The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Australian Victories in France in 1918, by Sir John Monash

The Australian Victories in France in 1918

Lieut.-General Sir John Monash, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., V.D., D.C.L., LL.D.

The Australian Victories in France in 1918

By
Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash,
G.C.M.G., K.C.B., V.D., D.C.L., LL.D.

WITH 9 FOLDING MAPS IN COLOUR
AND 31 ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.
PATERNOSTER ROW

DEDICATED
to the
AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER
who by his military virtues, and by his deeds
in battle, has earned for himself a
place in history which none
can challenge

PREFACE

The following pages, of which I began the compilation when still engaged in the arduous work of Repatriation of the Australian troops in all theatres of war, were intended to be something in the nature of a consecutive and comprehensive story of the Australian Imperial Force in France during the closing phases of the Great War. I soon found that the time at my disposal was far too limited to allow me to make full use of the very voluminous documentary material which I had collected during the campaign. The realization of such a project must await a time of greater leisure. So much as I have had the opportunity of setting down has, therefore, inevitably taken the form rather of an individual memoir of this stirring period. While I feel obliged to ask the indulgence of the reader for the personal character of the present narrative, this may not be altogether a disadvantage. Having regard to the responsibilities which it fell to my lot to bear, it may, indeed, be desirable that I should in all candour set down what was passing in my mind, and should attempt to describe the ever-changing external circumstances which operated to guide and form the judgments and decisions which it became my duty to make from day to day. It may be that hereafter my exercise of command in the field and the manner in which I made use of the opportunities which presented themselves will be the subject of criticism. I welcome this, provided that the facts and the events of the time are known to and duly weighed by the critic.

My purpose has been to describe in broad outline the part played by the Australian Army Corps in the closing months of the war, and I have based upon that record somewhat large claims on behalf of the Corps. It would have overloaded the story to include in it any larger number of extracts from original documents than has been done. I may, however, assert with confidence that the statements, statistics and deductions made can be verified by reference to authoritative sources.

The photographs have been selected from a very large number taken, during the fighting and often under fire, by Captain G. H. Wilkins, M.C. The maps have been prepared under my personal supervision, and are compiled from the official battle maps in actual use by me during the operations.

John Monash.

CONTENTS

LIST OF MAPS

LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS

The Australian Victories in France in 1918

INTRODUCTION
THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY CORPS

The renown of the Australians as individual fighters, in all theatres of the Great War, has loomed large in the minds and imagination of the people of the Empire.

Many stories of the work they did have been published in the daily Press and in book form. But it is seldom that any appreciation can be discovered of the fact that the Australians in France gradually became, as the war progressed, moulded into a single, complete and fully organized Army Corps.

Seldom has any stress been laid upon the fact that because it thus became a formation fixed and stable in composition, fighting under a single command, and provided with all accessory arms and services, the Corps was able successfully to undertake fighting operations on the grandest scale.

There can be little question, however, that it was this development which constituted the paramount and precedent condition for the brilliant successes achieved by these splendid troops during the summer and autumn of 1918—successes which far overshadowed those of any earlier period of the war.

For a complete understanding of all the factors which contributed to those successes, and for an intelligent grasp of the course of events following so dramatically upon the outbreak of the great German offensive of March 21st of that year, I propose to trace, very briefly, the genesis and ultimate development of the Corps, as it became constituted when, on August 8th, it was launched upon its great enterprise of opening, in close collaboration with the Army Corps of its sister Dominion of Canada, that remarkable counter-offensive, which it maintained, without pause, without check, and without reverse, for sixty consecutive days—a period full of glorious achievement—which contributed, as I shall show in these pages, in the most direct and decisive manner, to the final collapse and surrender of the enemy.

In the days before the war, there was in the British Service no recognized or authorized organization known as an Army Corps. When the Expeditionary Force was launched into the conflict in 1914, the Army Corps organization was hastily improvised, and consisted at first merely of an Army Corps Staff, with a small allotment of special Corps Troops and services, and of a fluctuating number of Divisions.

It was the Division[1] and not the Corps, which was then the strategical unit of the Army. Even when the necessity for the formation of Army Corps was recognized, it was still a fundamental conception that it was the Division, and not the Army Corps, which constituted the fighting unit.

To each Army Corps were allotted at first only two, but later as many as four Divisions, according to the needs and circumstances of the moment. But the component Divisions never, for long, remained the same. The actual composition of every Army Corps was subject to constant changes and interchanges, and it was rare for any given Division to remain for more than a few weeks in any one Army Corps.

The disadvantages of such an arrangement are sufficiently obvious to require no great elaboration; at the same time, it has to be recognized that, during the first three years of the war, at any rate, the Army was undergoing a process of rapid expansion, and that, on grounds of expediency, it was neither possible nor desirable to adopt a policy of a fixed and immutable composition for so large a formation as an Army Corps.

Moreover, the special conditions of trench warfare made it imperative to create, under the respective Armies, and in the respective zones of those Armies, a subordinate administrative and tactical authority with a more or less fixed geographical jurisdiction. Thus, the frontage held by each of the five British Armies became subdivided into a series of Corps frontages, and each Corps Commander had allotted to him a definite frontage, a definite depth and a definite area, for his administrative and executive direction.

It was within this Corps area that he exercised entire control of all functions of a purely local and geographical character: such as the maintenance of all roads, railways, canals, telegraphs and telephones; the control of all traffic; the apportionment of all billeting and quartering facilities; the allocation and employment of all means of transport; the collection and distribution of all supplies, comprising food, forage, munitions and engineering materials; the conservation and distribution of all water supply; the sanitation of the area; the whole medical administration within, and the evacuation of sick and wounded from the area; the establishment and working of shops of all descriptions, both for general engineering and for Ordnance purposes; also of laundries, bathing establishments and rest camps; the creation of facilities for the entertainment and recreation of resting troops, and of schools for their military training and for the education of their leaders.

The Corps Commander was, in addition, directly responsible to the Army Commander for the tactical defence of his whole area, for the creation and maintenance of the entire system of field defences covering his frontage, comprising trench systems in numerous successive zones and field fortifications of all descriptions; for preparations for the demolition of railways and bridges to meet the eventuality of an enforced withdrawal; and for detailed plans for an advance into the enemy's territory whenever the opportune moment should arrive.

The extensive responsibilities thus imposed upon the Corps Commander, and upon the whole of his Staff, obviously demanded an intimate study and knowledge of the whole of the Corps area, such as could be acquired only by continuous occupation of one and the same area for a period extending over many months. It would therefore have been in the highest degree inconvenient to move such a complex organization as an Army Corps Staff from one area to another at short intervals of time. On the other hand, the several Divisions allotted to any given Corps for the actual occupation and maintenance of the defences could not be called upon to carry out without relief or rest, trench duty for continuous periods longer than a few weeks at a time.

During the first three years the number of Divisions at the disposal of the British High Command was never adequate to provide each Army Corps in the front line with sufficient Divisions to permit of a regular alternation out of its own resources of periods of trench duty and periods of rest. For a Corps holding a two-Division frontage, for example, it would have been necessary to provide a permanent strength of at least four Divisions in order to permit of such a rotation.

The expedient generally adopted, therefore, was to withdraw altogether from the Army Corps, each Division in turn, as it became due for a rest behind the line or was required for duty elsewhere, and to substitute some other available Division from G.H.Q. or Army Reserve. The broad result was that such an deal as that of a fixed composition for an Army Corps proved quite unattainable, and there was a constant interchange of nearly the whole of the Divisions of the Army, who served in succession, for short periods, in many different Corps, and under many different Commanders.

To this general rule there was, from the outset of its formation, one striking exception, in the case of the Canadian Army Corps, consisting of the four Canadian Divisions, which, with rare exceptions, and these only for short periods and for quite special purposes, invariably fought as a complete Corps of fixed constitution.

It is impossible to overvalue the advantages which accrued to the Canadian troops from this close and constant association of all the four Divisions with each other, with the Corps Commander and his Staff, and with all the accessory Corps services. It meant mutual knowledge of each other among all Commanders, all Staffs, all arms and services, and the mutual trust and confidence born of that knowledge. It was the prime factor in achieving the brilliant conquest of the Vimy Ridge by that Corps in the early spring of 1917.

The consummation, so long and so ardently hoped for, of a similar welding together of all Australian units in the field in France into a single Corps was not achieved in its entirety until a full year later, and it will be interesting to trace briefly the steps by which such a result, strongly pressed as it was by the Australian Government, was finally brought about.

Australia put into the field and maintained until the end, altogether five Divisions of Infantry, complete with all requisite Artillery, Engineers, Pioneers and all Supply, Medical and Veterinary Services, in full conformity with the Imperial War Establishments laid down for such Divisions. But the method and time of their formation and organization, the manner and circumstances of their war preparation, and their employment as part of a Corps varied considerably.

The First Australian Division, together with the Fourth Infantry Brigade, which was then under my command and subsequently became the nucleus of the Fourth Australian Division, were raised in Australia in 1914, immediately after the outbreak of war, were transported to Egypt, where they underwent their war training in the winter of 1915, and ultimately formed, with the New Zealand Contingent, the body known as the "Anzac" Corps, which carried out, on April 25th, the memorable landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

The Second Australian Division speedily followed, being raised in Australia during 1915, and the greater part of this Second Contingent joined the Anzac Corps in the later stages of the Dardanelles Expedition. Another independent Brigade (the Eighth) was also sent to Egypt in that year.

The raising of the Third Australian Division, early in 1916, was the magnificent answer which Australia made when public men and the Press declared that the Australian people would resent the Evacuation from Gallipoli, and the seemingly fruitless sacrifices which it entailed. This Division was shipped direct to England, and assembled on Salisbury Plain during the summer of 1916, where I assumed the command of it. There it underwent its war training under conditions far more advantageous than those which confronted the First and Second Divisions in the Egyptian desert. The Third Division entered the theatre of war in France in November, 1916.

In the meantime, the Evacuation of the Peninsula, in December, 1915, led to the assembly in Egypt of the First and Second Australian Divisions, the Fourth and Eighth independent Infantry Brigades and some thirty thousand reinforcements and convalescents.

Out of this supply of fighting material it was then decided to constitute two additional complete Divisions, the Fourth Brigade forming the nucleus of the Fourth Australian Division, while the 8th Brigade formed that of the Fifth Australian Division; the remaining Brigades and the Divisional troops were drawn from reinforcements, stiffened by a considerable contribution of veterans taken from the four Infantry Brigades who had carried out the landing on Gallipoli.

The Fourth and Fifth Divisions were thus formed in Egypt in February and March, 1916, and the conditions of their war training were even less satisfactory than those which had confronted the earlier Divisions. The hot season speedily arrived; equipment, munitions and animals materialized slowly; training equipment and suitable training grounds were of the most meagre character; and upon all these difficulties supervened the urgent obligation to undertake the strenuous toil of organizing and executing, on the Sinai desert, the field fortifications required for the defence of the Suez Canal zone.

The method in which the Divisions then available in Egypt were to be grouped for the purposes of Corps Command was ripe for decision. It was then that the determination was reached to constitute two separate Army Corps, to be called respectively "First Anzac" and "Second Anzac." The former embodied the First, Second and Fifth Australian Divisions, under General Sir William Birdwood; the latter comprised the Fourth Australian and the New Zealand Divisions under Lieut.-General Sir Alexander Godley.

This was the organization of the Australian troops when the time arrived, in May, 1916, for their transfer by sea from Egypt to the scene of the titanic conflict which had been for nearly two years raging on the soil of France and Belgium.

This grouping did not, however, persist for more than a few weeks. The opening of the great Somme offensive in July 1916 found the First, Second and Fourth Divisions operating under First Anzac in the valley of the Somme, while the Fifth Australian and the New Zealand Division constituted the Second Anzac Corps in the Armentières-Fleurbaix sector. There followed other interchanges as the campaign developed, and by November of 1916, the grouping stood with First Anzac employing the First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Divisions, while Second Anzac comprised the Third Australian, the New Zealand and the Thirty-Fourth British Divisions.

The series of offensive operations opening with the great and successful battle of Messines on June 7th, 1917, found the Fourth Australian Division once again under the command of General Godley, only to be again withdrawn before the concluding phases of the Third Battle of Ypres, in September and October, 1917. The autumn offensive of 1917, aiming at the capture of the Passchendaele ridge, was the first occasion on which the whole of the five Divisions were simultaneously engaged in the same locality in a common enterprise; but even on that occasion they still remained distributed under two different Corps Commands, and had not yet achieved the long-desired unity of command and of policy.

This constant interchange of these Divisions, unavoidable as it probably was, undoubtedly militated against the attainment of the highest standard of efficiency. Uniform in scope and purpose as military administration and tactical policy aims to be when considered on broad lines, yet in a thousand and one matters of detail, many of them of dominating importance, the personality and the individual idiosyncrasies of the Corps Commander and of his principal executive Staff Officers, are calculated to exercise a powerful influence upon the functioning of the whole Corps.

Under each Corps Commander there grew up in course of time a particular code of rules, and policies, of technical methods and even of technical jargon—most of it in an unwritten form. This nevertheless tended towards efficiency so long as the whole of the component personnel of the Corps remained stable, but imposed many difficulties upon Divisions and other units which joined and remained under the Corps for a short period only.

The result was that a Divisional Commander and his Staff, accustomed to work in one environment, often found great difficulty, and occupied some appreciable period of time, in accommodating themselves to a new environment, in which doctrines of attack or defence, counter-attack or trench routine, supply or maintenance were, some or all of them, widely different from those to which they had formerly become accustomed.

But, in the case of Dominion troops, there was a motive far overshadowing the desire for a removal of difficulties of merely a technical nature. It was one founded upon a sense of Nationhood, which prompted the wish, vaguely formed early in the war, and steadily crystallizing in the minds both of the Australian people and of the troops themselves, that all the Australian Divisions should be brought together under a single leadership.

This ideal was associated with the hope that the Commanders and Staffs should to as large an extent as possible, consist solely of Australian Officers, as soon as ever men sufficiently qualified became available. It is difficult to emphasize such a desire without appearing to display ingratitude to a number of brilliant General and other officers of the Imperial Regular Service. These men, at a time when Australia was still able to produce only few officers with the necessary training and experience to justify their appointment to the command of Divisions and Brigades, or to the senior Administrative and General Staffs, bore these burdens in a manner which reflected upon them the greatest credit, and earned for them the gratitude of the Australian people.

I refer, among many others, particularly to General Sir W. Birdwood, Major-Generals Sir H. B. Walker, Sir N. M. Smyth, V.C. and Sir H. V. Cox and Brigadier-Generals W. B. Lesslie and P. G. M. Skene. But as the war went on, this aspect of the national aspiration became steadily realized; one by one, the senior commands and staff appointments were taken over by Australian Officers who had proved their aptitude and suitability for such responsibilities.

The other ideal of unity of command and close association with each other of all Australian units, proved slower of realization. All concerned thought and hoped that it had been, at last, achieved in December, 1917, when it was decided to abolish the two "Anzac" Corps, and to constitute a single Australian Army Corps. This was effected by the transfer of the Third Australian Division from Second to First Anzac Corps, by altering the title of "Second Anzac" to "XXII. Corps," and by substituting for the name "First Anzac" the name "Australian Army Corps," which name it bore until the termination of the war.

The only regrettable feature of this development was the dissolution of the close comradeship which had existed between the troops from the sister Dominions of Australia and New Zealand.

Even then all hopes were doomed to disappointment. For the next four months the Corps contained five Divisions in name only. Almost at once, the Fourth Australian Division was withdrawn to serve under the VII. Corps in connection with the operations before Cambrai. Not many weeks later, when the German avalanche was loosed, the whole five Divisions became widely scattered, and, for a time, the Third and Fourth Divisions served under the VII. British Corps, the Fifth Division under the III. Corps, and the First Division under the XV. Corps. It was not until April, 1918, that four out of the five Divisions again came together under the control of the Australian Corps Commander, at that time General Sir William Birdwood.

About the middle of May, 1918, this popular Commander was appointed to the leadership of the Fifth British Army. In deference to his long association with the Australian Imperial Force, he was asked to retain his status as G.O.C., A.I.F. His responsibilities as the Commander of an Army, and its removal to quite a different area in the theatre of war, made it, however, impossible for him to take any active part in the direction of the further operations of the Australian Corps.

Owing to the vacancy thus created, the Commander-in-Chief, with the concurrence of the Commonwealth Government, did me the great honour to appoint me to the command of the Australian Army Corps, a command which I took over during the closing days of May and retained until after the Armistice.

At that juncture the First Australian Division was still involved in heavy fighting, under the XV. Corps, in the Hazebrouck sector, and no amount of pressure which I could bring to bear succeeded in prevailing upon G.H.Q. to release this Division. It was not until early in August, 1918, on the very eve of the opening of the great offensive, that, at long last, all the five Australian Divisions became united into one Corps, never to be again separated. From that date onwards all five Divisions embarked (for the first time in their history) upon a series of combined offensive operations, the story of which I have set myself the task of unfolding in these pages.

The Australian Army Corps had by that time evolved from a mere geographical organization into one which, over and above its component Infantry Divisions, had acquired a large number of accessory arms and services, called Corps Troops, which formed no part of a Division. It is desirable for the complete understanding of the battle plans of the offensive period, to consider the extent and nature of the whole of the fighting and maintenance resources of the Corps.

These fell theoretically into two categories, comprising on the one hand those units properly designated as "Corps Troops," which possessed a fixed and unalterable constitution, and, on the other hand, those additional units, known as "Army Troops," whose number and character fluctuated in accordance with the varying needs of the situation, and with the requirements of the various operations.

These Army Troops, whenever detailed to act under the orders of the Corps Commander, became an integral part of the Corps, and were to all intents and purposes Corps Troops, until such time as they had completed the tasks allotted to them. The Corps Troops were multifarious in character, and amounted in the aggregate to large numbers, occasionally exceeding 50,000, a number as great as that of three additional Divisions, whose normal strength in the closing phases of the war never exceeded 17,000.

The Headquarters of the Army Corps comprised upwards of 300 Staff and assistant Staff Officers, clerks, orderlies, draughtsmen, motor drivers, grooms, batmen, cooks and general helpers. The Corps Cavalry consisted, in the case of the Australian Army Corps, of the 13th Regiment of Australian Light Horse, and was employed, in conjunction with the Australian Cyclist Battalion, for reconnaissance, escort and dispatch rider duty.

The Corps Signal Troops were an extensive organization, and controlled the whole of the Signal communications throughout the Corps area (except within the Divisions themselves), being responsible for the establishment, upkeep and working of every method of communication, whether by telegraph, telephone, wireless, pigeons, messenger dogs, aeroplane, or dispatch rider. Apart from telegraphists, mechanics and electrical experts in considerable numbers, adequate for the very heavy signal traffic during battle, and even during periods of comparative quiet, Corps Signals also operated two Motor Air Line and two Cable Sections, for the laying out and maintenance of wires. Those within the Corps Area, at any one place and time, amounted to several hundreds of miles.

The whole of the Mechanical Transport, consisting of hundreds of motor lorries, for the collection and distribution of ammunition, food, forage and ordnance stores of all descriptions, was also under the direct control of Corps Headquarters. So also were some half-dozen mobile Ordnance Workshops, for the repair of weapons and vehicles of all kinds. All these were permanent Corps Troops, but represented only a fraction of those serving under the orders of the Corps Commander.

Among the Administrative Services there was a large contingent of the Labour Corps comprising some 20 Companies, for the construction and maintenance of all roads, and water supply installations, and for the handling, daily, of a formidable bulk and weight of Artillery ammunition; also two or more Motor Ambulance Convoys, for the evacuation of the sick and wounded out of the Corps area, and a number of Army Troops Companies of Engineers, as well as two Companies of Australian Tunnellers, who were usually employed upon the construction and maintenance of bridges, locks, water transport mechanism, deep dug-outs and battle stations.

But the fighting units of the Corps Troops formed by far the largest proportion, and comprised Artillery, Heavy Trench Mortars, Air Squadrons and Tanks. The Artillery alone merits more detailed consideration. It comprised a vast array of many different classes of guns for many different purposes, and classified into various categories by reference either to their calibres, their mobility or their tactical purposes.

Grouped according to calibre, all guns and howitzers of 4½-inch bore or less were strictly considered as Field Artillery which, although administered by the Divisions, was almost invariably fought under the direct orders of the Corps Commander. All guns and howitzers of greater bore, up to the giant 15-inch, were known as Heavy and Siege Artillery.

Regarded from the point of view of mobility, all field guns and that wonderfully useful weapon, the 60-pounder, were horse-drawn, the larger ordnance were tractor-drawn, and the very largest were mounted on railway trains and hauled by steam locomotive.

Finally, as regards tactical utilization, some natures of ordnance were invariably employed for barrage or harassing fire, others for bombardment, others for counter-battery fighting, and yet others for anti-aircraft purposes.

The total ordnance under the orders of the Australian Army Corps naturally fluctuated according to the daily battle requirements, but amounted at times, during the period of the war under consideration, to as many as 1,200 guns of all natures and calibres, grouped in Brigades each of four to six Batteries, each of four to six guns.

This very formidable Artillery equipment far transcended in quantity and dynamic power anything that had been envisaged in the previous years of the war, or in any previous war, as possible of administrative or tactical control under a single Commander. It undoubtedly became a paramount factor in the victories which the Corps achieved. The Artillery of the Corps is entitled to the proud boast that it earned the confidence and gratitude of the Infantry.

It must be left to the imagination to conceive the complexity of the task of keeping this enormous mass of Artillery regularly supplied with its ammunition, of multifarious types and in adequate quantities of each, of allocating to each Brigade and even to each Battery its appropriate task in the general plan, and of advancing the whole organization over half-ruined roads and broken bridges, in order to keep up with the Infantry as the battle moved forward from day to day. It would defy a detailed description intelligible to any but gunnery experts.

The Air Force had, by the summer of 1918, also achieved a great development. The numerous Air Squadrons had embarked upon a policy of specialization in tactical employment, in accordance with the build and capacities of the aeroplanes with which they were equipped. Thus gradually the whole range of utilization became covered, from the small fast single-seater fighting scout, intended to engage and drive off enemy 'planes, to the slower two-seater reconnaissance machines, employed chiefly for photography and for the direction of Artillery fire, and the giant long-distance bombing machines.

The Australian Corps had at its exclusive disposal at all times the No. 3 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps, and employed the machines for reconnaissance prior to and after battle, and for contact and counter-attack work and Artillery observation during battle. But, whenever the scope of the operations rendered it necessary, the resources of the Corps in aircraft were enormously increased, and as many as a dozen squadrons were on occasions employed, during battle, in low flying pursuit of enemy infantry and transport, in production of smoke screens, in bombing, in ammunition carrying, and in dispatch bearing—over and above usual reconnaissance work designed to keep Corps and Divisional Headquarters rapidly and minutely informed, from moment to moment, of the situation of the Infantry in actual contact with the enemy.

Another branch of the Air Force activities under the direct control of the Corps was the Captive Balloon Service. Some five large captive or kite balloons, carrying trained Artillery Observers, regularly ascended along the Corps front whenever the weather and the conditions of visibility permitted, to a height of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, and with the aid of powerful telescopes and of telephone wires woven into the anchoring cables, kept the Artillery regularly notified of all visible enemy movement, and of the occurrence of all suitable targets of opportunity, such as the flashes from enemy guns in action.

During battle one such balloon was invariably sent up well forward to observe as closely as possible the progress of the fighting, but the results were almost uniformly disappointing, because the smoke and dust of the barrage and the general murk of battle usually proved impenetrable to the air observer, tied as he was to a fixed position. The reports of these observers were usually confined to the laconic observation: "Can't see much, but all apparently going well."

The last of the major fighting units of Corps Troops remaining to be mentioned are the Tanks. These extraordinary products of the war underwent a remarkable evolution during the two years which followed their first introduction on the battlefield in the Somme campaign of 1916. The standard of efficiency which had been reached by the early summer of 1918, in the most developed types of these curious monsters, as far outclassed that of the earlier types in both mechanical and fighting properties as the modern service rifle compared with the old Brown Bess of the Peninsular War. The Tank crews had improved in like proportion, both in skill, enterprise and adaptability.

The Australian Corps Commander—with the Generals of his Staff.

The Valley of the Somme—looking East towards Bray, which was then still in enemy hands.

Nothing can be more unstinted than the acknowledgment which the Australian Corps makes of its obligation to the Tank Corps for its powerful assistance throughout the whole of the great offensive. Commencing with the battle of Hamel, a large contingent of Tanks participated in every important "set-piece" engagement which the Corps undertook. The Tanks were organized into Brigades, each of three Battalions, each of three Companies, each of twelve Tanks. During the opening phases, early in August, the Tank contingent comprised a whole Brigade of Mark V. Tanks, a Battalion of Mark V. (Star) Tanks, and a Battalion of fast Armoured Cars; in the later phases, during the assault on the Hindenburg Line, a second Brigade of Mark V. Tanks and a Battalion of Whippets also co-operated.

Such was the formidable array of fighting resources under the direct orders of the Australian Corps Commander, and, together with the five Australian Divisions, formed a fighting organization of great strength and solidarity. It became an instrument for offensive warfare, as has been said by a high authority, which for size and power excelled all Corps organizations which either this or any previous war had produced. It was an instrument which it was a great responsibility, as also a great honour, to wield in the task of shattering the still formidable military power of the enemy. For in the early summer of 1918, that power appeared to be still unimpaired, and still capable of inflicting serious reverses upon the Allied cause.

Early in 1918, owing to the depletion of human material, the Imperial Divisions were reconstituted by a reduction of their Infantry Brigades from a four-battalion to a three-battalion basis, thus reducing the available infantry by twenty-five per cent. But in this reduction, the Australian Divisions during the fighting period shared only to a very small extent. In March the strength of the 15 Brigades of Australian Infantry in the field was still 60 Battalions. The heavy fighting of March and April compelled the extinction of 3 Battalions, one each respectively in the 9th, 12th and 13th Infantry Brigades; but the remaining 57 Battalions of Infantry remained intact until after the close of the actual fighting operations early in October. The Corps was therefore enabled to maintain an additional twelve battalions over and above the then prevailing corresponding Imperial organization.

It was thus the largest of all Army Corps ever organized, in this or any other war, by any of the combatants—the largest both in point of numbers and of military resources of all descriptions, approaching, and in one case exceeding, a full Army command.

But even these great resources and responsibilities were added to, during the course of the operations, by the allocation, at successive times, to the Australian Corps of the 17th Imperial Division, the 32nd Imperial Division and the 27th and 30th American Divisions. Thus, during the closing days of September, 1918, the Corps numbered a total of nearly 200,000 men, exceeding more than fourfold the whole of the British troops under the command of the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo.

Of this total about one-half comprised Australian troops, the Heavy Artillery and other Army units attached to the Corps consisting of Imperial troops. The Commanders and Staffs from June, 1918, until the end consisted almost entirely of Australian officers, among whom the following were the senior:

All the above were Australian Officers, and most of them were of Australian birth. There were also two senior staff officers of the Regular Army, Brigadier-General R. A. Carruthers, C.B., C.M.G., who was Chief of the Administrative Services, and Brigadier-General L. D. Fraser, C.B., C.M.G., who was in immediate command of the Heavy Artillery of the Corps.[2]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A Division consists of three Infantry Brigades, Divisional Artillery, three Field Companies of Engineers, three Field Ambulances, a Pioneer Battalion, a Machine Gun Battalion, together with Supply, Sanitary and Veterinary Services. Its nominal strength is 20,000.

An Infantry Brigade consists of four Infantry Battalions, each of 1,000 men, and a Light Trench Mortar Battery.

Divisional Artillery comprises two Brigades each of four batteries, each of six guns or howitzers, also one Heavy and three medium Trench Mortar Batteries, and the Divisional Ammunition Column.

This composition of a Division was modified in detail during the course of the war.

[2] For grouping of Australian Brigades into Divisions, see Appendix "A."

CHAPTER I
BACK TO THE SOMME

The early days of the year 1918 found the Australian Corps consisting of the First, Second, Third and Fifth Australian Divisions, while the Fourth had been transferred far south to co-operate in the later developments of the Cambrai fighting. The Corps was then holding, defensively, a sector of the line in Flanders, which had in the previous years of the war become, at various times, familiar to all our Divisions, and which extended from the river Lys at Armentières, northwards, as far as to include the southern half of the Messines Ridge.

It was, indeed, that very stretch of country, which in June, 1917, had been captured by our Third Division, in co-operation with the New Zealanders. Opposite its centre lay the town of Warneton, still in the hands of the enemy. Excepting for a small area of undulating ground in the extreme north of the Corps sector, the country was a forbidding expanse of devastation, flat and woebegone, with long stretches of the front line submerged waist deep after every freshet in the river Lys, and with the greater part of our trench system like nothing but a series of canals of liquid mud.

This unsavoury region formed, however, the most obvious line of approach for an enemy who, debouching from the direction of Warneton, aimed at the high land between us and the Channel Ports; so that, tactically useless as were these mud flats, it was imperative that they should be strongly defended, in order to protect from capture the important heights of Messines, Kemmel, Hill 63, Mont des Cats and Cassel.

During the fighting of the preceding summer and early autumn, which gave the Australian troops possession of this territory, the locality was dry, practicable for movement, and reasonably comfortable for the front line troops. Now it was water-logged, often ice-bound, bleak and inhospitable. The precious months of dry weather, between August and October, 1917, had been allowed to pass without any comprehensive attempt on the part of those Divisions which had relieved the Second Anzac Corps after its capture of this ground to perfect the defences of the newly-conquered territory. At any rate, there was little to show for any work that may have been attempted.

Now, in the very depth of the worst season of the year, the demand came to prepare the region for defence and resistance to the last; for the threat of a great German offensive in the opening of the 1918 campaigning season was already beginning to take shape. It was the Australian Corps which was called upon to answer that demand. There followed week after week of heart-breaking labour, much of it necessarily by night, in draining the flat land, in erecting acre upon acre of wire entanglements, in constructing hundreds of strong points, and concrete machine gun emplacements. Trenches had to be dug, although the sides collapsed unless immediately revetted with fascines or sheet iron; roads had to be repaired, and vain attempts were made to provide the trench garrisons with dry and bearable underground living quarters.

The monotony of all this labour, which long after—when the Australians had disappeared from the scene and were again fighting on the Somme—proved to have been undertaken all in vain, was relieved only by an occasional raid, undertaken by one or other of our front line Divisions, for the purpose of molesting the enemy and gathering information. The Corps front was held by two Divisions in line, one in support, and one resting in a back area; the rotation of trench duty gave each Division about six weeks in the line.

My own command at that juncture still comprised the Third Australian Division, which I had organized and trained in England, eighteen months before. Although this Division had never been on the Somme, it had seen a great deal of fighting in Flanders during 1917. During this period, therefore, and until the outbreak of the storm in the last days of March, 1918, my interest centred chiefly in the doings of the Third Division, although for a very short period I had the honour of commanding the Corps during the temporary absence of Sir William Birdwood.

The information at our disposal led to the inevitable conclusion that, during January and February, the enemy was busy in transferring a great mass of military resources from the Russian to the Western Front. No one capable of reading the signs entertained the smallest doubt that he contemplated taking the offensive, in the spring, on a large scale. The only questions were, at what point would he strike? and what tactics would he employ?

Every responsible Australian Commander, accordingly, during those months, applied himself diligently to these problems, formulated his doctrines of obstinate defence, and of the defensive offensive; and saw to it that his troops received such precognition in these matters as was possible at such a time and in such an environment. The principles of defence in successive zones, of the rapid development of Infantry and Artillery fire power, of the correct distribution of machine guns, of rearguard tactics, and questions of the best equipment for long marches and rapid movement were debated and resolved upon, in both official and unofficial conferences of officers.

All this discussion bore good fruit. Among the possible rôles which the Australian Divisions might be called upon to fill, when the great issue was joined, were those which involved these very matters. And so the event proved; and the Australians then approached their new and unfamiliar tasks, not wholly unprepared by training and study for the difficulties involved.

It was on March 8th that the Third Division bade a last but by no means a regretful farewell to the mud of Flanders and Belgium—regions which it had inhabited almost continuously for the preceding sixteen months. The Division moved back for a well-earned rest, to a pleasant countryside at Nielles-lez-Blequin, not far from Boulogne. It was lying there, enjoying the first signs of dawning spring when, on March 21st, the curtain was rung up for a great drama, in which the Australian troops were destined to play no subordinate part.

There followed many weeks of crowded and strenuous days, and the story of this time must, of necessity, assume the form of a personal narrative. Events followed one upon the other so rapidly, and the centre of interest changed so quickly from place to place and from hour to hour, that no recital except that of the future historian writing with a wealth of collected material at his disposal, could take upon itself any other guise than that of a record of individual experience.

The Germans attacked the front of the Fifth British Army on March 21st. The information which was at the disposal of our High Command was not of such a nature that the promulgation of it would have been calculated to elevate the spirits of the Army; consequently Divisions situated as we were, in Reserve, and, for the time being, entirely out of the picture, had to depend for our news partly upon rumour, which was always unreliable, and partly upon severely censored communiqués, framed so as to allay public anxiety. Nothing definite emerged from such sources, except that things were going ill and that fighting was taking place on ground far behind what had been our front line near St. Quentin. This hint was enough to justify the expectation that my Division would not be left for long unemployed; and on the same day, March 21st, instructions were issued for all units to prepare for a move, to dump unessential baggage, to fill up all mobile supplies, and to stand by in readiness to march at a few hours' notice.

Orders came to move on March 22nd. The Division was to move east, that is, back into Flanders, and not south to the Somme Valley, as all had hoped. The prescribed move duly started, but by March 24th had been arrested, for orders had come to cancel the move and await fresh orders. Advanced parties, for billeting duty, were to proceed next morning by motor lorry to Doullens, and there await orders. Later came detailed instructions that the Division was to be transferred from the Australian Corps to the Tenth Corps, which latter was to be G.H.Q. Reserve, and that the whole Division was to be moved the next night to the Doullens[3] area, the dismounted troops by rail, and the Artillery and other mounted units by route-march.

It was evident that the plans of the High Command were the subject of rapid changes, in sympathy, probably, with fluctuations in the situation, which were not ascertainable by me. There followed a night and day of strenuous activity, during which arrangements were completed to entrain the three Infantry Brigades and the Pioneers at three different railway stations, to start off the whole of the mounted units on their long march by road, and to ensure that all fighting troops were properly equipped with munitions, food and water, all ready for immediate employment. It was well that my Staff responded capably to the heavy demands made upon them, and that all this preparatory work was efficiently done.

The entrainments commenced at midnight on the 25th and continued all night. At break of day on the 26th, after assuring myself that everyone was correctly on the move, I proceeded south by motor-car, in the endeavour to find the Tenth Corps Headquarters, and to report to them for orders. My fruitless search of that forenoon revealed to me the first glimpse of the true reason for that far-reaching disorganization and confusion which confronted me during the next twenty-four hours.

Over three years of trench warfare had accustomed the whole Army to fixed locations for all Headquarters, and to settled routes and lines of inter-communication. The powerful German onslaught and the recoil of a broad section of our fighting front had suddenly disturbed the whole of this complex organization. The Headquarters of Brigades, Divisions, and even Corps, ceased to have fixed locations where they could be found, or assured lines of telegraph or telephone communications, by which they could be reached. Everything was in a state of flux, and the process of getting into personal contact with each other suddenly took responsible leaders hours where it had previously taken minutes.

In its broad result, this disorganization affected most seriously the retiring troops, by depriving them of the advantages of rapidly disseminated orders for properly co-ordinated action by a large number of Corps and Divisions withdrawing side by side. The consequence was, I am convinced, that the recoil—which may have been inevitable at first by reason of the intensity of the German attack, and because the defensive organization of the Fifth Army had been unduly attenuated—was allowed to extend over a much greater distance, and to continue for longer, in point of time, than ought to have been the case.

Between Albert and St. Quentin there were in existence several lines of defence, which by reason of their topographical features, or the existence of trenches and entanglements, were eminently suitable for making a stand. Yet no stand was made, at any rate on a broad front, because there was no co-ordination in the spasmodic attempts to do so. I subsequently learned of more than one instance where Brigades of Infantry or of Artillery found themselves perfectly well able to hold on, but were compelled to a continued retirement by the melting away of the units on their flanks.

