EXPLOITATION
The Fourth British Army had opened the great Allied counter-offensive
with a brilliant stroke. It remained to see in what fashion the Allied
High Command would proceed to exploit the victory. Would the Fourth
Army be called upon, with added resources, at once to thrust due east,
with the object of drawing upon itself the German reserves, and dealing
with them as they arrived; or would blows now be delivered on other
fronts with a view to keeping those reserves dispersed?
The immediate decision, communicated to me by the Army Commander on
the afternoon of August 8th, was that, while the whole situation was
being considered, and troop movements were in progress to enable the
necessary concentrations to be made elsewhere, the Fourth Army would
continue its advance forthwith; but that, instead of driving due east,
the thrust was to be made in a south-easterly direction.
The object was to aim at Roye, and either by the capture of that
important railway centre, or at least by the threat of its capture,
to precipitate a withdrawal by the enemy from the great salient which
he had in his April and May advances pressed into the French front
opposite Moreuil and Montdidier, a salient which could be kept supplied
by that railway alone.
The Australian Corps front on the evening of August 8th lay roughly
on a north and south line, just east of Méricourt and just west of
Vauvillers. But the Canadian Corps front bent back sharply from the
latter point in a south-westerly direction. The Canadians were,
therefore, to advance between the railway and the Amiens--Roye road to
the general line Lihons-Le Quesnoy. The rôle of the Australian Corps
was to make a defensive flank to this advance, by pivotting its left
on the Somme in the vicinity of Méricourt, but advancing its right
along the railway, in the direction of Lihons.
It was a decision which was unpalatable to me, for it condemned me to
leaving the whole of the great bend of the Somme, on which lay Bray,
Péronne and Brie, in the undisturbed possession of the enemy; and in
view of the reports sent in from the front and confirmed later by the
Armoured Cars, it appeared to me that the resumption of a vigorous
advance due east next day would give us, without fighting, possession,
or at least command, of the whole of this bend; while if we allowed the
enemy to take breath and recover from his shock, he would probably have
time to rally the fugitives, and turn again to face us.
This same great bend of the river had been the scene of two years
of sedentary warfare, in 1915 and 1916, when the French and German
artillery had converted it into a barren wilderness. It was, in
its eastern part, scored with trenches, and bristled with wire
entanglements in every direction; it was devoid of villages, woods, or
any kind of shelter--a forbidding expanse of devastation.
But between our front lines of that day and the western edge of this
wilderness, there still lay a belt of some six or seven miles of
practically unharmed country over which the retreat of our Fifth Army
in March had carried them without much fighting. I should have welcomed
an order to push on the next morning, in open warfare formation, to
gain possession of the whole of this belt, and force the enemy to make
any attempt to reorganize his line on the inhospitable ground which lay
beyond.
The order stood, however; and instructions were issued for the First
Australian Division to be drawn into the fight, and to take upon
themselves the task of conforming to the advance of the Canadians along
the railway. The first phase of this advance was to have been carried
out at 11 a.m. on August 9th by the First Division passing through the
right Brigade of the Fifth Division.
The 1st Brigade of the First Australian Division had, as already
related, arrived from the North in time to participate in the fighting
of the day before; but the remaining two Brigades arrived so late,
and had to perform so long a march from their detraining station near
Amiens to our now greatly advanced battle front, that it soon became
evident that they could not arrive at the line of departure in time to
synchronize with the Canadian advance.
In consequence, the Fifth Division was instructed to detail its right
line Brigade to begin this duty; and in due course the 15th Brigade
carried out the first part of the task and advanced our line to
include the capture of Vauvillers, an operation which was successfully
completed by midday.
It will be remembered that the Second and Third Divisions had been
given a task for the previous day which was limited in time, though
not in difficulty, and that this task had been completed, as it proved
with very little stress, by 7 a.m. These Divisions had thus had a whole
day in which to rest and reorganize. The Second Division was therefore
placed under orders to participate in the advance of August 9th.
In due course, the First Division arrived at our fighting front, and
that afternoon both the First and Second Divisions advanced in battle
order, the former passing through the right Brigade of the Fifth
Division, and the latter through its left Brigade. This operation
carried our front line in this part of the field to the foot of
the Lihons hill, and gave us complete possession of the village of
Framerville. It also incidentally released the Fifth Division from
further line duty.
The opposition met with during this day's operations varied
considerably along the battle front, which extended in this part of
the field over about 6,000 yards. The Lihons ridge was found to be
strongly held, and much fire both from field guns and machine guns was
encountered. It was evident that, over-night, the enemy had succeeded
in organizing sufficient troops for the local defence of this important
point.
Upon the front of the Second Division, however, there was little
opposition and the enemy gave up Framerville almost without a
struggle. Three Battalions of Tanks co-operated in the day's fighting,
but several of them were disabled by direct fire from Lihons. The task
assigned to the Corps for that day was, none the less, carried out in
its entirety, and by nightfall contact had been made with the Second
Canadian Division on the railway about a mile east of Rosières.
The situation on the left flank of the Australian Corps was, however,
anything but satisfactory. The Chipilly spur was still in the hands of
the enemy, all the efforts over-night on the part of the 58th Division
(Third Corps) to dislodge them having failed. General Butler, the Corps
Commander, in pursuance of arrangements come to some days before, was
to proceed on sick leave, as he had for some time been far from well;
and General Godley (my former chief of the 22nd Corps) was temporarily
to take his place. I therefore persuaded the Army Commander to avail
himself of this change to allow me to take in hand the situation at
Chipilly, and to give me, for this purpose, a limited jurisdiction over
the north bank of the Somme. This was merely getting in the thin edge
of the wedge; and not many hours later, I found myself where I had so
strongly desired to be from the first, namely, astride of the Somme
valley.
Accordingly, the 13th Australian Brigade, after a day's rest from the
anxious duty of acting as a screen for the Canadians on the eve of the
main battle, were told off to deal with the Chipilly spur. Before,
however, they could reach the locality, and in the late afternoon of
August 9th, the 131st American Regiment (of Bell's Division), which was
still under the orders of the Third Corps, very gallantly advanced in
broad daylight and took possession practically of the whole spur.
In the meantime the 13th Brigade arrived, sending a Battalion across
the Somme at Cerisy, and, joining the Americans, helped to clear up
the whole situation. This made my left flank more secure, and enabled
Maclagan to withdraw the defensive flank which he had deployed along
the river from Cerisy to Morcourt. That night I took over the 131st
American Regiment from the Third Corps, attached it, as a temporary
measure, to the Fourth Division, and placed Maclagan in charge of the
newly captured front, which extended north of the river as far as the
Corbie--Bray road.
The day ended with Divisions in the line from south to north in the
following order, viz.:--First, Second and Fourth, the last named having
been augmented by an American Regiment, having had its own 13th Brigade
restored to it, and having in exchange yielded up to the First Division
the 1st Brigade of the latter.
The Fourth Division had had comparatively much the worst of it, up to
this stage, of any of my Divisions, and I felt that they were due for
a short rest. Accordingly, I issued orders that same night for the
Third Division, which, like the Second, had been resting since the
previous forenoon, to relieve the Fourth Division on that part of the
front which lay between the Somme and the main St. Quentin road on the
following day, but for the time being leaving the newly captured ground
north of the Somme still in Maclagan's hands.
After an examination of the ground and a study of the situation, the
opportunity for a further immediate local operation, certain to gain
valuable tactical ground, and likely also to yield a good number of
prisoners, presented itself to me. A further attraction was that it
would permit of a useful advance of my left flank on the south of the
Somme. This project, being of some tactical interest, demands a short
explanatory reference to the terrain.
The river Somme, from Cerisy as far east as Péronne, flows in a
tortuous valley which describes a succession of bends, almost uniform
in size and regular in disposition. These bends face with their bases
alternately north and south, and average a depth of two miles, by a
width across the base of about a mile and a half. Each came to be known
to us by the name of one of the villages which reposed in its folds,
such as Chipilly, Etinehem, Bray, Cappy, Feuillères, and Ommiécourt;
all these have become names to be remembered in the subsequent conquest
of this part of the Somme valley.
