest. The Australian Corps organized a
Topographical Section, manned by expert draftsmen and lithographers,
who compiled and printed all the maps required throughout the whole
Corps, and it was their business to keep all battle maps, barrage maps
and topographical data recorded and corrected up to date. This alone
proved a heavy task when pace had to be kept with a rapid advance. At
such times the maps prepared on one day became obsolete two or three
days later.
[Illustration: Dug-outs at Froissy Beacon--being "mopped up" during
battle.]
[Illustration: Péronne--barricade in main street.]
The issue of such maps was not confined to Commanders and Staffs. For
all important operations, large numbers of handy sectional maps were
struck off, so that they could be placed in the hands even of the
subordinate officers and non-commissioned officers. These maps not only
enabled the most junior leaders to study their objectives and tasks
in detail before every battle, but also became a convenient vehicle
for sending back reports as to the positions reached or occupied by
front-line troops or detached parties. On occasions as many as five
thousand of such maps would be struck off for the use of the troops, in
a single operation.
There was also a branch of the Intelligence Staff attached to the
No. 3 Australian Air Squadron. Its special business was to print and
distribute large numbers of photographs, both vertical and oblique,
taken from the air over the territory to be captured--showing trenches,
wire, roads, hedges and many other features of paramount interest to
the troops. Thousands of such photographs were distributed before every
battle.
The important considerations, in regard both to maps and photographs,
were that on the one hand, they were of priceless value to all who
understood how to read and use them, and on the other hand, the event
proved that their issue was in no sense labour in vain, for the keen
interest taken, even by the private soldiers, in these facilities
contributed powerfully to the success and precision with which all
battle orders were carried out, and this more than repaid us for the
additional trouble involved. It was inspiriting to me to see, on the
eve of every great battle, as I made my round of the troops, numerous
small groups of men gathered around their sergeant or corporal,
eagerly discussing these maps and the photographs and the things they
disclosed, the lie of the land, the wire, the trenches, the probable
machine-gun posts, the dug-outs and the suspected enemy strong points.
My account of the details prepared for the battle of August 8th is not
nearly complete; but the demands of space forbid any more informative
reference to numerous other essential ingredients of the plan than a
mere recital of some of them. Thus, for example, it was necessary to
decide the action of all Machine Guns, both those used collectively
under Corps control, and those left to be handled by the Divisions;
the employment of Smoke Tactics, by the use of smoke screens created
both by mortars from the ground and by phosphorus bombs dropped from
the air; the use to be made of all the technical troops (Engineers
and Pioneers) in bridging, road and railway repairs and field
fortifications; the arrangements for the medical evacuation of the
wounded, and for the collection and safe-keeping of the anticipated
haul of prisoners, the synchronization of watches throughout the whole
command, so that action should occur punctually at a common clock time;
and last, but not least, the establishment of the machinery of liaison
internally between all the numerous formations of the Australian Corps,
and also externally with my flank Corps, the Canadians, under Currie,
on my right, and the British Third Corps, under Butler, on my left.
Such, in outline, were my battle plans and my preparations for what I
hoped would prove an operation of decisive influence upon the future
of the campaign. The immediate results, which could be estimated on
the spot and at the time, and the admissions of Ludendorff, which came
to light only many months afterwards, combine to show that I was not
mistaken.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] This was in Flanders and Belgium.
[12] The secret was, indeed, so well kept, and the "camouflage" stories
circulated proved so effective, that the King of the Belgians forwarded
a strong protest to Marshal Foch because the Canadians were about to
deliver an attack in his country, without his having been consulted
or made aware of the plans; and the Canadian Headquarters in London
complained to the War Office that the Canadian Forces were being
divided, and were being sent by detachments to different parts of the
front, instead of being always kept together as the Canadian Government
desired. It is said that even Mr. Lloyd George knew nothing of the
intention to attack until late on the day before the battle.
[13] The weight of supplies of all kinds exceeded 10,000 tons.
[14] See Chapter XIII.