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.
CHAPTER VII
THE CHASE BEGINS
The preliminary movements of Divisions were duly carried out without special difficulty. The Fifth Australian Division was relieved on August 1st by a Division of the Third Corps, in that part of the Corps front which lay north of the Somme, and passed into Corps Reserve, in a rear area, there to undergo training with Tanks, and to prepare itself for the work which it had to do.
The Fourth Australian Division, from Corps Reserve, took over the French front, as far south as the Amiens—Roye road on August 2nd, and on the next night took over from the Second Australian Division all that part of its front which lay south of the railway, thus disposing itself upon what was ultimately to become the battle front of the Canadian Corps.
On the same night, the Second and Third Divisions, who had thus been left in sole occupation of the sector which was to be the Australian Corps battle front, carried out a readjustment of their own mutual boundary, which would place each of these two Divisions upon its own proper battle front.
On the night of August 4th, the Second and Third Divisions rearranged their defensive dispositions so that each of them deployed only a single Brigade for the passive defence of its front, and withdrew to its rear area its remaining two Brigades, who were thus afforded three clear days to complete their internal preparations.
The Canadian Corps commenced to arrive, and on August 4th two Canadian Brigades relieved two Brigades of the Fourth Division, thereby releasing them so that they also might commence to prepare for the battle. It was originally intended that the last Brigade of the Fourth Division should also be relieved by Canadians on August 6th, when an untoward incident happened, which caused considerable alarm and speculation; and it led to a modification of this part of the plan.
The 13th Australian Brigade (of the Fourth Division) was on August 4th spread out upon a front of over six thousand yards. It had no option but to leave the greater part of the front-line trenches unoccupied, and to defend its area with a series of small, but isolated, posts. On that night, one of these posts, in the vicinity of the road to Roye,[15] was raided by the enemy, and the whole of its occupants, comprising a sergeant and four or five men, were surrounded and taken prisoner.
It was an unusual display of enterprise on the part of the enemy, at this point of time and in this locality. Whether it had been inspired by sneering criticisms from behind his line of the nature which have been quoted, or whether signs of unusual movement or a changed attitude on the part of our trench garrison had instigated a suspicion that something was happening which required investigation, could only be surmised. But the fact remained that five Australians had been taken, at a place several miles south of the southernmost point hitherto occupied by "the English."
The side-stepping of the Australian Corps southwards had thereby become known to the enemy, and it was necessary to estimate the deductions which he would be likely to draw from that discovery. Much depended upon the behaviour of these prisoners. Would they talk? and, if so, what did they know? That Australian captives would not volunteer information likely to imperil the lives of their comrades, might be taken for granted, but German Intelligence Officers had means at their disposal to draw from prisoners, unwittingly, anything they might know.
We could only hope, under the circumstances, that these men really did know nothing of our intention to attack; and that, if they had become aware of the presence of Canadian troops in the rear areas, they would believe the story which we had sedulously spread, that the Canadians were merely coming to relieve the Australian Corps, so that it might have a long rest after its heroic labours.
Not many weeks afterwards it was my good fortune to capture a German Headquarters, in which were found Intelligence Reports containing a narrative of this very incident. The importance of the capture of these men had been recognized, and they had been taken far behind the lines for an exhaustive examination. But, despite all efforts of the German Intelligence Staff, they had refused to disclose anything whatever but their names and units—which they were bound to do under the rules of war. The report went on to praise their soldierly bearing and loyal reticence, and held up these brave Australians as a model to be followed by their own men, adding that such a demeanour could only earn the respect of an enemy.
The alarm which this untoward happening created on our side of the line led to a determination to redouble our precautions. The Army Commander proposed, and I agreed, that the relief of the 13th Brigade by Canadians, prior to the eve of the battle, was out of the question, as being too risky. It was decided that the 13th Brigade must remain in the line until the very last.
This decision deprived General Maclagan of one of his three Brigades, and as it would be asking too much of the Fourth Division to carry out the rôle which had been allotted to it in the battle, with only two Brigades, I decided that the only thing to be done was to transfer to the Fourth Division, temporarily, one of the Brigades of the First Division, which was to arrive from the north in the course of the next three days.