I sought the Tenth Corps at Hautcloque, where they were to be. They were not there. I proceeded to Frevent, where they were said to have been the night before. They had already left. In despair, I proceeded to Doullens, resolved at least to ensure the orderly detrainment of my Division and their quartering for the following night, and there to await further orders. A despatch rider was sent off to G.H.Q. to report my whereabouts, and the fact that I was without orders.

Arriving at Doullens, I tumbled into a scene of indescribable confusion. The population were preparing to evacuate the town en masse, and an exhausted and hungry soldiery was pouring into the town from the east and south-east, with excited tales that the German cavalry was on their heels. Influenced by the persistency of these reports, I determined to make, immediately, dispositions to cover the detrainment of my troops, so that some show of resistance could be made.

In the midst of all this stress and anxiety, I was favoured by a run of good luck. Within half an hour of my reaching Doullens, the first of my railway trains arrived, bringing Brigadier-General Rosenthal and a battalion of the 9th Brigade, sufficient troops, at any rate, to furnish a strong outpost line for covering the eastern approaches of Doullens, while the remainder of the Brigade should arrive. These arrangements made, I motored to Mondicourt, where almost immediately afterwards a train arrived, bringing Brigadier-General McNicoll and the first battalion of the 10th Brigade.

There also arrived, almost simultaneously, that rumour with the ridiculous dénouement, that German armoured motor-cars were approaching along the road from Albert and were within three miles of that point. Those Armoured Cars proved ultimately to be a train of French agricultural implements which a wheezy and rumbling traction engine was doing its best to salve. McNicoll likewise received orders to put out a line of outposts to cover Mondicourt railway station.

At this point, too, endless streams of dust-begrimed soldiers were straggling westwards. McNicoll collected many hundreds of them, and did not omit, by very direct methods, to prevail upon all of them who had not yet lost their rifles and essential equipment, to call a halt and join his own troops in the defensive dispositions which he was making.

My next business was to select a suitable central point at which to establish my Headquarters, preferably where I could find a still intact telephone service. Again by good luck I found a most suitable location in a small château at Couturelle, whose owner hospitably provided a much needed meal.

It was there, soon after my arrival, that I learned of the presence in the neighbourhood of Major-General Maclagan; this news, implying as it did the presence also of some at least of the Fourth Australian Division, was a gleam of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy prospect. Report said that he was at Basseux, and thither I proceeded, in order to arrange, by personal conference with him, some plan for co-ordinated action.

Basseux rests on the main road from Doullens to Arras, which lies roughly parallel to the line along which, as subsequently transpired, the vanguard of the enemy was endeavouring to advance at that part of the front. That main road I found packed, for the whole of the length which I had to traverse, with a steadily retreating collection of heterogeneous units, service vehicles and guns of all imaginable types and sizes, intermingled with hundreds of civilian refugees, and farm waggons, carts, trollies and barrows packed high with pathetic loads of household effects. The retrograde movement was orderly and methodical enough, and there was nothing in the nature of a rout, but it was nevertheless a determined movement to the rear which evidenced nothing but a desire to keep moving.

I found Maclagan at about four o'clock. His Division had already been on the move, by bus and route march, for three days without rest. The position to the east and south-east of him was obscure, and he also had posted a line of outposts in the supposed direction of the enemy, and was arranging to despatch his 4th Brigade to Hebuterne (which the enemy was reported to have entered), with orders to recapture that town. That the enemy was not very far away became evident from the fact that the vicinity of the hut in which we were conferring presently came under desultory long-range shell-fire.

There was nothing to be done except to arrange jointly to keep up an effective and as far as possible continuous line of outposts towards the south-east, and to await developments. Having made these arrangements I returned along the same crowded road, which was now also being leisurely shelled by the enemy, to Couturelle. There I found that the principal officers of my Staff had arrived.

Thereupon orders were issued for the concentration, after detrainment, of my three Brigades in the following areas, each with due outpost precautions, viz.: 9th Brigade at Pas, 10th Brigade at Authie, and 11th Brigade at Couin. My Artillery was still distant a full day's march by road.

About nine o'clock that evening I received, by telephone, my first order from the Tenth Corps. It ran as follows: "A Staff Officer has left some time ago on his way to you, carrying instructions for you to report personally at once to Corbie for orders. We have since heard that you are to go to Montigny instead."

It was nearly an hour before the Staff Officer arrived, having been delayed on the road by congestion of traffic. The instructions he carried transferred my Division from the Tenth to the Seventh Corps, to whom I was to report personally, without delay, at Corbie. It was evident from the later telephone message that the Seventh Corps had been compelled to withdraw from Corbie, and was proceeding to Montigny.

This was the second stroke of good luck that day; for if the telephone message above recited had not overtaken the Staff Officer, it is quite probable that I should have already started for a wrong destination, and have had to waste valuable time at a most critical juncture. Had I failed to find General Congreve, the Seventh Corps Commander, that same night, it is almost certain that my Division would have arrived on the Somme too late to prevent the capture of Amiens.

Setting out from Couturelle shortly after ten o'clock that night, accompanied by four of my Staff and two despatch-riders, with two motor-cars and two motor cycles, in black darkness, on unfamiliar roads congested with refugee traffic, I did not reach Montigny until after midnight. I found General Congreve in the corner of a bare salon of stately proportions, in a deserted château by the roadside, seated with his Chief of Staff at a small table, and examining a map by the flickering light of a candle. The rest of the château was in darkness, but heaps of hastily dumped Staff baggage impeded all the corridors.

General Congreve was brief and to the point. What he said amounted to this: "At four o'clock to-day my Corps was holding a line from Albert to Bray, when the line gave way. The enemy is now pushing westwards and if not stopped to-morrow will certainly secure all the heights overlooking Amiens. What you must try and do is to get your Division deployed across his path. The valleys of the Ancre and the Somme offer good points for your flanks to rest upon. You must, of course, get as far east as you can, but I know of a good line of old trenches, which I believe are still in good condition, running from Méricourt-l'Abbé towards Sailly-le-Sec. Occupy them, if you can't get further east."

At that juncture General Maclagan arrived and received similar crisp orders to bring his Division into a position of support on the high land in the bend of the Ancre to the west of Albert. I gleaned further that the Seventh Corps was now the south flank Corps of the Third Army, and that as the Fifth Army, south of the Somme, had practically melted away, while the French were retiring south-westerly and leaving an hourly increasing gap between their north flank and the Somme, General Byng had resolved to make every effort not only to maintain the flank of his Third Army on the Somme, but also to prevent it being turned from the south, while the Commander-in-Chief was taking other measures to attempt next day to fill the gap above alluded to.

It was already 1 a.m. of March 27th, and I had left my Division twenty miles away. Everything depended now on quick decision and faultless executive action. It was fortunate that a telephone line to G.H.Q. had been found in good working order, and that the services of three large motor bus convoys could be arranged for to proceed at once to the Doullens area, in order to transport my Infantry during the night to the place appointed. I worked with my Staff till nearly break of day, considering and settling all detailed arrangements, and we then separated in various directions to our appointed tasks.

I proceeded myself a little after dawn, with one Staff Officer, to Franvillers, which had been decided upon as the point for leaving the buses. There was yet no sign of any Australian troops, and the village was being hastily evacuated by the terror-stricken inhabitants. But there were ample and visible signs, far away on the high plateau beyond the Ancre Valley, that the German line of skirmishers was already on the move, slowly driving back the few troops of British Cavalry who were, most valiantly, trying to delay their advance.

The next hour was one of intense suspense and expectancy; but my anxiety was relieved when there rolled into the village from the north, a motor bus convoy of thirty vehicles, crowded with good staunch Australian Infantry of the 11th Brigade, and bringing also Brigadier-General Cannan and some of his Brigade Staff. It was not the first time in the war that the London motor-bus—after abandoning the population of the great metropolis to enforced pedestrianism—had helped to save a most critical situation.

Almost immediately after, there arrived McNicoll, with a battalion of his 10th Brigade. Hour after hour a steady stream of omnibus convoys came in. No time was lost in assembling the troops, and in directing the Infantry—company after company—down the steep, winding road to the little village of Heilly, and thence across the Ancre, to deploy on the selected line of defence indicated in the orders above recited.

The spectacle of that Infantry will be ever memorable to me, as one of the most inspiring sights of the whole war. Here was the Third Division—the "new chum" Division, which, in spite of its great successes in Belgium and Flanders, had never been able to boast, like its sister Divisions, that it had been "down on the Somme"—come into its own at last, and called upon to prove its mettle. And then there was the thought that they were going to measure themselves, man to man, against an enemy who, skulking behind his field works, had for so long pounded them to pieces in their trenches, poisoned them with gas, and bombed them as they slept in their billets.

That, at any rate, was the point of view of the private soldier, and no one who saw those battalions, in spite of the fatigue of two sleepless nights, marching on that crisp, clear spring morning, with head erect and the swing and precision of a Royal review parade, could doubt that not a man of them would flinch from any assault that was likely to fall upon them. Nor was there a man who did not fully grasp that upon him and his comrades was about to fall the whole responsibility of frustrating the German attempt to capture Amiens and separate the Allied Armies.

By midday, the situation was already well in hand, and by four o'clock I was able to report to the Seventh Corps that no less than six Battalions were already deployed, astride of the triangle formed by the Ancre and the Somme, on the line Méricourt—Sailly-le-Sec, distributed in a series of "localities" defended by rifles and Lewis guns. As yet no Artillery was available.

The 11th Brigade occupied this line to the south of the main road from Corbie to Bray, the 10th Brigade continued it to the north of the road, while the 9th Brigade was leaving the buses and assembling in the neighbourhood of Heilly.

So far, the pressure of the enemy upon my front had not been serious. It was obvious that he had, as yet, very little Artillery at his disposal. We had not, however, found our front totally devoid of defenders. During the forenoon, a few troops of our cavalry, and a force under Brigadier-General Cummings, comprising about 1,500 mixed infantry, the remnants of a large number of different units of the Third Army, were slowly withdrawing under pressure from the advancing German patrols. These valiant "die-hards," deserving of the greatest praise in comparison with the many thousands of their comrades who had withdrawn from any further attempt to stem the onflowing tide, were now ordered to retire through my outpost line, thus leaving the Australian Infantry at last face to face with the enemy.

These dispositions were completed only in the nick of time. All that afternoon the enemy appeared over the sky-line in front of us, both in lines of skirmishers and in numerous small patrols, endeavouring to work forward in the folds of the ground, and to sneak towards us in the gullies. But all of them were received with well directed rifle fire and the enemy suffered many losses. Towards nightfall the attempts to continue his advance died away.

That was, literally, the end of the great German advance in this part of the field, and although, as will be told later, the enemy renewed the attempt on several subsequent occasions to reach Amiens, he gained not a single inch of ground, but, on the contrary, was compelled in front of us to undertake a slow but steady retrograde movement.

Our reconnoitring patrols discovered, however, that the enemy already had possession of the village of Sailly-Laurette, and of Marett and Treux Woods, but that he was not yet in great strength on the crest of the plateau. Orders were issued to perfect the organization of our defensive line, put out wire entanglements, dig-in machine guns, and rest the troops in relays during the coming night, but not to attempt any forward movement until the next night.

My Artillery and other mounted units were still half a day's march away; but Brigadier-General Grimwade, their Commander, had been instructed to push on in advance, with the whole of the Commanders of his Brigades and Batteries. They arrived on the scene in sufficient time to enable the whole situation to be examined in the daylight, and for detailed action to be decided upon. The Artillery kept coming in during the whole of the following night, and although men and horses were almost exhausted after two days of forced marching, their spirits were never higher. Next morning found the guns already in action, and engaging all bodies of the enemy who dared to expose themselves to view.

I must now turn to the Fourth Australian Division. They had been less fortunate in several respects. Maclagan was directed to leave behind his 4th Brigade, which had on the 26th speedily become committed to important operations under the 62nd Division in front of Hebuterne, from which village this Brigade had driven the enemy. This left him with only two Brigades, the 12th and 13th. He was faced with the obligation of bringing his already over-tired infantry, by route march, down from the Basseux area, to the high ground west and south-west of Albert. That town had fallen and the situation there had, by the 26th, also become very critical.

This march was, however, accomplished in strict accordance with orders, and was a remarkable feat of endurance by the troops of the 12th and 13th Brigades. There can be no doubt, however, that the effort was more than justified, for the mere presence, in a position of readiness, of these two Australian Brigades, did much to steady the situation opposite Albert, by heartening the line troops and stimulating their Commanders to hang on for a little longer. It was this last effort which brought to a standstill the German advance north of the Ancre, as the entry of the Third Division had stopped that to the south of that river.

After his two Brigades had had only four hours' rest, Maclagan took over, with them, the control of the fighting front, opposite Dernancourt and Albert, which the Seventh Corps had allotted to him.

Thus, by the night of the 27th, as the result of the rapid movements which I have described and the ready response of the troops, there was already in position the nucleus of a stout defence by five Australian Brigades, stretching almost continuously from Hebuterne to the Somme, while another Australian Brigade, the 9th, remained still uncommitted.

But the situation south of the Somme gave cause for the gravest anxiety. The north flank of the French was hourly retiring in a south-westerly direction, and the ever widening gap was filled only by a scratch force of odd units supported and assisted by a few elements of the First Cavalry Division. The right flank of our Third Army, therefore, lay exposed to the danger of being turned, if the enemy should succeed in pressing his advantage as far west as Corbie, and in crossing the river at or west of that town.

It was for this reason that, after a conference with General Congreve, late in the day, I decided to deploy my 9th Brigade along the Somme from Sailly-le-Sec westward as far as Aubigny,[4]—far too extended a front for one Brigade, but at least an effort to dispute the passage by the enemy of the existing bridges and lock-gates over the Somme.

The two following days were full of toil and hard travelling in establishing touch with Divisional Headquarters to the north and south of me, in arranging for co-ordinated action with them, and in gleaning all possible information as to the situation, and as to the number and condition of other troops available in an emergency.

It was an especial pleasure for the Australian troops to find themselves fighting in these days in close association with famous British Cavalry Regiments, and that these feelings were reciprocated may be gathered from the following letter from Major-General Mullens, who commanded the First Cavalry Division, which was devoting its energies to covering the gap between the Somme and the French flank:

"My dear Monash,

"I was hoping to have come to see you, when the battle allowed, to thank you, your Artillery Commander, and your Brigadiers who were alongside of my Division, for your most valuable and encouraging support and assistance, especially on the 30th March, when we had a hard fight to keep the Bosche out of our position. I was very much struck by the courtesy of yourself and your officers in coming to see me personally, and for your own and their keen desire to do everything in their power to help. As you know, we had a curious collection of units to deal with, and it was a very real relief to know that I had your stout-hearted fellows on my left flank and that all worry was therefore eliminated as to the safety of my flanks. Your order for the placing of your heavy guns and batteries so as to cover my front was of very real assistance, and incidentally they killed a lot of Huns, and what they did was much appreciated by us all. Will you convey to all concerned my own appreciation, and that of all ranks of the 1st Cavalry Division. It was a pleasure and an honour to be fighting alongside troops who displayed such magnificent moral. I only hope we may have the chance of co-operating with you again, and under more favourable circumstances.

"Yours sincerely,
(Sgnd.) "R. L. Mullens."

On the night of March 29th I advanced my line, pivotting on my right, until my left rested on the Ancre east of Buire, an extreme advance of over 2,000 yards, meeting some opposition and taking a few prisoners. This deprived the enemy of over a mile of valuable vantage ground on the crest of the plateau along which ran the main road from Corbie to Bray.

Map A.

By that time it was apparent that the enemy's Artillery resources were hourly accumulating, and on the next afternoon he delivered a determined attack along my whole front, employing two Divisions. The attack was completely repelled, with an estimated loss to the enemy of at least 3,000 killed. My Artillery were firing over open sights and had never in their previous experience had such tempting targets.

On the previous day, however, the situation between the Somme and Villers-Bretonneux, and still further to the south, had become desperate; and much to my discomfiture I was ordered to hand over my 9th Brigade (Rosenthal) for duty with the 61st Division, in order to reinforce that dissolving sector. My importunity as to the necessity for maintaining the defence of my river flank, however, led the Seventh Corps Commander to let me have, in exchange, the 15th Brigade (Elliott), which was the first Brigade of the Fifth Australian Division to arrive from Flanders on the present scene of operations. This interchange of Brigades was completed by the 30th.

That day was further marked by a concentrated bombardment of the village of Franvillers, in which I had established my Headquarters. Although no serious loss was suffered, the responsible work of my Staff was disturbed. On reporting the occurrence to General Congreve, he insisted upon my moving my Headquarters back to St. Gratien, which move was completed the next day.

On April 4th the enemy attacked, in force, south of the Somme, and the village of Hamel was lost to us by the rout of the remnants of a very exhausted British Division which had been sent in the night before to defend it. This success gave the enemy a footing upon a portion of Hill 104, and brought him to the eastern outskirts of Villers-Bretonneux. Three months later it cost the Australian Corps a concentrated effort to compel him to surrender these advantages.

One last and final attempt to break through the Australian phalanx north of the Somme was made by the enemy on April 5th. The full weight of this blow fell chiefly upon the gallant Fourth Australian Division. The battle of Dernancourt will live long in the annals of military history as an example of dogged and successful defence. The whole day long the enemy expended Division after Division in the vain endeavour to compel two weak Australian Brigades to loosen their hold on the important high ground lying west of Albert. He well knew that the capture by him of these heights involved the inevitable withdrawal of the Third Australian Division also, and that thereby the path to Amiens would again lie open.

The great German blow against the important railway centre of Amiens had been parried, and from this time onwards interest in this sphere of operations rapidly waned. It blazed up again for a few hours only when, three weeks later, the enemy made his final attempt to reach his goal, on this occasion by way of Villers-Bretonneux. North of the Somme, his activity quickly died down, and the attitude of both combatants gradually assumed the old familiar aspect of trench warfare, with its endless digging of trenches, line behind line, its weary trench routine, and its elaborate installation of permanent lines of communication and of administrative establishments of all descriptions.

South of the Somme, the Fifth Australian Division came into the line on April 5th, relieving a Cavalry Division on a frontage of about 5,000 yards, and thereby obviating any further necessity for the maintenance of my flank river defence. This duty had been performed for me in succession by the 15th Australian, the 104th Imperial and the 13th Australian Brigades (the latter then under Glasgow). My 9th Brigade still remained detached from me, operating under both the 18th and 61st British Divisions, and performed prodigies of valorous fighting in a series of desperate local attacks and counter-attacks, which took place between Villers-Bretonneux and Hangard, where the French northern flank then lay. In this service the 9th Brigade received gallant co-operation from the 5th Australian Brigade (of the 2nd Australian Division), which was now also arriving in this area, after having been relieved from trench garrison duty in the Messines—Warneton sector in Flanders.

The Fifth Division and these two detached Brigades were, during this period, serving under the Third Corps (Butler), which had been reconstituted to fill the gap between the Somme and the flank of the French Army. The First Australian Division was already well on the way to follow the Second Division, when, on April 11th, it was hurriedly re-transferred to Flanders to assist in stemming the new German flood which was inundating the whole of that region, and which was not arrested until it had almost reached Hazebrouck. This task the First Australian Division performed most valiantly, thereby upholding the reputation already earned by its younger sister Divisions for a capacity for rapid, ordered movement and decisive intervention at a critical juncture.

For some days there had been rumours that the Australian Corps Headquarters would shortly be transferred to the Amiens area, and would once again gather under its control the numerous elements of the four Australian Divisions which were by now widely scattered, and had been fighting under the orders of three different Army Corps. There was the still more interesting and pregnant rumour that General Lord Rawlinson—relinquishing his post of British representative on the Supreme War Council at Versailles—was soon to arrive and to form and command a reconstituted Fourth British Army,[5] which was to be composed of the Australian and the Third (British) Army Corps.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] The majority of the place-names mentioned in the remainder of this chapter will be found on Maps A or J.

[4] Two miles west of Corbie.

[5] The Fourth Army had disappeared when, in 1917, General Rawlinson went to Versailles. The Fifth Army was not revived until June, 1918.

CHAPTER II
THE DEFENCE OF AMIENS

The Australian Corps Headquarters, under General Birdwood, commenced its activities at Villers-Bocage on April 7th, but soon after removed to the handsome seventeenth-century Château at Bertangles, with its pleasant grounds and spacious parks. One by one the detached Australian Brigades rejoined their Divisions, and the Divisions themselves came back under the orders of their own Corps.

The comparative calm which had supervened upon all the excitement of the closing days of March and the first weeks of April was rudely broken when, before daybreak on April 24th, the enemy began a furious bombardment of the whole region extending from opposite Albert to a point as far south as Hangard. It was certain that this demonstration was the prelude of an infantry attack in force, but it was not until well after midday that the situation clarified, and it became known that the attack had been confined to the country south of the Somme, that it had struck the southern flank of the Fifth Australian Division, which had stood firm and had thereby saved the loss of the remainder of the tactically important Hill 104. But the town of Villers-Bretonneux, lying beyond the Australian sector, had fallen and the Germans were in possession of it.

It was imperative to retrieve this situation, or at least to make an attempt to do so. The nearest available reserve Brigades of Infantry were Australian, the 13th under Glasgow, and the 15th under Elliott. They were placed under the orders of the Third Corps, and by them directed to recapture the town.

Both Brigades had to make long marches to reach the battleground. It was already dark before they had deployed on the appointed lines of departure. The details of this enthralling and wonderful night attack form too lengthy a story to find a place in this brief narrative; suffice it to say that when the sun rose on the third Anniversary of Anzac Day, it looked down upon the Australians in full possession of the whole town, and standing upon our original lines of twenty-four hours before, with nearly 1,000 German prisoners to their credit.

In this summary fashion, the last German attempt to split in two the Allied Armies failed ignominiously, and the attempt was never again renewed.

A comprehensive rearrangement of the whole Front in this much-contested region then took place. The appointment of Marshal Foch as Supreme Commander on the Western Front bore, as one of its first fruits, a clear decision as to the final point of junction between the French and the British Armies. This was fixed just south of Villers-Bretonneux, and not at the Somme Valley, as was thought desirable by some of the British Commanders.

The new Fourth Army became the flank British Army in contact with the French. The Australian Corps became the south flank of that Army. Its sector extended, from the point named, northwards as far as the Ancre. The Third Corps was transferred to the north of the Ancre, opposite Albert, and those two Corps comprised, for some time to come, the whole of the Fourth Army resources.

The Australian Corps now organized its front with three Divisions in line and one in reserve. My occupation, with the Third Australian Division, of the original sector between the Ancre and the Somme remained undisturbed, and my front line remained for a time stationary on the alignment gained on March 29th.

But the Third Division had had enough of stationary warfare, and the troops were athirst for adventure. They were tired of raids, which meant a mere incursion into enemy territory, and a subsequent withdrawal, after doing as much damage as possible.

Accordingly, I resolved to embark upon a series of minor battles, designed not merely to capture prisoners and machine guns, but also to hold on to the ground gained. This would invite counter-attacks which I knew could only enhance the balance in our favour, and would seriously disorganize the enemy's whole defensive system, while wearing out his nerves and lowering the moral of his troops.

Four such miniature battles[6] were fought in rapid succession, on April 30th and May 3rd, 6th and 7th, by the 9th and 10th Brigades, who were then in line. These yielded most satisfactory results. Not only did we capture several hundred prisoners and numerous machine guns, but also advanced our whole line an average total distance of a mile. This deprived the enemy of valuable observation, and forced back his whole Artillery organization.

But these combats, and the numerous offensive patrol operations, which were also nightly undertaken along my whole front, did a great deal more. They yielded a constant stream of prisoners, who at this stage of the war had become sufficiently demoralized by their disappointments to talk freely, and impart a mass of valuable information as to movements and conditions behind the German lines.

The following list of 41 separate identifications, covering a total of over 300 prisoners, represents the fruits of these efforts during the period from March 27th to May 11th. From these it will be seen that during these six weeks I had been confronted by no less than six different German Divisions:

While I was thus exerting a steady pressure on the enemy and gaining ground easterly, the Australian Corps line south of the Somme remained stationary, and each successive advance north of the river served only to accentuate the deep re-entrant which had been formed on the day when the loss of Hamel forced the British front line back along the Somme as far as Vaire-sous-Corbie.

While this was not very serious from the point of view of observation, because I was in possession of much the higher ground, and was able to look down, almost as upon a map, on to the enemy in the Hamel basin, yet I was beginning to feel very seriously the inconvenience of having, square on to my flank, such excellent concealed Artillery positions as Vaire and Hamel Woods, which the enemy did not long delay in occupying.

Moreover, the whole of the slopes of the valley on my side of the river remained useless to me, because they were exposed to the full view of the enemy, so long as he was permitted to occupy the Hamel salient, which he had on April 5th driven into the very middle of what was now the Corps front. I therefore made more than one attempt to persuade the then Corps Commander to undertake an operation for the elimination in whole or in part of this inconvenient bend, but, for reasons doubtless satisfactory at that time, he declined to accept the suggestion. It fell to my lot myself to carry out this operation nearly two months later.

The Third Division was, however, relieved in the line by our Second Division on May 11th, and was withdrawn for a short but well-earned rest after six weeks of trench duty, following its first fateful rush into the thick of the battle.

It was on May 12th that I received the first intimation from General Sir William Birdwood that he was to be appointed to the command of a new Fifth Army, which the British War Council had decided to form, and that, upon his taking up these new duties, the task of leading the Australian Army Corps would devolve upon me.

In consequence of this and other changes, it was shortly afterwards decided, in consultation, that Glasgow should take over the command of the First Division, then still fighting at Hazebrouck, that Rosenthal should command the Second Division, and that Gellibrand should succeed me at the head of the Third Division.

Far, therefore, from being permitted a little respite from the strenuous labours of the preceding six weeks, I found myself confronted with responsibilities which, in point of numbers alone, exceeded sixfold those which I had previously had to bear, but which, in point of difficulty, involved an even higher ratio.

There were numerous Arms and Services, under the Corps, with whose detailed functions and methods of operation I had not been previously concerned. The other Divisional Commanders had hitherto been my colleagues, and I was now called upon to consider their personalities and temperaments as my subordinates. There was a vastly increased territory for whose administration and defence I would become responsible. I had to be prepared to enter an atmosphere of policy higher and larger than that which surrounded me as the Commander of a Division. And finally there was the selection of my new Staff.

German Prisoners—taken by the Corps at Hamel, being marched to the rear.

Visit of Monsieur Clemenceau—group taken at Bussy on July 7th, 1918.

My last executive work with the Third Division was the process of putting this Division back into the line, this time in the Villers-Bretonneux sector of our front. After handing over the Division and all its outstanding current affairs to Major-General Gellibrand, I assumed command of the Australian Army Corps on May 30th, with Brigadier-General Blamey as my Chief-of-Staff.[7]

I very soon became aware that, as Corps Commander, I was privileged to have access to a very large body of interesting secret information, which was methodically distributed daily by G.H.Q. Intelligence. This comprised detailed information of the true facts of all happenings on the fronts of all the Allies, the gist of the reports of our Secret Service, and very full particulars from which the nature and distribution of the enemy's military resources could be deduced with fair accuracy.

The numberings and locations of all his Corps and Divisions actually in the front line, on all the Allied fronts, was, of course, quite definitely known from day to day. The numberings of all Formations lying in Reserve were known with equal certainty, although their actual positions on any date were largely a matter of deduction by expert investigators. Of particular importance were the further deductions which could be drawn as to the condition of readiness or exhaustion of such reserve Divisions, from known facts as to their successive appearance and experiences on any active battle front.

Our experts were thus able to classify the enemy Divisions, and to determine from day to day the probable number, and even the probable numberings, of fit Divisions actually available (after one, or after two, or after three days) to reinforce any portion of the front which was to be the object of an attack by us. They could also compute the number of fit Divisions which the enemy had at his disposal at any time for launching an offensive against us.

All such data had a very direct bearing, not only on the probable course of the campaign in the immediate future, but also upon the responsibility which always weighed upon a Corps Commander of keeping his own sector in preparedness to meet an attack or to prevent such an attack from coming upon him as a surprise. He must therefore be alert to watch the signs and astute to read them aright.

One striking feature of the information at our disposal during the early part of June was the steady melting away of the enemy reserves as the consequence of his resultless, even if locally successful, assaults during the preceding two and a half months, against Amiens, in Flanders, and on the Chemin des Dames. But it was apparent that he still held formidable Reserves of Infantry, and a practically intact Artillery, which he was bound to employ for at least one great and final effort to gain a decision.

The junction of the French and British Armies still offered a tempting point of weakness. As mine was now the flank British Corps, in immediate contact with General Toulorge's 31st French Corps, I could not afford to relax any of the precautions of vigilance or preparation which had been initiated by my predecessor for meeting such an attack. Consequently, during June, 1918, I ordered on the part of all my line Divisions a maintenance of their energetic efforts to perfect the defensive organizations. I also undertook out of other Corps labour resources the development of further substantial rear systems of defence, so that Amiens need not, in the event of a renewed attack, be abandoned to its fate without a prolonged struggle.

The First Australian Division was not yet a part of my new Command, its continued presence in the Hazebrouck and Merris area, under the Fifteenth Corps, being still considered indispensable. My Corps front now extended over a total length of ten miles, and I had but four Divisions at my disposal to defend it. Three Divisions held the line, one to the north and two to the south of the Somme. Only one Division at a time could therefore be permitted a short rest, and this Division formed my only tactical reserve.

All this added to the anxieties of the situation, and focussed the energies of the whole command on a constant scrutiny of all signs and symptoms that the enemy might be preparing to deliver his next blow against us. Active patrolling was maintained and continued to yield a steady stream of prisoners. A well conceived and planned minor enterprise by the Second Division, which was carried out on June 10th, and was Rosenthal's first Divisional operation, gave us possession of a further slice of the important ridge between Sailly-Laurette and Morlancourt. It gained us 330 prisoners and 33 machine guns. But no sign of any preparations on the part of the enemy for an attack upon us, in this zone, emerged from the careful investigations which followed this operation.

The days passed and evidences increased that the enemy was now beginning to devote his further attentions to the French front far to the south of us. At any rate, he continued to leave us unmolested, and the interrogations of our numerous prisoners all confirmed the absence of any preparations for an attack.

The defensive attitude which the situation thus forced upon us did not for long suit the present temper of the Australian troops, and I sought for a promising enterprise on which again to test their offensive power, on a scale larger than we had yet attempted in the year's campaign. There had been no Allied offensive, of any appreciable size, on any of our fronts, in any of the many theatres of war, since the close of the Passchendaele fighting in the autumn of 1917.

It was high time that the anxiety and nervousness of the public, at the sinister encroachments of the enemy upon regions which he had never previously trodden, should be allayed by a demonstration that there was still some kick left in the British Army. It was high time, too, that some Commanders on our side of No Man's Land should begin to "think offensively," and cease to look over their shoulders in order to estimate how far it still was to the coast.

I was ambitious that any such kick should be administered, first, at any rate, by the Australians. A visit which I was privileged to pay to General Elles, Commander of the Tank Corps, when he gave me a demonstration of the capacities of the newer types of Tanks, only confirmed me in this ambition. Finally, the Hamel re-entrant had for two months been, as I have already explained, a source of annoyance and anxiety to me. It was for these reasons that I resolved to propose an operation for the recapture of Hamel, conditional upon being supplied with the assistance of Tanks, a small increase of my Artillery and an addition to my air resources.

I thereupon set about preparing a general plan for such a battle, which was to be my first Corps operation. Having mentioned the matter first verbally to Lord Rawlinson, he requested me to submit a concrete proposal in writing. The communication is here reproduced, and will serve to convey an idea of the complexities involved in even so relatively small an undertaking:

Australian Corps.
21st June, 1918.

Fourth Army.

HAMEL OFFENSIVE

1. With reference to my proposal for an offensive operation on the front of the "A" and "B" Divisions of this Corps, with a view to the capture of Hamel Village and Vaire and Hamel Wood, etc., the accompanying map shows, in blue, the proposed ultimate objective line. This line has been chosen as representing the minimum operation that would appear to be worth undertaking, while offering a prospect of substantial advantages.

2. These advantages may be briefly summarized thus:

(a) Straightening of our line.

(b) Shortening of our line.

(c) Deepening our forward defensive zone, particularly east of Hill 104.

(d) Improvement of jumping-off position for future operations.

(e) Advancement of our artillery, south of the Somme.

(f) Denial to enemy of observation of ground near Vaux-sur-Somme, valuable for battery positions.

(g) Facilitating subsequent further minor advances north of the Somme.

(h) Disorganization of enemy defences.

(i) Disorganization of possible enemy offensive preparations.

(j) Inflicting losses on enemy personnel and material.

(k) Improvement of our observation.

(l) Maintenance of our initiative on this Corps front.

3. The disadvantages are those arising from the necessity of bringing into rapid existence a new defensive system on a frontage of 7,000 yards and also the particular incidence, at the present juncture, of the inevitable losses, small or large, of such an operation in this Corps.

4. In view of the unsatisfactory position of Australian reinforcements, any substantial losses would precipitate the time when the question of the reduction in the number of Australian Divisions would have to be seriously considered. It is for higher authority to decide whether a portion of the present resources in Australian man-power in this Corps would be more profitably ventured upon such an operation as this, which is in itself a very attractive proposition, rather than to conserve such resources for employment elsewhere.

5. Detailed plans can only be prepared after I have had conferences with representatives of all Arms and Services involved, but the following proposals are submitted as the basis of further elaboration:

(a) The operation will be primarily a Tank operation—at least one and preferably two Battalions of Tanks to be employed.

(b) The whole battle front will be placed temporarily under command of one Divisional Commander—by a temporary readjustment of inter-Divisional boundaries.

(c) The infantry employed will comprise one Division plus a Brigade, i.e., 4 Infantry Brigades, totalling, say, 7,500 bayonets; about one-half of this force to be employed in the advance and the other half to hold our present front defensively, taking over the captured territory within 48 hours after Zero.[8]

(d) The action will be designed on lines to permit of the Tanks effecting the capture of the ground; the rôles of the Infantry following the Tanks will be:

(i) to assist in reducing strong points and localities.

(ii) to "mop up."

(iii) to consolidate the ground captured.

(e) Apart from neutralizing all enemy artillery likely to engage our troops, our artillery will be employed to keep under fire enemy centres of resistance and selected targets—in front of the advance of the Tanks. Artillery detailed for close targets will work on a prearranged and detailed time-table which will be adjusted to the time-table of the Tank and Infantry advance. Sufficient "silent" field artillery supplied before the battle should be emplaced in advanced positions, to ensure an effective protective barrage to cover consolidation on the blue line,[9] and to engage all localities from which enemy counter-attacks can be launched. It is estimated that, in addition to the resources of the Corps, four Field Artillery Brigades will be required for, say, four days in all.

(f) Engineer stores in sufficient quantities to provide for the complete organization of the new defences will require to be dumped beforehand as far forward as practicable.

(g) No additional machine guns, outside of Corps resources, will be required,

(h) Contact and counter-attack planes and low-flying bombing planes prior to and during advance must be arranged for.

(i) Artillery and mortar smoke to screen the operations from view of all ground north of the Somme in the Sailly-Laurette locality are required.

6. As to the date of the operations, the necessary preparations will occupy at least seven days after authority to proceed has been given. As an inter-Divisional relief is planned to occur on June 28th-29th and 29th-30th, it would seem that this operation cannot take place earlier than the first week in July. The postponement of this relief would not be desirable for several reasons.

7. Valuable training in the joint action of Tanks and Infantry can be arranged, probably in the territory west of the Hallue Valley—provided that one or two Tank Companies can be detached for such a purpose. Thorough liaison prior to and during the operation between all Tank and all Infantry Commanders would have to be a special feature. For this reason only Infantry units not in the line can be considered as available to undergo the necessary preparation.

(Sgd.) John Monash,
Lieut.-General.
Cmdg. Australian Corps.

(a) Straightening of our line.

(b) Shortening of our line.

(c) Deepening our forward defensive zone, particularly east of Hill 104.

(d) Improvement of jumping-off position for future operations.

(e) Advancement of our artillery, south of the Somme.

(f) Denial to enemy of observation of ground near Vaux-sur-Somme, valuable for battery positions.

(g) Facilitating subsequent further minor advances north of the Somme.

(h) Disorganization of enemy defences.

