VILLERS-BRETONNEUX
Broken walls, littered streets, charred roof-beams rising in
tortured disarray over the piles of red brick rubbish, stumps of
trees, rusty entanglements, battered barricades, pitted pavements,
disbanded vehicles and derelict guns. This is Villers-Bretonneux, the
village from which the Australians drove the Germans on the night
of April 24-25. The story of the attack, of which we have read so
many accounts, was again told to me by an officer as we stopped for
a while in the village to see the ground over which the men of the
South proved their worth in what we hope will be the last battle of
the Somme.
Amiens is the last fringe of civilization. Beyond that we come into
the dead world which was over-run by the German hordes in the
summer of 1918. In the late days of August when the battle lines
were penetrated by them an approach to open warfare was reached.
Endless streams of infantry in field grey streaked through and over
the British defences and pushed forward behind light machine guns
which now not alone covered the advance from the rear, but opened up
a path by working from the front of the attacking soldiery. Under
such protection the Germans dribbled through, taking all available
shelter, fighting from behind clumps of trees and broken walls,
firing from folds in the earth and newly formed shell-holes and
driving the men in khaki in front of them. But Villers-Bretonneux,
like a mighty rock, withstood the invasion of the war storm and here
it broke itself against the barrier of flesh and blood which was
Britain in arms.
The Germans trying to hammer their way through to Amiens were
stopped here, but, determined to get through, they started a heavy
bombardment which lasted for four hours and in which a lavish supply
of gas, lachrymose, chlorine and mustard, was used. German tanks,
high turreted and gigantic, figured in this attack for the first
time. The battle fine extended from Villers-Bretonneux in the north
to Hangard in the south, and five whole German divisions and some
units from a sixth were engaged in the exploit. In this attack the
Boche pushed the British back to the village of Cachy and on to the
fringe of Bois l'Abbé. This was the position held on the evening of
April 24. Villers-Bretonneux was in German hands, but only as Pompeii
was in the hands of the Romans when Vesuvius was flooding the fated
streets with streams of molten lava.
It was at night that the Australians came on to the scene of
conflict, two brigades, one from the Fourth and one from the Fifth
Australian Division attacking. They had marched up to their allotted
positions, but neither brigade had before seen the ground which they
were going to attack.
The night was one never to be forgotten, with its battle fights
flaring far ahead, and the roads back from the fighting line crowded
with refugees hurrying away from their devastated villages, their
quiet farms and their burning homes. Old men who had not left their
native place for the past twenty years, came along the roads,
leading little ponies, frightened cows, or some other animals which
belong to the stock of a well-tended farm.
Women, old and young, were on the road, carrying their children away
from the horrible holocaust of war. Little boys and girls, wild-eyed
and terrified, plodded along through the press on the roads, not
knowing where they were going, but filled with one thought--to be out
of it, to hide in some humble shelter far from the ravages of the
terrible Boche. Mothers wept and ran backwards and forwards through
the throng of moving figures, calling for petit Jean or petite
Yvette. But the little children were lost, swallowed up in the vortex
of the terrible night.
What was happening? What was going to happen? Nobody knew. Only one
thing was certain. The Boche was at the throat of France, putting the
country to the sword, burning the churches, trampling down the little
homes of the simple people. Flying from the menace of the night as
children would fly from a nursery in which a gorilla was loosened,
the poor people were on the road hurrying away from the village of
Villers-Bretonneux, from the town of Amiens, from the fated corners
of France on which the German was pouring his hate.
And through this stream of sufferers the Australians, with eyes afire
and teeth hard set, made their way eastwards. That night, above any
other night, they wanted to fight, to get at the foe and send him
reeling back towards the line from which he came.
On this night, the 24th, the Australians attacked, driving the enemy
back into Villers-Bretonneux. The struggle was a fierce one in the
dim moonlight and costly to the enemy, who disputed the ground step
by step with bayonet and bomb, through the dark streets lit up by
the flash of explosions, and ghastly with the shrieks of the wounded
and dying. The area of battle was heavy with the gas which had been
thrown into the town in the earlier part of the day and was still
filling shell-hole, creek and cranny.
Neither side dared to shell the place, as the artillery of both
friend and enemy were unaware what part of the village was occupied
by their own troops. And so, unaccompanied by the roar of guns, the
grim struggle went on in the darkness, the Germans filled with the
lust of dominance, and the Australians nerved by the sad sights which
they had seen on the road of sorrow that led from Amiens to the
country in the rear.
Dawn saw the village cleared of the enemy and saw, too, the dead
lying in heaps on the pavement and gutters. Australians who lived
through that night are of opinion that never yet has the bayonet
found so many victims in one fight. And never was a battle so fierce.
The Peninsula was terrible, Pozieres horrible, Polygon ghastly, but
Villers-Bretonneux was sheer, undiluted hell.
THE CHARGE
The night is still and the air is keen,
Tense with menace the time crawls by--
The ruined houses in front are seen
Blurred in outline against the sky.
The dead leaves float in the sighing air,
The darkness moves like a curtain drawn--
A veil which the morning sun will tear
From the face of death. We charge at dawn.