Urgent telegrams were therefore despatched to accelerate the arrival of one of the Brigades of the First Division. In due course the First Australian Brigade (Mackay) arrived by four special trains on the night of August 6th, in sufficient time to enable it to take its place in General Maclagan's order of battle, in substitution for the 13th Brigade. The 13th Brigade was destined to have some further stirring adventures before it again joined its own Division.
The day preceding the great battle arrived all too soon. The prospect of an advance had sent a thrill through all ranks and expectation became tense. The use of the telephone had been ordered to be restricted, especially in the forward areas; for it was known that the enemy was in possession of listening apparatus, similar to our own, by which conversations on the telephone could be tapped, and unguarded references to the impending operations could be overheard.
Final inspections had, therefore, to be made, and final injunctions administered, by Commanders and Staffs traversing long distances over the extensive Corps area by motor car and horse, and even on foot. A strange and ominous quiet pervaded the scene; it was only when the explosion of a stray enemy shell would cause hundreds of heads to peer out from trenches, gun-pits and underground shelters, that one became aware that the whole country was really packed thick with a teeming population carefully hidden away.
Later in the afternoon of that last day came another note of alarm. To the Fourth and Fifth Australian Divisions had been allotted eighteen Store and Carrying Tanks. These had been brought the night before, into a small plantation lying about half a mile to the north of Villers-Bretonneux, loaded to their utmost capacity with battle stores of all descriptions: reserves of food and water, rifle ammunition, and a large reserve of Stokes Mortar bombs; also considerable supplies of petrol, to satisfy the ravenous appetites of the Tanks themselves.
This locality suddenly became the object of the closest attention by the enemy's Artillery. He began to deluge it with such a volume of fire that in less than half an hour a great conflagration had been started, which did not subside until fifteen of the Tanks and all their valuable cargo had been reduced to irretrievable ruin.
Had some unusually keen enemy observer perceived the presence of Tanks in our area, and would that knowledge have disclosed to him our jealously guarded secret? Fortunately, my Artillery Commander, Brigadier-General Coxen, making his last rounds of the Battery positions, was an eye-witness of the whole occurrence, and was able to reassure me. A chance shell—the last of a dozen fired entirely at random into our area—fell into the very centre of this group of Tanks, and set fire to some of the petrol. The resulting cloud of smoke became a signal to the enemy that something was burning which our men would probably attempt to salve; and in consonance with an entirely correct Artillery procedure, he at once concentrated a heavy fire upon the spot.
That incident is typical of the perturbations through which all responsible Commanders have to pass on such occasions. The occurrence was explained as accidental, and implied no premature discovery by the enemy. Nothing remained but to repair the damage, and make special arrangements to replenish the Stores which these Divisions had lost.
On the forenoon of the day before the battle, the following message was promulgated to all the troops:
Corps Headquarters,
August 7th, 1918.To the Soldiers of the Australian Army Corps.
For the first time in the history of this Corps, all five Australian Divisions will to-morrow engage in the largest and most important battle operation ever undertaken by the Corps.
They will be supported by an exceptionally powerful Artillery, and by Tanks and Aeroplanes on a scale never previously attempted. The full resources of our sister Dominion, the Canadian Corps, will also operate on our right, while two British Divisions will guard our left flank.
The many successful offensives which the Brigades and Battalions of this Corps have so brilliantly executed during the past four months have been but the prelude to, and the preparation for, this greatest and culminating effort.
Because of the completeness of our plans and dispositions, of the magnitude of the operations, of the number of troops employed, and of the depth to which we intend to overrun the enemy's positions, this battle will be one of the most memorable of the whole war; and there can be no doubt that, by capturing our objectives, we shall inflict blows upon the enemy which will make him stagger, and will bring the end appreciably nearer.
I entertain no sort of doubt that every Australian soldier will worthily rise to so great an occasion, and that every man, imbued with the spirit of victory, will, in spite of every difficulty that may confront him, be animated by no other resolve than grim determination to see through to a clean finish, whatever his task may be.
The work to be done to-morrow will perhaps make heavy demands upon the endurance and staying powers of many of you; but I am confident that, in spite of excitement, fatigue, and physical strain, every man will carry on to the utmost of his powers until his goal is won; for the sake of Australia, the Empire and our cause.