(i) Disorganization of possible enemy offensive preparations.

(j) Inflicting losses on enemy personnel and material.

(k) Improvement of our observation.

(l) Maintenance of our initiative on this Corps front.

(a) The operation will be primarily a Tank operation—at least one and preferably two Battalions of Tanks to be employed.

(b) The whole battle front will be placed temporarily under command of one Divisional Commander—by a temporary readjustment of inter-Divisional boundaries.

(c) The infantry employed will comprise one Division plus a Brigade, i.e., 4 Infantry Brigades, totalling, say, 7,500 bayonets; about one-half of this force to be employed in the advance and the other half to hold our present front defensively, taking over the captured territory within 48 hours after Zero.[8]

(d) The action will be designed on lines to permit of the Tanks effecting the capture of the ground; the rôles of the Infantry following the Tanks will be:

(i) to assist in reducing strong points and localities.

(ii) to "mop up."

(iii) to consolidate the ground captured.

(e) Apart from neutralizing all enemy artillery likely to engage our troops, our artillery will be employed to keep under fire enemy centres of resistance and selected targets—in front of the advance of the Tanks. Artillery detailed for close targets will work on a prearranged and detailed time-table which will be adjusted to the time-table of the Tank and Infantry advance. Sufficient "silent" field artillery supplied before the battle should be emplaced in advanced positions, to ensure an effective protective barrage to cover consolidation on the blue line,[9] and to engage all localities from which enemy counter-attacks can be launched. It is estimated that, in addition to the resources of the Corps, four Field Artillery Brigades will be required for, say, four days in all.

(f) Engineer stores in sufficient quantities to provide for the complete organization of the new defences will require to be dumped beforehand as far forward as practicable.

(g) No additional machine guns, outside of Corps resources, will be required,

(h) Contact and counter-attack planes and low-flying bombing planes prior to and during advance must be arranged for.

(i) Artillery and mortar smoke to screen the operations from view of all ground north of the Somme in the Sailly-Laurette locality are required.

(i) to assist in reducing strong points and localities.

(ii) to "mop up."

(iii) to consolidate the ground captured.

Approval to these proposals was given without delay; the additional resources were promised, and preparations for the battle were immediately put in hand. As I hope, in a later context, to attempt to describe the evolution of a battle plan, and the comprehensive measures which are associated with such an enterprise, it will not be necessary to do so here.

It was the straightening of the Corps front, as an essential preliminary to any offensive operations on a still larger scale, to be undertaken when the opportune moment should arrive, that made the Hamel proposal tactically attractive; it was the availability of an improved type of Tank that gave it promise of success, without pledging important resources, or risking serious losses.

The new Mark V. Tank had not previously been employed in battle. It marked a great advance upon the earlier types. The epicyclic gearing with which it was now furnished, the greater power of its engines, the improved balance of its whole design gave it increased mobility, facility in turning and immunity from foundering in ground even of the most broken and uneven character. It could be driven and steered by one man, where it previously took four; and it rarely suffered suspended animation from engine trouble.

But, above all, the men of the Tank Corps had, by the training which they had undergone, and by the spirited leadership of Generals Elles, Courage, Hankey and other Tank Commanders, achieved a higher standard of skill, enterprise and moral; they were now, more than ever, on their mettle to uphold the prestige of the Tank Corps.

All the same, the Tanks had become anathema to the Australian troops. For, at Bullecourt more than a year before, they had failed badly, and had "let down" the gallant Infantry, who suffered heavily in consequence; a failure due partly to the mechanical defects of the Tanks of those days, partly to the inexperience of the crews, and partly to indifferent staff arrangements, in the co-ordination of the combined action of the Infantry and the Tanks.

It was not an easy problem to restore to the Australian soldier his lost confidence, or to teach him the sympathetic dependence upon the due performance by the Tanks of the rôles to be allotted to them, which was essential to a complete utilization of the possibilities which were now opening up. That the Tanks, appropriately utilized, were destined to exert a paramount influence upon the course of the war, was apparent to those who could envisage the future.

This problem was intensified because the battalions of the Fourth Division who were to carry out the Infantry tasks at Hamel were the very units who had undergone that unfortunate experience at Bullecourt. But, on the principle of restoring the nerves of the unseated rider by remounting him to continue the hunt, it was especially important to wean the Fourth Division from their prejudices.

Battalion after battalion of the 4th, 6th and 11th Brigades of Infantry was brought by bus to Vaux, a little village tucked away in a quiet valley, north-west of Amiens, there to spend the day at play with the Tanks. The Tanks kept open house, and, in the intervals of more formal rehearsals of tactical schemes of attack, the Infantry were taken over the field for "joy rides," were allowed to clamber all over the monsters, inside and out, and even to help to drive them and put them through their paces. Platoon and Company leaders met dozens of Tank officers face to face, and they argued each other to a standstill upon every aspect that arose.

Set-piece manœuvre exercises on the scale of a battalion were designed and rehearsed over and over again; red flags marked enemy machine-gun posts; real wire entanglements were laid out to show how easily the Tanks could mow them down; real trenches were dug for the Tanks to leap and straddle and search with fire; real rifle grenades were fired by the Infantry to indicate to the Tanks the enemy strong points which were molesting and impeding their advance. The Tanks would throw themselves upon these places, and, pirouetting round and round, would blot them out, much as a man's heel would crush a scorpion.

It was invaluable as mere training for battle, but the effect upon the spirits of the men was remarkable. The fame of the Tanks, and all the wonderful things they could do, spread rapidly throughout the Corps. The "digger" took the Tank to his heart, and ever after, each Tank was given a pet name by the Company of Infantry which it served in battle, a name which was kept chalked on its iron sides, together with a panegyric commentary upon its prowess.

There remained, however, much to be arranged, and many difficult questions to be settled, as regards the tactical employment of the Tanks. I can never be sufficiently grateful to Brigadier-General Courage, of the 5th Tank Brigade, for his diligent assistance, and for his loyal acceptance of the onerous conditions which the tactical methods that I finally decided upon imposed upon the Tanks.

These methods involved two entirely new principles. Firstly, each Tank was, for tactical purposes, to be treated as an Infantry weapon; from the moment that it entered the battle until the objective had been gained it was to be under the exclusive orders of the Infantry Commander to whom it had been assigned.

Secondly, the deployed line of Tanks was to advance, level with the Infantry, and pressing close up to the barrage. This, of course, subjected the Tanks, which towered high above the heads of the neighbouring infantry, to the danger of being struck by any of our own shells which happened to fall a little short. Tank experts, consulted beforehand, considered therefore that it was not practicable for Tanks to follow close behind an artillery barrage. The battle of Hamel proved that it was.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] See Map A.

[7] A farewell order to the Third Division was issued in the following terms:

"As I am about to take up other duties the time has come when I must relinquish the command of the Division.

"Closely associated with you as I have been, since the days of your first assembly and War Training in England, and, later, throughout all your magnificent work during the past nineteen months in the war zone, it is naturally a severe wrench for me to part from you.

"I find it quite impossible to give adequate expression to my feelings of gratitude towards all ranks for the splendid and loyal support which you have, at all times, accorded to me. I am deeply indebted to my Staff, to all Commanders and to the officers and troops of all Arms and Services for a whole-hearted co-operation upon which, more than upon any other factor, the success of the Division has depended.

"It is my earnest hope, and also my sincere conviction, that the fine spirit and the high efficiency of the Division will be maintained under the leadership of my successor, Brigadier-General Gellibrand; and if the men of the Division feel, as I trust they do, an obligation to perpetuate for my sake the traditions built up by them during the period of my command, they can do so in no better way than by rendering to him a service as thorough and a support as loyal as I have been privileged to enjoy at their hands.

"In formally wishing the Division good-bye and good luck, I wish simply, but none the less sincerely, to thank each and all of you, for all that you have done.

"(Signed) John Monash,
Major-General."

[8] "Zero" refers to the day and hour, not yet determined, on which the battle is to begin.

[9] "Blue Line," arbitrarily so called, because this line was drawn on the accompanying map in blue. It was to be the final objective for the day.

CHAPTER III
HAMEL

The larger questions relating to the employment of the Tanks at the battle of Hamel having been disposed of, the remaining arrangements for the battle presented few novel aspects. Their manner of execution, however, brought into prominence some features which became fundamental doctrines in the Australian Corps then and thereafter.

Although complete written orders were invariably prepared and issued by a General Staff whose skill and industry left nothing to be desired, very great importance was attached to the holding of conferences, at which were assembled every one of the Senior Commanders and heads of Departments concerned in the impending operation. At these I personally explained every detail of the plan, and assured myself that all present applied an identical interpretation to all orders that had been issued.

Questions were invited; difficulties were cleared up; and the conflicting views of the different services on matters of technical detail were ventilated. The points brought to an issue were invariably decided on the spot. The battle plan having been thus crystallized, no subsequent alterations were permissible, under any circumstances, no matter how tempting. This fixity of plan engendered a confidence throughout the whole command which facilitated the work of every Commander and Staff Officer. It obviated the vicious habit of postponing action until the last possible moment, lest counter orders should necessitate some alternative action. It was a powerful factor in the gaining of time, usually all too short for the extensive preparations necessary.

The final Corps Conference for the battle of Hamel was held at Bertangles on June 30th, and the date of the battle itself was fixed for July 4th. This selection was prompted partly by the desire to allow ample time for the completion of all arrangements; but there were also sentimental grounds, because this was the anniversary of the American national holiday, and a considerable contingent of the United States Army was to co-operate in the fight.

For some weeks previously the 33rd American Division, under Major-General John Bell, had been training in the Fourth Army area, and its several regiments had been distributed, for training and trench experience, to the Australian and the III. Corps. I had applied to the Fourth Army and had received approval to employ in the battle a contingent equivalent in strength to two British battalions, or a total of about 2,000 men, organized in eight companies. The very proper condition was attached, however, that these Americans should not be split up and scattered individually among the Australians, but should fight at least as complete platoons, under their own platoon leaders.

All went well until three days before the appointed date, when General Rawlinson conveyed to me the instruction that, the matter having been reconsidered, only 1,000 Americans were to be used. Strongly averse, as I was, from embarrassing the Infantry plans of General Maclagan, to whom I had entrusted the conduct of the actual assault, it was not then too late to rearrange the distribution.

The four companies of United States troops who, under this decision, had to be withdrawn were loud in their lamentations, but the remaining four companies were distributed by platoons among the troops of the three Australian Brigades who were to carry out the attack—each American platoon being assigned a definite place in the line of battle. The dispositions of the main body of Australian infantry were based upon this arrangement.

In the meantime, somewhere in the upper realms of high control, a discussion must have been going on as to the propriety of after all allowing any American troops at all to participate in the forthcoming operations. Whether the objections were founded upon policy, or upon an under-estimate of the fitness of these troops for offensive fighting, I have never been able to ascertain; but, to my consternation, I received about four o'clock on the afternoon of July 3rd, a telephone message from Lord Rawlinson to the effect that it had now been decided that no American troops were to be used the next day.

I was, at the moment, while on my daily round of visits to Divisions and Brigades, at the Headquarters of the Third Division, at Glisy, and far from my own station. I could only request that the Army Commander might be so good as to come at once to the forward area and meet me at Bussy-les-Daours, the Headquarters of Maclagan—he being the Commander immediately affected by this proposed change of plan. In due course we all met at five o'clock, Rawlinson being accompanied by Montgomery, his Chief-of-Staff.

It was a meeting full of tense situations—and of grave import. At that moment of time, the whole of the Infantry destined for the assault at dawn next morning, including those very Americans, was already well on its way to its battle stations; the Artillery was in the act of dissolving its defensive organization with a view to moving forward into its battle emplacements as soon as dusk should fall; I well knew that even if orders could still with certainty reach the battalions concerned, the withdrawal of those Americans would result in untold confusion and in dangerous gaps in our line of battle.

Even had I been ready to risk the success of the battle by going ahead without them, I could not afford to take the further risk of the occurrence of something in the nature of an "international incident" between the troops concerned, whose respective points of view about the resulting situation could be readily surmised. So I resolved to take a firm stand and press my views as strongly as I dared; for even a Corps Commander must use circumspection when presuming to argue with an Army Commander.

However, disguised in the best diplomatic language that I was able to command, my representations amounted to this: firstly, that it was already too late to carry out the order; secondly, that the battle would have to go on either with the Americans participating, or not at all; thirdly, that unless I were expressly ordered to abandon the battle, I intended to go on as originally planned; and lastly, that unless I received such a cancellation order before 6.30 p.m. it would in any case be too late to stop the battle, the preliminary phases of which were just on the point of beginning.

As always, Lord Rawlinson's charming and sympathetic personality made it easy to lay my whole case before him. He was good enough to say that while he entirely agreed with me, he felt himself bound by the terms of a clear order from the Commander-in-Chief. My last resource, then, was to urge the argument that I felt perfectly sure that the Commander-in-Chief when giving such an order could not have had present to his mind the probability that compliance with it meant the abandonment of the battle, and that, under the circumstances, it was competent for the senior Commander on the spot to act in the light of the situation as known to him, even to the extent of disobeying an order.

Rawlinson agreed that this view was correct provided the Commander-in-Chief was not accessible for reference. Repeated attempts to raise General Headquarters from Bussy eventually elicited the information that the Field Marshal was then actually on his way from Versailles, and expected to arrive in half an hour. Thereupon Rawlinson promised a decision by 6.30, and we separated to rejoin our respective Headquarters.

In due course, the Army Commander telephoned that he had succeeded in speaking to the Field Marshal, who explained that he had directed the withdrawal of the Americans in deference to the wish of General Pershing, but that, as matters stood, he now wished everything to go on as originally planned. And so—the crisis passed as suddenly as it had appeared. For, to me it had taken the form of a very serious crisis, feeling confident as I did of the success of the forthcoming battle, and of the far-reaching consequences which would be certain to follow. It appeared to me at the time that great issues had hung for an hour or so upon the chance of my being able to carry my point.

An interesting episode, intimately bound up with the story of this battle, was the visit to the Corps area on July 2nd of the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, Mr. W. M. Hughes, and Sir Joseph Cook, the Minister of the Navy. They arrived all unconscious of the impending enterprise, but only by taking them fully into my confidence could I justify my evident preoccupation with other business of first-class importance. Most readily, however, did they accommodate themselves to the exigencies of the situation.

Both Ministers accompanied me that afternoon on a tour of inspection of the eight battalions who were then already parading in full battle array, and on the point of moving off to the assembly positions from which next day they would march into battle. The stirring addresses delivered to the men by both Ministers did much to hearten and stimulate them. As they were on their way to an Inter-Allied War Council at Versailles, the personal contact of the Ministers with the actual battle preparations had the subsequent result of focussing upon the outcome of the battle a good deal of interest on the part of the whole War Council.

The fixing of the exact moment for the opening of a battle has always been the subject of much controversy. As in many other matters, it becomes in the end the responsibility of one man to make the fatal decision. The Australians always favoured the break of day, as this gave them the protection of the hours of darkness for the assembly of the assaulting troops in battle order in our front trenches. But there must be at least sufficient light to see one's way for two hundred yards or so, otherwise direction is lost and confusion ensues.

The season of the year, the presence and altitude of the moon, the prospect of fog or ground mist, the state of the weather, and the nature and condition of the ground are all factors which affect the proper choice of the correct moment. To aid a decision, careful observations were usually made on three or four mornings preceding the chosen day. A new factor on this occasion was the strong appeal by the Tanks for an extra five minutes of dawning light, to ensure a true line of approach upon the allotted objective, whether a ruined village, or a thicket, or a field work.

The decision actually given by me was that "Zero" would be ten minutes past three, and every watch had been carefully synchronized to the second, to ensure simultaneous action. A perfected modern battle plan is like nothing so much as a score for an orchestral composition, where the various arms and units are the instruments, and the tasks they perform are their respective musical phrases. Every individual unit must make its entry precisely at the proper moment, and play its phrase in the general harmony. The whole programme is controlled by an exact time-table, to which every infantryman, every heavy or light gun, every mortar and machine gun, every tank and aeroplane must respond with punctuality; otherwise there will be discords which will impair the success of the operation, and increase the cost of it.

The morning of July 4th was ushered in with a heavy ground mist. This impeded observation and made guidance difficult, but it greatly enhanced the surprise. The unexpected occurrence of this fog lessened the importance of the elaborate care which had been taken to introduce into the Artillery barrage a due percentage of smoke shell, and to form smoke screens by the use of mortars on the flanks of the attack. But the fog largely accounted for the cheap price at which the victory was bought.

No battle within my previous experience, not even Messines, passed off so smoothly, so exactly to time-table, or was so free from any kind of hitch. It was all over in ninety-three minutes. It was the perfection of team work. It attained all its objectives; and it yielded great results. The actual assault was delivered, from right to left, by two battalions of the 6th Brigade, three battalions of the 4th Brigade, and three battalions of the 11th Brigade. It was also part of the plan that advantage was taken by a battalion of the 15th Brigade to snatch from the enemy another slice of territory far away in the Ancre Valley, opposite Dernancourt, and so, by extending the battle front, further to distract him.

The attack was a complete surprise, and swept without check across the whole of the doomed territory. Vaire and Hamel Woods fell to the 4th Brigade, while the 11th Brigade, with its allotted Tanks, speedily mastered Hamel Village itself. The selected objective line was reached in the times prescribed for its various parts, and was speedily consolidated. It gave us possession of the whole of the Hamel Valley, and landed us on the forward or eastern slope of the last ridge, from which the enemy had been able to overlook any of the country held by us.

Still more important results were that we gathered in no less than 1,500 prisoners, and killed and disabled at least as many more, besides taking a great deal of booty, including two field guns, 26 mortars and 171 machine guns—at a cost to us of less than 800 casualties of all kinds, the great majority of whom were walking wounded. The Tanks fulfilled every expectation, and the suitability of the tactics employed was fully demonstrated. Of the 60 Tanks utilized, only 3 were disabled, and even these 3 were taken back to their rallying points under their own power the very next night. Their moral effect was also proved, and, with the exception of a few enemy machine-gun teams, who bravely stood their ground to the very last, most of the enemy encountered by the Tanks readily surrendered.

Shortly after the battle, G.H.Q. paid the Australian Corps the compliment of publishing to the whole British Army a General Staff brochure,[10] containing the complete text of the orders, and a full and detailed description of the whole of the battle plans and preparations, with an official commentary upon them. The last paragraph of this document, which follows, expresses tersely the conclusions reached by our High Command:

"81. The success of the attack was due:

(a) To the care and skill as regards every detail with which the plan was drawn up by the Corps, Division, Brigade and Battalion Staffs.

(b) The excellent co-operation between the infantry, machine gunners, artillery, tanks and R.A.F.

(c) The complete surprise of the enemy, resulting from the manner in which the operation had been kept secret up till zero hour.

(d) The precautions which were taken and successfully carried out by which no warning was given to the enemy by any previous activity which was not normal.

(e) The effective counter-battery work and accurate barrage.

(f) The skill and dash with which the tanks were handled, and the care taken over details in bringing them up to the starting line.

(g) Last, but most important of all, the skill, determination and fine fighting spirit of the infantry carrying out the attack."

Of the extent to which the tactical principles, and the methods of preparation which had been employed at Hamel, came to be utilized by other Corps in the later fighting of 1918 no reliable record is yet available to me. But within the Corps itself this comparatively small operation became the model for all enterprises of a similar character, which it afterwards fell to the lot of the Corps to carry out.

The operation was a small one, however, only by contrast with the events which followed, although not in comparison with some of the major operations which had preceded it—by reference to the number of troops engaged, although not to the extent of territory or booty captured. Although only eight Battalions (or the equivalent of less than one Division) were committed in the actual assault, the territory recovered was more than four times that which was, in the pitched battles of 1917, customarily allotted as an objective to a single Division. The number of prisoners in relation to our own casualties was also far higher than had been the experience of previous years. Both of these new standards which had thus been set up may be regarded as flowing directly from the employment of the Tanks.

Among other aspects of this battle which are worthy of mention is the fact that it was the first occasion in the war that the American troops fought in an offensive battle. The contingent of them who joined us acquitted themselves most gallantly and were ever after received by the Australians as blood brothers—a fraternity which operated to great mutual advantage nearly three months later.

This was the first occasion, also, on which the experiment was made of using aeroplanes for the purpose of carrying and delivering small-arms ammunition. The "consolidation" of a newly-captured territory implies, in its broadest sense, its organization for defence against recapture. For such a purpose the most rapidly realizable expedient had been found to be the placing of a predetermined number of machine guns in previously chosen positions, arranged chequer-wise over the captured ground. According to such a plan, suitable localities were selected by an examination of the map and a specified number of Vickers machine-gun crews were specially told off for the duty of making, during the battle, by the most direct route, to the selected localities, there promptly digging in, and preparing to deal with any attempt on the part of the enemy to press a counter-attack.

The main difficulty affecting the use of machine guns is the maintenance for them of a regular and adequate supply of ammunition. Heretofore this function had to be performed by infantry ammunition carrying parties. It required two men to carry one ammunition box, holding a thousand rounds, which a machine gun in action could easily expend in less than five minutes. Those carrying parties had to travel probably not less than two to three miles in the double journey across the open, exposed both to view and fire. Casualties among ammunition carriers were always substantial.

It was therefore decided to attempt the distribution of this class of ammunition by aeroplane. Most of the machines of the Corps Squadron were fitted with bomb racks and releasing levers. It required no great ingenuity to adapt this gear for the carrying by each plane of two boxes of ammunition simultaneously, and to arrange for its release, by hand lever, at the appropriate time. It remained to determine, by experiment, the correct size and mode of attachment for a parachute for each box of ammunition, so that the box would descend from the air slowly, and reach the ground without severe impact.

It was Captain Wackett, of the Australian Flying Corps, who perfected these ideas, and who trained the pilots to put them into practice. Each machine-gun crew, upon reaching its appointed locality, spread upon the ground a large V-shaped canvas (V representing the word "Vickers") as an intimation to the air of their whereabouts, and that they needed ammunition. After a very little training, the air-pilots were able to drop this ammunition from a height of at least 1,000 feet to well within 100 yards of the appointed spot. In this way, at least 100,000 rounds of ammunition were successfully distributed during this battle, with obvious economy in lives and wounds. The method thus initiated became general during later months.

The Corps also put into practice, on this occasion, a stratagem which had frequently on a smaller scale been employed in connection with trench raids. Our Artillery was supplied with many different types of projectile, but among them were both gas shell and smoke shell. The latter were designed to create a very palpable smoke cloud, to be employed for the purpose of screening an assault, but were otherwise harmless. The former burst, on the other hand, with very little evolution of smoke, but with a pronounced and easily recognized smell, and their gas was very deadly.

My practice was, therefore, during the ordinary harassing fire in periods between offensive activities, always to fire both classes of shell together, so that the enemy became accustomed to the belief at the least that our smoke shells were invariably accompanied by gas shell, even if he did not believe that it was the smoke shell which alone gave out the warning smell. The effect upon him of either belief was, however, the same; for it compelled him in any case to put on his gas mask in order to protect himself from gas poisoning.

On the actual battle day, however, we fired smoke shell only, as we dared not vitiate the air through which our own men would shortly pass. But the enemy had no rapid means of becoming aware that we were firing only harmless smoke shell. He would, therefore, promptly don his gas mask, which would obscure his vision, hamper his freedom of action, and reduce his powers of resistance. On July 4th both the 4th and 11th Brigades accordingly took prisoner large numbers of men who were found actually wearing their gas masks. The stratagem had worked out exactly as planned.

The battle was over, and when the results were made known there followed the inevitable flow of congratulatory messages from superiors, and colleagues and friends, from all parts of the Front and from England. The following telegrams received from the Commonwealth Prime Minister were particularly gratifying:

1. "On behalf of Prime Minister of Britain, and also of Prime Ministers of Canada, New Zealand and Newfoundland, attending Versailles Council, I am commissioned to offer you our warmest congratulations upon brilliant success of Australian Forces under your command, and to say that the victory achieved by your Troops is worthy to rank with greatest achievements of Australian Armies."

2. "My personal congratulations and those of the Government of Commonwealth on brilliant success of battle. Please convey to Officers and Men participating in attack warmest admiration of their valour and dash and manner in which they have maintained highest traditions of Australian Army. I am sure that achievement will have most considerable military and political effect upon Allies and neutrals, and will heighten moral of all Imperial Forces."

3. "In company with Mr. Lloyd George and General Rawlinson to-day saw several hundred of prisoners taken by Australian Troops in battle before Hamel. Rawlinson expressed to me the opinion that the operation was a brilliant piece of work. Please convey this to troops."

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.

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:

"The enemy has in his minor enterprises again taken prisoner a complete front line battalion and part of a support battalion. The reason is our faulty leadership."

"The enemy penetrated the forward zone of the 108th Division by means of large patrols at midnight, on July 8th, 1918, without any artillery preparation, and again on the same night at 11 p.m., with artillery preparation, astride of the Marcelcave—Villers-Bretonneux railway. He occupied the trenches where our most advanced outposts lay, and took the occupants, comprising fifteen men, prisoner. The larger part of the forward zone has been lost."

"In the case of the present trench Division, it has often happened that complete picquets have disappeared from the forward zone without a trace."

All the above refers to the period between July 4th and 12th. We read again under date July 13th:

"During the last few days the Australians have succeeded in penetrating, or taking prisoner, single posts or picquets. They have gradually—sometimes even in daylight—succeeded in getting possession of the majority of the forward zone of a whole Division."

"Troops must fight. They must not give way at every opportunity and seek to avoid fighting, otherwise they will get the feeling that the enemy are superior to them."

Railway Gun, 11.2-inch Bore—captured near Rosières on August 8th, 1918.

German Depot of Stores—captured on August 8th, 1918.

One last extract from these interesting papers:

"The best way to make the enemy more careful in his attempt to drive us bit by bit out of the outpost line and forward zone is to do active reconnaissance and carry out patrol encounters oneself. In this respect absolutely nothing seems to have been done. If the enemy can succeed in scoring a success without any special support by artillery or assistance from special troops, we must be in a position to do the same."

Our line in front of Villers-Bretonneux had for months run very close to the eastern outskirts of that town, a circumstance which cramped and embarrassed our defence of it. The enemy could peer into its streets and sweep them with machine guns. He had held in strength a locality known as Monument Wood, the ruins of a once prosperous orchard, and his possession of it had been a source of annoyance both to us and to the French, for it lay just opposite the international boundary posts.

The time seemed opportune for a set-piece operation designed to advance our line opposite the town by 1,000 yards, on a broad front, to dislodge the enemy from Monument Wood, gain valuable elbow room, and obtain mastery of the remainder of the plateau on which the town was built. I had actually completed the draft of a plan for such an operation, and had held a preliminary conference with my Staff to discuss it, when it became apparent that the nightly encroachments which the Second Division were effecting in this region would, in the course of a few days, achieve the capture of the whole of this territory without any special organized effort at all.

And so it proved; for before the middle of July, Rosenthal had succeeded in possessing himself, by such a process of "peaceful penetration," of the whole of the coveted area. It was a further evidence of the serious demoralization which our aggressive attitude of the preceding months had wrought among the German forces opposed to us.

The era of minor aggression by the Australian Corps was, however, about to draw to a close, and the situation was rapidly beginning to shape itself for greater events.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Staff-Sheet No. 218: "Operations of the Australian Corps against Hamel, etc.," published July, 1918.

CHAPTER IV
TURNING THE TIDE

The course of events during June and July pointed to the conclusions, firstly, that the enemy contemplated no further offensive operations in the Somme Valley, and, secondly, that the condition of the whole German Second Army, astride of the Somme, offered every temptation to us to seize the initiative against it.

So far as the Australian Corps was concerned, however, my total frontage, which had been increased (as the result of our exploitation) to over eleven miles, precluded the possibility, with only four Divisions at my disposal, of maintaining, even if I could succeed in initiating, an ambitious offensive. The time was nevertheless ripe for action on a scale far more decisive than had become orthodox in the British Army in the past. Efforts on that method had been confined to a thrust, limited in point both of distance and of time, and followed by a period of inaction; they had often given the enemy ample leisure to recover, and to reorganize his order of battle.

To maintain an offensive, day after day, indefinitely, would require sufficient resources, particularly in infantry, to allow Divisions to be used alternatingly. Only in such a way, by having rested Divisions always available to alternate with tired Divisions, could a continuous pressure be maintained.

I took every opportunity of pressing these views upon the Army Commander, and expressed the readiness of the Australian Corps to undertake and maintain a long sustained offensive, provided that arrangements could be made to shorten my frontage from a three to a two-Division battle front, and to increase my resources, from the present four, to five or even six Divisions. It was further essential that in any advances attempted by us, other Corps must co-operate on both flanks.

It would be bad tactics to drive into the enemy's front a salient with a narrow base, for such a salient would make our situation worse instead of better, affording to the enemy the opportunity of artillery attack upon it from both its flanks as well as from its front. The salient must therefore be broad based in relation to its depth, and the base must ever widen as the head of the salient advances.

This principle implied that a large-scale operation of such a nature must be begun on a whole Army front, and that, even at its inception, at least three Corps must co-operate, to be aided by the entry of additional Corps on the outer flanks as the central depth developed. In other words, it was a project implying a large commitment of resources, and the urgent question was whether the time was yet ripe for taking the risks involved.

The matter, however, now became a subject at least worthy of practical discussion, and, during the days which followed Hamel, the Staffs of both the Corps and Army were kept busy with the investigation of data, maps, and information, while the availability of additional resources in guns, tanks and aeroplanes became the subject of anxious inquiry.

A circumstance which troubled me sorely was the fact that my Corps stood on the flank of the British Army, and that the troops on my right belonged to the French Army. The relations between the Australian troops and the Tirailleurs and Zouaves of the 31st French Corps (General Toulorge) had always been the very friendliest, and the joint "international" posts had been the scenes of hearty fraternization and of the evolution of a strange common vernacular.

This comradeship of "poilu" with "digger" did not, however, lessen the difficulties incidental to the joint conduct of a major Operation of War by two Corps of different nationalities, speaking different languages, with diverse tactical conceptions, and, above all, of substantially divergent temperaments. The French are irresistible in attack as they are dogged in defence, but whether they will attack or defend depends greatly on their temperament of the moment. In this they are totally unlike the British or Australian soldier who will at any time philosophically accept either rôle that may be prescribed for him.

In short, it was not possible to hope for an effective co-ordination of effort, controlled particularly by the minute observance of a time-table, on the part of the Australian and its adjacent French Corps, and I felt quite unprepared to count upon it. It was for this reason that I expressed to the Army Commander the hope that a British Corps might be obtainable to operate on my right flank in any undertaking that should be decided upon. Understanding that the greater part of the Canadian Corps was then unemployed, resting in a back area, I ventured to hope that this Corps might be made available, in the event of a decision that the proposal should be proceeded with.

My hesitation to accept the French as colleagues in such a battle was based not altogether on theoretical or sentimental grounds. The steady progress in mopping up enemy territory to the east of Villers-Bretonneux, which had been made by my south flank Division (the Second) as the aftermath of Hamel, soon produced a contortion of the Allied front line at this point which bade fair to prove just as troublesome to me as had been the great re-entrant opposite Hamel, which that battle had been specially undertaken to eliminate.

No persuasions on my part, or on that of my flank Division, could induce the adjacent French Division to extend any co-operation in these advances or to adopt any measures to flatten out the re-entrant which, growing deeper every day, threatened to expose my right flank. I am convinced that such hesitation was based upon no timidity, but was the result wholly of an entirely different outlook and policy from those which the Australian Corps was doing its best to interpret. But the experience of it made the prospect of punctual co-operation on their part in much more serious undertakings distinctly less encouraging.

The proposed offensive involved, therefore, far-reaching redispositions, comprising a substantial displacement southwards of the inter-Allied boundary, a lengthening by several miles of the whole British Western front, and an entire rearrangement of the respective fronts of the Third and Fourth British Armies. It is not surprising that a decision was deferred, while the project was being critically investigated from every point of view.

Then, suddenly, a new situation arose. On July 15th, the enemy opened a fresh attack against the French in the south. The scale on which he undertook it immediately made it patent to all students of the situation that he was probably employing his whole remaining reserves of fit, rested Divisions; that he meant this to be his decisive blow; and that whether he gained a decision or not, it would be his last effort on the grand scale.

It did not succeed; for just as he had once again reached the line of the Marne and had on July 17th achieved his "furthest south" at Château-Thierry, a beautifully timed counter-stroke by the French and Americans upon the western face of the salient, extending from Soissons to the Marne, resulted on July 18th in the capture by the Allies on that day alone, of 15,000 prisoners and 200 guns.

It was the end of German offensive in the war. Their mobile reserves were exhausted, and they were compelled slowly to recede from the Château-Thierry salient. The appropriate moment, for which Foch and Haig had doubtless been waiting for months, had at last arrived to begin an Allied counter offensive, and it was only a question of deciding at what point along the Franco-British front the effort should be made, and on what date it should open.

Doubtless influenced by the reasons already discussed, the choice fell upon that portion of the front of the Fourth Army which lay south of the Somme; in other words upon the southern portion of the Australian Corps front. The date remained undecided, but the requisite redisposition of Armies and Corps was so extensive that no time was to be lost in making a beginning.

It was on July 21st that General Rawlinson first called together the Corps Commanders who were to be entrusted with this portentous task. The strictest secrecy was enjoined, and never was a secret better kept; with the exception of the Field Marshal and his Army Commanders, none outside of the Fourth Army had any inkling of what was afoot until the actual moment for action had arrived.

Yet an observant enemy agent, if any such there had been in the vicinity, might well have drawn a shrewd conclusion that some mischief was brewing, had he happened along the main street of the prettily-situated village of Flexicourt, on the Somme, on that bright summer afternoon, and had observed in front of a pretentious white mansion, over which floated the black and red flag of an Army Commander, a quite unusual procession of motor-cars, ostentatiously flying the Canadian and Australian flags and the red-and-white pennants of two other Corps Commanders.

There were present at that conference, General Currie, the Canadian, General Butler, of the Third Corps, General Kavanagh, of the Cavalry Corps, and myself, while senior representatives of the Tanks and Air Force also attended. Rawlinson unfolded the outline of the whole Army plan, and details were discussed at great length in the light of the views held by each Corps Commander as to the tasks which he was prepared to undertake with the resources in his hands or promised to him.

The conditions which I had sought in my previous negotiations with the Army Commander were, I found, conceded to me almost to the full extent. My battle front was to be reduced from eleven miles to a little over 7,000 yards. It would, in fact, extend from the Somme, as the northern, to the main Péronne railway, as the southern flank. And—what was equally important, and profoundly welcome—the First Australian Division was shortly to be relieved in Flanders, and would at last join my Corps, thus for the first time in the war bringing all Australian field units in France under one command.

The Canadians were to operate on my right, and further south again the First French Army (Debenay) was to supply a Corps to form a defensive flank for the Canadians. The Third British Corps was to carry out for me a similar function on my northern flank. Thus, four Corps in line were to operate, the two central Corps carrying out the main advance, while the two outer flank Corps would be employed further to broaden the base of the great salient which the operation would create.

The Cavalry Corps would appear in the battle area also, with all preparations made for a rapid exploitation of any success achieved. The utility of the Cavalry in modern war, at any rate in a European theatre, has been the subject of endless controversy. It is one into which I do not propose to enter. There is no doubt that, given suitable ground and an absence of wire entanglements, Cavalry can move rapidly, and undertake important turning or enveloping movements. Yet it has been argued that the rarity of such suitable conditions negatives any justification for superimposing so unwieldy a burden as a large body of Cavalry—on the bare chance that it might be useful—upon already overpopulated areas, billets, watering places and roads.

I may, however, anticipate the event by saying that the First Cavalry Brigade was duly allotted to me, and did its best to prove its utility; but I am bound to say that the results achieved, in what proved to be very unsuitable country beyond the range of the Infantry advance, did not justify the effort expended either by this gallant Brigade or by the other arms and services upon whom the very presence of the Cavalry proved an added burden.

For the full understanding of subsequent developments both during and after the battle it becomes of special importance to consider the proposed rôle of the Third Corps in relation to my left flank. It is to be remembered that the Fourth Army decided that the River Somme was to be the tactical boundary between the two Northern Corps. It was not competent for me to criticize this decision at the time, but I am free now to say that I believed such a boundary to have been unsuitable, and the event speedily proved that it was.

