The Australian Victories in France in 1918

by Sir John Monash

The immediate result of this decision, which came into effect early on September 12th, was that the 32nd Division, which had been under my orders for nearly four weeks, passed over to the Ninth Corps. Lambert, his Staff and his Division had served me well and efficiently, and I was sorry to lose them out of my Corps.

With the impending further shortening of my front, I had no justification for pressing to be permitted to retain this Division. On the contrary, my representations to General Rawlinson had always been in favour of shortening my frontage to the effective battle standard of August 8th, so that the Corps might at any time be in a position to embark on a major operation, with its whole resources in Artillery and Infantry concentrated, as on that occasion, upon a relatively narrow objective. My greatly extended front, and the direct control of the affairs of six separate Divisions, had been a heavy burden, involving great and manifold responsibilities.

According to my promises to the remaining two line Divisions, the Fifth and Third, these were duly relieved on September 10th by the First and Fourth Divisions, the former on the north, the latter on the south. Each Division had a frontage of about four thousand yards, but this was to diminish rapidly, if the advance of the Corps continued, by reason of the fact that my southern boundary now became the Omignon River, whose course ran obliquely from the north-east.

While all these changes in dispositions were being effected, there was breathing time to give attention to a heavy mass of arrears of work; for there could be no question of undertaking an attack on the Hindenburg defences without most careful and exhaustive preparation.

For this the time was not yet ripe. It would still take some days to bring forward the remainder of my heaviest Artillery, to advance the railheads, to replenish the ammunition depots and supply dumps, and to re-establish telegraph and telephone communications.

Another good reason for a more leisurely policy on the front of the Fourth Army lay in the events on other portions of the Allied fronts. By September 4th the German withdrawal had become general on all fronts.

It had become clear that the enemy's retirement to his former position of March, 1918, was not to be confined to those fronts on which he had been receiving such punishment. All evidence pointed to the fact that his present strategy was to take up as speedily as possible a strong defensive attitude, behind the great system of field works, which had already served him so well during 1917, at a time when a considerable proportion of his military resources was still involved on the Russian and Roumanian fronts.

His retirement before the First and Third British Armies was proceeding methodically, and on September 5th the French were crossing the Vesle, between Rheims and Soissons. All was going well; and those in the confidence of our High Command knew that, on any day now, news might be expected of the first great attack to be made by the American Army, to be directed against the St. Mihiel Salient on the Alsace front.

This latter attack actually opened on September 11th, and it was clearly sound military policy to wait for a few days, in order correctly to diagnose the effect of these operations upon the enemy's distribution of forces.