I earnestly wish every soldier of the Corps the best of good fortune, and a glorious and decisive victory, the story of which will re-echo throughout the world, and will live for ever in the history of our home land.
John Monash,
Lieut.-General.
Cmdg. Australian Corps.
Not many days afterwards a copy of this order fell into the hands of the enemy, and the use he tried to make of it, to his own grave discomfiture, as the event proved, is an interesting story which will be told in due course.
Zero hour was fixed for twenty minutes past four, on the morning of August 8th. It needs a pen more facile than I can command to describe, and an imagination more vivid to realize the stupendous import of the last ten minutes. In black darkness, a hundred thousand infantry, deployed over twelve miles of front, are standing grimly, silently, expectantly, in readiness to advance, or are already crawling stealthily forward to get within eighty yards of the line on which the barrage will fall; all feel to make sure that their bayonets are firmly locked, or to set their steel helmets firmly on their heads; Company and Platoon Commanders, their whistles ready to hand, are nervously glancing at their luminous watches, waiting for minute after minute to go by—and giving a last look over their commands—ensuring that their runners are by their sides, their observers alert, and that the officers detailed to control direction have their compasses set and ready. Carrying parties shoulder their burdens, and adjust the straps; pioneers grasp their picks and shovels; engineers take up their stores of explosives and primers and fuses; machine and Lewis gunners whisper for the last time to the carriers of their magazines and belt boxes to be sure and follow up. The Stokes Mortar carrier slings his heavy load, and his loading numbers fumble to see that their haversacks of cartridges are handy. Overhead drone the aeroplanes, and from the rear, in swelling chorus, the buzzing and clamour of the Tanks grows every moment louder and louder. Scores of telegraph operators sit by their instruments with their message forms and registers ready to hand, bracing themselves for the rush of signal traffic which will set in a few moments later; dozens of Staff Officers spread their maps in readiness, to record with coloured pencils the stream of expected information. In hundreds of pits, the guns are already run up, loaded and laid on their opening lines of fire; the sergeant is checking the range for the last time; the layer stands silently with the lanyard in his hand. The section officer, watch on wrist, counts the last seconds: "A minute to go"—"Thirty seconds"—"Ten seconds"—"Fire."
And, suddenly, with a mighty roar, more than a thousand guns begin the symphony. A great illumination lights up the Eastern horizon; and instantly the whole complex organization, extending far back to areas almost beyond earshot of the guns, begins to move forward; every man, every unit, every vehicle and every Tank on their appointed tasks and to their designated goals; sweeping onward relentlessly and irresistibly. Viewed from a high vantage point and in the glimmer of the breaking day, a great Artillery barrage surely surpasses in dynamic splendour any other manifestation of collective human effort.
The Artillery barrage dominates the battle, and the landscape. The field is speedily covered with a cloak of dust, and smoke and spume, making impossible any detailed observation, at the time, of the course of the battle as a whole. The story can only be indifferently pieced together, long after, by an attempted compilation of the reports of a hundred different participants, whose narratives are usually much impaired by personal bias, by the nervous excitement of the moment, and by an all too limited range of vision. That is why no comprehensive account yet exists of some of the major battles of the war, and why those partial narratives hitherto produced are so often in conflict.
In so great a battle as this, only the broad facts and tangible results can be placed on record without danger of controversy. The whole immense operation proceeded according to plan in every detail, with a single exception, to which I must specially refer later on. The first phase, controlled as it was by the barrage time-table, necessarily ended punctually, and with the whole of the green line objective in our hands. This success gave us possession of nearly all the enemy's guns, so that his artillery retaliation speedily died down.
The captures in this phase were considerable, and few of the garrisons of the enemy's forward offensive zone escaped destruction or capture. The Second and Third Divisions had a comparative "walk over," and they had come to a halt, with their tasks completed, before 7 a.m.
The "open warfare" phase commenced at twenty minutes past eight, and both the red and the blue lines were captured in succession half-an-hour ahead of scheduled time. This capture covered the whole length of my front except the extreme left, where a half expected difficulty arose, but one which exercised no influence upon the day's success.