It is always, in my opinion, undesirable to select any bold natural or artificial feature—such as a river, ravine, ridge, road or railway—as a boundary. It creates, at once, a divided responsibility, and necessitates between two independent commanders, and at a critical point, a degree of effective co-operation which can rarely be hoped for. It is much better boldly to place a unit, however large or small, astride of such a feature, so that both sides of it may come under the control of one and the same Commander.

This was especially the case in this part of the Somme Valley which is broad, and has an ill-defined central line, tortuous, and with the slopes on either side tactically interdependent; but most of all because, as I have already described, the high plateau on the north completely overlooks the relatively lower flats on the south of the river. The point I am trying to make should be borne in mind, for I believe it has been fully borne out by subsequent events.

The decision standing, however, as it did, it fell to the task of the Third Corps to make an assault (concurrently with that of the Australian Corps south of the river) for the capture of the whole of that reach of the river known as the Chipilly Bend, and of all the high ground on the spur which that bend enfolds. The object was to deprive the enemy of all ground from which he could look down upon my advancing left flank, or from which he could bring rifle or artillery fire to bear upon it.

The Third Corps was to operate on the front of one Division, the 58th, which, pivoting its left upon the Corbie—Bray road, was to advance its right—in sympathy with the advance of the left of the Australian Corps—until it rested upon the river about one mile downstream from Etinehem. It was a movement the success of which was rendered promising by the nature of the ground and the disorganized condition of the enemy between the Ancre and the Somme.

As regards my right flank, this was to rest as stated upon the main railway. The Canadian Corps, of four Divisions, would take over from the French a frontage of about 6,000 yards and deliver a thrust parallel to and south of the railway, in the direction of Caix and Beaucourt, and would aim at the seizure of the important Hill 102, immediately to the west of the latter locality. At no time did any question of the security of my right flank furnish me with any cause for anxiety; the prowess of the Canadian Corps was well known to all Australians, and I knew that, to use his own expressive vernacular, it was General Currie's invariable habit to "deliver the goods."

The comprehensive project thus outlined at the conference of July 21st involved, as a preliminary step, a far-reaching redisposition of very large bodies of troops over a very wide front. With the readjustment of the boundaries between the Third and Fourth British Armies we are not particularly concerned, because this affected a region, north of the Ancre, which lay well outside of the battle area. Nor did the internal readjustment of the northern part of the Fourth Army front present any difficulty, as it meant nothing more than a routine "relief" by the 58th Division of the Fifth Australian Division which was at this juncture holding that part of my Corps sector which lay between the Somme and the Ancre.

But the southern half was a very different matter. The First French Army was to give up to the British a section of about four miles, extending from Villers-Bretonneux to Thennes. This was ultimately to be taken over by the Canadian Corps as a battle front, but that Corps still had two of its Divisions in the line in the neighbourhood of Arras.

Moreover, it was of the utmost importance to conceal from the enemy until the last possible moment any change in our dispositions. This meant concealing them from our own troops also, because the loss by us of a single talkative prisoner would have been sufficient to disclose to the enemy at least the suspicion, if not the certainty, that an attack was in preparation.

After examining the problem and discussing several alternative solutions, it was ultimately decided at this conference that, five or six days before the date fixed for the attack, the French would be relieved in this sector by a Division, not of Canadians, but of Australians; that under cover of and behind this Australian Division, the Canadian Corps would come in from the north, and would proceed to carry out its battle preparations; and finally that the actual appearance of Canadian troops in the front line would not ensue until three days before the battle.

During the preceding two days, the Australian troops would be gradually withdrawn from the sector, leaving only one Brigade in occupation of the line, to be backed up by the incoming Canadians in the unexpected contingency of an attack by the enemy. This last Brigade would quietly melt away, leaving the Canadians in full possession of the field.

It was hoped that, during the days of the temporary Australian occupation of the sector, nothing would happen which might disclose to the enemy that the French had left it; and even if we were to have the misfortune to lose from this sector any Australian prisoners to the enemy, it was further hoped that, if kept in total ignorance of the inflow of Canadians, such prisoners would be unable to make any embarrassing disclosures. The dénouement, which will be told later, showed that this judgment of possibilities was a shrewd one, and that such precautions were not taken in vain.

At this period of the war, large numbers of Americans had already arrived in France, but only few of them were yet ready to take their places in the line of battle. The time had not yet arrived, therefore, when, by taking over large sections of the Western front they could help to shorten the French and British frontages. The British front was, therefore, still so extended that the mobile reserve Divisions at the disposal of the Field Marshal were few.

This consideration made the contemplated reliefs and interchanges of Corps and Divisions, and their transference from one part of our front to another a matter of great complexity, and one which required time to execute. Each stage of the process was contingent upon the due completion of a previous stage. It is, moreover, a process which cannot be unduly hastened, without serious discomfort and fatigue to the troops and animals concerned.

Troops destined for battle must be kept in the highest physical condition. This means good feeding, comfortable housing, and adequate rest. A couple of weary days and sleepless nights spent in crowded railway trains, with cold food and little exercise, are sufficient to play havoc with the fighting trim of even a crack battalion. So, the daily stages of the journey must be short, and comfortable billets must be in readiness for each night's halt. The day's supplies must arrive punctually and at the right railhead, to ensure hot, well-cooked meals.

With the very limited number of serviceable railway lines which remained available behind the British front—and with the congestion of traffic resulting from the daily transportation of many thousands of tons of artillery ammunition and other war stores—it was not surprising that as the result of the deliberations of the conference it was resolved to advise the Commander-in-Chief that it would take not less than five days to rearrange our order of battle on the lines decided upon, and another five days, after Corps and Divisions had taken over their battle fronts, to enable them to complete their preparations.

Thus, the Fourth Army could be ready at ten days' notice, and the conference broke up, pledged to secrecy and complete inaction, until formal approval had been given to the proposals and a date fixed for their realization.

The remainder of July passed with no very startling occurrences. In the south the German withdrawal from the Soissons salient and the Marne continued steadily, with the French and Americans on their heels; but it was a methodical retreat, which would bring about a substantial shortening of the German line, and so release Divisions to rest and refit, which might conceivably become available for a fresh assault elsewhere.

But there was still no sign of any such design upon that always tender spot, the Allied junction at Villers-Bretonneux. On the contrary, my second Division still continued to make free with the enemy's advanced patrols, and in a very brilliant little infantry operation by the 7th Brigade captured the "Mound," a long spoilbank beside the railway at a point about a mile east of the town, which dominated the landscape in every direction. The ardour of his troops was only enhanced when they heard that General Rosenthal himself, while reconnoitring from the Mound, had been sniped at and had received a nasty wound in the arm.

The enemy attempted nothing in the way of infantry retaliation. But whenever he had been thoroughly angered, he treated my front to a liberal drenching of mustard gas, fired by his artillery. His supplies of mustard gas shell seemed inexhaustible, and he would frequently expend as many as 10,000 of them in a single night upon the half-ruined town of Villers-Bretonneux or on the Bois l'Abbé and other woods which he suspected were sheltering my reserve infantry.

These gas attacks were annoying and troublesome, in the extreme. During the actual bombardments, troops wore their gas masks as a matter of course, but doffed them when the characteristic smell of the gas had disappeared. But it was warm weather, and as the sun rose, the poisonous liquid, which had spattered the ground over immense areas, would volatilize, and rise in sufficient volume still to attack all whose business took them to and fro across this ground. In this way hundreds of our men became incapacitated; although there were a few serious cases, most of the men would be fit to rejoin in two or three weeks. But this form of attack, and the constant dread of it, made life in the forward areas anything but endurable.

I was beset by quite another trepidation also. Prisoners captured during the German withdrawal from the Marne, which was then in progress, told tales of contemplated withdrawals on other fronts, and some even asserted that a withdrawal opposite my own front was being talked of. Judged by subsequent events, it is more than probable that these stories were stimulated by the many articles which were at that time appearing in the German newspapers from the pens of press strategists, who, in order to allay public anxiety, were representing these withdrawals as deliberate, and as a masterpiece of strategy, compelling the Allies to a costly pursuit over difficult and worthless ground.

Opposite Albert, signs that such a withdrawal was actually in progress also began to appear, although it subsequently transpired that, in its early stages, this procedure was merely prompted by a purely local consideration, namely, the desire of the enemy to improve his tactical position by abandoning the outposts, which he had been maintaining in the valley of the Ancre, and transferring them to the higher and better ground on the east of that river.

It was only natural that those of us who knew of the impending attack, and of the immense effort which its preparation would involve, felt nervous lest the enemy might forestall us by withdrawing his whole line to some methodically prepared position of defence in the rear, just as he had done once before in 1917 on so large a scale in the Bapaume region. It would probably have been a sound measure of military policy, but it would assuredly, at that juncture, have had as disastrous an effect upon the moral of the German people as his enforced withdrawal, which was soon to begin, actually produced not long after.

The order to prepare the attack, and fixing the date of it for August 8th, came in the closing days of July, and at once all was bustle and excitement in the Australian Corps. Commanders, Staff Officers, and Intelligence Service, the Artillery, the Corps Flying Squadron, the map and photography sections spent busy days in reconnaissance, and toilsome nights in office work. The vast extent of the detailed work involved, particularly upon the administrative services, can only be appreciated by a study of the plan for the battle, which it fell to my lot, as Corps Commander, first to formulate, and then to expound to a series of conferences which were held at Bertangles on July 30th, and on August 2nd and 4th.

It is, therefore, perhaps appropriate that I should now attempt to repeat, in non-technical language, an exposition of the outlines of that plan.

CHAPTER V
THE BATTLE PLAN

My plan for the impending battle involved the employment of four Divisions in the actual assault, with one Division in reserve. The Reserve Division was to be available for use in one of two ways; either as a reserve of fresh troops to exploit any successes gained upon the first day, or else to take over and hold defensively the ground won, if the assaulting Divisions should have become too exhausted to be relied upon for successful resistance to a counter-attack in force.

The frontage allotted to the Corps was 7,000 yards, and this extent of front accommodated itself naturally to the employment of two first-line Divisions, each on a 3,500 yard front, each Division having two Brigades in the front line, with one Brigade in reserve.

As four Divisions were available to me for immediate use in the battle, I decided to undertake, for the first time in the war, on so comprehensive a scale, the tactical expedient of a "leapfrog" by Divisions over each other.

This term had, long before, passed into the homely phraseology of the war, in order to describe a procedure by which one body of troops, having reached its objective, was there halted, as at a completed task, while a second body of troops, of similar order of importance, but under an entirely separate Commander, advanced over the ground won, reached the foremost battle line, took over the tactical responsibility for the fighting front, and after a prescribed interval of time continued the advance to a further and more distant objective.

This conception of an advance by a process of "leapfrog" had been evolved early in 1917 in connection with a method of assault on successive lines of trenches. It was intended at the outset to be applied only to very small bodies of infantry, such as platoons. A normal battle plan for a company of infantry of four platoons was for the first two platoons to capture and hold the front line trench, while the next two following platoons would leap over this trench and over the troops who had gained it, and then pass beyond to the capture of the second, or support trench. The method was used, for the first time, on such a modest scale, at the battle of Messines, in June, 1917, and later on in the same year was adopted for bodies as large even as Battalions, in the fighting for the Broodseinde and Passchendaele heights.

But on no previous occasion had such a principle been applied to whole Divisions. It is true that at the battle of Messines, the Fourth Australian Division passed through the New Zealand Division after the latter had completed the capture of the main Messines ridge, but this was really exploitation, undertaken in order to take advantage of the temporary confusion of the enemy, and for the purpose of gaining ground upon the eastern slopes of the captured ridge. It was not a movement which was really part of the main assault, and it was confined to a single Division.

On the present occasion my purpose was to carry out a clear and definite process of "leapfrogging," not only simultaneously by two Divisions side by side, but also as an essential part of the time-table programme for the main battle, and before the exploitation stage of the fighting was timed to be reached. It was, undeniably, a daring proposal, involving very definite risks, enormously increasing the labour of preparation and the mass of detailed precautions which had to be undertaken in order to obviate the possibility of great confusion.

The preparations necessary for a single Division proposing to advance alone, to a prescribed distance, over country much of which was usually visible to us from our front line, are sufficiently complex, relating as they do, not only to the establishment of numerous protected headquarters for Brigades and Battalions, of miles upon miles of buried and ground cables, of dumps of all kinds of supplies, and of dressing stations and medical aid posts; but also to the disposition, in concealed positions, of all the assaulting units, down to the smallest of them, of Infantry Engineers and Pioneers. All these preparations assume a tenfold complexity when a second Division has to make arrangements exactly similar in character, variety and extent, using exactly the same territory for the purpose and at the same time, and planning to advance over more distant country, entirely beyond visual range and preliminary reconnaissance.

The project also involved a much greater crowding of troops into the areas immediately behind our line of departure, and, therefore, enormously increased the risk of premature detection by the enemy, both from ground and from air observation, of unusual movement and of other symptoms which presaged the possibility of an attack by us. The plan also necessitated the closest possible co-ordination of effort, and mutual sympathy and understanding, between the Commanders and Staffs of the twin Divisions having a common jurisdiction over one and the same area of preparation, and one and the same battle front. This was a degree of co-operation which could not have been looked for unless the personnel concerned had already established, from long and close association with each other, the most cordial personal relations. And dominating all other difficulties were those involved in the proposal to execute this difficult and untried operation of a Divisional leapfrog, not singly but in a duplex manner, necessitating the assurance of exactly similar simultaneous action, similarly timed in every stage, both before and during battle, by each of two separate pairs of Divisions.

These threatening difficulties were surely formidable enough, but I knew that I could rely upon the goodwill of the Divisions towards each other, and upon the loyal support of them all. This seemed to me to justify the attempt, and to minimize the risks; having regard above all else to the results which I stood to gain if the operation could be executed as planned.

On no previous occasion in the war had an attempt ever been made to effect a penetration into the enemy's defences at the first blow, and on the first day, greater than a mile or two. Rarely had any previous set-piece attack succeeded in reaching the enemy's line of field-guns. The result had been that the bulk of his Artillery had been withdrawn at his leisure, and his losses had been confined to a few hundred acres of shattered territory. But the task I had set myself was not only to reach, at the first onslaught, the whole of the enemy's Artillery positions, but greatly to overrun them with a view to obliterating, by destruction or capture, the whole of his defensive organizations and the whole of the fighting resources which they contained, along the full extent of my Corps front.

To achieve this object I prepared my plans upon the basis of a total advance, on the first day, of not less than 9,000 yards. This was to be divided into three separate stages, as follows:

The opening phase involved no novel or unusual features so far as the infantry were concerned, and was conceived on lines with which the fighting of 1917 had familiarized me, modified further by the accumulated experience gained from earlier mistakes in the technical details of such an enterprise. The recent battle of Hamel became the model for this phase, the conditions of that battle being now reproduced on a much enlarged scale.

But there was one very important feature which distinguished the present undertaking from the battles of Messines and Broodseinde, and that was in regard to the frontage allotted for attack to a single Division. At Messines, the Divisional battle front was 2,000 yards; in the third battle of Ypres it differed but little from the same standard. For the present battle, I adopted a battle front of two miles for each assaulting Division, or a mile for each of the four assaulting Brigades.

This innovation seemed to me to be justified by four principal factors. The first of these was that the weather, which was dry, and the state of the ground, which was hard, made the "going" easy and the stress upon the infantry comparatively light. Next, the condition of the enemy's defensive works was undeveloped and stagnant, as clearly disclosed by the air photographs which the Corps Air Squadron produced in great numbers on every fine day. No doubt this was due to the encroachments we had made on his forward works during the fighting at Hamel and in the remaining weeks of July. Thirdly, the powerful assistance anticipated from a contingent of four Battalions of Tanks which General Rawlinson had arranged to place under my orders led me to estimate that I might greatly reduce the number of men per yard of front. Lastly, the plan was justified by the known distribution of the enemy's infantry and guns along the frontage under attack. For all these reasons, I felt prepared to impose on the infantry a task which, computed solely upon the factor of frontage, was more than twice that demanded by me on any previous occasion.

At the same time, so extended a frontage involved the employment of a much higher ratio of barrage artillery to the number of battalions of Infantry actually engaged. Success depended more upon the efficiency of the fire power of the barrage than upon any other factor, and I could not afford to incur any risk by weakening the density of the barrage. For this reason, I adhered to the standard which previous experience of several major battles and many minor raids had shown to be adequate for covering the assaulting infantry, and for keeping down the enemy's fire. This standard never fluctuated widely from one field-gun per twenty yards of front, and involved the employment, on this occasion, of some 432 field-guns in the barrage alone. This result could not have been achieved if the Fourth Army authorities had not seen their way to place at my disposal five additional Brigades of Field Artillery over and above the thirteen Australian Brigades which formed a permanent part of the whole Artillery of the Corps.

Phase A, as already stated, involved a penetration of 3,000 yards, and the objective line for this phase, which came to be known as the "green" line (from the colour employed to delineate it upon all the fighting maps propounded by the Corps), was chosen, after an exhaustive study of all aeroplane photographs, and of the results of numerous observations, by many diverse means, of the locations of the enemy's Artillery, so as to make certain that during this phase the whole mass of the enemy's forward Artillery would be overrun, and captured or put out of action.

The green line was, in fact, located along the crest of the spur running north-easterly from Lamotte-en-Santerre in the direction of Cerisy-Gailly, with the object of carrying the battle well to the east of the Cerisy valley, in which large numbers of the enemy's guns had been definitely located. This would give us, by the capture of this valley, suitable concealed positions in which the Infantry destined for Phase B could rest for a short "breather;" and would land the Infantry of the original assault in a position from which they could detect and forestall any attempt on the part of the enemy to launch a counter-attack before the time for the opening of Phase B had arrived.

The task of executing Phase A of the battle fell to the Second and Third Australian Divisions, in that order from south to north, the southern flank of the Second Division resting upon the main railway line from Amiens to Péronne, and being there in contact with the Canadian Corps, under General Currie. The northern flank of the Third Division rested on the River Somme, and was there in contact with the Third British Corps under General Butler, while the inter-divisional boundary was at the southern edge of the Bois-d'Accroche.

These two Divisions were the line Divisions during the period immediately preceding the battle, and had been holding the line each with two Brigades in line and one Brigade in support. Three days prior to the battle, however, it was arranged that each Division should hold its front with only one Brigade, thereby making available two Brigades each for the actual carrying out of Phase A of the attack. These assaulting Brigades were the 7th, 5th, 9th and 11th, in that order from south to north, each Brigade having its due allotment of Tanks and machine guns, etc.

The total estimated time for the completion of Phase A was to be 143 minutes after the opening of the barrage at "zero" hour; and there was then to be a pause of 100 minutes to allow time for the advance and deployment into battle order of the succeeding two Divisions, who were to carry out the process of "leapfrogging" and to execute Phases B and C of the battle.

The planning of Phase B, or the advance from the "green" to the "red" line, involved a totally different tactical conception and the adoption of a type of warfare which had almost entirely disappeared from the Western theatre of war since those far-off days in the late autumn of 1914, when the German Army first dug itself in, in France and Belgium, and committed both combatants to the prolonged agony of over three years of stationary warfare. I allude to the moving battle, or as it is called in text-book language, "open warfare;" a type of fighting in which few of the British Forces formed since the original Expeditionary Force had any experience except on the manœuvre ground under peace conditions—a disability which applied equally to the Australian troops. Confident, however, in their adaptability and in their power of initiative under novel conditions, I did not hesitate to prescribe, for this second phase of the battle, the adoption of the principles and methods of open warfare.

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.

The troops earmarked for this Exploitation Phase were the two second line Brigades of the two Divisions which were to capture the red line, namely, the 14th and 1st Brigades, and the orders to the Divisional Commanders were that if the red line was reached without mishap, without undue loss of time, and without involving the Reserve Brigades, but not otherwise, these Reserve Brigades were to push on with the utmost determination to secure and hold the blue line until such time as they could be reinforced.

Each of these exploitation Brigades was equipped similarly to the red line Brigades in all respects except that they were provided with a special contingent of 18 Mark V. (Star) Tanks of the very latest design. These differed from the Mark V. Tank employed at Hamel and in the other stages of the present operation, in that they were longer and had sufficient internal space to carry, as passengers, over and above their own crews, two complete infantry Lewis gun detachments each. It was expected that this infantry fire power, added to the fire power from the machine guns carried by these 36 Tanks themselves and operated by the Tank crews, would go far to compensate for the somewhat attenuated line of probably tired Infantry spread in two Brigades over an ultimate frontage of over 10,000 yards.

No definite time-table was laid down for the closing phases of the battle, except for the regulation of the times when our Heavy Artillery should "lift off" designated targets—such as villages, farms, and known gun positions—and lengthen its range so as not to obstruct the further advance of our own Infantry. But it was estimated that, from the opening of the battle, the green line would be reached in two and a half hours, the red line in six hours, and the blue line in eight hours. As the battle was to open at the first streak of dawn, it would, if all went well, be completed according to plan by about midday.

In every battle plan, whether great or small, it is necessary first of all to map out the whole of the intended action of the Infantry, at any rate on the general lines indicated above. When that has been done the next step is to work backwards, and to test the feasibility of each body of infantry being able to reach its allotted point of departure, punctually, without undue stress on the troops, and without crossing or impeding the line of movement of any other body of infantry. It is often necessary to test minutely, by reference to calculations of time and space, more than one alternative plan for marshalling the Infantry prior to battle, and for the successive movements, day by day, and from point to point, of every battalion engaged.

The present case was no exception, and, indeed, presented quite special difficulties. The whole of the area for a depth of many thousands of yards behind our then front line was open rolling country, devoid of any cover, and (except in the actual valley of the Somme) with every village, hamlet, farmhouse, factory and wood obliterated. The plan involved the assembly, in this confined area, fully exposed by day to the view of any inquisitive enemy aircraft, of no less than 45 Infantry Battalions, with all their paraphernalia of war; not to speak of our 600 guns of all calibres, their wagon lines, horse lines and motor parks, together with Engineers, Pioneers, Tanks, Medical and Supply Units amounting to tens of thousands of men and animals.

A new factor which, however, ultimately controlled the final decision which I had to make as to the nature of the dispositions prior to battle, lay in the consideration of the maximum distances which would have to be covered by the foot soldiers in such a far-flung battle. I had little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the obvious and normal arrangement was on this occasion a totally wrong arrangement. If the assaulting Brigades had been arranged, from front to rear, in their assembly areas prior to battle, in the same order as that in which they would have to come into action, this would have involved that the individual man, who was to be required to march and fight his way furthest into enemy country, and, therefore, was to be the last to enter the fight, would also be called upon to march furthest from his rearmost position of assembly before even reaching the battle zone. The maximum distance to be traversed on the day of battle by infantry would have amounted, according to such a plan, to over ten miles. While this is an easy day's march on a good road, under tranquil conditions, it would have been an altogether unreasonable demand upon any infantryman during the stress and nervous excitement of battle. It would have been courting a breakdown from over-fatigue, among the very troops upon whom I had to rely most to defend the captured territory against any serious enemy reaction.

I therefore adopted the not very obvious course of completely reversing the normal procedure, and of disposing the Brigades in depth, from front to rear, in exactly the reverse of the order in which, in point of time, they would enter the battle.

The following represents, diagrammatically, the disposition of all twelve Brigades after having been fully deployed in the actual course of the battle:

^ (4th Division) | (5th Division)
| Direction 4 -- 12 | 8 -- 15
| of North 1 Inter- 14 South
| enemy. (3rd Division) Divisional (2nd Division)
| 11 -- 9 Boundary. 5 -- 7
| | Our front line
|----------------------------------+-------------------------------
| | before battle
| 10 (in our trenches) | 6 (in our trenches)

The next diagram shows how the twelve Brigades were disposed while Phase A of the battle was in progress, and before the second Phase had begun:

(3rd Division) | (2nd Division)
11 -- 9 | 5 -- 7
Inter- Our front line
-----------------------Divisional---------------------------
Boundary. before battle
10 (in our trenches) | 6 (in our trenches)
(4th Division) | (5th Division)
4 -- 12 | 8 -- 15
1 | 14

But the following diagram represents, in a similar manner, the order of disposition of the same Brigades, in the territory under our own occupation, immediately prior to the battle:

^ (3rd Division) | (2nd Division)
| | Our front line
|-----------------------------------+-----------------------------
| Direction Inter- before battle
| of 10 (in our trenches) Divisional 6 (in our trenches)
| enemy. (4th Division) Boundary. (5th Division)
| 4 -- 12 | 8 -- 15
| North 1 | 14 South
| (3rd Division) | (2nd Division)
| 11 -- 9 | 5 -- 7

A little consideration will show that this apparently paradoxical procedure brought about the desired result of more nearly equalizing the stress upon the whole of the Infantry engaged, in point, at least, of the maximum distance to be traversed in the day's operations. But it produced something else, also, of much greater concern, which was that the scheme involved a leapfrogging of Divisions during the approach march into the battle, in addition to a second leapfrogging, to which I was already committed, to occur at a later stage during the battle itself.

Thus I was confronted with the dilemma that the only scheme of disposition which promised success for the subsequent battle was also that scheme which made the greatest possible demands upon the intelligence of the troops and the sympathetic, loyal and efficient co-operation of my own Corps Staff, and those of the Commanders acting under me. Influenced once again by the confidence which I felt in my whole command, I did not hesitate to increase the complexity of the plans for the Infantry action by calling upon the four Divisions to execute a manœuvre which is unique in the history of war, namely, a "double leapfrog," simultaneously carried out by two separate pairs of Divisions, operating side by side. The first leap was to take place during the approach to the battle, the second during the progress of the battle itself.

This expedient, which I finally decided to adopt, in spite of the dangers involved in its complexity and in the absence of any precedent, was, however, as logical analysis and the event itself proved, the very keynote of the success of the entire project. The whole plan, thanks to an intelligent interpretation by all Commanders and Staffs concerned, worked like a well-oiled machine, with smoothness, precision and punctuality, and achieved to the fullest extent the advantages aimed at.

On the one hand, the stress upon the troops was reduced to a minimum. By the reduction of physical fatigue, it conserved the energies of whole Divisions in a manner which permitted of their speedy re-employment in subsequent decisive operations. And on the other hand, by the great depth of penetration which it rendered possible, it ensured a victory which amounted to so crushing a blow to the enemy that its momentum hurled him into a retrograde movement, not only along the whole front under attack, but also for many miles on either flank. This recoil he was never able to arrest, as we followed up our victory by blow after blow delivered while he was still reeling from the effects of the first onslaught of August 8th.

But, so far, I have written of the Infantry plan only; and much remains to be told of the simultaneous action designed to be taken by all the other arms, which rendered possible and emphasized the success of the Infantry. No one can rival me in my admiration for the transcendant military virtues of the Australian Infantryman, for his bravery, his battle discipline, his absolute reliability, his individual resource, his initiative and endurance. But I had formed the theory that the true rôle of the Infantry was not to expend itself upon heroic physical effort, nor to wither away under merciless machine-gun fire, nor to impale itself on hostile bayonets, nor to tear itself to pieces in hostile entanglements—(I am thinking of Pozières and Stormy Trench and Bullecourt, and other bloody fields)—but, on the contrary, to advance under the maximum possible protection of the maximum possible array of mechanical resources, in the form of guns, machine guns, tanks, mortars and aeroplanes; to advance with as little impediment as possible; to be relieved as far as possible of the obligation to fight their way forward; to march, resolutely, regardless of the din and tumult of battle, to the appointed goal; and there to hold and defend the territory gained; and to gather in the form of prisoners, guns and stores, the fruits of victory.

It is my purpose, therefore, to emphasize particularly the extent to which this theory was realized in the battle under review, by the achievement of a great and decisive victory at a trifling cost. That result was due primarily to the very ample resources in mechanical aids which the foresight and confidence of the Fourth Army Commander, General Rawlinson, entrusted to me; but it was due partly, also, to the manner in which those resources were employed. And that is why I shall attempt to describe the remainder of the Corps plan.

Tanks marching into Battle.

Morcourt Valley—the Australian attack swept across this on August 8th, 1918.

CHAPTER VI
The battle plan (continued)

Surprise has been, from time immemorial, one of the most potent weapons in the armoury of the tactician. It can be achieved not merely by doing that which the enemy least anticipates, but also by acting at a time when he least expects any action. It was a weapon which had been employed only rarely in the previous greater battles of this war. The offensive before Cambrai, planned by General Sir Julian Byng, and the battle of Hamel, were rare exceptions to our general procedure of heralding the approach of an offensive by feverish and obvious activity on our part, and by a long sustained preliminary bombardment of the enemy's defences, designed to destroy his works and impair his moral.

The situation on the Fourth Army front, early in August, 1918, offered a rare opportunity for the employment of surprise tactics on the boldest scale. The incessant "nibbling" activities of the Australian troops during the preceding three months had been of such a consistent nature as to suggest that our resources were not equal to any greater effort upon such an extended front as we were then holding, from the Ancre down to and beyond Villers-Bretonneux. On the other hand, the passivity of the first French Army, to the south of the latter town, conveyed no suggestion of any offensive enterprise on the part of our Ally in this region.

The problem, therefore, was to convert an extensive front from a state of passive defence to a state of complete preparedness for an attack on the largest scale, and to keep the enemy—who, as always, was alert and observant both from the ground and from the air—in complete ignorance of every portion of these extensive preparations, until the very moment when the battle was to burst upon him. It was, of course, a question not merely of deceiving the enemy troops in their trenches immediately opposed to us, but also of arousing in the minds of the German High Command no suspicions which might have prompted them to hold in a state of readiness, or to put into motion towards the threatened zone, any of the reserve Divisions forming part of their still considerable resources.

The following memorandum, which was issued to the whole of the senior commanders in the Australian Corps on August 1st, gives in outline some of the measures adopted to this end:

"Secrecy.

"1. The first essential to success is the maintenance of secrecy. The means to be adopted are as follows:

(i) No person is to be told or informed in any part or way until such time as the development of the plan demands action from him. This is the main principle and will be pursued throughout, down to the lowest formation.

(ii) Divisional Commanders will work out their reliefs in such a way as will ensure that the troops in the line know nothing of the proposed operation until the last possible moment. This will apply in particular to any troops who may be employed in the area south of the Amiens—Villers-Bretonneux railway.

"2. In order to conceal the intention to carry out a large operation on this front the following plan has been adopted:

"The Australian Corps has been relieved of one divisional sector by the Third Corps, and takes over a divisional sector from the French Corps. The object of this is to lead the enemy, and our own people, too, to believe that the action of the French in the Soissons salient has been so costly as to demand that further French troops had to be made available, and that this is the apparent cause of the extension of the Australian Corps front to the south.

"3. (a) The idea is being circulated that the Canadian Corps is being brought to the south to take over the rôle of Reserve Corps at the junction of the British and French Armies in replacement of the 22nd Corps, which occupied that rôle until it was ordered to the Champagne front. In order that the enemy may be deceived as to the destination of the Canadian Corps in the event of his discovering that it has been withdrawn from the Arras front, Canadian wireless personnel has been sent to the Second Army area,[11] where they have taken over certain wireless zones.

"(b) To prevent the enemy from discovering the arrival of the Canadian Corps in this region, they will not take over from the 4th Australian Division until 'Y' night. This will necessitate a proportion of the troops of the Fourth Australian Division remaining in the line in this sector until 'Y' night. As the Fourth Australian Division will be required to participate in the attack it is proposed to distribute one brigade to hold the whole of the line from 'W' night onwards. This will enable the remaining two Brigades to be withdrawn, given a day or two's rest, and allow of their part in the operation being fully explained to them. The place of these two Brigades in rear of the line Brigade will be taken over by Canadian Divisions.

"(c) In order to deceive our own troops as to the cause of the coming down here of the Canadians, a rumour is going abroad that the Canadian Corps is being brought down with the object of relieving the Australian Corps in the line. To most of the Australian Corps this would appear to be an obvious reason for their coming, as the idea has been mooted on former occasions. While it is not intended that this rumour should be promulgated, it is not desired that anyone should disclose the actual facts. This idea, together with the idea put forth in paragraph 3 (a), should do much to prevent the real facts from becoming known."[12]

(i) No person is to be told or informed in any part or way until such time as the development of the plan demands action from him. This is the main principle and will be pursued throughout, down to the lowest formation.

(ii) Divisional Commanders will work out their reliefs in such a way as will ensure that the troops in the line know nothing of the proposed operation until the last possible moment. This will apply in particular to any troops who may be employed in the area south of the Amiens—Villers-Bretonneux railway.

The references to "W," "X," "Y" and "Z" days and nights in the above memo, are to the successive days preceding Zero day—known briefly as "Z" day, on which the battle was to open. The actual date of "Z" day was kept a close secret by the Army Commander and the three Corps Commanders concerned, until a few days before the actual date; while the actual moment of assault, or "Zero" hour, was not determined or made known until noon on the day preceding the battle, after a close study of the conditions of visibility before and after break of day, on the three preceding mornings.

But these arrangements were directed only towards the prevention of a premature disclosure of our intention to attack to the enemy, to our own troops, and through them to the civilian public, and to enemy agents, whose presence among us had always to be reckoned with. It still remained to carry out our battle preparations in a manner which would preclude the possibility of detection by enemy aircraft, either through direct observation, or by the help of photography.

Accordingly I issued orders that all movements of troops and of transport of all descriptions, should take place only during the hours of darkness, whether in the forward or in the rear areas; and in order to keep an effective control over the faithful execution of these difficult orders, I arranged for relays of "police" aeroplanes, furnished by our No. 3 Squadron, to fly continuously, by day, over the whole of the Corps area, in order to detect and report upon any observed unusual movement.

At the same time, the normal work on the construction of new lines of defence, covering Amiens, in my rear areas, which had been continuously in progress for many weeks and was still far from complete, was to continue, with a full display of activity; so that the enemy should be unable to infer, from a stoppage of such works, any change in our attitude.

Orders were also given to discourage the usual stream of officers who ordinarily visited our front trenches prior to an operation, and who often, thoughtlessly, made a great display of unusual activity, under the very noses of the enemy front line observers, by the flourishing of maps and field-glasses, and by bobbing up above our parapets to catch fleeting glimpses of the country to be fought over. Such reconnaissance, however desirable, was to be confined to a few senior Commanders and Staff Officers. All subordinates were to rely upon the very large number of admirable photographs, taken regularly from the air, both vertically and obliquely, by the indefatigable Corps Air Squadron. These served excellently as a substitute for visual observation from the ground.

The prohibition against the movement of any transport in the daylight naturally very seriously hampered the freedom of action of the troops of all arms and services, but was felt in quite a special degree by the whole of the Artillery. Over 600 guns of all natures had to be dragged to and emplaced in their battle positions, and there camouflaged, each gun involving the concurrent movement of a number of associated vehicles. A full supply of ammunition had to be collected from railhead, distributed by mechanical transport to great main dumps, and thence taken by horsed vehicles for distribution to the numerous actual gun-pits.

As the amount of ammunition to be held in readiness for the opening of the battle averaged 500 rounds per gun, it became necessary to handle a total of about 300,000 rounds of shells and a similar number of cartridges of all calibres, from 3½ to 12 inches, not to mention fuses and primers, or the immense bulk and weight of infantry and machine-gun ammunition, bombs, flares, rockets, and the like, for the supply of all of which the artillery was equally responsible.[13] The great amount of movement involved in the handling and dumping of all these munitions, and the deterrent difficulties of carrying out all such work only during the short hours of darkness, must be left to the imagination.

The artillery was, however, confronted, for the first time, with a difficulty of quite a different nature. In the previous years of the war every gun, after being placed in its fighting pit or position, had to be carefully "registered," by firing a series of rounds at previously identified reference points, and noting the errors in line or range due to the instrumental error of the gun, which error varied with the gradual wearing-out of the gun barrel. By these means, battery commanders were enabled to compute the necessary corrections to be applied to any given gun, at any one time or place, so as to ensure that the gun would fire true to the task set.

