The Australian Victories in France in 1918

by Sir John Monash

It was a great feat to the credit of the First Australian Division, and ranks among its best performances during the war. Some 20 field-guns and hundreds of machine-guns were captured. Such a battle, with such results, would, in 1917, have been placarded as a victory of the first magnitude. Now, with the new standards set up by the great battle of August 8th, it was reckoned merely as a local skirmish.

General Currie, operating on my right, had had a similar experience of slow, although definite, progress, against hourly stiffening opposition, and the fighting by the methods of open warfare was growing daily more costly. The enemy had recovered from his first surprise, our resources in Tanks had been greatly diminished, and much of our heavy Artillery had not yet had time to get into its forward positions. In other words, the possibility of further cheap exploitation of the success of August 8th had come to an end.

It was decided, therefore, to recommend to the Army Commander that a temporary halt should be called on the line thus reached, and that rested troops should be brought up to relieve the line Divisions. He concurred and decided that we should prepare for the delivery on August 15th of another combined "set-piece" blow, which would have the probable effect of again putting the enemy on the run, so that the moving battle could be resumed.

This plan was never actually carried into effect, for reasons which did not at once appear. But it transpired later that General Currie had made very strong private representations to the Fourth Army against the plan. He questioned the wisdom of expending the resources of the Canadian Corps upon an attempt to repeat, over such broken country, covered as it was with entanglements and other obstacles, the great success of August 8th. He urged that the Canadian Corps should be transferred back to the Arras district—which they knew so well. It was country lending itself admirably to operations requiring careful organization, which none understood better than Currie and his admirable Staff.

It was an issue in which I was not greatly concerned, for my share in the proposed operation of August 15th was to be quite subsidiary. It was to consist merely in once again advancing my right flank, in sympathy with the Canadian advance, as far as to include Chaulnes Hill and the very important railway junction at that town. In ignorance of the fact that the matter was under discussion, I prepared complete plans for the co-operation of the Australian Corps, and detailed the Fourth and Fifth Australian Divisions to carry them out. Fortunately, before any actual executive action had been initiated, orders came that the project was to be abandoned.

It soon became known that still larger questions were being discussed. The British front, which in July reached south as far only as Villers-Bretonneux, had now been extended to the latitude of Roye. The Field Marshal was urging reduction, so as to liberate Divisions for offensive operations elsewhere, and Marshal Foch agreed that, as by the elimination of the Soissons salient the French front had been shortened, this could be done. In due course confidential announcements were made that, as soon as it could be arranged, the Canadians would be withdrawn from the line, and their places taken by French troops. This would once again make my Corps the south flank Corps of the British Army, and I would junction with the French on the Lihons Hill.

The halt thus called gave me breathing time to consider a thorough reorganization of my whole Corps front. This had, by August 12th, again grown to a total length of over 16,000 yards. This increase had been the result, firstly, of my having, as narrated, taken over ground to the north of the Somme, secondly, by reason of the fact that during the advances of the last four days my right had hugged the railway, while my left had continued to rest on the Somme, two lines which were rapidly diverging from each other, and thirdly, because my front line now lay sharply oblique to my general line of advance.

Even with a fifth Division, which I now had at my disposal, a front of 16,000 yards was far too attenuated for Corps operations on the grand scale, and even for more localized operations, by one or two Divisions at a time, there was little opportunity to provide the troops with adequate intervals of rest. I therefore strongly urged upon General Rawlinson either a shortening of my front, or a further increase in my resources.

He chose the latter alternative, and on August 12th placed under my orders, provisionally, the 17th British Division (Major-General P. R. Robertson), coupled with the condition that while it might be employed as a line Division, it was not to be used for offensive operations. The reason, confidentially given, was that it was shortly to be employed in a large scale offensive in course of preparation by the Third British Army.

It was, for me, a most opportune measure of relief from a difficult situation; for the Third Australian Division was now also badly in need of a rest. Prior to the great advance, it had been longest of any of the Divisions in the line, and had subsequently had a hard time in fighting its way forward from Méricourt to Proyart. It was therefore relieved in the line on August 13th by the 17th Division and went into Corps Reserve.