The British Campaign in France and Flanders, 1916

by Arthur Conan Doyle

The 143rd Brigade, consisting entirely of Warwick battalions (5, 6, 7, and 8), the 144th of Glosters (4 and 6) and Worcesters (7 and 8), and the 145th from Gloucester (5), Buckingham, Oxford and Buckingham (4), and Berkshire (4), took it in turns to surge up against the formidable German line, showing the greatest valour and perseverance, overcoming difficulty after difficulty, and always getting slowly forward from the first movement upon July 22, until upon July 26 they had overcome every obstacle and joined hands with the Australians at the cemetery which marks the north end of the village of Pozières. Many prisoners and a fine extension of the line were the fruits of their exertions. The 5th Royal Sussex Pioneer Battalion, amidst considerable difficulties and heavy shell-fire, consolidated all that had been won. The 4th Gloucesters and 7th Worcesters particularly distinguished themselves at this time by their persistent day-by-day work against the German trench line.

On the morning of July 26 the Australian advance was resumed. There were two obstacles immediately in front—the one a strong redoubt, the other a line of trench. The redoubt was most gallantly attacked by the men of Queensland and of South Australia, and was overwhelmed by their bombs. The Victorians, meanwhile, had won their way into the trench, but as it communicated by many runways with the main German system behind, an endless flow of reinforcements were able to come into it, and the length of the trench enabled the Germans to attack upon both flanks. It was a most bloody and desperate conflict which swung and swayed down the long ditches, and sometimes over the edges of them into the bullet-swept levels between. Men threw and threw until they were so arm-weary that not another bomb could be lifted. If ever there were born natural bombers it must surely be among the countrymen of Spofforth and Trumble—and so it proved at that terrible international by Pozières village. A British aeroplane swooped down out of the misty morning, and gave signals of help and advice from above, so as to dam that ever-moving stream of reinforcement.

The trenches in dispute were of no vital importance themselves, but they were the outposts of the great German second line which stretched behind its broad apron of barbed wire within a few hundred yards to the north-east of the village. The ground sloped upwards, and the Germans were on the crest. This was the next objective of the Australians, and was attacked by their Second Division on July 29. On the flank of the hill to the left the Victorians won a lodgment, but the main position was still impregnable—and almost unapproachable. Sullenly and slowly the infantry fell back to their own trenches, leaving many of their best and bravest before or among the fatal wires.

The position had been improved upon the left, however, by an advance of the Forty-eighth Division. The Warwick Brigade upon their right made no great progress, but the 145th Brigade upon the left took the trench in front of it and pushed that flank well forward. This successful attack was at seven in the evening of July 27. The leading battalions were the 4th Berks upon the right and the 6th Gloucesters on the left, and these two sturdy battalions captured all their objectives. A number of the 5th Regiment of the Prussian Guard were killed or captured in this affair. As the whole line had to turn half left after leaving the taking-off trench, it was a fine piece of disciplined fighting. General Gough was a personal witness of this attack.

On August 4, six days later, the Australians came back to the attack with all the dour pertinacity of their breed. This time their success was triumphant. A steady bombardment had laid the German front open, and in the dark of the night the Australian infantry, advancing over their own dead, rushed the position, surprising the Germans at a moment when a relief was being carried out. Many of the Germans who had been expecting a rest from their labours got one indeed—but it was in England rather than in their own rear. With the early morning the Australians were on the Pozières Ridge, and one of the few remaining observation posts of the enemy had passed from him for ever. In front of them was the land of promise—the long slope seamed by German trenches, the distant German camps, the churches and villages of that captive France which they had come so far to redeem.

Once again the left flank of the Australians was in close co-operation with a British Division. The Forty-eighth had been withdrawn and replaced by the Twelfth, a division which was rapidly acquiring a very solid reputation in the army. The men of the 7th Sussex upon the right and those of Surrey and of Kent upon the left were in the front of the battle-line, which rolled slowly up the slope of Pozières, continually driving the German resistance before it. The ground gained early in August was some 2000 yards of frontage with a depth of 400 yards, and though the whole ridge, and the Windmill which marks it, had not yet been cleared, the fact that the British had a good foothold upon it was of the utmost strategical importance, apart from the continual stream of prisoners who fell into their hands. The Sussex battalion linked up with the Australians, and nothing could have been closer than the co-operation between the two, so much so that it is on record that with a glorious recklessness a bunch of Australians pushed forward without orders in order to keep the Sussex men company in one of their attacks. The South Saxons have again and again shown that there is no more solid military material in England. It is said that a rampant pig with "We won't be druv!" as a motto was an old emblem of that ancient county. Her sons assuredly lived up to the legend during the War.

On the morning of the 6th and of the 7th two counter-attacks stormed up to the new British line. The first was small and easily repelled, a sporadic effort by some gallant hot-headed officer, who died in the venture, clicking his Mauser to the last. The second was serious, for three battalions came very gallantly forwards, and a sudden rush of 1500 Germans, some of whom carried flammenwerfer, burst into the trenches at two separate points, making prisoners of some 50 Australians who were cut off from their comrades. The attack was bravely delivered in broad daylight, the enemy coming on in good line in the face of severe fire; but the Australians, with their usual individuality, rallied, and not only repulsed the enemy, but captured many of them, besides recapturing the prisoners whom they had taken. This was the supreme German attempt to recapture the position, but they were by no means able to reconcile themselves to the loss of it, and came on again and again in smaller assaults spread over several days, which had no result save to increase their already very heavy losses in this region.

This flammenwerfer attack had broken also upon the outposts of the 36th Brigade to the left, eight of these infernal machines coming forward with a throng of bombers behind them. The captain of the 9th Royal Fusiliers, instead of awaiting the attack in a crowded trench, rushed his men forward in the open, where they shot down the flame-bearers before they could bring their devilish squirts to bear. The bombers, who had followed the advance, led the flight. On this day 127 Germans who had been caught in a pocket between the British trenches were forced to surrender, after a very creditable resistance.

On August 12 the Twelfth Division attacked once more upon a broad front, the 35th Brigade upon the right, the 37th upon the left. The result of the attack was a satisfactory accession of ground, for although the Surreys and West Kents were held up, the Norfolks and Essex attained their objective and held it. Some 40 prisoners and a useful line of trench were the results. That night the 48th South Midlanders replaced the Twelfth Division once more, resuming their old station upon the left of the Australians, whose various divisions rang changes upon each other, men from every corner of the great island continent, from the burning plains of the Northern Territories to the wind-swept hills of Tasmania, relieving each other in the ever-advancing line of trenches and strong points which slowly ate into the German front. One day it was the West Australians who blew back an attack with their rifle fire. On the next it was the Melbourne men who had rushed another position. On the summit of the Ridge was the stump of an old windmill, which lay now between the two lines, and it was towards this and along the slope of the crest that the advance was gradually creeping. It is worth noting that in this part of the line some sort of amenity was introduced concerning the wounded, and that neither party sniped the other so long as a Red Cross flag was shown. It is grievous to think that such a condition needs to be recorded.

August 10 and 11 witnessed two night attacks by the 4th and 6th Gloucesters respectively, neither of which made much progress. The Territorials of the Forty-eighth Division still kept step, however, with the Australians in all that desperate advance up the long slope of Pozières Hill, the two units striving in a generous rivalry of valour, which ended in deep mutual confidence and esteem.