Such registration naturally involved, for a large number of guns, a very considerable volume of Artillery fire, the extent of which would speedily disclose to the enemy the presence of a largely increased mass of Artillery, and would inevitably lead him to the conclusion that some mischief was afoot. Fortunately, however, the rapid evolution during the war of scientific methods had by this juncture placed at my disposal a means of ascertaining the instrumental error of the guns on a testing ground located many miles behind the battle zone. This method was known as "calibration," and consisted of the firing of the gun through a series of wired screens, placed successively at known distances from the muzzle of the gun. The whole elements of the flight of the projectile could then be accurately determined by recording the intervals of time between its passage through the respective screens. From these data could be deduced the muzzle velocity, the jump, the droop and the lateral error of each gun.

Simple and obvious as was the principle of such an experiment, the merit of the new process of calibration lay in the remarkable rapidity and accuracy with which the electric and photographic mechanism employed made the necessary delicate time observations, correct to small fractions of a second, and automatically deduced the mathematical results required. The calibration hut, in which this mechanism was housed, became one of the show spots to which visitors to the Corps area were taken to be overawed by the scientific methods of our gunners.

In the early days of August the calibration range of the Australian Corps was a scene of feverish activity. All day long, battery after battery of guns could be seen route-marching to the testing ground, going through the performance of firing six rounds per gun, and then route-marching back again the same night to its allotted battle position. So rapid was the procedure that long before he had reached his destination the Battery Commander had received the full error sheet of every one of his guns, and by means of it was enabled to go into action whenever required without any previous registration whatever. This great advance in the art of gunnery contributed in the most direct manner to the result that when these 600 guns opened their tornado of fire upon the enemy at daybreak on August 8th, the very presence in this area of most of them remained totally unsuspected.

The manner of the employment of the ponderous mass of Heavy Artillery at my disposal will be referred to later. The action of that portion of the Field Artillery which was to become mobile in the concluding phases of the battle has already been dealt with. It remains only to describe, in outline, the arrangements made for the normal barrage fire of the Field Artillery during the first phase.

It has been my invariable practice to reduce the barrage plan to the simplest possible elements, avoiding in every direction the over-elaboration so frequently encountered. By following these principles not only is the actual preparatory work of the Artillery greatly reduced in bulk and simplified in quality, but also the liability to mistake and to erratic shooting of individual batteries or guns, and consequent risks of damage to our own Infantry, are greatly diminished. These advantages are bought at the small price of calling upon the Infantry to undertake, before the battle, such rectifications and adjustments of our front line as would accommodate themselves to a straight and simple barrage line. This is in sharp contrast to the much more usual procedure which prevailed (and persisted in other Corps to the end of the war) of complicating the barrage enormously in an attempt to make it conform to the tortuous configuration of our Infantry front line.

For the present battle it was accordingly arranged that the barrage should open on a line which was dead straight for the whole 7,000 yards of our front, and the Infantry tape lines,[14] which were to mark the alignment of the Infantry at the moment of launching the assault, were to be laid exactly 200 yards in rear of this Artillery "start line." The barrage was to advance, in exactly parallel lines, 100 yards at a time, at equal rates along the whole frontage. These rates were 100 yards every 3 minutes, for the first 24 minutes, and thereafter 100 yards every 4 minutes, until the conclusion of the time-table at 143 minutes after Zero. By such a simple plan every one of the 432 field guns engaged was given a task of uniform character.

Great as was the care necessary to conceal all Artillery preparations, it required still greater thought and consideration to keep entirely secret the presence behind the battle front of some 160 Tanks, and particularly to conceal their approach march into the battle. To both combatants, the arrival of a Tank, or anything that could be mistaken on an air photograph for a Tank, had for long been regarded as a sure indication of coming trouble. And, therefore, imputing to the enemy the same keenness to detect, in good time, the presence of Tanks, and the same nervousness which we had been accustomed to feel when prisoners' tales of the coming into the war of enormous hordes of German monsters had been crystallized by the reports of some excited observer into a definite suspicion that the fateful hour had arrived, I considered it wise to repeat on a much elaborated scale all the precautions of secrecy first employed for this purpose at Hamel.

It is quite easy to detect from an air photograph the broad, corrugated track made by a Tank, if the ground be soft and muddy enough to record such an impression. Consequently, Tanks were forbidden to move across ploughed fields or marshy land, and were confined to hard surface. They moved only in small bodies, and only at night, and were carefully stabled, during the daylight, in the midst of village ruins, or under the deep shade of woods and thickets. Thus, by daily stages, and by cautious bounds, each Tank or group of Tanks ultimately reached its appointed assembly ground, from which it was to make its last leap into the thick of the battle, where it would arrive precisely at Zero hour.

But that last leap was just the whole difficulty. For the Tank is a noisy brute, and it was just as imperative to make him inaudible as to make him invisible. By a fortunate chance, the noise and buzz made by the powerful petrol engines of a Tank are so similar to those of the engines of a large-sized bombing plane, as for example of the Handley-Page type, especially if the latter be flying at a comparatively low altitude, that from a little distance off it is quite impossible to distinguish the one sound from the other.

It was therefore possible to adopt the conjurer's trick of directing the special attention of the observer to those things which do not particularly matter, in order to distract his attention from other things which really do matter very much. In other words, a flight of high-power bombing planes was kept flying backwards and forwards over the battle front during the whole of that very hour, just before dawn, during which our 160 Tanks were loudly and fussily buzzing their way forward, along carefully reconnoitred routes, marked by special black and white tapes, across that last mile of country which brought them up level with the infantry at the precise moment when the great battle was ushered in by the belching forth of a volcano of Artillery fire.

The subterfuge succeeded to perfection, as was obvious to observers and confirmed by the subsequent narratives of prisoners. The German trench garrisons and trench observers were fully occupied in listening to the hum of the bombing planes, in watching their threatened visitation for their customary "egg" dropping performances, in engaging them with rifle fire, and in holding themselves in readiness to duck for cover should they come too near. They never suspected for a moment that this was merely a new stratagem of "noise camouflage," and that the real danger was stalking steadily and relentlessly towards them over the whole front, upon the surface of the ground, instead of in the air.

But the trick would not have succeeded so well, or would perhaps have failed altogether, if the employment of those planes had been confined to the morning of the battle. Such an unusual demonstration might have aroused vague suspicions sufficient to justify a "stand to arms" and a preparedness for some further activity on our part. And what we had most to fear was the danger of "giving the show away" in the last ten minutes. For it would have taken much less than that time for nervous German trench sentries, by the firing of signal rockets, to bring down upon our front line trenches, crowded as they were with expectant fighters, a murderous fire from the German Artillery.

Consequently the puzzled enemy was treated to the spectacle of an early morning promenade by these same bombing planes on every morning, for an hour before dawn, during several mornings preceding the actual battle day. Doubtless the first morning's exhibition of such apparently aimless air activity in the darkness really startled him. After two or three repetitions, it merely earned his contempt. By the time the actual date arrived he treated it as negligible. All prisoners interrogated subsequently agreed that neither the presence nor the noisy approach of so mighty a phalanx of Tanks had been in the least suspected up to the very moment when they plunged into view out of the darkness, just as day was breaking.

The force of Tanks placed at my disposal for the purposes of this battle comprised the 2nd, 8th and 13th Tank Battalions, commanded respectively by Lieut.-Colonels Bryce, Bingham and Lyon, all under the 5th Tank Brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Courage. All these Tanks were of the Mark V. type, as used at Hamel; but there were also attached to the same Brigade a Battalion of Mark V. (Star) Tanks, of still later design, under Lieut.-Colonel Ramsay-Fairfax, and also a full Company of 24 Carrying Tanks, under Major Partington. These Carrying Tanks were not employed in fighting, but were of wonderful utility in the rapid transport of stores of all descriptions across the battle zone; and in carrying the wounded out of the battle on their return journey. I am confident that each of these Tanks was capable of doing the work of at least 200 men, with an almost complete immunity from casualty.

There were thus available to me 168 Tanks in all, and their dispositions have been already indicated in sufficient detail in Chapter V. It was a definite feature of the whole plan of battle that the combined Tank and Infantry tactics which had proved so successful in the Hamel operation, and which have been described in Chapter II., were to be employed and exploited to their utmost. Each Tank became thereby definitely associated with a specified body of Infantry, and acted during the actual battle under the immediate orders of the Commander of that body: the working rule was "one Tank, one Company."

To this was added the second working principle of "one Tank, one task," which rules meant, in their practical application, that no individual Tank was to be relied upon to serve more than one body of Infantry, nor to carry out more than one phase of the battle. Elementary as this may sound, it involved this striking advantage that, in the event of any one Tank becoming disabled, its loss would impair no portion of the battle plan other than that fraction of it to which that Tank had been allotted.

Thus, the whole of the Infantry operating in Phases B and C of the battle had each their own adequate equipment of Tanks, which would be certain to be available to them, even if the whole of the Tanks employed during Phase A had been knocked out. At the same time clear orders were issued, and due arrangements were made, that all Tanks which survived Phase A, and whose crews were not by then too exhausted, were to rally (during the 100 minutes' pause on the green line) in order to co-operate in the succeeding phases of the fight.

There was still another Unit, coming under the jurisdiction of the Tank Corps, which proved of wonderful utility to me, and which deserved quite special mention. This was the 17th Armoured Car Battalion, organized into two companies of eight cars each. Each car carried one forward and one rear Hotchkiss gun. It was heavily armoured, and the crew operating the guns, as also the car driver, were protected from all except direct hits by Artillery. The cars had a speed of 20 miles per hour, either forwards or backwards. The Battalion was under the command of Lieut.-Colonel E. J. Carter, an officer of the British Cavalry. I allotted 12 cars to the use of the 5th Australian Division, under Major-General Hobbs, who would be likely to find specially useful employment for them, in scouring the network of roads beyond his final objective; and retained four cars in Corps reserve for a special reconnaissance enterprise.

Full of promise of usefulness as were the speed and armament of these cars, they suffered from one serious disability. Their top hamper was so heavy compared to their light chassis that they could not be relied upon to travel without premature breakdown across country, or indeed on anything but moderately good roads. Now, such roads were certainly available, as was evident from aeroplane photographs, in the enemy's back country, after a zone for a mile or two immediately behind his front line was passed; but all the subsidiary roads in that zone had been practically obliterated by shell-craters, and even the great main road from Villers-Bretonneux to Saint Quentin, which is a Roman Road and substantially constructed throughout, was known to have been cut up and traversed by numerous trenches both on our side and on the enemy's side of "No Man's Land." There was also every expectation that the few remaining trees which flanked this great road would be felled by our bombardment, and some of them would surely fall across and obstruct the roadway.

That road was, however, the only possible outlet into enemy country for the armoured cars, and I resolved upon a special programme, and the allotment of a special body of troops for its execution. The object was to ensure that the cars could be taken across the impracticable and obstructed stretch of roadway already described, and launched at the enemy at its eastern extremity, at the earliest possible moment of time. Then, before the numerous enemy Corps and Divisional Headquarters and all their rear organization had time to get clear intelligence of what was happening at the front, or to recover from the first shock of surprise, these Armoured Cars would fall upon them, and, travelling hither and thither at great speed, would spread death, destruction and confusion in all directions.

A whole Battalion of Pioneers, and detachments of other technical troops, with an adequate amount of road-repairing material, were got ready, under the direct orders of my Chief Engineer, to carry out this special task. All trenches in that portion of the road lying within our own zone of occupation were bridged or filled in and all obstructions cleared away before the day of the battle. But as to the more distant stretch of the road, still in the hands of the enemy, elaborate preparations were made, by a careful and detailed distribution of tasks to small gangs of men, and by a fully worked-out time-table. The plan was that from the moment of the opening of the battle, this road repair work was to commence, and its advance was to synchronize with the advance of the Artillery barrage and Infantry skirmishing line.

A pilot armoured car was to follow the working gangs in order to test the sufficiency of the repair work, and arrangements were made for sending back signals to the remainder of the cars, lying waiting in readiness in the shelter of Villers-Bretonneux. It was planned that the first two miles of road would, by these means, be cleared and repaired to a sufficient width, within four hours after the opening of the battle.

I am tempted to anticipate the narrative of the battle by saying that the whole plan worked out with complete success to the last detail. The cars got through punctually to time, and the story of their subsequent adventures, as told later, reads like a romance. As indicating the importance which I attached to this little enterprise, which in magnitude was quite a small "side-show," but which in its results had the most far-reaching consequence, I reproduce below the full text (omitting merely formal portions) of one of the several orders issued by me on this subject:

Australian Corps,
7th August, 1918.

1. The detachment of the 17th Armoured Car Battalion held in Corps Reserve (2 sections each of 2 cars), will be employed on the special duty of long distance reconnaissance on "Z" day.

2. These sections will be sent forward under the orders of the C.O., 17th Armoured Car Battalion, passing the green line as soon as practicable after Zero plus four hours, and proceeding eastward, following the lifts of our Heavy Artillery bombardment, so as to pass the blue line at or after Zero plus five hours.

3. The area to be reconnoitred lies in the bend of the Somme, north of the Villers-Bretonneux—Chaulnes Railway; but the old Somme battlefield lying N.E. of Chaulnes need not be entered.

4. Information is required as to presence, distribution and movement of enemy supporting and reserve troops, and his defensive organizations within this area.

5. While the primary function of this detachment is to reconnoitre and not to fight, except defensively, advantage should be taken of every opportunity to damage the enemy's telephonic and telegraphic communications.

6. The following information as to enemy organizations is thought to be reliable:

Vauvillers	Billets and Detraining point.
Proyart	Divisional H.Q. and billets.
Chuignolles	Divisional H.Q. and billets.
Framerville	Corps H.Q.
Rainecourt	Billets.
Cappy	Aerodrome and dumps.
Foucaucourt	Corps H.Q., dump, billets.
Chaulnes	Important railway junction.
Ommiécourt	Dumps.
Fontaine	Aerodrome, Div. H.Q. and dump.

The Heavy Artillery of the Corps was divided, for this battle as normally, into two distinct groups, of which the one, or Bombardment Group, was to devote its energies to destructive attack, throughout the course of the battle, upon known enemy centres of resistance, suspected Headquarters, and telephone or telegraph exchanges, villages believed to be housing support and reserve troops, railway junctions and the like. The selection of all such targets depended upon a judicious choice of many tempting objectives disclosed by the very comprehensive records of the highly efficient Intelligence Officers belonging to my Heavy Artillery Headquarters. After that selection was made, all that remained was to draw up a time-table for the action of all bombardment guns which would ensure that they would lift off any given target just before our own Infantry would be likely to reach it, and then to apply their fire to a more distant locality.

The second group of Heavy Guns was known as the Counter-battery Group, and was at all times under the direction of a special staff, especially skilled in all the scientific means at our disposal for determining the position and distribution of the enemy's Artillery, and in the methods and artifices for silencing or totally destroying it. Just as it was the special rôle of the Tanks to deal with the enemy machine guns, so it was the special rôle of our Counter-battery Artillery to deal with the enemy's field and heavy guns and howitzers. These—the guns and the machine guns—were the only things that troubled us; because, for the German soldier individually, our Australian infantryman is and always has been more than a match.

Very special care was, therefore, devoted to the whole of the arrangements, first for carefully ascertaining beforehand the actual or probable position of every enemy gun that could be brought to bear on our Infantry, and then for allocating as many heavy guns as could be spared, each with a task appropriate to its range and hitting-power, to the destruction or suppression of the selected target. For it served the immediate purpose of eliminating the causes of molestation to our advancing Infantry equally well, whether the enemy gun was merely silenced by a sustained fire of shrapnel or high explosives which drove off the gun detachment, or by a flood of gas which compelled them to put on their gas masks, or whether it was actually destroyed by a direct hit and rendered permanently useless.

The days before the battle were of supreme interest in this particular aspect. Each day I visited the Counter-battery Staff Officer, in his modest shanty, hidden away in the interior of a leafy wood, where in constant touch, by telephone, with all balloons, observers and sound-ranging stations, and surrounded by an imposing array of maps, studded with pins of many shapes and colours, he made his daily report to me of the enemy gun positions definitely identified or located, or found to have been vacated. And here again there was an opportunity for the display of a modest little stratagem. Having suspected or verified the fact that the enemy had altered the location of any given battery, leaving the empty gun pits as a tempting bait to us, fruitlessly to expend our energies and ammunition upon them—it would have been the worst of folly to prove to him that he had failed to fool us, by engaging his battery in its new position.

On the contrary, we deliberately allowed ourselves to be fooled; and for several days before the great battle we intentionally committed the stupid error of methodically engaging all his empty gun positions. No doubt the German gunners laughed consumedly as they watched, from a safe distance, our wasted efforts; but they did not, doubtless, laugh quite so heartily when at dawn on the great day, the whole weight of our attack from over a hundred of my heaviest Counter-battery guns fells upon them in the new positions, which they believed that we had failed to detect.

The Intelligence Service of the Corps was an extensive and highly organized department, whose jurisdiction extended throughout all the Divisions, Brigades and Battalions. Its routine work comprised the collection and collation of the daily flow of information from a large staff of observers in the forward zone, from the interrogation of prisoners, from the examination of documents and maps, and from neighbouring Corps and Armies. Before and during battle, however, a greatly added burden fell upon the shoulders of the Intelligence Staff.

Closely associated with this branch of the Staff work were two activities of quite special interest. The Australian Corps organized a Topographical Section, manned by expert draftsmen and lithographers, who compiled and printed all the maps required throughout the whole Corps, and it was their business to keep all battle maps, barrage maps and topographical data recorded and corrected up to date. This alone proved a heavy task when pace had to be kept with a rapid advance. At such times the maps prepared on one day became obsolete two or three days later.

Dug-outs at Froissy Beacon—being "mopped up" during battle.

Péronne—barricade in main street.

The issue of such maps was not confined to Commanders and Staffs. For all important operations, large numbers of handy sectional maps were struck off, so that they could be placed in the hands even of the subordinate officers and non-commissioned officers. These maps not only enabled the most junior leaders to study their objectives and tasks in detail before every battle, but also became a convenient vehicle for sending back reports as to the positions reached or occupied by front-line troops or detached parties. On occasions as many as five thousand of such maps would be struck off for the use of the troops, in a single operation.

There was also a branch of the Intelligence Staff attached to the No. 3 Australian Air Squadron. Its special business was to print and distribute large numbers of photographs, both vertical and oblique, taken from the air over the territory to be captured—showing trenches, wire, roads, hedges and many other features of paramount interest to the troops. Thousands of such photographs were distributed before every battle.

The important considerations, in regard both to maps and photographs, were that on the one hand, they were of priceless value to all who understood how to read and use them, and on the other hand, the event proved that their issue was in no sense labour in vain, for the keen interest taken, even by the private soldiers, in these facilities contributed powerfully to the success and precision with which all battle orders were carried out, and this more than repaid us for the additional trouble involved. It was inspiriting to me to see, on the eve of every great battle, as I made my round of the troops, numerous small groups of men gathered around their sergeant or corporal, eagerly discussing these maps and the photographs and the things they disclosed, the lie of the land, the wire, the trenches, the probable machine-gun posts, the dug-outs and the suspected enemy strong points.

My account of the details prepared for the battle of August 8th is not nearly complete; but the demands of space forbid any more informative reference to numerous other essential ingredients of the plan than a mere recital of some of them. Thus, for example, it was necessary to decide the action of all Machine Guns, both those used collectively under Corps control, and those left to be handled by the Divisions; the employment of Smoke Tactics, by the use of smoke screens created both by mortars from the ground and by phosphorus bombs dropped from the air; the use to be made of all the technical troops (Engineers and Pioneers) in bridging, road and railway repairs and field fortifications; the arrangements for the medical evacuation of the wounded, and for the collection and safe-keeping of the anticipated haul of prisoners, the synchronization of watches throughout the whole command, so that action should occur punctually at a common clock time; and last, but not least, the establishment of the machinery of liaison internally between all the numerous formations of the Australian Corps, and also externally with my flank Corps, the Canadians, under Currie, on my right, and the British Third Corps, under Butler, on my left.

Such, in outline, were my battle plans and my preparations for what I hoped would prove an operation of decisive influence upon the future of the campaign. The immediate results, which could be estimated on the spot and at the time, and the admissions of Ludendorff, which came to light only many months afterwards, combine to show that I was not mistaken.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] This was in Flanders and Belgium.

[12] The secret was, indeed, so well kept, and the "camouflage" stories circulated proved so effective, that the King of the Belgians forwarded a strong protest to Marshal Foch because the Canadians were about to deliver an attack in his country, without his having been consulted or made aware of the plans; and the Canadian Headquarters in London complained to the War Office that the Canadian Forces were being divided, and were being sent by detachments to different parts of the front, instead of being always kept together as the Canadian Government desired. It is said that even Mr. Lloyd George knew nothing of the intention to attack until late on the day before the battle.

[13] The weight of supplies of all kinds exceeded 10,000 tons.

[14] See Chapter XIII.

CHAPTER VII
THE CHASE BEGINS

The preliminary movements of Divisions were duly carried out without special difficulty. The Fifth Australian Division was relieved on August 1st by a Division of the Third Corps, in that part of the Corps front which lay north of the Somme, and passed into Corps Reserve, in a rear area, there to undergo training with Tanks, and to prepare itself for the work which it had to do.

The Fourth Australian Division, from Corps Reserve, took over the French front, as far south as the Amiens—Roye road on August 2nd, and on the next night took over from the Second Australian Division all that part of its front which lay south of the railway, thus disposing itself upon what was ultimately to become the battle front of the Canadian Corps.

On the same night, the Second and Third Divisions, who had thus been left in sole occupation of the sector which was to be the Australian Corps battle front, carried out a readjustment of their own mutual boundary, which would place each of these two Divisions upon its own proper battle front.

On the night of August 4th, the Second and Third Divisions rearranged their defensive dispositions so that each of them deployed only a single Brigade for the passive defence of its front, and withdrew to its rear area its remaining two Brigades, who were thus afforded three clear days to complete their internal preparations.

The Canadian Corps commenced to arrive, and on August 4th two Canadian Brigades relieved two Brigades of the Fourth Division, thereby releasing them so that they also might commence to prepare for the battle. It was originally intended that the last Brigade of the Fourth Division should also be relieved by Canadians on August 6th, when an untoward incident happened, which caused considerable alarm and speculation; and it led to a modification of this part of the plan.

The 13th Australian Brigade (of the Fourth Division) was on August 4th spread out upon a front of over six thousand yards. It had no option but to leave the greater part of the front-line trenches unoccupied, and to defend its area with a series of small, but isolated, posts. On that night, one of these posts, in the vicinity of the road to Roye,[15] was raided by the enemy, and the whole of its occupants, comprising a sergeant and four or five men, were surrounded and taken prisoner.

It was an unusual display of enterprise on the part of the enemy, at this point of time and in this locality. Whether it had been inspired by sneering criticisms from behind his line of the nature which have been quoted, or whether signs of unusual movement or a changed attitude on the part of our trench garrison had instigated a suspicion that something was happening which required investigation, could only be surmised. But the fact remained that five Australians had been taken, at a place several miles south of the southernmost point hitherto occupied by "the English."

The side-stepping of the Australian Corps southwards had thereby become known to the enemy, and it was necessary to estimate the deductions which he would be likely to draw from that discovery. Much depended upon the behaviour of these prisoners. Would they talk? and, if so, what did they know? That Australian captives would not volunteer information likely to imperil the lives of their comrades, might be taken for granted, but German Intelligence Officers had means at their disposal to draw from prisoners, unwittingly, anything they might know.

We could only hope, under the circumstances, that these men really did know nothing of our intention to attack; and that, if they had become aware of the presence of Canadian troops in the rear areas, they would believe the story which we had sedulously spread, that the Canadians were merely coming to relieve the Australian Corps, so that it might have a long rest after its heroic labours.

Not many weeks afterwards it was my good fortune to capture a German Headquarters, in which were found Intelligence Reports containing a narrative of this very incident. The importance of the capture of these men had been recognized, and they had been taken far behind the lines for an exhaustive examination. But, despite all efforts of the German Intelligence Staff, they had refused to disclose anything whatever but their names and units—which they were bound to do under the rules of war. The report went on to praise their soldierly bearing and loyal reticence, and held up these brave Australians as a model to be followed by their own men, adding that such a demeanour could only earn the respect of an enemy.

The alarm which this untoward happening created on our side of the line led to a determination to redouble our precautions. The Army Commander proposed, and I agreed, that the relief of the 13th Brigade by Canadians, prior to the eve of the battle, was out of the question, as being too risky. It was decided that the 13th Brigade must remain in the line until the very last.

This decision deprived General Maclagan of one of his three Brigades, and as it would be asking too much of the Fourth Division to carry out the rôle which had been allotted to it in the battle, with only two Brigades, I decided that the only thing to be done was to transfer to the Fourth Division, temporarily, one of the Brigades of the First Division, which was to arrive from the north in the course of the next three days.

Urgent telegrams were therefore despatched to accelerate the arrival of one of the Brigades of the First Division. In due course the First Australian Brigade (Mackay) arrived by four special trains on the night of August 6th, in sufficient time to enable it to take its place in General Maclagan's order of battle, in substitution for the 13th Brigade. The 13th Brigade was destined to have some further stirring adventures before it again joined its own Division.

The day preceding the great battle arrived all too soon. The prospect of an advance had sent a thrill through all ranks and expectation became tense. The use of the telephone had been ordered to be restricted, especially in the forward areas; for it was known that the enemy was in possession of listening apparatus, similar to our own, by which conversations on the telephone could be tapped, and unguarded references to the impending operations could be overheard.

Final inspections had, therefore, to be made, and final injunctions administered, by Commanders and Staffs traversing long distances over the extensive Corps area by motor car and horse, and even on foot. A strange and ominous quiet pervaded the scene; it was only when the explosion of a stray enemy shell would cause hundreds of heads to peer out from trenches, gun-pits and underground shelters, that one became aware that the whole country was really packed thick with a teeming population carefully hidden away.

Later in the afternoon of that last day came another note of alarm. To the Fourth and Fifth Australian Divisions had been allotted eighteen Store and Carrying Tanks. These had been brought the night before, into a small plantation lying about half a mile to the north of Villers-Bretonneux, loaded to their utmost capacity with battle stores of all descriptions: reserves of food and water, rifle ammunition, and a large reserve of Stokes Mortar bombs; also considerable supplies of petrol, to satisfy the ravenous appetites of the Tanks themselves.

This locality suddenly became the object of the closest attention by the enemy's Artillery. He began to deluge it with such a volume of fire that in less than half an hour a great conflagration had been started, which did not subside until fifteen of the Tanks and all their valuable cargo had been reduced to irretrievable ruin.

Had some unusually keen enemy observer perceived the presence of Tanks in our area, and would that knowledge have disclosed to him our jealously guarded secret? Fortunately, my Artillery Commander, Brigadier-General Coxen, making his last rounds of the Battery positions, was an eye-witness of the whole occurrence, and was able to reassure me. A chance shell—the last of a dozen fired entirely at random into our area—fell into the very centre of this group of Tanks, and set fire to some of the petrol. The resulting cloud of smoke became a signal to the enemy that something was burning which our men would probably attempt to salve; and in consonance with an entirely correct Artillery procedure, he at once concentrated a heavy fire upon the spot.

That incident is typical of the perturbations through which all responsible Commanders have to pass on such occasions. The occurrence was explained as accidental, and implied no premature discovery by the enemy. Nothing remained but to repair the damage, and make special arrangements to replenish the Stores which these Divisions had lost.

On the forenoon of the day before the battle, the following message was promulgated to all the troops:

Corps Headquarters,
August 7th, 1918.

To the Soldiers of the Australian Army Corps.

For the first time in the history of this Corps, all five Australian Divisions will to-morrow engage in the largest and most important battle operation ever undertaken by the Corps.

They will be supported by an exceptionally powerful Artillery, and by Tanks and Aeroplanes on a scale never previously attempted. The full resources of our sister Dominion, the Canadian Corps, will also operate on our right, while two British Divisions will guard our left flank.

The many successful offensives which the Brigades and Battalions of this Corps have so brilliantly executed during the past four months have been but the prelude to, and the preparation for, this greatest and culminating effort.

Because of the completeness of our plans and dispositions, of the magnitude of the operations, of the number of troops employed, and of the depth to which we intend to overrun the enemy's positions, this battle will be one of the most memorable of the whole war; and there can be no doubt that, by capturing our objectives, we shall inflict blows upon the enemy which will make him stagger, and will bring the end appreciably nearer.

I entertain no sort of doubt that every Australian soldier will worthily rise to so great an occasion, and that every man, imbued with the spirit of victory, will, in spite of every difficulty that may confront him, be animated by no other resolve than grim determination to see through to a clean finish, whatever his task may be.

The work to be done to-morrow will perhaps make heavy demands upon the endurance and staying powers of many of you; but I am confident that, in spite of excitement, fatigue, and physical strain, every man will carry on to the utmost of his powers until his goal is won; for the sake of Australia, the Empire and our cause.

I earnestly wish every soldier of the Corps the best of good fortune, and a glorious and decisive victory, the story of which will re-echo throughout the world, and will live for ever in the history of our home land.

John Monash,
Lieut.-General.
Cmdg. Australian Corps.

Not many days afterwards a copy of this order fell into the hands of the enemy, and the use he tried to make of it, to his own grave discomfiture, as the event proved, is an interesting story which will be told in due course.

Zero hour was fixed for twenty minutes past four, on the morning of August 8th. It needs a pen more facile than I can command to describe, and an imagination more vivid to realize the stupendous import of the last ten minutes. In black darkness, a hundred thousand infantry, deployed over twelve miles of front, are standing grimly, silently, expectantly, in readiness to advance, or are already crawling stealthily forward to get within eighty yards of the line on which the barrage will fall; all feel to make sure that their bayonets are firmly locked, or to set their steel helmets firmly on their heads; Company and Platoon Commanders, their whistles ready to hand, are nervously glancing at their luminous watches, waiting for minute after minute to go by—and giving a last look over their commands—ensuring that their runners are by their sides, their observers alert, and that the officers detailed to control direction have their compasses set and ready. Carrying parties shoulder their burdens, and adjust the straps; pioneers grasp their picks and shovels; engineers take up their stores of explosives and primers and fuses; machine and Lewis gunners whisper for the last time to the carriers of their magazines and belt boxes to be sure and follow up. The Stokes Mortar carrier slings his heavy load, and his loading numbers fumble to see that their haversacks of cartridges are handy. Overhead drone the aeroplanes, and from the rear, in swelling chorus, the buzzing and clamour of the Tanks grows every moment louder and louder. Scores of telegraph operators sit by their instruments with their message forms and registers ready to hand, bracing themselves for the rush of signal traffic which will set in a few moments later; dozens of Staff Officers spread their maps in readiness, to record with coloured pencils the stream of expected information. In hundreds of pits, the guns are already run up, loaded and laid on their opening lines of fire; the sergeant is checking the range for the last time; the layer stands silently with the lanyard in his hand. The section officer, watch on wrist, counts the last seconds: "A minute to go"—"Thirty seconds"—"Ten seconds"—"Fire."

And, suddenly, with a mighty roar, more than a thousand guns begin the symphony. A great illumination lights up the Eastern horizon; and instantly the whole complex organization, extending far back to areas almost beyond earshot of the guns, begins to move forward; every man, every unit, every vehicle and every Tank on their appointed tasks and to their designated goals; sweeping onward relentlessly and irresistibly. Viewed from a high vantage point and in the glimmer of the breaking day, a great Artillery barrage surely surpasses in dynamic splendour any other manifestation of collective human effort.

The Artillery barrage dominates the battle, and the landscape. The field is speedily covered with a cloak of dust, and smoke and spume, making impossible any detailed observation, at the time, of the course of the battle as a whole. The story can only be indifferently pieced together, long after, by an attempted compilation of the reports of a hundred different participants, whose narratives are usually much impaired by personal bias, by the nervous excitement of the moment, and by an all too limited range of vision. That is why no comprehensive account yet exists of some of the major battles of the war, and why those partial narratives hitherto produced are so often in conflict.

In so great a battle as this, only the broad facts and tangible results can be placed on record without danger of controversy. The whole immense operation proceeded according to plan in every detail, with a single exception, to which I must specially refer later on. The first phase, controlled as it was by the barrage time-table, necessarily ended punctually, and with the whole of the green line objective in our hands. This success gave us possession of nearly all the enemy's guns, so that his artillery retaliation speedily died down.

The captures in this phase were considerable, and few of the garrisons of the enemy's forward offensive zone escaped destruction or capture. The Second and Third Divisions had a comparative "walk over," and they had come to a halt, with their tasks completed, before 7 a.m.

The "open warfare" phase commenced at twenty minutes past eight, and both the red and the blue lines were captured in succession half-an-hour ahead of scheduled time. This capture covered the whole length of my front except the extreme left, where a half expected difficulty arose, but one which exercised no influence upon the day's success.

The Canadians, on my right, had a similar story to tell; they had driven far into the enemy's defences, exactly as planned. In spite of the difficulties of observation, the recurrence of a ground mist of the same nature as we had experienced at Hamel, and the long distances over which messages and reports had to travel—the stream of information which reached me, by telegraph, telephone, pigeon and aeroplane was so full and ample that I was not left for a moment out of touch with the situation.

The "inwards" messages are, naturally, far too voluminous for reproduction; but a brief selection from the many "outwards" messages telegraphed during that day to the Fourth Army Headquarters, and which, on a point of responsibility, I made it an invariable rule to draft myself, will give some indication of the course of events as they became known:

Sent at 7 a.m.: "Everything going well at 6.45 a.m. Heavy ground mist facilitating our advance, but delaying information. Infantry and Tanks got away punctually. Our attack was a complete surprise. Gailly Village and Accroche Wood captured. Enemy artillery has ceased along my whole front. Flanks Corps apparently doing well."

Sent at 8.30 a.m.: "Although not definitely confirmed, no doubt that our first objective green line captured along whole Corps front including Gailly, Warfusee, Lamotte and whole Cerisy Valley. Many guns and prisoners taken. Infantry and Artillery for second phase moving up to green line."

Sent at 10.55 a.m.: "Fifteenth Battalion has captured Cerisy with 300 prisoners. Advance to red line going well."

Sent at 11.10 a.m.: "Have taken Morcourt and Bayonvillers and many additional prisoners and guns. We are nearing our second objective and have reached it in places. My Cavalry Brigade has passed across our red line. We are now advancing to our final objective blue line."

Sent at 12.15 p.m.: "Hobbs has captured Harbonnières and reached blue line final objective on his whole front."

Sent at 1.15 p.m.: "Australian flag hoisted over Harbonnières at midday to-day. Should be glad if Chief would cable this to our Governor-General on behalf of Australian Corps."

Sent at 2.5 p.m.: "Total Australian casualties through dressing stations up to 12 noon under 600. Prisoners actually counted exceed 4,000. Many more coming in."

Sent at 4.40 p.m.: "Captured enemy Corps H.Q. near Framerville shortly after noon to-day." (This was the 51st German Corps).

Sent at 8 p.m.: "Corps captures will greatly exceed 6,000 prisoners, 100 guns, including heavy and railway guns, thousands of machine guns, a railway train, and hundreds of vehicles and teams of regimental transport. Total casualties for whole Corps will not exceed 1,200."

The vital information, which it is imperative for the Corps Commander to have accurately and rapidly delivered throughout the course of a battle, is that relating to the actual position, at any given moment of time, of our front line troops; showing the locations which they have reached, and whether they are stationary, advancing or retiring. For it has to be remembered that the whole Artillery resources of the Corps were pooled and kept under his own hand; and it was imperative that any changes in the Artillery action or employment must be quickly made, so as to extend the utmost help to any Infantry which might get into difficulties.

Thus, for example, the failure of any body of Infantry to enter and pass beyond a wood or a village, would be a sure indication that such locality was still held in strength by the enemy, and it would be appropriate to "switch" Artillery fire upon it, in order to drive him out. But such a proceeding would be anything but prudent if the information on which such action was to be based were already an hour old.

Transmission of messages from the front line troops to the nearest telephone terminal is usually slow and uncertain, and the retransmission of such messages, in succession, by Battalions, Brigades and Divisions only prolongs the delay. The normal process is in consequence far too dilatory for the exigencies of actual battle control.

A vastly superior method had therefore to be devised, and recourse was had to the use of aeroplanes. The No. 3 Australian Squadron soon acquired great proficiency in this work. They were equipped with two-seater planes, carrying both pilot and observer, and the work was called "Contact Patrol."

The "plane" flying quite low, usually at not more than 500 feet, the observer would mark down by conventional signs on a map the actual positions of our Infantry, of enemy Infantry or other facts of prime importance, and he often had time to scribble a few informative notes also. The "plane" then flew back at top speed to Corps H.Q., and the map, with or without an added report, was dropped in the middle of an adjacent field, wrapped in a weighted streamer of many colours. It was then brought by cyclists into the Staff Office.

Relays of Contact planes were on such service all day on every battle day, and although it was a hazardous duty few planes were lost. The total time which elapsed between the making of the observation at the front line and the arrival of the information in the hands of the Corps Staff was seldom more than ten minutes.

There can be no doubt that the whole operation was a complete surprise both to the troops opposed to us and to the German High Command. It became abundantly clear, in the following days, that no proper arrangements existed for rapidly reinforcing this part of the front in the event of an attack by us, but that these had to be extemporized after the event. This discovery points to the conclusion that the enemy had once again come to regard the British Army as a negligible quantity, a mistake for which he paid an even heavier price than when he made it in the early days of the war.

As an indication that even the Divisions in the line whose duty it primarily was to know, had no suspicions of an impending attack, comes the story of a German medical officer who was captured in his pyjamas in Warfusee village, and who confessed that being awakened by our bombardment and thinking it was merely a raid, he left his dug-out to see what was afoot, and thought he must be still dreaming when he saw our Pioneers a few hundred feet away, busily at work repairing the main road.

There was only one blemish in the whole day's operations. Not serious in relation to the whole, it nevertheless gravely hampered the work of the left Brigade of the Fourth Division. In short, the Third Corps Infantry failed to reach their ultimate objective line, and the enemy remained in possession of the Chipilly spur and of all the advantages which that possession conferred upon him.

The advance of my left flank, from the green to the red line, along the margin of the plateau bordering the Somme, was left exposed to his full view, while the river valley itself remained under the domination of his rifle fire, at quite moderate ranges. But worse than all, a battery of his Field Artillery emplaced just above the village of Chipilly remained in action, and one after another, six of the nine Tanks which had been allotted to the 4th Brigade were put out of action by direct hits from these guns.

The possibility was one which had been considered and measures to meet it were promptly taken. Maclagan, whose right Brigade in due course reached the blue line according to programme, making in its progress a splendid haul of prisoners and guns, took immediate steps to "refuse" his left flank, i.e., to bend it back towards Morcourt, and to establish, with a reserve battalion, a flank defence along the river, facing north from Cerisy to Morcourt.

Both these villages were, however, successfully captured, and "mopped up," which meant that all the enemy and machine guns lurking in them were accounted for. But the river valley was not captured, and became, until the situation was ultimately cleared up, a kind of No Man's Land between the enemy still holding the Chipilly spur on the north, and the Fourth Division on the south of the river.

The ultimate conquest of the Chipilly Bend forms no part of that day's story. What were the reasons for the failure of the Third Corps to complete its allotted task may have been the subject of internal inquiry, but the result of any such was not made known. The official report for the day was to the effect that the enemy on this front had resisted strongly, that fighting had been fierce, and that no progress could be made. But one is compelled to recognize that such language was often an euphemistic method of describing faulty Staff co-ordination, or faulty local leadership. There would be no justification, however, for questioning the bravery of the troops themselves.

It has already been foreshadowed that the experiences on that day of the contingent of sixteen Armoured Motor-cars under Lieutenant-Colonel Carter would form sensational reading, and the story of August 8th would not be complete without at least a brief reference to their exploits.

It was nearly midnight when Carter, with a Staff Officer, got back to Corps H.Q. to render their report. They were scarcely recognizable, covered as they were from head to feet, with grime and grease. They had had a busy time. The substance of what they had to tell was taken down at the time almost verbatim, and reads as follows:

"Got Armoured Cars through to Warfusee-Abancourt. When we reached the other side of No Man's Land we found that the road was good but a number of trees (large and small) had been shot down and lay right across it in places. Obstacles removed by chopping up the smaller trees and hauling off the big ones by means of a Tank. Pioneers helped us to clear the road all the way down. We did not come up to our advancing troops until they were almost near the Red Line. When we got past our leading Infantry we came upon quite a number of Huns and dealt with them. Had then to wait a little on account of our barrage, but went through a light barrage. When we got to Blue Line we detached three sections to run down to Framerville. When they got there they found all the Boche horse transport and many lorries drawn up in the main road ready to move off. Head of column tried to bolt in one direction and other vehicles in another. Complete confusion. Our men killed the lot (using 3,000 rounds) and left them there; four Staff Officers on horseback shot also. The cars then ran down to the east side of Harbonnières, on the south-east road to Vauvillers, and met there a number of steam wagons; fired into their boilers causing an impassable block. Had a lot of good shooting around Vauvillers. Then came back to main road. Two sections of cars went on to Foucaucourt and came in contact with a Boche gun in a wood north-east of Foucaucourt. This gun blew the wheels off one car and also hit three others. However, three of the cars were got away. Two other cars went to Proyart and found a lot of troops billeted there having lunch in the houses. Our cars shot through the windows into the houses, killing quite a lot of the enemy. Another section went towards Chuignolles and found it full of German soldiers. Our cars shot them. Found rest billets and old trenches also with troops in them. Engaged them. Had quite a battle there. Extent of damage not known, but considerable. Cars then came back to main road. We were then well in advance of Blue Line. Everything was now perfectly quiet—no shell-fire of any kind.

"I went a quarter of a mile beyond La Flaque. There was a big dump there, and Huns kept continually coming out and surrendering, and we brought quite a lot of them back as prisoners. It was then about 10.30 a.m. A party of Hun prisoners was detailed to tow back my disabled car. I saw no sign of any wired system anywhere. Old overgrown trenches but no organized trench system. I proceeded to some rising ground near Framerville. Did not go into Framerville, but could see that the roofs of the houses were intact. Saw no trace of any organized system of defence of any kind and no troops. My people saw no formed bodies of troops of any kind during the day coming towards us, but very large numbers of fugitives hastening in the opposite direction. Engaged as many of them as could be reached from the roads. I saw, from the hill, open country with a certain amount of vegetation on it."

The consternation and disorganization caused by the sudden onslaught of these cars, at places fully ten miles behind the enemy's front line of that morning, may be left to the imagination. It was a feat of daring and resolute performance, which deserves to be remembered.

The Burning Villages—east of Péronne.

Dummy Tank Manufacture.

Throughout the whole day, surrenders by the enemy, particularly of troops in rear or reserve positions, were on a wholesale scale. The total number of live prisoners actually counted up to nightfall in the Divisional and Corps Prisoner-of-War Cages exceeded 8,000 and the Canadians had gathered in at least as many more.

The Australian Corps also captured 173 guns capable of being hauled away, not counting those which had been blown to pieces. These captures included two "railway" guns, one of 9-inch and the other of 11.2-inch bore. The latter was an imposing affair. The gun itself rested on two great bogie carriages, each on eight axles; it was provided with a whole train of railway trucks fitted some to carry its giant ammunition, others as workshops, and others as living quarters for the gun detachment. The outfit was completed by a locomotive to haul the gun forward to its daily task of shelling Amiens, and hauling it back to its garage when its ugly work was done.

The captures of machine guns and of trench mortars of all types and sizes were on so extensive a scale that no attempt was ever made to make even an approximate count of them. They were ultimately collected into numerous dumps, and German prisoners were employed for many weeks in cleaning and oiling them for transport to Australia as trophies of war.

But the booty comprised a large and varied assortment of many other kinds of warlike stores. The huge dumps of engineering material at Rosières and La Flaque served all the needs of the Corps for the remainder of the war. There were horses, wagons, lorries and tractors by the hundred, including field searchlights, mobile pharmacies, motor ambulances, travelling kitchens, mess carts, limbers, and ammunition wagons, and there were literally hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition scattered all over the captured territory in dumps both large and small.

For the next two days all roads leading from the battle area back towards the Army Cage at Poulainville, where railway trains were waiting to receive them, were congested with column after column of German prisoners, roughly organized into companies—tangible evidences to the civilians of the district, as to our own troops, that a great victory had been won.

The tactical value of the victory was immense, and has never yet been fully appreciated by the public of the Empire, perhaps because our censorship at the time strove to conceal the intention to follow it up immediately with further attacks. But no better testimony is needed than that of Ludendorff himself, who calls it Germany's "black day," after which he himself gave up all hope of a German victory.

Ludendorff in his "Memoirs," republished in the Times of August 22nd, 1919, writes:

"August 8th was the black day of the German Army in the history of the war. This was the worst experience I had to go through.... Early on August 8th, in a dense fog that had been rendered still thicker by artificial means, the British, mainly with Australian and Canadian Divisions, and French, attacked between Albert and Moreuil with strong squadrons of Tanks, but for the rest with no great superiority. They broke between the Somme and the Luce deep into our front. The Divisions in line allowed themselves to be completely overwhelmed. Divisional Staffs were surprised in their Headquarters by enemy Tanks" [sic, our armoured cars were meant].... "The exhausted [sic] Divisions that had been relieved a few days earlier and that were lying in the region south-west of Péronne were immediately alarmed and set in motion by the Commander-in-Chief of the Second Army. At the same time he brought forward towards the breach all available troops. The Rupprecht Army Group dispatched reserves thither by train. The 18th Army threw its own reserves directly into the battle from the south-east.... On an order from me, the 9th Army too, although itself in danger, had to contribute. Days of course elapsed before the troops from a further distance could reach the spot.... It was a very gloomy situation.... Six or seven Divisions that were quite fairly to be described as effective had been completely battered.... The situation was uncommonly serious. If they continued to attack with even comparative vigour, we should no longer be able to maintain ourselves west of the Somme.... The wastage of the Second Army had been very great. Heavy toll had also been taken of the reserves which had been thrown in.... Owing to the deficit created our losses had reached such proportions that the Supreme Command was faced with the necessity of having to disband a series of Divisions, in order to furnish drafts.... The enemy had also captured documentary material of inestimable value to him.... The General Staff Officer whom I had dispatched to the battlefield on August 8th, gave me such an account that I was deeply confounded.... August 8th made things clear for both Army Commands, both for the German and for that of the enemy."

A hole had been driven on a width of nearly twelve miles, right through the German defence, and had blotted out, at one blow, the whole of the military resources which it had contained. The obligation which was thereby cast upon the enemy to throw into the gap troops and guns hastily collected from every part of his front, imposed upon him also an increased vulnerability at every other point which had to be so denuded.

It was no part of our programme to rest content upon our oars, and allow the enemy time to collect himself at leisure. The resources of the Australian Corps had suffered scarcely any impairment as the result of that glorious day. Such small losses as had been incurred were more than counter-balanced by the elation of these volunteer troops at this further demonstration of their moral and physical superiority over the professional soldiers of a militarist enemy nation.

On that very day all necessary measures were taken to maintain the battle without pause. But, in order not to interrupt the continuity of the story of subsequent developments, it will be convenient to mention, in this place, two events which cannot be dissociated from the great battle, and which will be memorable to those who participated in them.

The first was an accidental meeting together of a number of the most distinguished figures in the war. On August 11th, the Commander-in-Chief was to come to congratulate the Corps and to thank the troops through their Commanders. I called the Divisional Generals together at the Red Château at Villers-Bretonneux to meet him that afternoon. In the meantime General Rawlinson invited his Corps Commanders to meet him in the same village for a battle conference, and chose the same hour and a spot in the open, under a spreading beech, where his Generals sat informally around the maps spread upon the grass. At this meeting were Rawlinson, Currie, Kavanagh, Godley, myself, Montgomery and Budworth. The Field Marshal, with Laurence, the Chief of his General Staff, on their way to the Red Château, soon arrived. Shortly after Sir Henry Wilson, happening to pass in his car, also joined the party; and not many moments afterwards there arrived, again entirely without previous arrangement, Clemenceau and his Finance Minister Klotz.

Villers-Bretonneux, only three days before reeking with gas and unapproachable, and now delivered from its bondage, was the lodestone which had attracted the individual members of this remarkable assemblage; and the more serious business in hand was perforce postponed while Rawlinson, Currie and I had to listen to the generous felicitations of all these great war leaders.

The second event was the visit of His Majesty the King, on August 12th, to Bertangles, when he conferred on me the honour of Knighthood, in the presence of selected detachments of five hundred of the men who had fought in the battle, a hundred from each of my Five Divisions. A representative collection of guns and other war trophies had been hauled in from the battlefield to line the avenues by which the King approached. His Majesty was particularly interested in the German transport horses, expressing the hope that they would soon learn the Australian language; a pleasantry which he well remembered when I had the honour of an audience with him, on the anniversary of that very day.

FOOTNOTE:

[15] See Map J.

CHAPTER VIII
EXPLOITATION

The Fourth British Army had opened the great Allied counter-offensive with a brilliant stroke. It remained to see in what fashion the Allied High Command would proceed to exploit the victory. Would the Fourth Army be called upon, with added resources, at once to thrust due east, with the object of drawing upon itself the German reserves, and dealing with them as they arrived; or would blows now be delivered on other fronts with a view to keeping those reserves dispersed?

The immediate decision, communicated to me by the Army Commander on the afternoon of August 8th, was that, while the whole situation was being considered, and troop movements were in progress to enable the necessary concentrations to be made elsewhere, the Fourth Army would continue its advance forthwith; but that, instead of driving due east, the thrust was to be made in a south-easterly direction.

The object was to aim at Roye, and either by the capture of that important railway centre, or at least by the threat of its capture, to precipitate a withdrawal by the enemy from the great salient which he had in his April and May advances pressed into the French front opposite Moreuil and Montdidier, a salient which could be kept supplied by that railway alone.

The Australian Corps front on the evening of August 8th lay roughly on a north and south line, just east of Méricourt and just west of Vauvillers. But the Canadian Corps front bent back sharply from the latter point in a south-westerly direction. The Canadians were, therefore, to advance between the railway and the Amiens—Roye road to the general line Lihons-Le Quesnoy. The rôle of the Australian Corps was to make a defensive flank to this advance, by pivotting its left on the Somme in the vicinity of Méricourt, but advancing its right along the railway, in the direction of Lihons.

It was a decision which was unpalatable to me, for it condemned me to leaving the whole of the great bend of the Somme, on which lay Bray, Péronne and Brie, in the undisturbed possession of the enemy; and in view of the reports sent in from the front and confirmed later by the Armoured Cars, it appeared to me that the resumption of a vigorous advance due east next day would give us, without fighting, possession, or at least command, of the whole of this bend; while if we allowed the enemy to take breath and recover from his shock, he would probably have time to rally the fugitives, and turn again to face us.

This same great bend of the river had been the scene of two years of sedentary warfare, in 1915 and 1916, when the French and German artillery had converted it into a barren wilderness. It was, in its eastern part, scored with trenches, and bristled with wire entanglements in every direction; it was devoid of villages, woods, or any kind of shelter—a forbidding expanse of devastation.

But between our front lines of that day and the western edge of this wilderness, there still lay a belt of some six or seven miles of practically unharmed country over which the retreat of our Fifth Army in March had carried them without much fighting. I should have welcomed an order to push on the next morning, in open warfare formation, to gain possession of the whole of this belt, and force the enemy to make any attempt to reorganize his line on the inhospitable ground which lay beyond.

The order stood, however; and instructions were issued for the First Australian Division to be drawn into the fight, and to take upon themselves the task of conforming to the advance of the Canadians along the railway. The first phase of this advance was to have been carried out at 11 a.m. on August 9th by the First Division passing through the right Brigade of the Fifth Division.

The 1st Brigade of the First Australian Division had, as already related, arrived from the North in time to participate in the fighting of the day before; but the remaining two Brigades arrived so late, and had to perform so long a march from their detraining station near Amiens to our now greatly advanced battle front, that it soon became evident that they could not arrive at the line of departure in time to synchronize with the Canadian advance.

In consequence, the Fifth Division was instructed to detail its right line Brigade to begin this duty; and in due course the 15th Brigade carried out the first part of the task and advanced our line to include the capture of Vauvillers, an operation which was successfully completed by midday.

It will be remembered that the Second and Third Divisions had been given a task for the previous day which was limited in time, though not in difficulty, and that this task had been completed, as it proved with very little stress, by 7 a.m. These Divisions had thus had a whole day in which to rest and reorganize. The Second Division was therefore placed under orders to participate in the advance of August 9th.

In due course, the First Division arrived at our fighting front, and that afternoon both the First and Second Divisions advanced in battle order, the former passing through the right Brigade of the Fifth Division, and the latter through its left Brigade. This operation carried our front line in this part of the field to the foot of the Lihons hill, and gave us complete possession of the village of Framerville. It also incidentally released the Fifth Division from further line duty.

The opposition met with during this day's operations varied considerably along the battle front, which extended in this part of the field over about 6,000 yards. The Lihons ridge was found to be strongly held, and much fire both from field guns and machine guns was encountered. It was evident that, over-night, the enemy had succeeded in organizing sufficient troops for the local defence of this important point.

Upon the front of the Second Division, however, there was little opposition and the enemy gave up Framerville almost without a struggle. Three Battalions of Tanks co-operated in the day's fighting, but several of them were disabled by direct fire from Lihons. The task assigned to the Corps for that day was, none the less, carried out in its entirety, and by nightfall contact had been made with the Second Canadian Division on the railway about a mile east of Rosières.

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.

Immediately before my left flank lay the Méricourt bend on the south of the river and the Etinehem bend to the north of it. Both were held by the enemy, doubtless fugitives from the great battle, who had sought food, water and underground shelter in the numerous dug-outs which honeycombed the sides of the valley. The design was to capture the whole of these with little effort. It was a good plan, and only an unforeseen accident prevented its full realization.

Early on the morning of the 10th, I summoned a conference at Maclagan's Headquarters in Corbie, which was attended by the Commanders and certain Brigadiers of the Third and Fourth Divisions. It was arranged that on the north of the river, the 13th Brigade would that night get astride of the Etinehem spur on the north, while simultaneously the 10th Brigade, by making a side sweep skirting Proyart, would advance our line till its left rested on the river a mile east of Méricourt.

Columns were to move along defined routes, leaving the objectives well to the flanks, and then to encircle the enemy positions. Each column was to be accompanied by Tanks and was to move in an easterly direction and then wheel in towards the Somme. Although Tanks had never previously been used at night, as their utility was uncertain, it was thought that the effect of the noise they made would lead to the speedy collapse of the defence.

The plan succeeded to perfection on the north of the river, and the Etinehem spur and village with all its defenders fell to us almost without a blow. Four Tanks amused themselves by racing up and down the main Corbie—Bray road at top speed, and the clamour they made cleared the path for the marching infantry.

On the south, however, just after nightfall, a sudden onslaught by a flight of enemy bombing planes, threw the head of the 10th Brigade column into confusion, and its Commander was killed. Two of the Tanks were also disabled by direct hits from Artillery. This delayed the progress of the operation, and the next day broke with the task uncompleted. The 9th and 11th Brigades were, however, at once sent up to reinforce, and during the following day all three Brigades completed the operation by possessing themselves of the villages of Méricourt and Proyart and the woods adjoining the river.

This series of local operations yielded some 300 prisoners, and entirely cleared up the confused and unsatisfactory situation which had existed on my left flank, as the aftermath of the Chipilly spur failure of the first day. It also brought my line up more square to the Somme, and so somewhat shortened my already expanding front. But my left flank was at last quite secure.

I must now turn to the extreme right flank, which was, on this same day, also the scene of very severe fighting. I have related the progress of the First Division to the foot of the Lihons ridge the night before. On August 10th and 11th the advance was continued by the First and Second Divisions in sympathy with the advance of the Canadian Corps on the south of the railway. There were only a few Tanks left available to assist in this advance; and the resistance of the enemy in the neighbourhood of Lihons had stiffened considerably.

The devastated area had already been reached by us in this part of the field, and the terrain was a labyrinth of old trenches, and a sea of shell-holes; the remains of old wire entanglements spread in every direction, and the whole area had been covered by a rank growth of thistles and brambles. It furnished numerous harbours for machine-guns, and it was country over which it was difficult to preserve the semblance of an organized battle formation during an advance.

The enemy fought hard and determinedly to retain Lihons, and in some parts of the line the battle swayed to and fro. But before the morning was well advanced, we had taken possession of the whole of the Lihons Knoll, of Auger Wood, and of the villages of Lihons and Rainecourt, while the Canadians had passed through Chilly just south of the railway. All that afternoon the enemy made repeated counter-attacks, particularly directed against Lihons and Rainecourt; but they were all successfully driven off by rifle and machine-gun fire without the loss of any ground.

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.

On the same day I put into effect a project of organization which the necessities of the case forced upon me. North of the river stood the 13th Australian Brigade, and the 131st American Regiment, both still under the command of General Maclagan, the remainder of whose Division was resting, and this Division might be required at short notice for operations at a totally different part of the front. (I had, in fact, earmarked it for the proposed attack on August 15th to which I have referred.)

To overcome this anomalous position, I decided to constitute, for a brief period, an independent force, composed of the two units north of the river which I have named, to appoint to the command of it Brigadier-General Wisdom (of the 7th Brigade), and to supply him with a nucleus Staff, some Artillery, and supply and signal services. It became, in fact, to all intents and purposes, an additional Division with a Headquarters directly responsible to me.

This force received the name of "Liaison Force" and continued in existence for about eight days. Its functions were to keep tactical touch and liaison with the Third Corps, to protect my left flank by guarding the Etinehem spur from recapture, and to act as a kind of loose link between the two Corps, advancing its northern or its southern flanks, or both, in sympathy with any forward movement to be made by either Corps. While, during its existence as a separate force, no operations of first magnitude took place, yet the Liaison Force served me well in the very useful function of a custodian of my tactical ownership of the Somme valley, an ownership which I succeeded in retaining to the immense advantage of the operations of the Corps less than three weeks later.

By August 13th, therefore, my responsibilities included the control of seven separate Divisions as well as all the Corps Troops, and Army Troops attached. The next week was occupied in local operations by the front line Divisions to straighten our front, and to dispose of a number of strong points, small woods, and village ruins which, so long as they were in enemy hands, were a source of annoyance to us. The attitude of the enemy was alert but not aggressive, and an important point was that he showed every desire to stand his ground, and to contest our further advance. There was as yet no indication of any comprehensive withdrawal out of the great river bend. Each day brought its useful toll of prisoners, all of whom, however, corroborated the view that the enemy meant to hold on, and that the troops opposing us were more than a mere rearguard intended to delay our advance.

The period from August 13th to 20th was also occupied in carrying out a number of inter-divisional reliefs—events of merely technical interest to the student of military history, but imposing an immense amount of detailed work upon the Staff of the Corps and upon the Commanders and Staffs of the Divisions concerned. It was my own special responsibility, and one which I could not delegate, to decide the date of the relief of each Division and by which other Division it should be relieved. Such decisions involved a close inquiry into, and a just and humane appreciation of the condition of the troops, almost from hour to hour every day, a duty in the discharge of which I was able to rely upon the loyal help of the Divisional Commanders and Brigadiers.

The time that had elapsed since last they had rested, the marching they had since done, the fighting they had undertaken and its nature, the mental and physical stress which they had undergone, and the probable nature and date of their future employment were all factors which had to be weighed carefully, and set against the advantages or disadvantages of cutting short the period of rest of the troops who were available to relieve them. It was a function which had to be exercised, at all times, with the greatest circumspection, and the strictest justice; for troops are very ready to acquire the impression that they are being called upon to do more than their fair share.

MAP C.

An actual inter-divisional relief usually occupied two nights and the intervening day. Incoming units, both fighting and technical, had to be shown all over the sector, to be taught the dispositions and the exact situation in front of us; maps, orders and photographs had to be explained and handed over; stores and dumps had to be inventoried and receipts passed; while on the other hand the outgoing troops expected to find their billets, offices, stables, wagon lines, bathing-places and entertainment rooms in the rear area all allocated and ready for their occupation.

Each such mutual relief meant the movement of upwards of 20,000 men, and separate roads had to be allotted for their use. Frequently in so large a Corps as this, two such inter-divisional reliefs would synchronize or overlap, and the danger of congestion and the Staff work necessary to avoid it would be thereby more than doubled. And all this work would have to go on smoothly even if the Corps front were in the throes of an actual battle at the time.

Although much of the routine of such reliefs, which had become almost a ritual during the preceding years of trench warfare, was now scrapped, it is a matter of pride to the Australian Corps and its Divisions, that all such relief operations, even amid all the stress of these busy fighting months of August and September, were, until the end, carried out with precision, freedom from irritating hitches, and a minimum of stress on the troops.

The decisions which had to be given regarding the times and alternations of these Divisional reliefs became from now on really of basic importance, and affected the main framework of the whole of my future plans. It was no longer merely a question of earmarking certain Divisions for a specified single operation; but of planning, many days ahead, the rotation in which the Divisions were to be employed in a continuous series of operations. I regarded it as a fundamental principle to employ whenever possible absolutely fresh and rested troops for an operation of any magnitude or importance. To carry such a principle into effect involved the necessity of making the best surmise that was possible as to the course of events a week or even two weeks ahead.

As I shall endeavour to make clear in the course of the following pages, the really outstanding and exceptional features of the work of the Corps in its last sixty days were the sustained vigour of its fighting, and the unbroken continuity of its collective effort. Those results would clearly depend more on the manner in which the resources in troops were manipulated than upon any other factor. Each Division had to be kept employed until the last ounce of effort, consistent with speedy recovery, had been yielded, and each Division had to rest a sufficient time to enable it fully to recover its spirit and tone, and yet had to be ready by the time it was wanted.

The fulfilment of such conditions involved, as a little reflection will show, a great deal more than a mere mechanical rotation of employment; for the problem was, always to have available an adequate supply of sufficiently rested troops for a prospective demand which, although varying always in accordance with the changing situation, had nevertheless to be predicted or conjectured.

August 21st found our front line much about the same as that of August 13th, although generally more advanced and straightened out. The Corps frontage was still over 16,000 yards, and upon the completion of the series of reliefs to which I have alluded the dispositions of the Corps were as follows: The Fourth Australian Division from Lihons to just south of Herleville, the 32nd British Division opposite Herleville, the Fifth Australian Division in front of Proyart, and the Third Australian Division on the north of the river. The First and Second Divisions were in Corps Reserve, the former having by then had a good rest from its Lihons fighting. The Liaison Force had been broken up; and the 32nd British Division (Major-General T. S. Lambert) had joined my command in substitution for the 17th Division, which had been withdrawn to join the Third Army.

Such was the situation of the Australian Corps, when on August 21st the short period of comparative inactivity came to a close, and it was destined soon to go forward to further decisive events. On the previous day the French opened a great attack in the south, which yielded 10,000 prisoners on the first day, and on the day in question the Third British Army delivered north of Albert the attack which had been expected for some days. Thus the enemy would have his hands full in endeavouring to parry those fresh blows; and the time seemed appropriate for another stroke on the front of the Fourth Army.

CHAPTER IX
CHUIGNES

Allusion has been made to the great bend which occurs in the course of the River Somme. It is indeed a geographical circumstance which must be borne in mind, if the phraseology current at this epoch in the war is to be clearly comprehended.

The river flows in an almost due northerly direction from the neighbourhood of Roye as far as Péronne, and then bends quite sharply, at that locality, in a western direction, past Bray, Corbie and Amiens, towards the sea, beyond Abbeville. In the story of the fighting of the period from March to August we have been concerned only with that portion of the river valley which ran parallel to our line of advance; but interest will henceforth focus itself largely upon that other reach of the Somme which runs on a north and south line, upstream, from the town of Péronne.

This latter stretch of the river lies squarely athwart the direction in which the Corps had been advancing, and the obstacle to that advance which the river would presently constitute was continued in a northerly direction from Péronne by an unfinished work of a great canalization scheme to be called the "Canal du Nord." This canal was already wide and deep, and formed a tactical obstacle of some significance, for the excavations incidental to this project had been almost completed before the war.

The "line of the Somme," as it was understood in the tactical discussions of the period now to be dealt with, meant, in short, the line formed by that part of the river which lay upstream (i.e., to the south of Péronne), and the continuation northwards of that line by the Canal du Nord. Both features being military obstacles, they and the highlands to the east of them together afforded an eminently suitable continuous line on which the enemy might, if he were permitted to do so, establish himself in a defensive attitude in order to bar our eastward progress.

The autumn was upon us; not more than another eight or nine weeks of campaigning weather could be relied upon. A quite definite possibility existed that the enemy might be able to put forth so powerful an effort to contest our further advance, inch by inch, that he would gain sufficient time to prepare the line of the Somme for a stout defence, and hold us up until the arrival of winter compelled a suspension of large operations.

There were at that time, indeed, some who contended that as we had apparently succeeded in putting an end to the German offensive we should rest content with the year's work; that our soundest strategy would be to permit the enemy to take up such a line of defence; and then quietly to wait over the winter until 1919 for the full development of the American effort, now only in its inception.

So far, the enemy had given no indication of any readiness to undertake a precipitate withdrawal from the great bend west of the Somme. On the contrary, his resistance had stiffened to such an extent that little further progress was to be hoped for from the methods of open warfare which I had employed since August 8th.

If, however, another powerful blow could be delivered, to be followed by energetic exploitation, it was quite possible that the enemy might be hustled across the Somme, that this might be achieved at such a rate that I could gain a firm footing on the east bank, and that thereby the value to him of the line of the Somme, as a winter defence, might be destroyed.

This was the very project on which I now embarked. The First Division was in Corps Reserve, had rested and was fresh. The 32nd Division had only just come into the line. By handing over a substantial sector to the French, my frontage south of the Somme was about to be shortened to 7,000 yards, a very suitable front for a deliberate attack by two Divisions.

I held a conference at Fouilloy, near Corbie, in the afternoon of August 21st to announce the plan, and to settle all details with the Commanders and services concerned. The Infantry assault was to be entrusted to Glasgow and Lambert, attacking side by side; but the former had allotted to him much the larger share of the battle front, at the northern end, the corollary rôle of the 32nd Division being to seize Herleville and carry our line just to the east of it.

The date of the attack was fixed for August 23rd, and the Second and Fifth Divisions were warned to be in readiness to come into the line a day or two after the battle, in order to commence immediately the process of keeping the enemy on the run, and hustling him clean out of the river bend and across the line of the Somme.

The conference of that day was of special interest, in that I had to deal with two Divisions which had not participated in any of those Corps Conferences, previously held, which had initiated a fully organized Corps operation. The Commanders and Staffs were strangers to each other and, some of them, to me and my Staff. Nearly all of them were yet unfamiliar with the special methods of the Corps. The conference was therefore a lengthy one, for many problems of tactical mechanism, which had been settled in connection with the preceding battles of Hamel and August 8th, had to be reopened and elucidated.

These regular battle conferences were in the Australian Corps an innovation from the time the command of it devolved upon me. They proved a powerful instrument for the moulding of a uniformity of tactical thought and method throughout the command. They brought together men who met face to face but seldom, and they permitted of an exhaustive and educative interchange of views. They led to a development of "team-work" of a very high order of efficiency.

The work of preparing for, and the actual conduct of, these conferences was always a very arduous business; but they more than repaid me for the effort they entailed. They served two paramount purposes. They enabled me to apply the requisite driving force to all subordinates collectively, instead of individually, and thereby created a responsive spirit which was competitive. In addition, each Commander or Service had the advantage not only of receiving instructions regarding his own action, but also of hearing in full detail the instructions conveyed to his colleagues. He knew, not merely what his colleagues had to do, but also knew that they had been told what to do; and he had an opportunity of considering the effect of their action on his own.

The senior representative of the Heavy Artillery, Tank and Air Services invariably attended, and listened to all the points discussed with the Divisions, and the Divisional Commanders heard all matters arranged with these services. In this way, each arm acquired in the most direct manner a steadily expanding knowledge of the technology of all the other arms.

My reason for emphasizing these matters in the present context is that, on this particular occasion, an attempt was to be made to carry out a major Corps operation at little more than thirty-six hours' notice; and the Division which was to have assigned to it the principal rôle was still in Corps Reserve and a day's march from the battle front.

That, in spite of these handicaps, the battle proved brilliantly successful is a testimony to the valuable part which these Corps conferences played in securing rapid and efficiently co-ordinated action; a result which would, I am confident, have been unattainable under the stated conditions by the mere issue of formal written orders.

Although only two out of the seven Divisions of the Corps were to participate in this operation, it was my intention to employ, for the full assistance of the Infantry, the whole resources of the Corps in Artillery, Tanks and Aircraft. That was a principle which I always regarded as fundamental, and one from which I never permitted any exception to be made, although the pressure upon me to rest a substantial portion of these ancillary services was always very great.

The general plan for the battle ran briefly as follows. The 32nd Division would attack with one Infantry Brigade, under a barrage, on a frontage of 1,000 yards; the capture of the village of Herleville, which was still strongly held, being its principal objective.

The 1st Australian Division would attack on a frontage of 4,500 yards, with two Brigades in line, and one Brigade in reserve. The attack would be carried out in three phases.

The first phase was a normal assault, under an Artillery barrage, and with the assistance of Tanks, to a predetermined line, which would carry us beyond the Chuignes Valley; the second phase was in the nature of exploitation by the two line Brigades, but was expressly limited to a maximum distance of 1,000 yards beyond the main first objective.

The third phase was to be contingent upon the complete success of the preceding phases, and would consist of an advance by the Reserve Brigade for a further exploitation of success, by the seizure of the whole of the Cappy bend of the river, including the towering hill close to the Somme Canal known as Froissy Beacon.

All arrangements for the forthcoming battle having thus been completed, the First Division duly relieved the Fifth Division on the night of August 21st, and hastened forward its preparations for the attack, which had been fixed for 4.45 a.m. on August 23rd.

In the meantime, the first attack which any British Army other than the Fourth had made since August 8th was at last launched on August 21st along the whole front of the Third British Army, northwards from Albert.

It has come to be an article of faith that the whole of the successive stages of the great closing offensive of the war had been the subject of most careful timing, and of minute organization on the part of the Allied High Command, and of our own G.H.Q. Much eulogistic writing has been devoted to an attempted analysis of the comprehensive and far-reaching plans which resulted in the delivery of blow upon blow, in a prescribed order of time and for the achievement of definite strategical or tactical ends.

The Canal and Tunnel at Bellicourt—looking north.

The Hindenburg Line—a characteristic belt of sunken wire.

All who played any part in these great events well know that it was nothing of the kind; that nothing in the nature of a detailed time-table to control so vast a field of effort was possible. All Commanders, and the most exalted of them in a higher degree even than those wielding lesser forces, became opportunists, and bent their energies, not to the realization of a great general plan for a succession of timed attacks, but upon the problem of hitting whenever and wherever an opportunity offered, and the means were ready to hand.

In these matters it was the force of circumstances which controlled the sequence of events, and nothing else. An elaborate time-table controlled by definite dates and sequences for the successive engagement of a series of Armies would have been quite impossible of realization. Even a Corps Commander had difficulty in forecasting within a day or two when he would be ready to launch an attack on any given part of the front. For an Army Commander it was a matter of a week or even two.

All attempted time-tables were controlled by our Artillery requirements; both the assembling of the necessary guns—often drawn from distant fronts—and the accumulating of the requisite "head" of ammunition to see a battle through, were processes whose duration could only be very roughly forecasted.

The dumping, in the gun pits and in ammunition stores, of the necessary 500 or 600 rounds per gun meant days of labour in collection and distribution on the part of the railways and motor lorries. The breakdown of a few motor lorries at a critical time, or the dropping of a single bomb upon an important railway junction, were disturbing factors quite sufficient to have arrested the flow of ammunition, and to have postponed, indefinitely, any programme based upon its prompt delivery.

It will be obvious, therefore, that no reliance could be placed, days or weeks beforehand, upon a given attack taking place on a given day; therefore no plans could be made which depended upon such attacks taking place in a predetermined sequence.

Shortly put, therefore, the decisions of the High Command were confined to questions such as where an attack should be made, in what direction, and by what forces. The date was always a matter of uncertainty, and the only control that could be exercised was by postponement, and never by acceleration.

For the greater part of the offensive period it was therefore necessarily left to the Commanders of the Armies to conform to a general policy of attack, the time and method being left to their own decision or recommendation. And they, in turn, relied upon their Corps Commanders to seize the initiative in the pursuit of such a policy. Naturally, the Army at all times made every effort to secure co-ordinated action by its several Corps; but it rarely happened that more than one Corps at a time carried through the main effort—the other Corps performing subsidiary rôles. The great battle of September 29th to October 1st, which completed the final rupture of the Hindenburg line, was, however, a signal exception to this rule.

The attack by the Third British Army on August 21st is a case which illustrates the delays inseparable from battle preparations. The project of such an attack had already been mooted on August 11th, when General Byng (Third Army) paid me a visit to discuss my battle plan of August 8th, and I gathered on that occasion that he hoped to begin within four or five days. The event showed that the operation actually took ten days to materialize. No criticism is suggested. The conditions of transport of troops and munitions doubtless made its earlier realization quite impossible.

The attack coming when it did, however, considerably eased the situation of the Fourth Army, upon whose front Ludendorff had flung all his available reserves, drawn from all parts of the German front, in his endeavours to bring the Australians and Canadians to a halt.

He was now suddenly confronted with the prospect of another "break through" in a different part of his line, and the German people had been taught by their press correspondents to believe that a "break through" was the one thing most to be resisted by the German Supreme Command, and the one thing impossible of achievement by us.

There can be no doubt, therefore, that the success of the Third Army on August 21st, although not comparable in its results with the battle of August 8th, did materially assist the prospects of my own success in the operations upon which I was then embarking.

The immediate effect of it was already felt the very next day. For the Third Corps, which was still the left flank Corps of the Fourth Army, and which had made very little progress since August 8th, was enabled to advance its line a little past Albert and Meaulte.

The Third Australian Division, which, it will be remembered, had taken over the front and the rôle of the now disbanded Liaison Force, participated, by arrangement, in this attack and, swinging up its left, brought my front line, north of the river, square to the Somme Valley, and just to the forward slopes of the high plateau overlooking Bray and La Neuville. The Third Pioneer Battalion at once got to work on restoring the broken crossings over the Somme, to the south of Bray, and put out a series of advanced posts upon the left bank of the river, which gave us practical control of the great island on which stands La Neuville.

Meanwhile, on the left flank of the 9th Brigade, which had carried out the Third Divisional attack, there was serious trouble. The enemy counter-attacked in the late afternoon. The 9th Brigade stood firm; but the 47th Division (of the Third Corps) yielded ground, leaving the flank of the 9th Brigade in the air. A chalk pit, which we had seized, formed a welcome redoubt which enabled the 33rd Battalion to hang on for sufficiently long to permit of the 34th Battalion coming up to form a defensive flank, facing north.

In this way the gallant 9th Brigade (Goddard) was able to retain the whole of its gains of that day; but the risk of an immediate further advance was too great while the situation to the north remained obscure and unsatisfactory. The capture of the village of Bray, which was still strongly held by the enemy, had, therefore, to be postponed, although it had been part of my plan to capture it that same day as a measure of precaution, seeing that I calculated upon being able the next day to advance my line south of the Somme to a point well to the east of Bray.

The great attack by the First Division supported by the 32nd Division, which has come to be known as the battle of Chuignes, was launched at dawn on August 23rd, and was an unqualified success.

The main valley of the Somme in this region is flanked by a number of tributary valleys, which run generally in a north and south direction, extending back from the river four or five miles. They are broad, with heavily-wooded sides, and harbour a number of villages, such as Proyart, Chuignolles, Herleville and Chuignes, which cluster on their slopes.

One such valley, larger and longer than any of those which, in our previous advances, we had yet crossed, lay before our front line of that morning, and square across our path. It ran from Herleville, northwards, past Chuignes, to join the Somme in the Bray bend. It was the most easterly of all the tributary valleys to which I have referred, and it was also the last piece of habitable country before the devastated area of 1916 was reached, just a mile to the east of it.

The valley afforded excellent cover for the enemy's guns, and the expectation was that some of them would be overrun by our attack. It was also ideal country for machine-gun defence, for the numerous woods, hedges and copses afforded excellent cover, and had in all probability been amply fortified with barbed wire. It was a formidable proposition to attack such a position on such a frontage with only two Brigades.

The 2nd Brigade (Heane) attacked on the right, the 1st Brigade (Mackay) on the left, and the first phase was completed to time-table, with the green objective line, located on the east side of the long valley, in our possession. The only temporary hitch in the advance along the whole front was at Robert Wood, where the enemy held out, and had to be completely enveloped from both flanks before surrendering.

Then came the second phase, and no difficulty was experienced in advancing our line 1,000 yards east of the green line, nor in establishing there a firm line of outposts for the night.

The third phase presented a great deal more difficulty than I had anticipated. It was to have been undertaken by the 3rd Brigade (Bennett) pushing without delay through the 1st Brigade, and advancing in open warfare formation north-easterly towards Cappy, for the seizure of Hill 90, overlooking that village and on the south-west of it, and terminating at its northern extremity in the high bluff of Froissy Beacon.

There was, however, some unexplained delay in the initiation of this advance, and it was not until about 2 o'clock that the 3rd Brigade moved forward to the assault of the long slope of the Chuignes Valley, which still lay before them in this part of the field. The enemy, under the impression that our attack had spent itself, had occupied the plateau in great strength, and at first little progress could be made.

Mobile Artillery was, however, promptly pushed up, and this proved of great assistance to the infantry. Garenne Wood, on the top of the plateau, into which large numbers of the enemy had withdrawn, proved a difficult obstacle, and incapable of capture by frontal attack. It, too, was conquered by enveloping tactics, and with its fall the resistance of the enemy rapidly subsided, and the 3rd Brigade had the satisfaction of hunting the fugitives clean off the plateau into the Cappy Valley.

The whole of this phase of the battle was an especially fine piece of work on the part of the Regimental Officers. It was open warfare of the most complete character, and the victory was won by excellent battle control on the part of the Battalion Commanders, by splendid co-operation between the four Battalions of the Brigade, and by intelligent and gallant leadership on the part of the Company and Platoon Commanders.

Beset as I had been by many anxieties during the early afternoon as to how the Third Brigade would fare in the difficult task which had been given it, rendered more difficult by the delay of which I have spoken, I had the satisfaction that night of contemplating a victory far greater than I had calculated upon.

For the 32nd Division had successfully captured Herleville, and the First Division had seized the whole country for a depth of 1½ miles up to a line extending from Herleville to the western edge of Cappy. The whole Chuignes Valley was ours. By its capture the enemy had been despoiled of all habitable areas, and had been relegated to a waste of broken and ruined country between us and the line of the Somme.

We took that day 21 guns and over 3,100 prisoners from ten different regiments. The slaughter of the enemy in the tangled valleys was considerable, for our Infantry are always vigorous bayonet fighters. They received much assistance from the Tanks in disposing of the numerous machine gun detachments which held their ground to the last.

It was a smashing blow, and far exceeded in its results any previous record in my experience, having regard to the number of troops engaged. Its immediate result, the same night, was the capture of Bray by the Third Division, north of the river, thus completing the work of that Division which the failure of the 47th Division on their left the day before had compelled them to leave unfinished. The 40th Battalion took 200 prisoners, with trifling loss to themselves.

A more remote result, which made itself apparent in the next few days, was that it compelled the enemy to abandon all hope of retaining a hold of any country west of the line of the Somme; it impelled him at last to an evacuation of the great bend of the river, a process which he began in a very few days.

Such was the battle of Chuignes. Much of the success of this brilliant engagement was due to the personality of the Divisional Commander, Major-General Glasgow. He had commenced his career in the war as a Major of Light Horse, and had participated in the earliest stages of the fighting on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Speedily gaining promotion during that campaign, his outstanding merits as a leader gained him an appointment to the command of the 13th Brigade, when the latter was formed in Egypt in the spring of 1916. For two years he led that Brigade through all its arduous experiences on the Somme, at Messines and in the third battle of Ypres.

This fine record was but the prelude to the history-making performances of the 13th Brigade in 1918 at Dernancourt and Villers-Bretonneux, and Glasgow seemed easily the most promising, among all the Brigadiers of that time, as a prospective Divisional Commander: a judgment which fully justified itself.

Of strong though not heavy build and of energetic demeanour, Glasgow succeeded not so much by exceptional mental gifts, or by tactical skill of any very high order, as by his personal driving force and determination, which impressed themselves upon all his subordinates. He always got where he wanted to get—was consistently loyal to the Australian ideal, and intensely proud of the Australian soldier.

The number of prisoners captured on this day, and the total numbers of the enemy encountered in the course of an advance which was relatively small, pointed to a disposition of troops which was unusual on the part of the enemy.

According to the principles so strongly emphasized by Ludendorff, in instructions which he had issued, and copies of which duly fell into my hands, there was to be, in his scheme of defensive tactics, a "fore-field" relatively lightly held by outposts and machine guns. The main line of resistance was to be well in rear, and there the main concentration of troops was to be effected.

Why had this dictum been so widely disregarded on this occasion? It was a question worthy of close inquiry, and two German Battalion Commanders who were captured by us on that day supplied the answer.

Reference has already been made to the message which I issued to the Corps on the eve of the great opening battle; and to the fact that a copy of this message had fallen into the hands of the enemy, probably by the capture of an officer in the close fighting which took place at Lihons on August 9th and 10th.

In due course the substance of this message was published in the German wireless news, and in the German press of the time, but cleverly mistranslated to convey a colouring desirable for the German public.

It so happened that not long before the opening of our offensive I had, at the request of the authorities, sent to Australia a recruiting cable, which appealed to the Australian public for a maintenance of supplies of fighting men.[16] That the full text of this cable also became speedily known to the enemy is a testimony to the far-flung alertness of their Intelligence Service. It, also, was published in their press.

Basing their editorial comments on this material, the Berliner Tageblatt of August 17th, 1918, a copy of which I captured, and another journal whose name was not ascertainable, because in the copy captured the title had been torn off, both indulged in arguments, which were long, and intended to be convincing, to prove to the German people that I had promised my troops a "break-through;" that I had failed, and that, admittedly, the "proud" Australian Corps had been shattered, had come to the end of its resources and was no longer to be taken into calculation as an instrument of attack by the "English."

It was perfectly legitimate, if clumsy, propaganda. But it was a curious example of a propaganda which recoiled upon the heads of its propounders. The Battalion Commanders, who, like all German officers whom we captured, were always voluble in excuses for their defeat, pleaded that they had been deceived by the utterances of their own journals into believing that the Australian offensive effort had come to an end, once and for all, and that no further attack by this Corps was possible.

Map D

It was this belief which, they said, had prompted their respective Divisions (for each of them represented a separate one) to disregard Ludendorff's prescription; their Divisional Generals had felt justified in availing themselves of the very excellent living quarters which existed in the Chuignes Valley, near the German front line of August 22nd, to quarter all their support and reserve Battalions.

It was there that we found them—increasing the population of the front zone far beyond that which we had been accustomed to find. Was there ever a more diverting example of a propaganda which recoiled upon those who uttered it? Intended to deceive the German public, it ended in deceiving the German front line troops, to their own lamentable undoing.

Among the captures of the battle of Chuignes, which, as usual, comprised a large and varied assortment of warlike stores, including another great dump of engineering materials near Froissy Beacon, and two complete railway trains, was the monster naval gun of 15-inch bore, which had been so systematically bombarding the city of Amiens, and had wrought such havoc among its buildings and monuments.

It was first reached by the 3rd Australian Battalion (1st Brigade) during a bayonet charge which cleared Arcy Wood, in the shelter of which the giant gun had been erected. An imposing amount of labour had been expended upon its installation, and the most cursory examination of the effort involved was sufficient to make it evident that the enemy entertained no expectation of ever being hurled back from the region which it dominated.

The gun with its carriage, platform and concrete foundations weighed over 500 tons. It was a naval gun, obviously of the type in use on the German Dreadnoughts, and never intended by its original designers for use on land. It had a range of over twenty-four miles, fired a projectile weighing nearly a ton, and the barrel was seventy feet long.

It had been installed with the elaborate completeness of German methods. A double railway track, several miles long, had been built to the site, for the transport of the gun and its parts. It was electrically trained and elevated. Its ammunition was handled and loaded by mechanical means. The adjacent hill-side had been tunnelled to receive the operating machinery, and the supplies of shells, cartridges and fuses.

The gun and its mounting, when captured, were found to have been completely disabled. A heavy charge of explosive had burst the chamber of the gun, and had torn off the projecting muzzle end, which lay with its nose helplessly buried in the mud. The giant carriage had been burst asunder, and over acres all around was strewn the debris of the explosion.

For some time, some of my gunner experts favoured the theory that the gun had burst accidentally, but the view which ultimately prevailed was that the demolition had been intentional. Many months afterwards, the full story of the gun and its performances was elicited from a prisoner who had belonged to the No. 4 (German) Heavy Artillery Regiment, and it was circumstantial enough to be credible.

The story is worthy of repetition, not only because no authentic account of this wonderful trophy has yet been published, but also because the history of this gun curiously illuminates the enemy's plans, intentions and expectations between the dates of his onslaught in March and his recoil in August.

The substance of the story is as follows: The gun came from Krupp's. Work on the position was started early in April, 1918—only a few days after the site had fallen into the enemy's hands. It was completed and ready for action on the morning of June 2nd. Its maximum firing capacity was twenty-eight rounds per day. It fired continuously until June 28th. By this time the original gun was worn out, having fired over 350 rounds at Amiens. A new piece was ordered from Krupp's. It arrived on August 7th, and was ready to fire by 7 p.m. It fired its first round on August 8th at 2 a.m. and kept on firing till August 9th, firing thirty-five rounds in all. At 7 a.m. on August 9th, all hands were ordered to remove everything that was portable and of value. Demolition charges were laid and fired about 9 a.m. on August 9th. The crew returned to Krupp's.

It is to be inferred from this narrative that the enemy's defeat at Hamel on July 4th did not deter him from his enterprise of replacing the original worn gun, but that after August 8th, he quite definitely accepted the certainty that he would be allowed no time to remove the gun intact, and so he destroyed it in order that we might not be able to use it against him.

This is the largest single trophy of war won by any Commander during the war, and it was a matter of great regret to me that the cost of its transportation to Australia was prohibitive. The gun, as it stands, was, therefore, fenced in, and it has been formally presented to the City of Amiens as a souvenir of the Australian Army Corps.

So long as any Australian soldiers remained in France, this spot was a Mecca to which thousands of pilgrims wandered; and soon there was, over the whole of the immense structure, not one square inch upon which the "diggers" had not inscribed their names and sentiments. There, in the shade of Arcy Wood, the great ruin rests, a memorial alike of the sufferings of Amiens and of the great Australian victory of Chuignes.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] The cablegram in question was dated July 13th, and was in the following terms:

"Since the opening of the German offensive in March every Division of the Australian Army in France has been engaged and always with decisive success. The men of Australia, wherever and whenever they have entered this mighty conflict, have invariably brought the enemy to a standstill, and have made him pay dearly for each futile attempt to pass them on the roads to Amiens and to the Channel Ports. Their reputation as skilful, disciplined and gallant soldiers has never stood higher throughout the Empire than it does to-day. Those who are privileged to lead in battle such splendid men are animated with a pride and admiration which is tempered only by concern at their waning numbers. Already some battalions which have made historic traditions have ceased to exist as fighting units, and others must follow unless the Australian nation stands by us and sees to it that our ranks are kept filled. We refuse to believe that the men and women of Australia will suffer their famous Divisions to decay, or that the young manhood still remaining in our homeland will not wish to share in the renown of their brothers in France. Nothing matters now but to see this job through to the end, and we appeal to every man to come, and come quickly, to help in our work, and to share in our glorious endeavour.

"Monash, Lieutenant-General."

CHAPTER X
PURSUIT

The design which I had formed after the battle of August 8th of driving the enemy completely out of the bend of the Somme—but which I was obliged to abandon for the time being because of the decision of the Fourth Army to thrust in a south-easterly direction—was now about to be realized. The effect of the battle of Chuignes, following so closely upon the advance of the Third Army two days before, made it probable that the enemy would decide upon a definite withdrawal to the line of the Somme.

It now became my object to ensure, if he should attempt to do so, firstly, that his withdrawal should be more precipitate than would be agreeable to him, and, secondly, that when he reached that line he should be accorded no breathing time to establish upon it a firm defence from which he could hold us at bay for the remainder of the fine weather.

The French Army took over from me on the night of the 23rd August the whole of that portion of my front which still extended south of Lihons. General Nollet, Commander of the 36th French Corps (34th and 35th French Divisions), became my southern neighbour, displacing my Fourth Division, and also a Canadian Division, for whose sector I had become responsible since the departure of General Currie, a few days before.

During these redispositions, probably induced to do so by evidences patent to him that large troop movements were in progress, the enemy carried out a very heavy gas bombardment and maintained it for some hours over the whole of the front which was being taken over by the French.

The wind blowing from the south, the gas, which was unusually dense, drifted over the whole areas both of the Fourth Australian and the 32nd British Divisions, and caused a large number of gas casualties, which weakened the available garrisons of these sectors.

The Second and Fifth Divisions were brought up on the night of August 26th to relieve the First Division, which had worthily earned a rest, and by these redispositions my whole frontage, which, in spite of the reduction effected, still exceeded nine miles, was organized to be held by four Divisions, counting from south to north as follows: 32nd Division, Fifth Division, Second Division and Third Division, the latter lying north of the River Somme.

The First and Fourth Divisions were each sent back, the former to a pleasant reach of the Somme near Chipilly, and the latter to the neighbourhood of Amiens, there to have a long rest and to recuperate after their strenuous labours. These two Divisions were, I had resolved, to be kept in reserve for any tour de force, the need for which might arise later. This disposition was based on intuition rather than on reasoning; but the event proved that it was a fortunate decision; for, at a juncture, three weeks later, when a great opportunity presented itself, these two Divisions, then fully rested, proved of priceless value.

The Third Division held my front north of the Somme, and their presence there ensured my unchallenged tactical control of that important river valley. Numerous crossings had been systematically destroyed by the enemy, as he was being driven back from bend to bend, and as systematically repaired by my indefatigable engineer and pioneer services, as fast as the ground passed under our control.

Reconstruction of bridges and culverts is as tedious a business as their demolition is expeditious. A charge of gun-cotton, placed in the right spot, a primer, a short length of fuse, or an electric lead to a press button are all that are needed, and a single sapper standing by with a match, to be lighted at the last moment, can do all that is necessary to provide three days' work for a whole Company of Engineers.

Nevertheless, the control of the river valley was of inestimable advantage, for it enabled me to carry out a policy of continuous and rapid repair. Consequently, during the whole of our subsequent advance, every means of traversing the valley from south to north, which had been tampered with, was soon restored, as fast as my infantry had made good their advance beyond the ruined crossing.

This facility was to have an important bearing upon my freedom of action, not many days later, when the Corps came head on to the north and south stretch of the Somme, and found every bridge gone. That circumstance alone would have proved an irretrievable misfortune, if I had not had already available numerous restored crossings upon the east and west reach of the river. For by that means, my ability to pass troops and guns rapidly from one bank of the Somme to the other remained unimpaired.

Before leaving the line, the First Division had captured Cappy and advanced its line on the right to the western outskirts of Foucaucourt, while the Third Division had possessed itself of Suzanne. This was the situation when, on the night of August 26th, the Second and Fifth Divisions came into the line. Conferences with the four line Divisions were held both on the 25th and 26th August, in order to ensure co-ordinate action for the process of hustling the enemy across the Somme.

I was, at this stage, sorely perplexed by the uncertain attitude of the Fourth Army. I was all for pushing on energetically, and received General Rawlinson's approval to do so on August 24th; but on the very next day he enunciated a diametrically opposite policy, which greatly embarrassed me.

The gist of the Army attitude on the 25th may be thus expressed. The presence of a new German Division, the 41st, of whom we had taken many prisoners in Cappy, pointed to an intention on the part of the enemy to reinforce. This negatived any intention to undertake a withdrawal. This conclusion justified a revision of the Fourth Army policy. The Army had done its fair share; it had drawn in upon its front all the loose German reserves. Its resources in Tanks had been depleted, and it would take a month to replace them. Other Armies would now take up the burden, and the Fourth Army would now mark time, and await events elsewhere. There was no object in hastening the enemy's evacuation of the bad ground in the bend of the Somme, or in our taking possession of it. There was a possibility of the French taking over more frontage from us, and the Australian Corps front might in consequence be reduced to a three-Division front, with three Divisions in Corps Reserve.

The course of events, in the next seven days, convinced me that the results which were then achieved were totally unexpected by the Fourth Army, and very vitally influenced the whole subsequent course of the campaign. In point of fact, Lord Rawlinson quite frankly conceded to me as much in express terms a week later. The appreciation made at the time was doubtless an intentionally conservative one, but it did not take into account the reserve of striking power which remained in the Australian Corps, even after the past eighteen days of continuous fighting, and even without the assistance of the Tanks.

There was only one saving clause in the Army attitude, and this fortunately gave all the loophole necessary for the continued activity which I desired to pursue. It was this: "Touch must be kept with the enemy." This was of course a mere formality of tactics, and was intended as no more than such. But it was sufficient to justify an aggressive policy on my part.

As the result of my redispositions, completed by the night of August 27th, and of my conferences with the line Divisions, each Division stood on that morning on a single Brigade front, with its two remaining Brigades arranged in depth behind it. My orders were that in the event of the enemy giving way, the line Brigade was to push on energetically, and was to be kept in the line until it had reached the limits of its endurance. The other two Brigades were to follow up more leisurely, but to be prepared, each in turn, to relieve the line Brigade.

I had calculated that, by this method, each Brigade should be able to function for at least two days on the frontage allotted; and that, therefore, the present line Divisions could continue for at least six days; and if the stress upon the troops had not been severe, they could carry out a second rotation of Brigades for a second tour of six days. The calculation was, in general terms, fully realized; and all of the four line Divisions of that day did actually carry on for twelve days, and two of them for an additional six days.

The Artillery resources of the Corps were throughout the whole of this period fully maintained at the standard of the early days of August. I still had at my disposal eighteen Brigades of Field Artillery; and so was able to allot four Brigades of Artillery to each line Division, while keeping two in Corps Reserve.

Early on the morning of August 27th, a policy of vigorous patrolling all along our front was initiated. At several points, enemy posts which were known to have been strongly held the night before were found to be now unoccupied. Although reports varied along my front, they so fully confirmed my anticipations, that without waiting to make any reference to the Army, I ordered an immediate general advance along my whole front.

There followed a merry and exciting three days of pursuit; for the enemy was really on the run, and by nightfall on August 29th, not a German who was not a prisoner remained west of the Somme between Péronne and Brie.

In previous years, during the enemy's retreat from Bapaume to the Hindenburg Line, we had had experience of his methods of withdrawal. Then they were deliberate, and his rearguards so methodically and resolutely held up the British advance, that the enemy had been able not only to remove from the evacuated area every particle of his warlike stores, which were of any value, but also to carry out a systematic devastation of the whole area, even to the felling of all the fruit trees, and the tearing up of all the railways for miles.

The present withdrawal was of a very different character. To begin with, it had been forced upon him by the battle of Chuignes, and he had to undertake it precipitately and without adequate preparation. Secondly, he had an impassable river behind him, which could be crossed only at three points, Brie, Eterpigny, and Péronne. Thirdly, he had in front of him a Corps flushed with its recent victories, while he had been suffering a succession of defeats and heavy losses.

Nevertheless, he put up a good fight, and employed well-considered tactics. The German Machine Gun Corps was much the best of all his services. The manner in which the machine gunners stood their ground, serving their guns to the very last, and defying even the Juggernaut menace of the Tanks, won the unstinted admiration of our men. During these three days of retreat the enemy used his machine guns to the best advantage, and they constituted the only obstacle to our rapid advance.

These tactics were not unexpected by me, and I had an answer ready. Defying the whole traditions of Artillery tactics in open warfare, I insisted upon two somewhat startling innovations. The first was to break up battery control, by detaching even sections (two guns), to come under the direct orders of Infantry Commanders for the purpose of engaging with direct fire any machine-gun nest which was holding them up.

The second was to insist that all batteries should carry 20 per cent. of smoke shell. This elicited a storm of protest from the gunners. Every shell carried which was not a high explosive or shrapnel shell meant a shell less of destructive power, and, therefore, a shell wasted. That had been the Gunnery School doctrine. But I imagine that the test made at this epoch of the liberal use of smoke shell against machine guns will lead to a revision of that doctrine.

Smoke shell proved of inestimable value in blinding the German machine gunners. A few rounds judiciously placed screened the approach of our Infantry, and many a machine-gun post was thereby rushed by us from the flanks or even from the rear. General Hobbs (Fifth Division) and General Rosenthal (Second Division), both of whom had formerly been gunners, proved the strongest advocates for these smoke tactics.

By such means an energetic and successful pursuit was launched and maintained. By the night of August 27th, our line already lay to the east of the villages of Vermandovillers, Foucaucourt (on the main road) and Fontaine. We also mastered the whole of the Cappy bend, including the crossings of the Somme at Eclusier. The Fifth Division had a particularly hard fight at Foucaucourt, which did not fall to us until we had subjected it to a considerable bombardment. Tivoli Wood was the chief obstacle encountered that day by the Second Division. The advance of the 32nd Division also progressed smoothly.

During August 28th our advance was continued methodically, and by that night the Corps front had reached the line Génermont—Berry-en-Santerre—Estrées—Frise.

On August 29th the line of the Somme was reached, and all three Divisions south of the Somme stood upon the high ground sloping down to the Somme, with the river in sight from opposite Cléry, past Péronne and as far south as St. Christ.

In the meantime the Third Division north of the Somme had marched forward, in sympathetic step with the southern advance, successively seizing Suzanne, Vaux, Curlu, Hem and Cléry. The Third Corps on my left had followed up the general advance, though always lagging a little in rear, thus keeping my left flank secure; and beyond the Third Corps, the Third Army was approaching the line of the Canal du Nord, which lay, as explained, in prolongation of the south-north course of the Somme.

The war correspondents of this time were given to representing the progress of the Australian Corps during these three days as a leisurely advance, regulated in its pace by the speed of the retiring enemy. But it was nothing of the kind.

On the contrary, it was his withdrawal which was regulated by the speed of our advance. There was not a foot of ground which was not contested by all the effort which the enemy was able to put forth. It is quite true that his withdrawal was intentional; but it is not true that it was conducted at the deliberate rate which was necessary to enable him to withdraw in good order.

He was compelled to fight all the time and to withdraw in disorder. He was forced to abandon guns and huge quantities of stores. The amount of derelict artillery ammunition found scattered over the whole of this considerable area alone reached hundreds of thousands of rounds, distributed in hundreds of dumps and depots, as well as scores of tons of empty artillery cartridge-cases, the brass of which had become of priceless value to the enemy.

Regimental and even Divisional Headquarters were abandoned as they stood, with all their furniture and mess equipment left intact. Signal wire and telephone equipment remained installed in all directions, hospitals and dressing-stations were left to their fate. The advance yielded to us over 600 prisoners, some half-dozen field-guns, and large numbers of smaller weapons.

The last two days of the advance led us across a maze of trenches and the debris of the 1916 campaign. The weather was unfavourable, there was much rain and an entire absence of any kind of shelter. As a result the line Brigades had to put forth all their powers of endurance and reached the Somme in a very tired condition.

In the meantime my air squadron had an exceptionally busy time. Contact patrols were maintained throughout every hour of daylight. Difficult as it was to identify the positions reached by our leading troops during an organized battle, where their approximate positions and ultimate objective lines were known beforehand, it was doubly so when no guide whatever existed as to the probable extent of each day's advance, or as to the amount of resistance likely to be encountered at different parts of the front.

Yet it was just under these circumstances that rapid and reliable information as to the progress of the various elements of our front line troops was more important than ever, and no means for obtaining such information was so expeditious as the Contact Aeroplane.

To assist the air observer in identifying our troops, the latter were provided with flares, of colours which were varied from time to time in order to minimize the risk of imitation by the enemy. The method of their employment, whether singly or in pairs, or three at a time, was also frequently varied.

These flares on being lit gave out a dense cloud of coloured smoke, easily distinguishable from a moderate height. The contact plane, which would carry coloured streamers so that the infantry could identify it as flying on that particular duty, would, when ready to observe, blow its horn and thereupon the foremost infantry would light their flares.

It was a method of inter-communication between air and ground, which, after a little practice, came to be well understood and intelligently carried out. By its means a Divisional or Brigade Commander was kept accurately informed, with great promptitude, of the progress of each of his front line units, in relation to the various woods, ruined mills, and other obstacles which lay spread across their path.

But the Air Force had another interesting duty, which was to watch the roads leading back from the enemy's front line to his rear areas. During tranquil times little movement could ever be seen on the enemy's roads in the hours of daylight, for the very good reason that he took care to carry out all his transportation to and from his front zone under cover of darkness.

Now, however, his needs pressed sorely upon him; and our air reports, from this time onwards, became almost monotonous in their iteration of the fact that large columns of transport were to be seen moving back in an easterly direction. These were his retiring batteries or his convoys of wagons carrying such stores as he was able to salve.

Occasionally, too, came reports of convoys, which looked like motor lorries or buses, moving hurriedly westward towards the German front. These were generally diagnosed by us as reinforcements which were being continually hurried forward to replace his human wastage, which was considerable both by direct losses from death, wounds and capture and by reason of the fatigue of such a strenuous and nerve-racking retreat.

All this movement in the enemy's rearward areas was a legitimate object of interest to my Artillery. But, unfortunately, most of it lay well beyond the range of my lighter Ordnance. The mobile Field Artillery was effective at no greater range than about four miles. The longer range 60-pounders found it a formidable task to traverse such broken country, while the still heavier tractor-drawn 6-inch guns found it quite impossible.

The latter, and all the Heavy and Super-Heavy guns and howitzers were tied down to the roads, and it proved a tremendous business to advance them in sufficient time and numbers to make their influence felt upon the present situation. I have nothing but praise for the admirable manner in which Brigadier-General Fraser and his Heavy Artillery Headquarters carried out the forward moves of the whole of his extensive Artillery equipment and organization from August 8th onwards to August 23rd. But the rapid advance of the battle line during the last week of August left the great bulk of Heavy Artillery far behind.

This was not entirely or even appreciably a question of the rate of movement of the great lumbering steam or motor-drawn heavy guns. They could quite easily march their eight or ten miles a day if they could have a clear road upon which to do it. But it was this question of roads that dominated the whole situation during this period, and subsequently until the end of the campaign of the Corps.

The construction and upkeep of roads throughout the Corps area had been, even in the days of stationary warfare, a difficult problem. At a time like the present, when the battle was moving forward from day to day, it became one of the first magnitude.

The rate of our advance was controlled almost as much by the speed with which main and secondary roads could be made practicable for traffic as by the degree of resistance offered by the enemy. Obstacles had to be removed, the debris of war cleared to one side, shell holes solidly filled in, craters of mine explosions bridged or circumvented, culverts repaired and drains freed of obstructions.

The road surfaces, speedily deteriorating under the strain and wear of heavy motor lorry traffic, had to be kept constantly under repair. The transportation of the necessary road stone for this purpose alone, imposed a heavy burden upon the roads and impeded other urgent traffic. The amount of road construction and reconstruction actually in hand within the Corps area, at any one time, far exceeded that normally required in peace time for any great city district.

The traffic on the roads was always of the most dense and varied character. For the proper maintenance and supply of a large Army Corps at least three good main roads, leading back to our sources of supply, would have been no more than adequate; but I seldom had at my disposal more than one such main road, which had often to be shared with an adjoining Corps.

There was ever an endless stream of traffic, labouring slowly along in both directions. On such a road as that leading east from Amiens towards the battle front, the congestion was always extreme. Ammunition lorries, regimental horsed transport, motor dispatch riders, marching infantry, long strings of horses and mules going to and from water, traction engines, convoy after convoy of motor buses, supply wagons, mess carts, signal motor tenders, complete batteries of Artillery, motor tractors, tanks, Staff motor cars and gangs of coolie labourers surged steadily forward, in an amazing jumble, with never a moment's pause.

Such were some of the difficulties with which I was beset in the rear of my battle line. They were negligible compared with those which now loomed in front of it.

The reach of the Somme which runs northerly from Ham past Brie to Péronne and there turns westerly, differs entirely in its topographical features from that picturesque Somme Valley along both of whose banks the Corps had been fighting its way forward. The steep banks have disappeared, and for a mile or so on either side the ground slopes gently towards the river bed.

The river itself is not less than 1,000 yards wide, being, in fact, a broad marsh, studded with islets which are overgrown with rushes, while the stream of the river threads its way in numerous channels between them. The marsh itself is no more than waist-deep, but the flowing water is too deep to be waded.

Along the western side of this marsh runs the canalized river, or, as it is here known, the Somme Canal, flowing between masonry-lined banks. The construction of a crossing of such a marsh was, even in peace time, a troublesome business. It meant, to begin with, a causeway solidly founded upon a firm masonry bed sunk deep into the mud of the valley bed. The canal itself and each rivulet required its separate bridge, in spans varying from thirty to sixty feet.

What, therefore, came to be known as the Brie Bridge, situated on the line of the main road from Amiens to St. Quentin, really consisted of no less than eight separate bridges disposed at irregular intervals along the line of the causeway, between the western and eastern banks of the valley. The demolition of even the smallest of these eight bridges would render the whole causeway unusable, and would prohibit all traffic.

There exists an almost exactly similar arrangement of bridges at St. Christ, about two miles to the south of Brie, but no other traffic crossing to the north of Brie until Péronne is reached. There, both the main road and the railway, which cross side by side, are provided with large span lattice girder bridges, over the main canal, while the marsh has been reclaimed where the town has encroached upon it. The river overflow is led through the town in several smaller canals or drains, all of them liberally bridged where crossed by roads and streets.

The Péronne bridges are, therefore, no less indispensable, and no less easily rendered useless than those at Brie. Should such crossings be denied to me, it would be just possible to pass infantry across the valley, by night, by wading and swimming, or by the use of rafts, always provided that no opposition were to be met with. But to pass tanks or heavy guns, or even vehicles of the lightest description across the marsh, would have been quite impossible.

The Somme threatened, therefore, to be a most formidable obstacle to my further advance. It was incumbent upon me to assume that at the very least one of each series of bridges would be demolished by the enemy in his retreat. It would have been criminal folly on his part were it to have been otherwise; and I had had previous evidence of the efficiency of his engineer services.

Reconnaissances pushed out on the night of August 29th speedily verified the assumption that some at least of the bridges had been wrecked. It was ultimately ascertained that every single bridge in every one of the crossings named had been methodically and systematically blown to pieces.

There was only one tactical method by which such an obstacle could be forced by a frontal operation. By bringing up sufficient Artillery to dominate the enemy's defences on the east bank of the river valley, it might have been possible to pass across sufficient infantry to establish a wide bridge-head, behind which the ruined crossings could be restored, probably under enemy Artillery fire.

But it would have been a costly enterprise, and fraught with every prospect of failure, should the enemy be prepared to put up any sort of a fight to prevent it.

The value to me of the possession of the whole of the Somme Valley from Cléry westwards, and the rapid repair of the bridges therein which I had been able to effect, will now become apparent. For it permitted the crystallizing into action of a project for dealing with the present situation, which had been vaguely forming in my mind ever since the day when I took over the Chipilly spur.

This was the plan of turning the line of the Somme from the north, instead of forcing it by direct assault from the west.

It may be argued that such a plan would have been equally practicable, even if the left flank of the Australian Corps had hitherto remained and now still lay south of the Somme, instead of well to the north of it. In that case other Corps on the north would have carried out that identical plan, which ultimately did achieve this important and decisive result.

I very much doubt it.

I had also had some experience of the futility of relying too much upon the sympathetic action of flank Corps, who usually had their hands full enough with their own problems, and had little time to devote to the needs of their neighbours. It would, moreover, have been disagreeable and inexpedient in the extreme to seek a right of way through the territory over which another Corps held jurisdiction. Corps Commanders were inclined to be jealous of any encroachment upon their frontiers, or upon the tactical problems in front of them.

Moreover, I wanted, more than anything else, that this should be an exclusively Australian achievement.

The situation being as it was, I possessed freedom of action, elbow room, and control not only of all the territory which I should require to use, but also of all the Somme crossings west of Cléry.

Final Instructions to the Platoon—an incident of the battle of August 8th, 1918. The platoon is waiting to advance to Phase B of the battle.

An Armoured Car—disabled near Bony, during the battle of September 29th, 1918.