The Canadians, on my right, had a similar story to tell; they had driven far into the enemy's defences, exactly as planned. In spite of the difficulties of observation, the recurrence of a ground mist of the same nature as we had experienced at Hamel, and the long distances over which messages and reports had to travel—the stream of information which reached me, by telegraph, telephone, pigeon and aeroplane was so full and ample that I was not left for a moment out of touch with the situation.
The "inwards" messages are, naturally, far too voluminous for reproduction; but a brief selection from the many "outwards" messages telegraphed during that day to the Fourth Army Headquarters, and which, on a point of responsibility, I made it an invariable rule to draft myself, will give some indication of the course of events as they became known:
Sent at 7 a.m.: "Everything going well at 6.45 a.m. Heavy ground mist facilitating our advance, but delaying information. Infantry and Tanks got away punctually. Our attack was a complete surprise. Gailly Village and Accroche Wood captured. Enemy artillery has ceased along my whole front. Flanks Corps apparently doing well."
Sent at 8.30 a.m.: "Although not definitely confirmed, no doubt that our first objective green line captured along whole Corps front including Gailly, Warfusee, Lamotte and whole Cerisy Valley. Many guns and prisoners taken. Infantry and Artillery for second phase moving up to green line."
Sent at 10.55 a.m.: "Fifteenth Battalion has captured Cerisy with 300 prisoners. Advance to red line going well."
Sent at 11.10 a.m.: "Have taken Morcourt and Bayonvillers and many additional prisoners and guns. We are nearing our second objective and have reached it in places. My Cavalry Brigade has passed across our red line. We are now advancing to our final objective blue line."
Sent at 12.15 p.m.: "Hobbs has captured Harbonnières and reached blue line final objective on his whole front."
Sent at 1.15 p.m.: "Australian flag hoisted over Harbonnières at midday to-day. Should be glad if Chief would cable this to our Governor-General on behalf of Australian Corps."
Sent at 2.5 p.m.: "Total Australian casualties through dressing stations up to 12 noon under 600. Prisoners actually counted exceed 4,000. Many more coming in."
Sent at 4.40 p.m.: "Captured enemy Corps H.Q. near Framerville shortly after noon to-day." (This was the 51st German Corps).
Sent at 8 p.m.: "Corps captures will greatly exceed 6,000 prisoners, 100 guns, including heavy and railway guns, thousands of machine guns, a railway train, and hundreds of vehicles and teams of regimental transport. Total casualties for whole Corps will not exceed 1,200."
The vital information, which it is imperative for the Corps Commander to have accurately and rapidly delivered throughout the course of a battle, is that relating to the actual position, at any given moment of time, of our front line troops; showing the locations which they have reached, and whether they are stationary, advancing or retiring. For it has to be remembered that the whole Artillery resources of the Corps were pooled and kept under his own hand; and it was imperative that any changes in the Artillery action or employment must be quickly made, so as to extend the utmost help to any Infantry which might get into difficulties.
Thus, for example, the failure of any body of Infantry to enter and pass beyond a wood or a village, would be a sure indication that such locality was still held in strength by the enemy, and it would be appropriate to "switch" Artillery fire upon it, in order to drive him out. But such a proceeding would be anything but prudent if the information on which such action was to be based were already an hour old.
Transmission of messages from the front line troops to the nearest telephone terminal is usually slow and uncertain, and the retransmission of such messages, in succession, by Battalions, Brigades and Divisions only prolongs the delay. The normal process is in consequence far too dilatory for the exigencies of actual battle control.
A vastly superior method had therefore to be devised, and recourse was had to the use of aeroplanes. The No. 3 Australian Squadron soon acquired great proficiency in this work. They were equipped with two-seater planes, carrying both pilot and observer, and the work was called "Contact Patrol."
The "plane" flying quite low, usually at not more than 500 feet, the observer would mark down by conventional signs on a map the actual positions of our Infantry, of enemy Infantry or other facts of prime importance, and he often had time to scribble a few informative notes also. The "plane" then flew back at top speed to Corps H.Q., and the map, with or without an added report, was dropped in the middle of an adjacent field, wrapped in a weighted streamer of many colours. It was then brought by cyclists into the Staff Office.
