It was, as I have said, the first offensive operation, on any substantial scale, that had been fought by any of the Allies since the previous autumn. Its effect was electric, and it stimulated many men to the realization that the enemy was, after all, not invulnerable, in spite of the formidable increase in his resources which he had brought from Russia. It marked the termination, once and for all, of the purely defensive attitude of the British front. It incited in many quarters an examination of the possibilities of offensive action on similar lines by similar means—a changed attitude of mind, which bore a rich harvest only a very few weeks later.
But its effect on the enemy was even more startling. His whole front from the Ancre to Villers-Bretonneux had become unstable, and was reeling from the blow. It was only the consideration that I had still to defend a ten-mile front, and had still only one Division in reserve in case of emergency, that deterred me from embarking at once upon another blow on an even larger scale. But I seized every occasion to importune the Army Commander either to narrow my front, or to let the First Division from Hazebrouck join my command, or both; but so far without result.
Map B.
The only course that remained open to me was to initiate immediate measures for taking the fullest advantage of the enemy's demoralization by exploiting the success obtained to the utmost possible extent. No later than on the afternoon of the battle of Hamel itself, orders were issued to all three line Divisions to commence most vigorous offensive patrolling all along the Corps front, with a view not merely to prevent the enemy from re-establishing an organized defensive system, but also ourselves to penetrate the enemy's ground by the establishment therein of isolated posts, as a nucleus for subsequent more effective occupation.
Enterprise of such a nature appeals strongly to the sporting instinct of the Australian soldier. Divisions, Brigades and Battalions vied with each other in predatory expeditions, even in broad daylight, into the enemy's ground, and a steady stream of prisoners and machine guns flowed in. On the nights of July 5th and 6th, the Fifth Division, now in the sector between the Ancre and the Somme, possessed themselves with very little effort of a strip of some three hundred acres of hostile positions, bringing our front line so near to Morlancourt as to make that village no longer tenable by the enemy.
On the same nights, and again on July 8th and 9th, the Second and Fourth Divisions advanced their lines by an average of two hundred to three hundred yards along their respective fronts, and this advance was, in the case of the Second Division, particularly valuable in carrying our front line over the crest of the plateau of Hill 104, and giving us clear and unbroken observation far into the enemy's country, in the directions of Warfusee and Marcelcave.
It was a period replete with instances of individual enterprise and daring adventure. One incident, characteristic of the varied efforts of these days, was the capture, single-handed, and in broad daylight, by Corporal W. Brown, V.C., of the 20th Battalion, Second Division, of an officer and eleven men of the German Army, whom he stalked as they lay skulking in a trench dug-out not far from his observation post, and terrorized into submission by the threat of throwing a bomb at them.
But perhaps the best testimony of the successful activities of my troops during this period, and of the serious impression which they made upon the enemy, can be gathered by extracts from his own documents, a number of which were captured during this and subsequent fighting. Of these, the following, issued by the Second German Army Headquarters (Von der Marwitz), are among the more interesting: