The Australian Victories in France in 1918

by Sir John Monash

In two very important respects in particular, this type of fighting involved conditions to which the troops had not been accustomed, and under which they had no previous experience in battle. In trench warfare, and in a deliberate attack on entrenched defences, the positions of all headquarters, medical aid posts, supply dumps and signal stations remained fixed and immovable. The whole of the internal communications by telegraph and telephone could, therefore, be completely installed beforehand, down to the last detail, and the transmission of all messages, reports, orders and instructions, during the course of the battle, was rapid and assured. But in a moving battle no such comprehensive or stable signalling arrangements are possible, and reliance must be placed upon the much slower and much more uncertain methods of transmission by flag and lamp signalling, by dispatch riders, pigeons and runners.

Divisional Headquarters would, therefore, almost as soon as the battle commenced, fall out of touch with Brigades, and they in turn with their Battalions; information as to the actual situation at the fighting front would travel slowly, and would reach those responsible for making consequential decisions often long after an entire alteration in the situation had removed the need for action. Thus, a greatly enhanced responsibility would come to be imposed upon subordinate leaders to decide for themselves, without waiting for guidance or orders from higher authority, and to grasp the initiative by taking all possible action on the spot in the light of the circumstances and situation of the moment.

Again, the nature of the Artillery action is, in the moving battle, fundamentally different from that which prevails during trench warfare. To begin with, only that portion of the Artillery which is in the strictest sense mobile can participate to any extent in open warfare. The employment of Artillery is, therefore, confined to a few and to the smaller natures of Ordnance, namely, the 18-pounder field-gun, the 4½-inch field howitzer and the 60-pounder, which are all horse drawn and which are capable of being moved off the roads and across all but the most broken country. Heavier guns, from 6-inch upwards, are in practice confined to roads, and are too slow and cumbersome to keep pace with the Infantry. The Artillery fire action is also intrinsically different, because the guns can be sighted directly upon their targets, while in trench warfare they are always laid by indirect methods, with the use of the map and compass, and without observation, at any rate by the crew of the gun, of the objects fired at.

The decision which I had to take of carrying out the second phase of this great battle on the principles of open warfare was, therefore, one which also involved a certain element of risk. But it was a risk which I felt justified in taking, in spite of the fact that the German High Command had more than once expressed itself in contemptuous terms of the capacity of any British troops successfully to undertake any operation of open warfare. My justification lay primarily in my confidence in the ability of the subordinate commanders and troops to work satisfactorily under these novel conditions—a confidence which the event abundantly justified. But I was placed in the position of having either to accept this risk, or else abandon altogether the project of a quite unprecedented penetration of enemy country to be completed on the first day. It would have been clearly impossible to continue the advance beyond the green line without an interval of at least forty-eight hours, which would have been necessary to enable the Artillery to be redisposed for barrage fire in forward positions and provided with the necessary supplies of ammunition for such a purpose.

The Divisions which were told off to carry out the "leapfrog" enterprise and to execute Phase B of the battle were the Fifth Australian Division on the south and the Fourth Australian Division on the north, the outer flanks of the attack remaining as before, i.e., the Péronne Railway on the south and the River Somme on the north. Each of these Divisions was directed to deploy, on its own frontage, two Infantry Brigades. Its third Brigade was to be kept intact and to advance during Phase B at some distance behind, as a support to the fighting line, and to be employed in the subsequent phase, if it were found that Phase B could be completed without calling upon this spare Brigade. The actual dispositions of the Brigades finally proposed by the respective Divisional Commanders and approved by me brought about the arrangement that the four first-line mobile Infantry Brigades were successively, from south to north, the 15th, 8th, 12th and 4th, while the 14th and 1st Brigades followed as supports in a second line.

To each of these Infantry Brigades I allotted a Brigade of Field Artillery, to be employed under the direct orders of the Infantry Brigade Commander, and, in addition, three Artillery Brigades as well as one Battery of 60-pounders, to each Divisional Commander. As my resources in Artillery were not unlimited, the twelve Artillery Brigades, so disposed of, were necessarily drawn from the original eighteen Brigades which were to fire the covering Artillery barrage for Phase A of the battle. The orders to that portion of the Field Artillery which was to become mobile in pursuance of this plan, accordingly, were that immediately upon the completion of their original tasks, by the capture of the green line, they were to "pull out of the barrage."

This meant, in effect, that all the teams, limbers, battery wagons, and ammunition wagons of these twelve Brigades, waiting in their wagon lines far in rear, fully harnessed up and hooked in at the opening of the battle, had to advance during the progress of the first phase, so as to reach their guns just at the right time, but no earlier, to enable these guns to be limbered up, and the batteries to become completely mobile in order to join and advance with the Infantry of the second phase.

This was an operation which required the greatest nicety in timing, and the greatest accuracy in execution. No Australian Artillery had ever previously undertaken such an operation, except perhaps on the manœuvre ground, and then only on the very limited scale of a Brigade or two at a time. That this rapid transition from the completely stationary to the completely mobile battle was carried out, during the very crisis of a great engagement, without the slightest hitch, and with only the trifling loss of two or three gun horse teams from shell fire, reflects the very highest credit upon every officer and man of the Australian Field Artillery.

The open warfare Infantry Brigades were also to be provided, out of their own divisional resources, each with a Company of Engineers, a Company of Machine Guns, a Field Ambulance, and a detachment of Pioneers, so that, in the most complete sense, they became a Brigade Group of all arms, capable of dealing, out of their own resources and on their own ground, with any situation that might arise during their advance of nearly three miles from the green to the red line. A detachment of nine tanks completed the fighting equipment of each of the four front line Brigades destined to capture the red line.

I must now briefly describe the nature of Phase C, the third and last stage in this ambitious and complex battle programme. This phase was to consist of "exploitation," which implies that it was a provisional preparation, which was to be carried out only if complete success attended the two preceding phases. The objective of Phase C was the "blue" line, which I had located about one mile to the east of the red line, along a system of old French trenches extending from the river at a point near Méricourt, and running southerly to the railway at a point a little to the south-east of Harbonnières. This line gave promise of furnishing a good defensive position in which to deal with any possible counter-attack. It also gave a good line of departure for subsequent operations, and provided ideal artillery positions in a series of valleys, running parallel and a little to the west of the line itself.