The following message transmitted to me by the Commander of the Fourth Army was also received from the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief:
"Will you please convey to Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash and all Ranks under his command, including the Tanks and the detachment of 33rd American Division, my warm congratulations on the success which attended the operation carried out this morning, and on the skill and gallantry with which it was conducted.
"D. Haig."
A steady stream of visitors also set in, including numbers of General Staff Officers, who had been sent down from other Corps and Armies to gather information as to the methods employed. Everyone, of course, recognized that there was only one War, and that it was to the mutual benefit of all that all expedients calculated to accelerate the end of it should become the common property of all. My Staff were accordingly kept busy for many days with maps and diagrams explaining the lines on which the enterprise had been carried out.
The most distinguished and most welcome of all our visitors, however, was Monsieur Clemenceau, the veteran statesman of France, who, in spite of the physical effort, immediately after the sitting of the Versailles War Council had closed, made haste to travel to the Amiens area, and to visit the Corps for the special purpose of thanking the troops. He arrived on July 7th, and a large assemblage of Australian soldiers who had participated in the battle, and who were resting from their labours near General Maclagan's Headquarters at Bussy, were privileged to hear him address them in English in the following terms:
"I am glad to be able to speak at least this small amount of English, because it enables me to tell you what all French people think of you. They expected a great deal of you, because they have heard what you have accomplished in the development of your own country. I should not like to say that they are surprised that you have fulfilled their expectations. By that high standard they judge you, and admire you that you have reached it. We have all been fighting the same battle of freedom in these old battlegrounds. You have all heard the names of them in history. But it is a great wonder, too, in history that you should be here fighting on the old battlefields, which you never thought, perhaps, to see. The work of our fathers, which we wanted to hand down unharmed to our children, the Germans tried to take from us. They tried to rob us of all that is dearest in modern human society. But men were the same in Australia, England, France, Italy, and all countries proud of being the home of free people. That is what made you come; that is what made us greet you when you came. We knew you would fight a real fight, but we did not know that from the very beginning you would astonish the whole Continent with your valour. I have come here for the simple purpose of seeing the Australians and telling them this. I shall go back to-morrow and say to my countrymen: 'I have seen the Australians; I have looked into their eyes. I know that they, men who have fought great battles in the cause of freedom, will fight on alongside us, till the freedom for which we are all fighting is guaranteed for us and our children.'"
The French inhabitants of the Amiens district were also highly elated at the victory. The city itself had been, for some weeks, completely evacuated, by official order. Not only had it become the object of nightly visitations by flights of Gothas; but also, somewhere in the east and far beyond the reach of my longest range guns, the enemy had succeeded in emplacing a cannon of exceptionally large calibre, range and power, which took its daily toll of the buildings of this beautiful city.
The anniversary of the French national fête was approaching, and the Prefect of the Department of the Somme, Monsieur Morain—appreciating the significance of the Hamel victory as a definite step towards the ultimate disengagement of the city from the German terror—determined to make the celebration of this fête not only a compliment to the Australian Corps, but also a proof of the unquenchable fortitude of the people of his Department.
Accordingly, in the Hôtel de Ville, in the very heart of the deserted city, amidst the crumbling ruins of its upper stories, and of the devastation of the surrounding city blocks, he presided at a humble but memorable repast, which had been spread in an undamaged apartment, inviting to his board a bare twenty representatives of the French and British Armies, and of the city of Amiens. While we toasted the King and the Republic, and voiced the firm resolve of both Allies to see the struggle through to the bitter end, the enemy shells were still thundering overhead.
But other matters than rejoicings in a task thus happily accomplished compelled my chief attention during the remaining days of this July. I had to study and gauge accurately the tactical and strategical results of the victory of Hamel, and to lose no time in using the advantage gained. The moral results both on the enemy and on ourselves were far more important, and deserve far more emphasis than do the material gains.