Relays of Contact planes were on such service all day on every battle day, and although it was a hazardous duty few planes were lost. The total time which elapsed between the making of the observation at the front line and the arrival of the information in the hands of the Corps Staff was seldom more than ten minutes.
There can be no doubt that the whole operation was a complete surprise both to the troops opposed to us and to the German High Command. It became abundantly clear, in the following days, that no proper arrangements existed for rapidly reinforcing this part of the front in the event of an attack by us, but that these had to be extemporized after the event. This discovery points to the conclusion that the enemy had once again come to regard the British Army as a negligible quantity, a mistake for which he paid an even heavier price than when he made it in the early days of the war.
As an indication that even the Divisions in the line whose duty it primarily was to know, had no suspicions of an impending attack, comes the story of a German medical officer who was captured in his pyjamas in Warfusee village, and who confessed that being awakened by our bombardment and thinking it was merely a raid, he left his dug-out to see what was afoot, and thought he must be still dreaming when he saw our Pioneers a few hundred feet away, busily at work repairing the main road.
There was only one blemish in the whole day's operations. Not serious in relation to the whole, it nevertheless gravely hampered the work of the left Brigade of the Fourth Division. In short, the Third Corps Infantry failed to reach their ultimate objective line, and the enemy remained in possession of the Chipilly spur and of all the advantages which that possession conferred upon him.
The advance of my left flank, from the green to the red line, along the margin of the plateau bordering the Somme, was left exposed to his full view, while the river valley itself remained under the domination of his rifle fire, at quite moderate ranges. But worse than all, a battery of his Field Artillery emplaced just above the village of Chipilly remained in action, and one after another, six of the nine Tanks which had been allotted to the 4th Brigade were put out of action by direct hits from these guns.
The possibility was one which had been considered and measures to meet it were promptly taken. Maclagan, whose right Brigade in due course reached the blue line according to programme, making in its progress a splendid haul of prisoners and guns, took immediate steps to "refuse" his left flank, i.e., to bend it back towards Morcourt, and to establish, with a reserve battalion, a flank defence along the river, facing north from Cerisy to Morcourt.
Both these villages were, however, successfully captured, and "mopped up," which meant that all the enemy and machine guns lurking in them were accounted for. But the river valley was not captured, and became, until the situation was ultimately cleared up, a kind of No Man's Land between the enemy still holding the Chipilly spur on the north, and the Fourth Division on the south of the river.
The ultimate conquest of the Chipilly Bend forms no part of that day's story. What were the reasons for the failure of the Third Corps to complete its allotted task may have been the subject of internal inquiry, but the result of any such was not made known. The official report for the day was to the effect that the enemy on this front had resisted strongly, that fighting had been fierce, and that no progress could be made. But one is compelled to recognize that such language was often an euphemistic method of describing faulty Staff co-ordination, or faulty local leadership. There would be no justification, however, for questioning the bravery of the troops themselves.
It has already been foreshadowed that the experiences on that day of the contingent of sixteen Armoured Motor-cars under Lieutenant-Colonel Carter would form sensational reading, and the story of August 8th would not be complete without at least a brief reference to their exploits.
It was nearly midnight when Carter, with a Staff Officer, got back to Corps H.Q. to render their report. They were scarcely recognizable, covered as they were from head to feet, with grime and grease. They had had a busy time. The substance of what they had to tell was taken down at the time almost verbatim, and reads as follows:
"Got Armoured Cars through to Warfusee-Abancourt. When we reached the other side of No Man's Land we found that the road was good but a number of trees (large and small) had been shot down and lay right across it in places. Obstacles removed by chopping up the smaller trees and hauling off the big ones by means of a Tank. Pioneers helped us to clear the road all the way down. We did not come up to our advancing troops until they were almost near the Red Line. When we got past our leading Infantry we came upon quite a number of Huns and dealt with them. Had then to wait a little on account of our barrage, but went through a light barrage. When we got to Blue Line we detached three sections to run down to Framerville. When they got there they found all the Boche horse transport and many lorries drawn up in the main road ready to move off. Head of column tried to bolt in one direction and other vehicles in another. Complete confusion. Our men killed the lot (using 3,000 rounds) and left them there; four Staff Officers on horseback shot also. The cars then ran down to the east side of Harbonnières, on the south-east road to Vauvillers, and met there a number of steam wagons; fired into their boilers causing an impassable block. Had a lot of good shooting around Vauvillers. Then came back to main road. Two sections of cars went on to Foucaucourt and came in contact with a Boche gun in a wood north-east of Foucaucourt. This gun blew the wheels off one car and also hit three others. However, three of the cars were got away. Two other cars went to Proyart and found a lot of troops billeted there having lunch in the houses. Our cars shot through the windows into the houses, killing quite a lot of the enemy. Another section went towards Chuignolles and found it full of German soldiers. Our cars shot them. Found rest billets and old trenches also with troops in them. Engaged them. Had quite a battle there. Extent of damage not known, but considerable. Cars then came back to main road. We were then well in advance of Blue Line. Everything was now perfectly quiet—no shell-fire of any kind.