The strategic object in view was to make the line of the Somme useless to the enemy as a defensive line, and thereby render probable his immediate further enforced retreat to the Hindenburg line.

The tactical process by which this was to be achieved was to be an attack upon and the seizure of the key position of the whole line, the dominating hill of Mont St. Quentin.

But the paramount consideration was that the attack must be delivered without delay and that the enemy should not be allowed a single hour longer than necessary to establish himself upon that hill.

Often since those days, wondering at the success which came to the Australian Corps at Mont St. Quentin, I have tried justly to estimate the causes which won us that success. And I have always come back to the same conclusion, that it was due firstly and chiefly to the wonderful gallantry of the men who participated, secondly to the rapidity with which our plans were put into action, and thirdly to the sheer daring of the attempt.

Mont St. Quentin lies a mile north of Péronne. It stands as a sentinel guarding the northern and western approaches to the town, a bastion of solid defence against any advance from the west designed to encircle it. The paintings and drawings of many artists who have visited the historic spot will familiarize the world with its gentle contours.

Viewed from the west, from the vantage point of the high ground near Biaches in the very angle of the bend of the river, Mont St. Quentin constitutes no striking feature in the landscape. But standing upon the hill itself one speedily realizes how fully its possession dominates the whole of the approaches to it. So placed that both stretches of the river can from it be commanded by fire, and giving full and uninterrupted observation over all the country to the west and north and south of it, the hill is ringed around with line upon line of wire entanglements, and its forward slopes are glacis-like and bare of almost any cover.

Estimated by the eye of an expert in tactics, it would surely be reckoned as completely impregnable to the assault, unaided by Tanks, of any infantry that should attempt it.

It was the seizure, by a sudden attack, of this tactical key that was the kernel of the plan which now had to be evolved. The capture of the town of Péronne was consequential upon it, though little less formidable a task. The effect of both captures would be completely to turn the whole line of the Somme to the south, and the line of the Canal du Nord; to open a wide gate through which the remainder of the Fourth and Third Armies could pour, so as to roll up the enemy's line in both directions.

In view of the historical importance of the occasion, and the controversies which have already risen regarding the genesis of the conception of these plans, I make no apology for reproducing, in extenso, a literal copy of the notes used at the conference which I held in the late afternoon of August 29th at the Headquarters of the Fifth Division, then situated in a group of bare sheds—but recently vacated by the enemy—on the main east and west road, just south of Proyart. The conference was attended by Lambert (32nd Division), Hobbs (Fifth Division), Rosenthal (Second Division), and Gellibrand (Third Division). Neither "Tanks" nor "Heavy Artillery" attended as they could not, in any event, co-operate in the execution of the plan.

29. 8. 18.

PLAN FOR CROSSING THE SOMME

A. Alteration of Frontages.

Defensive Front: 32nd Division to take over on 30th from Fifth Division front as far north as Ferme Lamire, total 7,500 yards, to hold same defensively, place outposts on river line, demonstrate actively as if aiming to cross Somme; if no resistance, endeavour establish posts on far bank; otherwise demonstrate only. Use only one Brigade; remainder of Division to rest and refit.

Offensive Frontages: Fifth Division to extend along canal bank from Ferme Lamire to Biaches, frontage 4,000 yards. Second Division to extend from Biaches for 4,700 yards to bridge at Ommiécourt. Third Division: present front north of river.

B. Objectives.

All Divisions to continue eastward advance. Each Division to have an immediate and an ultimate objective, thus:

Third Division:

Immediate: High ground north-east of Cléry.

Ultimate: Bouchavesnes Spur.

Second Division:

Immediate: Bridge Head at Halle. If crossing there impossible then cross behind front of Third Division.

Ultimate: Mont St. Quentin.

Fifth Division:

Immediate: Force crossing at Péronne Bridges; if bridges gone, follow Second Division and aim at high ground south of Péronne.

Ultimate: Wooded spur east of Péronne.

Whichever Division first succeeds in crossing Somme Valley, the other Divisions to have right of way over the same crossings.

Each Division to employ only one Brigade until a satisfactory footing is established on immediate objective.

Second Division to lead the north-east movement.

Artillery to stand as at present allotted, but liable to re-allotment by me as operation develops.

Defensive Front: 32nd Division to take over on 30th from Fifth Division front as far north as Ferme Lamire, total 7,500 yards, to hold same defensively, place outposts on river line, demonstrate actively as if aiming to cross Somme; if no resistance, endeavour establish posts on far bank; otherwise demonstrate only. Use only one Brigade; remainder of Division to rest and refit.

Offensive Frontages: Fifth Division to extend along canal bank from Ferme Lamire to Biaches, frontage 4,000 yards. Second Division to extend from Biaches for 4,700 yards to bridge at Ommiécourt. Third Division: present front north of river.

All Divisions to continue eastward advance. Each Division to have an immediate and an ultimate objective, thus:

Third Division:

Immediate: High ground north-east of Cléry.

Ultimate: Bouchavesnes Spur.

Second Division:

Immediate: Bridge Head at Halle. If crossing there impossible then cross behind front of Third Division.

Ultimate: Mont St. Quentin.

Fifth Division:

Immediate: Force crossing at Péronne Bridges; if bridges gone, follow Second Division and aim at high ground south of Péronne.

Ultimate: Wooded spur east of Péronne.

Whichever Division first succeeds in crossing Somme Valley, the other Divisions to have right of way over the same crossings.

Each Division to employ only one Brigade until a satisfactory footing is established on immediate objective.

Second Division to lead the north-east movement.

Artillery to stand as at present allotted, but liable to re-allotment by me as operation develops.

Immediate: High ground north-east of Cléry.

Ultimate: Bouchavesnes Spur.

Immediate: Bridge Head at Halle. If crossing there impossible then cross behind front of Third Division.

Ultimate: Mont St. Quentin.

Immediate: Force crossing at Péronne Bridges; if bridges gone, follow Second Division and aim at high ground south of Péronne.

Ultimate: Wooded spur east of Péronne.

The above brief notes require but little elucidation. It is to be remembered that at the time they were prepared, no definite information had yet been received as to the condition of any of the Somme crossings, because at that hour the river bank had not yet been reached, and fighting on the west bank of the Somme was still going on.

It has also to be remembered that these notes were only for my own guidance in verbally expounding the plan, and were not actually issued as written orders. Naturally many details, left unexpressed by the notes, were filled in during the conference. Moreover I anticipated that the whole operation would be one of a nature in which I would have to intervene as the battle proceeded, in accordance with the varying situation from time to time, and this actually proved to be necessary.

It will be noted that on August 29th I had already reached the definite decision not to attempt to force the passage of the Somme south of Péronne; the 32nd Division was, however, instructed to make every demonstration of a desire to attempt it, the object being to divert the attention of the enemy from the real point of attack.

This was to be launched from the direction of Cléry. In preparation for it, the Second Division sent its reserve Brigade, the 5th (Martin), to cross the river at Feuillères, on August 30th, to pass through the area and front of the Third Division, and secure a bridge head on the Cléry side of the river, opposite to the Ommiécourt bend. The object was to exploit the possibility of using the Ommiécourt crossing, and if it were found to be intact to use it for the purpose of crossing with the remaining two Brigades that same night.

This move was successfully accomplished, although the 5th Brigade found portion of the village of Cléry still occupied, and that the trench systems to the east of it were still held in strength. After much skilful fighting, the Brigade reached its allotted destination, with slight casualties, capturing seven machine guns and 120 prisoners.

The bridge at Ommiécourt was found to be damaged, but repairable so as to be usable by infantry on foot, and this work was at once put in hand. The same night the rearrangement of the fronts of all four Divisions in the line was carried out, and all was in readiness for the daring attempt to break the line of the Somme.

During the afternoon of August 30th, General Rawlinson came to see me, and I unfolded to him the details of the operations contemplated and the arrangements made for the next day. I have already referred to the pleasant and attractive personality of this distinguished soldier. His qualities of broad outlook, searching insight, great sagacity, and strong determination, tempered by a wise restraint, never failed to impress me deeply. He always listened sympathetically, and responded convincingly. On this occasion he was pleased to be pleasantly satirical. "And so you think you're going to take Mont St. Quentin with three battalions! What presumption! However, I don't think I ought to stop you! So, go ahead, and try!—and I wish you luck!"

CHAPTER XI
MONT ST. QUENTIN AND PÉRONNE

From early dawn on Saturday, August 31st, until the evening of September 3rd, three Divisions of the Australian Corps engaged in a heroic combat which will ever be memorable in Australian history.

At its conclusion we emerged complete masters of the situation. Mont St. Quentin, the Bouchavesnes spur, the large town of Péronne, and the high ground overlooking it from the east and north-east, were in our possession. A wide breach had been driven into the line of defence which the enemy had endeavoured to establish on the series of heights lying to the east of the Somme and of the Canal du Nord.

From the edges of this breach, the flanks of that portion of his line which were still intact were being threatened with envelopment. For him there was nothing for it, but finally to abandon the line of the Somme, and to resume his retreat helter-skelter to the hoped-for secure protection of the great Hindenburg Line.

The extraordinary character of this Australian feat of arms can best be appreciated by a realization of the supreme efforts which the enemy put forward to prevent it.

The shower of blows which he had received on the front of his Second Army from August 8th onwards, had wrought upon it a grievous disorganization. The battered remnants of his line Divisions had been reinforced from day to day by fresh units, scraped up from other parts of his front, and thrown into the fight as fast as they could be made available.

Sometimes they were complete Divisions from Reserve, often single reserve Regiments of Divisions already deeply involved, and sometimes even single Battalions torn from other Regiments—Pioneer Battalions, units of the Labour Corps, Army Troops, Minenwerfer Companies had all been thrown in, indiscriminately.

This brought about a heterogeneous jumble of units, and of German nationalities, for Prussians, Bavarians, Saxons and Würtembergers were captured side by side. The tactical control of such mixed forces, during a hasty and enforced retreat, and their daily maintenance, must have presented sore perplexities to the Headquarters of the German Second Army in those fateful days.

To meet the crisis with which Ludendorff was now confronted, he determined to throw in one of the finest of the reserve Divisions still left at his disposal. The Second Prussian Guards Division was sent forward to occupy the key position of Mont St. Quentin, and to hold it at all costs.

This famous Division comprised among its units, the Kaiserin Augusta and the Kaiser Alexander Regiments, almost as famous in history and rich in tradition as are our own Grenadiers and Coldstreams. There is no doubt that this celebrated Division fought desperately to obey its instructions.

For the defence of Péronne, the enemy command went even further, and called for volunteers, forming with them a strong garrison of picked men drawn from many different line Regiments, to man the ramparts which surround the town. Dozens of machine guns were posted in vantage points from which the approaches could be swept.

All over the river flats lying in the angle of the Somme between Cléry, Mont St. Quentin and Péronne ran line upon line of barbed wire entanglements, a legacy from the 1916 fighting, and much of this was still intact, although breaches had been made in many places both by the French in 1917 and by the Germans themselves, to facilitate movement over the ground, during their respective re-occupations of this territory.

The terrain, which was in greater part open, and exposed in every direction to full view from the heights, sloped gently upwards towards the commanding knoll. Cover was scarce, and the few ruins of brickfields and sugar refineries which dotted the landscape had also been garrisoned by the enemy as centres of resistance, designed to break up and dislocate any general attack.

Our infantry was deprived of the assistance of any Tanks, for the heavy casualties which had been suffered by this Arm made it imperative to allow the Tank Corps time for repairs, renewals and the training of fresh crews. Nor was any appreciable quantity of Heavy Artillery yet available, since the congested and dilapidated condition of the roads prevented the advance of all but a few of the lighter varieties of heavy guns.

The fighting of these four days was, therefore, essentially a pure infantry combat, assisted only by such mobile Artillery of lesser calibres as was available.

Such was the formidable nature of the task, and of the disabilities under which the Second, Third and Fifth Divisions approached it. That they overcame all obstacles, gained all their objectives, and captured nearly 2,000 prisoners, mainly from crack Prussian regiments, constitutes an achievement memorable in military annals and standing to the everlasting glory of the troops who took part in it.[17]

It is difficult to write a connected and consecutive account of the details of the fighting which took place. The most that is possible in the brief space available is to indicate on general lines the successive stages of the battle. Indeed, a minute account of the action of each of the 35 Battalions engaged would only prove wearisome and confusing. The best method of presenting a general picture of the course of the engagement is to follow the fortunes of each Brigade in turn.

First in order of time, and of most importance in relation to its immediate results, was the action of the Second Division. It was the 5th Brigade (Martin) which Major-General Rosenthal had detailed to open the attack. The remaining two Brigades of the Divisions (6th and 7th) received orders to rest the troops as much as possible, but to be in readiness to move at the shortest notice.

A Machine Gun Company (16 guns) was placed at the disposal of Brigadier-General Martin, while the Artillery at the disposal of the Division, comprising five Brigades of Field Artillery and one Brigade of Heavy Artillery, remained under the personal control of the Divisional Commander.

The attack opened with three Battalions of the 5th Brigade in the first line, and one Battalion in support. The total strength of the assaulting Infantry of this whole Brigade was on this day not more than 70 Officers and 1,250 other ranks. The centre Battalion was directed straight at the highest knoll of Mont St. Quentin, while the right Battalion prolonged the line to the right. The left Battalion had assigned to it as an immediate objective the ruins of the village of Feuillaucourt, from which it was hoped that a flank attack upon the Mount could be developed.

The advance began at 5 a.m. It was a dull morning and still quite dark. The two right Battalions advanced with as much noise as possible, a ruse which secured the surrender of numbers of the enemy lying out in advanced outpost positions. A nest of seven Machine Guns was rushed and captured without any loss to us.

At the appointed hour, our Artillery opened on selected targets, the ranges being lengthened from moment to moment in sympathy with the advance of the Infantry. Although during the advance a great deal of machine gun fire was encountered, all went well. The centre and left Battalions gained a footing respectively in Feuillaucourt and on the main hill, but the progress of the right Battalion was arrested by heavy machine gun fire from St. Denis. This was the site of a ruined sugar refinery, and lay on the main road between Péronne and Mont St. Quentin. It was a strong point that presented a great deal of difficulty and held out to the last.

The centre Battalion had by 7 a.m. passed through the ruins of Mont St. Quentin village and had crossed the main road from Péronne to Bouchavesnes. It now had to receive the full brunt of a determined counter attack, at a moment when it was still disorganized and breathless from its difficult assault. The Battalion was therefore withdrawn across the road and firmly established itself in an old trench system to the west of it.

In this position it beat off five successive counter attacks, inflicting most severe losses upon the enemy. The Brigade maintained its position until nightfall. Its losses for the day were 380.

In the meantime the 6th Brigade (Robertson) of the Second Division had been ordered to cross the Somme and move up behind the 5th Brigade, in readiness to carry on the attack, and obtain possession of the remainder of the main spur of Mont St. Quentin. As this Brigade only entered into the fight at a later hour, I must revert to the events of the forenoon of August 31st.

It was about 8 a.m. that I was able to report to General Rawlinson, by telephone, that we had obtained a footing on Mont St. Quentin itself. He was at first totally incredulous, but soon generously congratulatory, proclaiming that the event was calculated to have a most important influence upon the immediate future course of the war. He expressed the hope that we should be able to hold on to all that we had gained.

To this task I now had to bend myself, and I found it necessary to put a severe strain upon the endurance and capacity of the troops. Great as had always been my concern in the pitched battles of the days recently passed to reduce to very definite limits the demands made upon the physical powers of the Infantry soldier, a juncture had arrived and a situation had been created, which demanded the utmost rapidity in decision and action, and a relentless insistence upon prompt response by the troops.

The 5th Brigade had been thrust out nearly two miles beyond our general line. Its flanks were in the air. It was undoubtedly fatigued. Everything must be done and done promptly to render it adequate support, to take advantage of its success, and to ensure that its effort had not been in vain.

It will be remembered that the Fifth and Second Divisions had both been instructed to endeavour to secure a crossing over the river. Whichever Division first succeeded was to accord right of way to its neighbour. No success had yet attended the efforts of the Fifth Division, the main Péronne bridges being still inaccessible from the south. The bridge sites were under the enemy's fire, which precluded the possibility of repair; and the approaches to them were also swept by Machine Gun fire.

The Second Division, on the other hand, had during the past 48 hours succeeded in making the Feuillères bridge traffickable for guns and vehicles, and those at Buscourt and Ommiécourt for foot traffic. It transpired later that the enemy, rightly suspecting that I would attempt to use this latter crossing, kept it under heavy Artillery fire all day.

As soon as I had formed a judgment on the situation, about 8.30 a.m. (August 31st), I issued instructions to General Hobbs immediately to put in motion his reserve Brigade, the 14th (Stewart). He was to direct it towards the Ommiécourt crossing, and later in the day to pass it across the river and through the ground won that morning by the 5th Brigade, with a view to developing at the earliest possible moment an attack in a south-easterly direction upon the town of Péronne itself. The ultimate objective was still to be the high ground south and east of Péronne. His 8th Brigade was also to be held ready to move at the shortest notice.

It was a serious performance to demand, and it was fraught with many risks. There was no time to assemble responsible Commanders concerned, separated as they were by long distances over bad and congested roads. In the absence of properly co-ordinated action, there was every chance of confusion, and cross-purposes, and even of collision of authority arising from the troops of one Division passing over ground under the tactical control of another Division.

But the only alternative was to do nothing and attempt nothing. That would have been the worst of bad generalship, and it was an occasion when risks must be taken.

The course of subsequent events fully demonstrated that the only true solution was the one chosen, for the whole of the defences of Péronne were thereby taken with a rush, while they were still being organized by the enemy. The delay of only a day or two would have meant that the capture of Péronne would have been many times more costly than it actually proved to be.

The 14th Brigade had before it a march of some seven miles to bring it into a position in which it could deploy for an attack on Péronne. Working according to text book such a march could have been accomplished in something under three hours. It took the Brigade over ten hours. For the line of march lay across the very worst of the shell-torn, tangled country enclosed in the great bend of the Somme, and progress was most difficult and exhausting. Frequent halts were necessary to rest the men, and restore order to the struggling columns.

Discovering the impossibility of crossing the river at Ommiécourt, the Brigade made a wide detour to cross by the newly established bridge at Buscourt. It arrived there just at the same time as the 7th Brigade (Wisdom), which Rosenthal had also directed to the same point for the same purpose. This occurrence illustrates the nature of the risks of a hastily developed tactical plan. However, the good sense of the Commanders on the spot obviated any serious confusion and the 7th Brigade gave the 14th Brigade the right of way.

The 14th Brigade completed its march during the hours of falling darkness and, passing through Cléry, came up on the right of the 6th Brigade, in readiness for the combined attack by the two Divisions at dawn on September 1st.

The night that followed was a stressful one for all Commanders. Divisional Generals had to co-ordinate all action between their Brigadiers, and their Artillery. The Brigadiers in turn had afterwards to assemble their Battalion Commanders, and decide on detailed plans of action for each separate unit. Distances were long, the country was strange, roads were few and unfamiliar; so that it is not surprising that the last conferences did not break up until well into the small hours of September 1st. There was no sleep that night for any senior officer in the battle area.

September 1st was a day full of great happenings and bloody hand to hand fighting. The assault by the 6th Brigade passing over the line won the day before by the 5th Brigade carried it well over the crest of Mont St. Quentin, and confirmed for good and all our hold on that imperious fortress. Few prisoners were taken, for it was bayonet work over every inch of the advance, and the field was strewn all over with enemy dead. The impetus of the 6th Brigade assault carried our line 600 yards to the east of the summit of the knoll.

It is difficult to allocate, in due proportion, the credit for the capture of this important stronghold between the two gallant Brigades concerned. It is true that the 6th Brigade did on September 1st achieve the summit of the Mount; but it is equally true that it only completed what the 5th Brigade had so wonderfully begun the day before. No one will grudge to either of the two Brigades their share of the honour that is due to both.

The action of the Second Division on that day was completed by the bringing up of the 7th Brigade into a position of support behind the 6th Brigade, thereby relieving the 5th Brigade from further line duty.

Although the action of the individual Brigades of all the three battle Divisions must necessarily be narrated separately and with some attempt at a proper chronological sequence, yet it would be a mistake to suppose that their actions were independent of each other. On the contrary, they all operated as part of a comprehensive battle plan, which necessarily took full account of the interdependence of the course of events in different parts of the field.

Thus the advance on this day of the 6th Brigade materially assisted the attack on Péronne by the 14th Brigade, while the progress of the latter removed much trouble from the southern flank of the 6th Brigade.

The men of the 14th Brigade that day had their mettle up to a degree which was astonishing. On the occasion of the great attack of August 8th, and ever since, it had been the cruel fate of this Brigade to be the reserve unit of its Division on every occasion when there was any serious fighting in hand. The Brigade felt its position very keenly. As one Company Commander, who distinguished himself in that day's fighting, afterwards picturesquely put it: "You see! We'd been trying to buy a fight off the other fellows for a matter of three weeks. On that day we got what we'd been looking for, and we made the most of it."[18]

The 14th Brigade advanced to the assault at 6 a.m. concurrently with the eastern thrust of the 6th Brigade. One Battalion, with two others in support, was directed against St. Denis, while the fourth made a direct attack on Péronne. Many belts of wire had to be struggled through. There was much machine gun fire, from front and flanks, and it looked as if further progress would be impossible. Nevertheless, this gallant Brigade, by persistent effort, made itself master of the western half of Péronne.

The attack on St. Denis at first made very slow progress, the enemy holding out resolutely in the ruins of that hamlet, and in the adjacent brickfields. During the day, the 15th Brigade made spirited attempts to effect the crossing of the river, and to co-operate from the south.

The records of the events of these three days are confused and discontinuous. Many of the men who could have filled in the gaps of the story were unfortunately killed or evacuated as casualties. But from the mass of reports, the salient facts emerge clearly.

The 15th Brigade succeeded, on September 2nd, in putting a Battalion across the river, and this assisted the 14th Brigade to "mop up" the remainder of the town of Péronne. Later the rest of the 15th Brigade and two Battalions of the 8th Brigade (Tivey) were also drawn into the fighting. St. Denis and the brickfields fell to us during this period.

Although the situation, from the point of view of the advance eastwards, remained almost stationary, it was a time of fierce local fighting. Many deeds of valour and sacrifice adorn the story.

It was late on September 3rd that the effects of this long-sustained struggle became apparent. The whole of Péronne and most of the high ground in its vicinity were, by then, definitely in our hands, and although the little suburb of Flamicourt held out determinedly for another day, the further resistance of the enemy began to fade away.

Doubtless the loss of Mont St. Quentin was a controlling factor in the decision which was forced upon him to undertake a retreat, for with that eminence in our possession, he could not have maintained himself for many days in the town, nor would its retention have been of any tactical value to him.

As an immediate result, the high ground of the Flamicourt spur just south of Péronne fell into our hands on September 3rd, and the enemy outposts spread along the banks of the marsh in front of the 32nd Division sought safety from complete envelopment by a hasty withdrawal; a number of their isolated posts were, however, left unwarned of this retreat, so that these were, later on, captured by us from the rear.

I must now briefly turn to the doings of the Third Australian Division during these four epic days. Its three Brigades (9th, 10th and 11th) daily performed prodigies of valour. The Division carried our line, inexorably, up the Bouchavesnes spur in a north-easterly direction. The seizure of this very important ground not only powerfully aided but also strongly confirmed our seizure of Mont St. Quentin.

The Division, having been given its general rôle, was necessarily left to a large extent to decide for itself its detailed action from day to day, seeing that it still had to perform the function, inevitable for a flank Division, of a link with my neighbouring Corps. Fortunately the arrival of a new, fresh Division (the 74th) from the Eastern theatre of war, which came into the Third Corps and was promptly thrown in, enabled that Corps to keep up fairly well with the general advance.

The British Third Army, too, was now beginning to make its pressure felt, and was approaching the line of the Canal du Nord over a wide front. The Third Division was therefore free to conform its forward movement to that of the rest of the Australian Corps; its energetic action gave me elbow room for the manœuvring of so many Brigades in the region of Cléry, and its capture of so much valuable ground east of the Canal du Nord served greatly to widen the breach.

By the night of September 3rd, the main tactical purposes on which the Corps had been launched on August 29th had been achieved in their entirety. Their execution furnishes the finest example in the war of spirited and successful Infantry action conducted by three whole Divisions operating simultaneously side by side.

Lord Rawlinson has more than once referred to the operation as the finest single feat of the war. Inevitably the dramatic and unlooked for success of the Second Division in the rapid storming of the Mount enthrals the imagination and overshadows all the other noteworthy incidents of these pregnant days. But none will begrudge the rain of congratulations which fell upon the head of Major-General Rosenthal. A massive man, whose build belies his extraordinary physical energy, he always was an egregious optimist, incapable of recognizing the possibility of failure. That is why he invariably succeeded in all that he undertook, and often embarked upon the apparently impossible. An architect before the war, he served for the first two years as an Artillery officer, both as a Brigade Commander and as a General of Divisional Artillery. He gained his Infantry experience as Commander of the 9th Brigade, and so was well qualified by versatile service to assume the command of the Second Division. His leadership of the latter contributed in no small measure to the fame which it has won.

The text of the congratulatory message issued on this occasion by the Fourth Army read as follows:

Map E

"The capture of Mont St. Quentin by the Second Division is a feat of arms worthy of the highest praise. The natural strength of the position is immense, and the tactical value of it, in reference to Péronne and the whole system of the Somme defences, cannot be over-estimated. I am filled with admiration at the gallantry and surpassing daring of the Second Division in winning this important fortress, and I congratulate them with all my heart.

"Rawlinson."

I am concerned nevertheless that the fine performance of the Fifth Division should not be underrated. The circumstances under which General Hobbs was called upon to intervene in the battle, at very short notice, imposed upon him, personally, difficulties of no mean order. I am prepared to admit quite frankly that the demands which I had to make upon him, his Staff and his Division were severe.

Following upon four days of arduous pursuit, his troops were called upon to undertake a long and difficult march over a most broken country, to be followed by three days of intensive fighting of the most severe character.

General Hobbs was, first and foremost, a lover of the Australian soldiers, and their devoted servitor. He belonged to that type of citizen-soldier who, before the war, had spent long years in preparing himself for a day when his country would surely require his military services. Like several of the most successful of Australia's generals, he had specialized in Artillery, and was, in fact, selected as the senior Artillery Commander of Australia's first contingent. That fact alone was the stamp of his ability. While he would be the last to lay claim to special brilliance, or outstanding military genius, he nevertheless succeeded fully as the Commander of a Division, by his sound common sense, and his sane attitude towards every problem that confronted him. He possessed also the virtue of a large-hearted sympathy for all subordinate to him; and that gave him a loyal following, which carried him successfully through several great crises in the affairs of the Fifth Division.

This period was one of those crises. When, late on the afternoon of August 31st, he urged upon me with much earnestness the stress upon his troops, and repeated the anxious representations of his Brigadiers—I was compelled to harden my heart and to insist that it was imperative to recognize a great opportunity and to seize it unflinchingly. His response was loyal and whole-hearted. His Division followed the lead which he thus gave them, and he led them to imperishable fame.

Considerable redispositions followed upon the transfer of my battle front to the country east of the Somme. These, and the reasons which governed their nature, chief among which was the resumption of the enemy's rearward movement, I shall deal with in due course.

Battle problems on the grand scale were, for the moment, relegated to the background, and there now arose a multitude of other problems, almost equally burdensome, relating to the supply and maintenance of the Corps.

Every Corps must be based upon a thoroughly reliable and efficient line of supply, and for this a railway in first-class operating condition is a prime essential. Every kind of requisite must be carried by rail to some advanced distribution point called a "railhead." Thence supplies are distributed by motor lorry to the areas still further forward.

The appropriate distance of the railhead behind the battle front is conditioned by the available supply of motor lorries, and their range of action. If the distance be too great the stress upon the mechanical transport becomes so severe that it rapidly deteriorates, and an undue proportion of lorries daily falls out of service. As the facilities for repair in the mobile workshops are strictly limited, an excessive rate of wastage among these vehicles soon dislocates the whole supply arrangements.

The experience hitherto gained had demonstrated that a railhead could not conveniently be allowed to fall behind our advance more than ten or twelve miles. This limit had already been reached when the Corps front arrived on the west bank of the Somme, and the strain upon the lorry service was already great.

For a further deep advance of the whole Corps in pursuit of the enemy towards the Hindenburg Line, still distant another fifteen miles, it became imperative, therefore, that the railway service to Péronne and beyond should be speedily reopened, or some equally efficient alternative provided. The great lattice girder railway bridge at Péronne had been irretrievably demolished. Engineers estimated that it would take two months to restore it, and at least a month to provide even a temporary deviation and crossing. Nevertheless, the work was put in hand without delay.

An alternative possibility was to construct a new line of railway to connect the existing military line at Bray to the Péronne railway station, a length of new construction amounting to some six miles. It was estimated that such a link could be built in a fortnight, and this work also was commenced forthwith.

There was a third possibility. This was speedily to repair that portion of the railway which lay west of the Somme, and to establish a railhead near Péronne, but on the opposite bank of the river. This proposal involved only a few days' work, for extensive sidings already existed on the west bank, and had been left more or less undamaged by the enemy. But it also involved the complete restoration of all road traffic bridges, both at Péronne and at Brie, for the service of the intense traffic which would ensue across the Somme from such a point of departure.

The rebuilding of the crossings was, in any case, a matter of urgent necessity. By this time all my heaviest guns had already been brought up to the vicinity of the west bank of the Somme, and had there perforce to wait; for a long detour, on the densely-crowded roads, to cross the Somme, say as far back as Corbie, where bridges were strong and grades were easy, was out of the question.

The problem, therefore, involved a stable and comprehensive reconstruction; half measures would not meet the case. But half measures were an inevitable necessity of the situation, to begin with, because troops had to be fed, and their supplies could be carried in no lighter way, in adequate quantities, than in the normal horse-transport wagons.

The order of procedure had, therefore, to be, firstly, hastily to reconstruct some sort of bridging, based generally upon the wreckage of the original bridge, and strong enough to carry loads up to those of horsed wagons; next to stay, strut and strengthen these temporary bridges to fit them for the passage of the lighter guns, and finally to reconstruct them in their entirety for the heaviest loads.

At a point such as the southern entrance to Péronne, where the approaches could not be conveniently deviated, the difficulties of such successive reconstructions, while the flow of traffic had to be maintained, can hardly be fully realized.

For many days, in the early part of September, Brie, Eterpigny and Péronne were scenes of feverish activity. Every available technical unit that could be spared from other urgent duty was concentrated upon this vital work. Most of the Engineer Field Companies, three of the five Pioneer Battalions, both Tunnelling Companies, and all the Army Troops Companies, laboured in relays, night and day.

Hundreds of tons of steel girders, of all lengths and sections, were hurried up, by special lorry service. Pile-driving gear was hastily improvised. The wreckage of the original bridges was overhauled for sound, useful timbers. The torn and twisted steelwork was dragged out of the way by horse or steam power, and tumbled in a confused mass into the river bed. Hammer, saw and axe were wielded with a zest and vigour rarely seen in peace-time construction. The whole work was supervised by my Chief Engineer, Brigadier-General Foott, and was later, when the advance of the Corps was resumed, completed by the Army authorities. The speed and punctuality with which the first temporary viaducts were completed and ready for use were exemplary, and reflect every credit upon Foott and his helpers. Within forty-eight hours bridges usable for ordinary supplies and for field guns became available, and thereafter were rapidly strengthened by successive stages.

The whole work of restoration, in which the Australian technical services played so prominent a part, won the highest praise from the Field Marshal, who expressed his appreciation in a special message of thanks to these services.

The congestion of traffic at the Péronne bottleneck was, however, serious. Blocks occurred, reminiscent of those which are familiar in the heart of London when the dense traffic is temporarily held up by a passing procession. Marching troops always had the right of way; and a Division on the move up to or back from the line meant a severe super-load upon the already overtaxed road capacity.

Sometimes a block of traffic would occur for an hour at a time, and a motley collection of vehicles, stretching back for miles, would pile up on the roads. The capabilities of a very able road and traffic control service, numbering hundreds of officers and men, acting under the direction of my Provost Marshal, were often severely tested. More than once my own motor car was unavoidably held up at this bottleneck for half an hour at a time, on occasions, too, when the situation required my urgent presence at some important meeting.

All these minor embarrassments arising from the passage by the Australian Corps of a great military obstacle such as the Somme were, however, soon dissipated. The Somme had loomed large, for many days, in the minds of all of us—first as a problem of tactics, and next as a problem of engineering. Before the end of the first week of September the Somme had ceased to hold our further interest. It had become a thing that was behind us, both in thought and in actuality.

The enemy was once more on the move, and it became our business to press relentlessly on his heels.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] The following telegram, selected at random from the files of September 1st, indicates the extraordinary mixture of units which the enemy had collected to defend this vital point:

"To Australian Corps Intelligence from 2nd Division—sent September 1st at 7 p.m. Identifications from prisoners examined since noon: 28th R.I.R.; 65th I.R.; 161st I.R.; 94th I.R.; 95th I.R.; 96th I.R.; Alexander Regt.; Augusta Regt.; 4th Bav. I.R.; 8th Bav. I.R.; 25th Bav. I.R.; 447th I.R.; 2nd G. Guard F.A.R.; 221st F.A.R.; 2nd Co. M.G. Corps; 67th Pioneer Co.; 3rd Army Troops; 102nd Pioneer Bn. of 2nd Guards Div.; 402nd M.W.Co.; 185th R.I.R. A pioneer of the 23rd Co. has been retained for 5th Aust. Div. to remove charges from bridges not yet blown. Prisoner 96th I.R. says Regt. came up for counter-attack night 31-1 to retake Mt. St. Quentin, but counter-attack did not come off, owing to attack expected from us. All prisoners interrogated agree that line was to be held at all costs. Regiments are now considerably intermingled and disorganized."

(Note.—I.R.—Infanterie Regiment; R.I.R.—Reserve Infanterie Regiment; M.W.Co.—Minenwerfer Compagnie; Bav.—Bavarian.)

[18] Mr. Hughes, the Commonwealth Prime Minister, visited the battlefield of Mont St. Quentin, with a distinguished company, on September 14th. The officer in question, standing near the summit of the hill, was about to relate his experiences, and this was his preamble.

CHAPTER XII
A LULL

During the closing days of August events had commenced to move rapidly; for the offensive activities initiated by the Fourth Army, three weeks earlier, began to spread in both directions along the Allied front.

The Third British Army had entered the fray on August 21st; the First British Army was ready with its offensive on August 26th, on which date the Canadian Corps, restored to its old familiar battleground, delivered a great attack opposite Arras.

The French, who, on my right flank, had along their front followed up the enemy retirement begun after the battle of Chuignes, reached Roye on August 27th, and Noyon on August 28th. Their line, however, still bore back south-westerly from the vicinity of the river near Brie and St. Christ.

By August 29th the line of the First Army had reached and passed Bapaume, and that of the Third Army cut through Combles. The Third Corps, on my immediate left, had made good its advance as far as Maurepas.

Thus, the thrust of the Australian Corps beyond the Canal du Nord, on August 31st to September 3rd, formed the spearhead which pierced the Somme line, and the Corps was still leading the advance both of the French and the British.

From the morning of September 4th the evidences of the enemy's resolution to withdraw to the Hindenburg Line became hourly more unmistakable. His Artillery fire died down considerably, particularly that from his long range and high velocity guns. These were probably already on the move to the rear, in order to clear the roads for his lighter traffic.

The Hindenburg Line Wire—near Bony.

The 15-inch Naval Gun—captured at Chuignes, August 23rd, 1918.

The high ground near Biaches (west of Péronne) provided a vantage point from which an extensive view of the whole country could be obtained. There lay before us, beyond the Somme, a belt about eight miles deep, which had scarcely suffered at all from the ravages of the previous years of war.

It was gently undulating country, liberally watered, and heavily wooded, especially in the minor valleys, in which snuggled numerous villages still almost intact and habitable, although, of course, entirely deserted by the civilian population.

Beyond this agreeable region there began again an area of devastation, which grew in awful thoroughness as the great Hindenburg Line was approached some six miles further on. For, through the autumn and winter of 1917, and up to the moment of the German offensive in March, 1918, it was there that the British Fifth Army had faced the enemy in intensive trench fighting.