The valley itself is in this region a mile broad; its sides are steep
and often precipitous, and the adjoining plateaus rise some 200 feet
above its bed. Through this valley winds, in ordered curves, the canal
for barge traffic; it is flanked by vast stretches of backwaters and
heavily grassed morasses, in which the river loses itself. The valley
can be traversed only by the few bridges and the lock gates of the
canal, and the causeways leading to them from either bank.
It would be difficult country for a fight on a general scale, but ideal
for guerilla warfare. The whole succession of villages clinging to
the sides of the valley were in the hands of the enemy, and in use by
him for the housing and shelter of his troops. To attack and overcome
them one by one, by fighting up the winding valley, would have been a
costly business. But it suggested itself that they might all be won by
a species of investment.
Taking any one of these U-shaped bends singly, by drawing a cordon
across its base, the whole of any enemy forces who might be occupying
the bend would be denied escape from it, except by _crossing_ the river
into the adjacent bend. But if a semi-cordon had been simultaneously
drawn across the base of that next bend also, even that loophole would
be closed, and moreover such troops as inhabited the second bend would
find themselves surrounded also.
Immediately before my left flank lay the Méricourt bend on the south of
the river and the Etinehem bend to the north of it. Both were held by
the enemy, doubtless fugitives from the great battle, who had sought
food, water and underground shelter in the numerous dug-outs which
honeycombed the sides of the valley. The design was to capture the
whole of these with little effort. It was a good plan, and only an
unforeseen accident prevented its full realization.
Early on the morning of the 10th, I summoned a conference at Maclagan's
Headquarters in Corbie, which was attended by the Commanders and
certain Brigadiers of the Third and Fourth Divisions. It was arranged
that on the north of the river, the 13th Brigade would that night get
astride of the Etinehem spur on the north, while simultaneously the
10th Brigade, by making a side sweep skirting Proyart, would advance
our line till its left rested on the river a mile east of Méricourt.
Columns were to move along defined routes, leaving the objectives
well to the flanks, and then to encircle the enemy positions. Each
column was to be accompanied by Tanks and was to move in an easterly
direction and then wheel in towards the Somme. Although Tanks had never
previously been used at night, as their utility was uncertain, it was
thought that the effect of the noise they made would lead to the speedy
collapse of the defence.
The plan succeeded to perfection on the north of the river, and the
Etinehem spur and village with all its defenders fell to us almost
without a blow. Four Tanks amused themselves by racing up and down the
main Corbie--Bray road at top speed, and the clamour they made cleared
the path for the marching infantry.
On the south, however, just after nightfall, a sudden onslaught by a
flight of enemy bombing planes, threw the head of the 10th Brigade
column into confusion, and its Commander was killed. Two of the
Tanks were also disabled by direct hits from Artillery. This delayed
the progress of the operation, and the next day broke with the task
uncompleted. The 9th and 11th Brigades were, however, at once sent up
to reinforce, and during the following day all three Brigades completed
the operation by possessing themselves of the villages of Méricourt and
Proyart and the woods adjoining the river.
This series of local operations yielded some 300 prisoners, and
entirely cleared up the confused and unsatisfactory situation which had
existed on my left flank, as the aftermath of the Chipilly spur failure
of the first day. It also brought my line up more square to the Somme,
and so somewhat shortened my already expanding front. But my left flank
was at last quite secure.
I must now turn to the extreme right flank, which was, on this same
day, also the scene of very severe fighting. I have related the
progress of the First Division to the foot of the Lihons ridge the
night before. On August 10th and 11th the advance was continued by the
First and Second Divisions in sympathy with the advance of the Canadian
Corps on the south of the railway. There were only a few Tanks left
available to assist in this advance; and the resistance of the enemy in
the neighbourhood of Lihons had stiffened considerably.
