By the end of September, therefore, three separate factors were operating to make a short withdrawal of the Corps from the battle zone desirable.
These were, the long unbroken period of line service, the orders for the reorganization of the Brigades on a three-Battalion basis, and the granting of Australian furlough to the veterans.
These were the reasons which brought about the decision that the whole of the Australian Corps should be sent for a period of rest in a coastal area as soon as the battle operations on which it had embarked had been brought to a successful conclusion.
Those operations were, on October 1st, almost completed. Only the Beaurevoir line still remained to be mastered, and the Second Australian Division, which had been resting since its successes at Mont St. Quentin, was available to undertake that task. For the next three days the Australian Corps became, therefore, reduced to only one Division (the Second Australian) in the line, with the 27th and 30th American Divisions in support.
The Second Division occupied the night of October 1st and the greater part of October 2nd in the process of taking over line duty from the Fifth Division, and in preparing for an attack timed for the next morning upon the Beaurevoir defences. I handed over the northern part of what had been the Australian Corps front, on the day previous, to the 50th Division (of the Thirteenth Corps), which had by now effected the passage of the tunnel line, and had deployed upon my left, facing north and north-east.
After these adjustments were made, the Corps front, on the night of October 2nd, extended from Mont St. Martin through the eastern outskirts of Estrées and Joncourt, where I joined with the 32nd Division (now belonging to the Ninth Corps). It was a frontage of nearly 6,000 yards, an extraordinary length for the battle front of a single Division. Our line lay parallel to and about 1,000 yards to the west of the Beaurevoir line, and the attack for next day was designed to be delivered in a north-easterly direction. If the Beaurevoir line itself were captured, the attack was to be pushed on beyond, in the endeavour to sweep the enemy off the prominent hill on which was situated the village of Beaurevoir. Concurrently the Thirteenth Corps would attack Prospect Hill, lying to the north-east of Gouy village.
The Beaurevoir line was a fully-developed defensive system, with front, support and communication trenches, thoroughly traversed, well wired in, and still in good condition. In 1917 it would have been considered impossible to capture such a line of defence by such a force on such a frontage.
The Second Division deployed two of its Brigades, the 5th on the right and the 7th on the left, with the 6th Brigade in reserve. The 5th Tank Brigade, now greatly reduced in numbers, and some Whippet Tanks co-operated in the attack. The assault was launched at 6.5 a.m. under a Field Artillery barrage. Considerable opposition was met with. The trenches were found strongly held, particularly with machine guns, and the uncut wire seriously impeded the Infantry.
The frontal attack of the 5th Brigade, nevertheless, achieved almost immediate success, although in some parts of the line there were centres of resistance which had to be enveloped before they yielded. The performance of the Tanks on this day was disappointing. Most of the heavier Tanks were disabled by Artillery fire, while the Whippets found the Beaurevoir trench lines too wide to straddle. Nevertheless, the spirited action of the Artillery made up for the loss of the assistance of the Tanks, and by 11 a.m. the whole of the Beaurevoir line in front of the 5th Brigade had been captured.
Further to the north, the 7th Brigade found the trenches almost end on to the direction of their advance, and the battle here speedily took on the form of pure trench fighting with bomb and bayonet, a type of fighting in which the Australian excels. Steady progress northwards was made.