"I went a quarter of a mile beyond La Flaque. There was a big dump there, and Huns kept continually coming out and surrendering, and we brought quite a lot of them back as prisoners. It was then about 10.30 a.m. A party of Hun prisoners was detailed to tow back my disabled car. I saw no sign of any wired system anywhere. Old overgrown trenches but no organized trench system. I proceeded to some rising ground near Framerville. Did not go into Framerville, but could see that the roofs of the houses were intact. Saw no trace of any organized system of defence of any kind and no troops. My people saw no formed bodies of troops of any kind during the day coming towards us, but very large numbers of fugitives hastening in the opposite direction. Engaged as many of them as could be reached from the roads. I saw, from the hill, open country with a certain amount of vegetation on it."
The consternation and disorganization caused by the sudden onslaught of these cars, at places fully ten miles behind the enemy's front line of that morning, may be left to the imagination. It was a feat of daring and resolute performance, which deserves to be remembered.
The Burning Villages—east of Péronne.
Dummy Tank Manufacture.
Throughout the whole day, surrenders by the enemy, particularly of troops in rear or reserve positions, were on a wholesale scale. The total number of live prisoners actually counted up to nightfall in the Divisional and Corps Prisoner-of-War Cages exceeded 8,000 and the Canadians had gathered in at least as many more.
The Australian Corps also captured 173 guns capable of being hauled away, not counting those which had been blown to pieces. These captures included two "railway" guns, one of 9-inch and the other of 11.2-inch bore. The latter was an imposing affair. The gun itself rested on two great bogie carriages, each on eight axles; it was provided with a whole train of railway trucks fitted some to carry its giant ammunition, others as workshops, and others as living quarters for the gun detachment. The outfit was completed by a locomotive to haul the gun forward to its daily task of shelling Amiens, and hauling it back to its garage when its ugly work was done.
The captures of machine guns and of trench mortars of all types and sizes were on so extensive a scale that no attempt was ever made to make even an approximate count of them. They were ultimately collected into numerous dumps, and German prisoners were employed for many weeks in cleaning and oiling them for transport to Australia as trophies of war.
But the booty comprised a large and varied assortment of many other kinds of warlike stores. The huge dumps of engineering material at Rosières and La Flaque served all the needs of the Corps for the remainder of the war. There were horses, wagons, lorries and tractors by the hundred, including field searchlights, mobile pharmacies, motor ambulances, travelling kitchens, mess carts, limbers, and ammunition wagons, and there were literally hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition scattered all over the captured territory in dumps both large and small.
For the next two days all roads leading from the battle area back towards the Army Cage at Poulainville, where railway trains were waiting to receive them, were congested with column after column of German prisoners, roughly organized into companies—tangible evidences to the civilians of the district, as to our own troops, that a great victory had been won.
The tactical value of the victory was immense, and has never yet been fully appreciated by the public of the Empire, perhaps because our censorship at the time strove to conceal the intention to follow it up immediately with further attacks. But no better testimony is needed than that of Ludendorff himself, who calls it Germany's "black day," after which he himself gave up all hope of a German victory.