The devastated area had already been reached by us in this part of
the field, and the terrain was a labyrinth of old trenches, and a sea
of shell-holes; the remains of old wire entanglements spread in every
direction, and the whole area had been covered by a rank growth of
thistles and brambles. It furnished numerous harbours for machine-guns,
and it was country over which it was difficult to preserve the
semblance of an organized battle formation during an advance.
The enemy fought hard and determinedly to retain Lihons, and in some
parts of the line the battle swayed to and fro. But before the morning
was well advanced, we had taken possession of the whole of the Lihons
Knoll, of Auger Wood, and of the villages of Lihons and Rainecourt,
while the Canadians had passed through Chilly just south of the
railway. All that afternoon the enemy made repeated counter-attacks,
particularly directed against Lihons and Rainecourt; but they were all
successfully driven off by rifle and machine-gun fire without the loss
of any ground.
It was a great feat to the credit of the First Australian Division, and
ranks among its best performances during the war. Some 20 field-guns
and hundreds of machine-guns were captured. Such a battle, with such
results, would, in 1917, have been placarded as a victory of the first
magnitude. Now, with the new standards set up by the great battle of
August 8th, it was reckoned merely as a local skirmish.
General Currie, operating on my right, had had a similar experience
of slow, although definite, progress, against hourly stiffening
opposition, and the fighting by the methods of open warfare was growing
daily more costly. The enemy had recovered from his first surprise,
our resources in Tanks had been greatly diminished, and much of our
heavy Artillery had not yet had time to get into its forward positions.
In other words, the possibility of further cheap exploitation of the
success of August 8th had come to an end.
It was decided, therefore, to recommend to the Army Commander that a
temporary halt should be called on the line thus reached, and that
rested troops should be brought up to relieve the line Divisions.
He concurred and decided that we should prepare for the delivery on
August 15th of another combined "set-piece" blow, which would have the
probable effect of again putting the enemy on the run, so that the
moving battle could be resumed.
This plan was never actually carried into effect, for reasons which
did not at once appear. But it transpired later that General Currie
had made very strong private representations to the Fourth Army
against the plan. He questioned the wisdom of expending the resources
of the Canadian Corps upon an attempt to repeat, over such broken
country, covered as it was with entanglements and other obstacles,
the great success of August 8th. He urged that the Canadian Corps
should be transferred back to the Arras district--which they knew so
well. It was country lending itself admirably to operations requiring
careful organization, which none understood better than Currie and his
admirable Staff.
It was an issue in which I was not greatly concerned, for my share
in the proposed operation of August 15th was to be quite subsidiary.
It was to consist merely in once again advancing my right flank, in
sympathy with the Canadian advance, as far as to include Chaulnes Hill
and the very important railway junction at that town. In ignorance of
the fact that the matter was under discussion, I prepared complete
plans for the co-operation of the Australian Corps, and detailed the
Fourth and Fifth Australian Divisions to carry them out. Fortunately,
before any actual executive action had been initiated, orders came that
the project was to be abandoned.
It soon became known that still larger questions were being discussed.
The British front, which in July reached south as far only as
Villers-Bretonneux, had now been extended to the latitude of Roye.
The Field Marshal was urging reduction, so as to liberate Divisions
for offensive operations elsewhere, and Marshal Foch agreed that, as
by the elimination of the Soissons salient the French front had been
shortened, this could be done. In due course confidential announcements
were made that, as soon as it could be arranged, the Canadians would be
withdrawn from the line, and their places taken by French troops. This
would once again make my Corps the south flank Corps of the British
Army, and I would junction with the French on the Lihons Hill.
The halt thus called gave me breathing time to consider a thorough
reorganization of my whole Corps front. This had, by August 12th, again
grown to a total length of over 16,000 yards. This increase had been
the result, firstly, of my having, as narrated, taken over ground to
the north of the Somme, secondly, by reason of the fact that during
the advances of the last four days my right had hugged the railway,
while my left had continued to rest on the Somme, two lines which were
rapidly diverging from each other, and thirdly, because my front line
now lay sharply oblique to my general line of advance.
