The Australian Victories in France in 1918

by Sir John Monash

The situation on the left flank of the Australian Corps was, however, anything but satisfactory. The Chipilly spur was still in the hands of the enemy, all the efforts over-night on the part of the 58th Division (Third Corps) to dislodge them having failed. General Butler, the Corps Commander, in pursuance of arrangements come to some days before, was to proceed on sick leave, as he had for some time been far from well; and General Godley (my former chief of the 22nd Corps) was temporarily to take his place. I therefore persuaded the Army Commander to avail himself of this change to allow me to take in hand the situation at Chipilly, and to give me, for this purpose, a limited jurisdiction over the north bank of the Somme. This was merely getting in the thin edge of the wedge; and not many hours later, I found myself where I had so strongly desired to be from the first, namely, astride of the Somme valley.

Accordingly, the 13th Australian Brigade, after a day's rest from the anxious duty of acting as a screen for the Canadians on the eve of the main battle, were told off to deal with the Chipilly spur. Before, however, they could reach the locality, and in the late afternoon of August 9th, the 131st American Regiment (of Bell's Division), which was still under the orders of the Third Corps, very gallantly advanced in broad daylight and took possession practically of the whole spur.

In the meantime the 13th Brigade arrived, sending a Battalion across the Somme at Cerisy, and, joining the Americans, helped to clear up the whole situation. This made my left flank more secure, and enabled Maclagan to withdraw the defensive flank which he had deployed along the river from Cerisy to Morcourt. That night I took over the 131st American Regiment from the Third Corps, attached it, as a temporary measure, to the Fourth Division, and placed Maclagan in charge of the newly captured front, which extended north of the river as far as the Corbie—Bray road.

The day ended with Divisions in the line from south to north in the following order, viz.:—First, Second and Fourth, the last named having been augmented by an American Regiment, having had its own 13th Brigade restored to it, and having in exchange yielded up to the First Division the 1st Brigade of the latter.

The Fourth Division had had comparatively much the worst of it, up to this stage, of any of my Divisions, and I felt that they were due for a short rest. Accordingly, I issued orders that same night for the Third Division, which, like the Second, had been resting since the previous forenoon, to relieve the Fourth Division on that part of the front which lay between the Somme and the main St. Quentin road on the following day, but for the time being leaving the newly captured ground north of the Somme still in Maclagan's hands.

After an examination of the ground and a study of the situation, the opportunity for a further immediate local operation, certain to gain valuable tactical ground, and likely also to yield a good number of prisoners, presented itself to me. A further attraction was that it would permit of a useful advance of my left flank on the south of the Somme. This project, being of some tactical interest, demands a short explanatory reference to the terrain.

The river Somme, from Cerisy as far east as Péronne, flows in a tortuous valley which describes a succession of bends, almost uniform in size and regular in disposition. These bends face with their bases alternately north and south, and average a depth of two miles, by a width across the base of about a mile and a half. Each came to be known to us by the name of one of the villages which reposed in its folds, such as Chipilly, Etinehem, Bray, Cappy, Feuillères, and Ommiécourt; all these have become names to be remembered in the subsequent conquest of this part of the Somme valley.

The valley itself is in this region a mile broad; its sides are steep and often precipitous, and the adjoining plateaus rise some 200 feet above its bed. Through this valley winds, in ordered curves, the canal for barge traffic; it is flanked by vast stretches of backwaters and heavily grassed morasses, in which the river loses itself. The valley can be traversed only by the few bridges and the lock gates of the canal, and the causeways leading to them from either bank.

It would be difficult country for a fight on a general scale, but ideal for guerilla warfare. The whole succession of villages clinging to the sides of the valley were in the hands of the enemy, and in use by him for the housing and shelter of his troops. To attack and overcome them one by one, by fighting up the winding valley, would have been a costly business. But it suggested itself that they might all be won by a species of investment.

Taking any one of these U-shaped bends singly, by drawing a cordon across its base, the whole of any enemy forces who might be occupying the bend would be denied escape from it, except by crossing the river into the adjacent bend. But if a semi-cordon had been simultaneously drawn across the base of that next bend also, even that loophole would be closed, and moreover such troops as inhabited the second bend would find themselves surrounded also.