Ludendorff in his "Memoirs," republished in the Times of August 22nd, 1919, writes:
"August 8th was the black day of the German Army in the history of the war. This was the worst experience I had to go through.... Early on August 8th, in a dense fog that had been rendered still thicker by artificial means, the British, mainly with Australian and Canadian Divisions, and French, attacked between Albert and Moreuil with strong squadrons of Tanks, but for the rest with no great superiority. They broke between the Somme and the Luce deep into our front. The Divisions in line allowed themselves to be completely overwhelmed. Divisional Staffs were surprised in their Headquarters by enemy Tanks" [sic, our armoured cars were meant].... "The exhausted [sic] Divisions that had been relieved a few days earlier and that were lying in the region south-west of Péronne were immediately alarmed and set in motion by the Commander-in-Chief of the Second Army. At the same time he brought forward towards the breach all available troops. The Rupprecht Army Group dispatched reserves thither by train. The 18th Army threw its own reserves directly into the battle from the south-east.... On an order from me, the 9th Army too, although itself in danger, had to contribute. Days of course elapsed before the troops from a further distance could reach the spot.... It was a very gloomy situation.... Six or seven Divisions that were quite fairly to be described as effective had been completely battered.... The situation was uncommonly serious. If they continued to attack with even comparative vigour, we should no longer be able to maintain ourselves west of the Somme.... The wastage of the Second Army had been very great. Heavy toll had also been taken of the reserves which had been thrown in.... Owing to the deficit created our losses had reached such proportions that the Supreme Command was faced with the necessity of having to disband a series of Divisions, in order to furnish drafts.... The enemy had also captured documentary material of inestimable value to him.... The General Staff Officer whom I had dispatched to the battlefield on August 8th, gave me such an account that I was deeply confounded.... August 8th made things clear for both Army Commands, both for the German and for that of the enemy."
A hole had been driven on a width of nearly twelve miles, right through the German defence, and had blotted out, at one blow, the whole of the military resources which it had contained. The obligation which was thereby cast upon the enemy to throw into the gap troops and guns hastily collected from every part of his front, imposed upon him also an increased vulnerability at every other point which had to be so denuded.
It was no part of our programme to rest content upon our oars, and allow the enemy time to collect himself at leisure. The resources of the Australian Corps had suffered scarcely any impairment as the result of that glorious day. Such small losses as had been incurred were more than counter-balanced by the elation of these volunteer troops at this further demonstration of their moral and physical superiority over the professional soldiers of a militarist enemy nation.
On that very day all necessary measures were taken to maintain the battle without pause. But, in order not to interrupt the continuity of the story of subsequent developments, it will be convenient to mention, in this place, two events which cannot be dissociated from the great battle, and which will be memorable to those who participated in them.
The first was an accidental meeting together of a number of the most distinguished figures in the war. On August 11th, the Commander-in-Chief was to come to congratulate the Corps and to thank the troops through their Commanders. I called the Divisional Generals together at the Red Château at Villers-Bretonneux to meet him that afternoon. In the meantime General Rawlinson invited his Corps Commanders to meet him in the same village for a battle conference, and chose the same hour and a spot in the open, under a spreading beech, where his Generals sat informally around the maps spread upon the grass. At this meeting were Rawlinson, Currie, Kavanagh, Godley, myself, Montgomery and Budworth. The Field Marshal, with Laurence, the Chief of his General Staff, on their way to the Red Château, soon arrived. Shortly after Sir Henry Wilson, happening to pass in his car, also joined the party; and not many moments afterwards there arrived, again entirely without previous arrangement, Clemenceau and his Finance Minister Klotz.
Villers-Bretonneux, only three days before reeking with gas and unapproachable, and now delivered from its bondage, was the lodestone which had attracted the individual members of this remarkable assemblage; and the more serious business in hand was perforce postponed while Rawlinson, Currie and I had to listen to the generous felicitations of all these great war leaders.
The second event was the visit of His Majesty the King, on August 12th, to Bertangles, when he conferred on me the honour of Knighthood, in the presence of selected detachments of five hundred of the men who had fought in the battle, a hundred from each of my Five Divisions. A representative collection of guns and other war trophies had been hauled in from the battlefield to line the avenues by which the King approached. His Majesty was particularly interested in the German transport horses, expressing the hope that they would soon learn the Australian language; a pleasantry which he well remembered when I had the honour of an audience with him, on the anniversary of that very day.