Even with a fifth Division, which I now had at my disposal, a front of
16,000 yards was far too attenuated for Corps operations on the grand
scale, and even for more localized operations, by one or two Divisions
at a time, there was little opportunity to provide the troops with
adequate intervals of rest. I therefore strongly urged upon General
Rawlinson either a shortening of my front, or a further increase in my
resources.
He chose the latter alternative, and on August 12th placed under my
orders, provisionally, the 17th British Division (Major-General P. R.
Robertson), coupled with the condition that while it might be employed
as a line Division, it was not to be used for offensive operations. The
reason, confidentially given, was that it was shortly to be employed in
a large scale offensive in course of preparation by the Third British
Army.
It was, for me, a most opportune measure of relief from a difficult
situation; for the Third Australian Division was now also badly in need
of a rest. Prior to the great advance, it had been longest of any of
the Divisions in the line, and had subsequently had a hard time in
fighting its way forward from Méricourt to Proyart. It was therefore
relieved in the line on August 13th by the 17th Division and went into
Corps Reserve.
On the same day I put into effect a project of organization which the
necessities of the case forced upon me. North of the river stood the
13th Australian Brigade, and the 131st American Regiment, both still
under the command of General Maclagan, the remainder of whose Division
was resting, and this Division might be required at short notice for
operations at a totally different part of the front. (I had, in fact,
earmarked it for the proposed attack on August 15th to which I have
referred.)
To overcome this anomalous position, I decided to constitute, for a
brief period, an independent force, composed of the two units north
of the river which I have named, to appoint to the command of it
Brigadier-General Wisdom (of the 7th Brigade), and to supply him with
a nucleus Staff, some Artillery, and supply and signal services. It
became, in fact, to all intents and purposes, an additional Division
with a Headquarters directly responsible to me.
This force received the name of "Liaison Force" and continued in
existence for about eight days. Its functions were to keep tactical
touch and liaison with the Third Corps, to protect my left flank
by guarding the Etinehem spur from recapture, and to act as a kind
of loose link between the two Corps, advancing its northern or its
southern flanks, or both, in sympathy with any forward movement to
be made by either Corps. While, during its existence as a separate
force, no operations of first magnitude took place, yet the Liaison
Force served me well in the very useful function of a custodian of my
tactical ownership of the Somme valley, an ownership which I succeeded
in retaining to the immense advantage of the operations of the Corps
less than three weeks later.
By August 13th, therefore, my responsibilities included the control
of seven separate Divisions as well as all the Corps Troops, and Army
Troops attached. The next week was occupied in local operations by
the front line Divisions to straighten our front, and to dispose of
a number of strong points, small woods, and village ruins which, so
long as they were in enemy hands, were a source of annoyance to us. The
attitude of the enemy was alert but not aggressive, and an important
point was that he showed every desire to stand his ground, and to
contest our further advance. There was as yet no indication of any
comprehensive withdrawal out of the great river bend. Each day brought
its useful toll of prisoners, all of whom, however, corroborated the
view that the enemy meant to hold on, and that the troops opposing us
were more than a mere rearguard intended to delay our advance.
The period from August 13th to 20th was also occupied in carrying
out a number of inter-divisional reliefs--events of merely technical
interest to the student of military history, but imposing an immense
amount of detailed work upon the Staff of the Corps and upon the
Commanders and Staffs of the Divisions concerned. It was my own special
responsibility, and one which I could not delegate, to decide the date
of the relief of each Division and by which other Division it should be
relieved. Such decisions involved a close inquiry into, and a just and
humane appreciation of the condition of the troops, almost from hour
to hour every day, a duty in the discharge of which I was able to rely
upon the loyal help of the Divisional Commanders and Brigadiers.
The time that had elapsed since last they had rested, the marching
they had since done, the fighting they had undertaken and its nature,
the mental and physical stress which they had undergone, and the
probable nature and date of their future employment were all factors
which had to be weighed carefully, and set against the advantages or
disadvantages of cutting short the period of rest of the troops who
were available to relieve them. It was a function which had to be
exercised, at all times, with the greatest circumspection, and the
strictest justice; for troops are very ready to acquire the impression
that they are being called upon to do more than their fair share.
[Illustration: MAP C.]
An actual inter-divisional relief usually occupied two nights and the
intervening day. Incoming units, both fighting and technical, had to
be shown all over the sector, to be taught the dispositions and the
exact situation in front of us; maps, orders and photographs had to be
explained and handed over; stores and dumps had to be inventoried and
receipts passed; while on the other hand the outgoing troops expected
to find their billets, offices, stables, wagon lines, bathing-places
and entertainment rooms in the rear area all allocated and ready for
their occupation.
Each such mutual relief meant the movement of upwards of 20,000 men,
and separate roads had to be allotted for their use. Frequently in
so large a Corps as this, two such inter-divisional reliefs would
synchronize or overlap, and the danger of congestion and the Staff work
necessary to avoid it would be thereby more than doubled. And all this
work would have to go on smoothly even if the Corps front were in the
throes of an actual battle at the time.
Although much of the routine of such reliefs, which had become almost a
ritual during the preceding years of trench warfare, was now scrapped,
it is a matter of pride to the Australian Corps and its Divisions, that
all such relief operations, even amid all the stress of these busy
fighting months of August and September, were, until the end, carried
out with precision, freedom from irritating hitches, and a minimum of
stress on the troops.
The decisions which had to be given regarding the times and
alternations of these Divisional reliefs became from now on really of
basic importance, and affected the main framework of the whole of my
future plans. It was no longer merely a question of earmarking certain
Divisions for a specified single operation; but of planning, many
days ahead, the rotation in which the Divisions were to be employed
in a continuous series of operations. I regarded it as a fundamental
principle to employ whenever possible absolutely fresh and rested
troops for an operation of any magnitude or importance. To carry such a
principle into effect involved the necessity of making the best surmise
that was possible as to the course of events a week or even two weeks
ahead.
As I shall endeavour to make clear in the course of the following
pages, the really outstanding and exceptional features of the work
of the Corps in its last sixty days were the sustained vigour of its
fighting, and the unbroken continuity of its collective effort. Those
results would clearly depend more on the manner in which the resources
in troops were manipulated than upon any other factor. Each Division
had to be kept employed until the last ounce of effort, consistent with
speedy recovery, had been yielded, and each Division had to rest a
sufficient time to enable it fully to recover its spirit and tone, and
yet had to be ready by the time it was wanted.
The fulfilment of such conditions involved, as a little reflection
will show, a great deal more than a mere mechanical rotation of
employment; for the problem was, always to have available an adequate
supply of sufficiently rested troops for a prospective demand which,
although varying always in accordance with the changing situation, had
nevertheless to be predicted or conjectured.
August 21st found our front line much about the same as that of August
13th, although generally more advanced and straightened out. The Corps
frontage was still over 16,000 yards, and upon the completion of the
series of reliefs to which I have alluded the dispositions of the Corps
were as follows: The Fourth Australian Division from Lihons to just
south of Herleville, the 32nd British Division opposite Herleville, the
Fifth Australian Division in front of Proyart, and the Third Australian
Division on the north of the river. The First and Second Divisions were
in Corps Reserve, the former having by then had a good rest from its
Lihons fighting. The Liaison Force had been broken up; and the 32nd
British Division (Major-General T. S. Lambert) had joined my command in
substitution for the 17th Division, which had been withdrawn to join
the Third Army.
Such was the situation of the Australian Corps, when on August 21st
the short period of comparative inactivity came to a close, and it
was destined soon to go forward to further decisive events. On the
previous day the French opened a great attack in the south, which
yielded 10,000 prisoners on the first day, and on the day in question
the Third British Army delivered north of Albert the attack which
had been expected for some days. Thus the enemy would have his hands
full in endeavouring to parry those fresh blows; and the time seemed
appropriate for another stroke on the front of the Fourth Army.