by Peter Brune
In general terms, the accusation that Haig and his generals never really came to terms with a massed infantry crossing of no-man’s-land and the consequent slaughter is essentially true until mid-1918. But the allegation that this failure was the end result of a deficiency in ‘professional competence’ or a ‘lack of humanity’ would seem—at least in part—to be unfair.
Hindsight is the luxury of the historian—and the reader. Given that the BEF expended some 1 732 873 artillery rounds in the seven-day preliminary bombardment for the Somme, Haig and his commanders might be forgiven for thinking that 2029 guns across a front of fourteen miles (with 32.2 heavy guns to the mile) might crush the German defences. Further, by the end of the Somme the BEF had fired an astonishing 27 768 076 rounds. But, as discussed, two critical attributes of that fire caused this measure to fail. The first was the still-to-be-employed and still-partial predicted fire of the following year, and the second was the enormous number of duds in that expenditure. While the Principle of War ‘surprise’ was thus forfeited, the attempt for its time, and with the resources and doctrine at the commanders’ disposal, could be seen as justifiable.
It should be further acknowledged that attempts to break the Western Front deadlock included such measures as the introduction of gas (first used by the Germans but later returned in full measure by the BEF); the gradual employment of smoke; the early introduction of the tank—although premature and initially ineffective; attempts to tunnel and literally blow the enemy to pieces; and improved firepower through an increase in trench mortars and machine guns. But during 1916, Haig and his commanders were, as has been shown, working with crude and still-developing implements of war, and their eventual ability to employ those limited resources was, during that year, still impaired.
The Third Battle of Ypres was also marked by some critical command lessons. In discussing the initial plan for Passchendaele, Robin Neillands in The Great War Generals claims that: ‘This was a viable, if highly optimistic plan, and it might well have worked. The snags were the terrain, the weather, the resilience of the enemy, the depth of his defences, and the character of General Gough.’33
Three of these supposed ‘snags’ should have been immediately obvious to Haig, and as such, they are merely poor excuses for failure. The resilience of the German soldier had been on ample display throughout the Great War, and surely could have come as no great shock in 1917. The depth of German defences was also a given, and should have been allowed for, and presumably was, through thorough reconnaissance and planning. And the choice of the terrain on which to conduct his offensive was specifically chosen to comply with Haig’s desire for a break-out by his cavalry onto the open country of Flanders and Belgium. As such, the first objectives were always going to be the toughest: the capture of the high ground (chiefly the Gheluvelt Plateau) overlooking the Ypres salient.
But it is Neillands’s reference to the ‘snags’ of ‘the weather’ and ‘the character of General Gough’ that are a serious indictment of Haig’s command. The fact that the weather during the Third Battle of Ypres became the worst for some 30 years, and produced a mire of water and mud which contrived to turn the battle into a ghastly misery for both sides, should have signalled an obvious halt to the offensive. But Haig pressed on. It was a vain, unrealistic and costly decision.
‘The character of General Gough’ displays a further Haig command flaw during that period. Although a friend of Haig’s, Gough had proved to be an impulsive and poor planner of battles. Bullecourt provides us with sound proof of this. He probably should have been sacked after that debacle. Neillands also points out that a month of tough fighting during the Third Battle of Ypres:
. . . took its toll on the generals of Fifth Army, eating into their never-abundant tolerance of General Gough. Brigade and divisional commanders protested long and loud at the condition of their men, and complaints about the staff work at Fifth Army HQ soon reached the ears of Field Marshal Haig . . .34
When Gough decided against following Haig’s express orders to make his main attack on the high ground through Gheluvelt, Broodseinde and Moorslede, but chose instead an alternative plan, Haig had two distinct command choices: order Gough to comply with his original orders at once, or sack him on the spot. In a weak-minded gesture Haig did neither. His failure to be decisive for the overall good of the soldiers under his command, and his seeming inability to understand Gough’s standing among his subordinates and the quality of Fifth Army’s staff work, merely shows a lack of what General Montgomery would later refer to as a ‘grip’ of his command and his battle. Loyalty is a commendable character trait, but misplaced loyalty and a failure to exert authority over subordinates in war often has dire consequences.
From a high command perspective, 1916 and 1917 might be best summed up by stating that Field Marshal Haig’s repeated desire for a break-through of the German lines and a resumption of mobile warfare was misplaced, simply because such an aspiration was beyond the capabilities of his existing implements of war and the tactical doctrine of the time. It comes as little surprise that Haig concealed this consistent failure by later stating that the ‘war of attrition’ fought during 1916–17 caused the final and irreversible destruction of the German Army. There can be no denial of this fact, as the German losses at the Somme, Verdun and the Third Battle of Ypres were comparable to those of the British and French. The debate for 1916–17 would seem to come down to the employment of limited objectives fought within the range and capabilities of the BEF’s arms and doctrine (‘bite and hold’), or the horrific ‘war of attrition’ that actually transpired. The latter alternative would seem a crude but effective contradiction of the Principle of War ‘economy of force’.
In fairness, the rapid scientific, technological and industrial progress from 1916 until the 100 days’ offensive of 1918 is striking. In very many of these areas the BEF started the war well behind its enemies. Yet its two-year process of ‘sharpening the tools’ of warfare, accompanied by a costly and bitter but gradual maturity in the BEF’s command performance, would see an astounding transformation into the fighting machine of 1918.
CHAPTER 3
An enormous intellect
If the bloodbath that was 1917 had devastated the British, French and German Armies alike, then the First AIF had also suffered horrific casualties: Lagnicourt just over 1000; First and Second Bullecourt 10 000; Messines 6000; and the Third Battle of Ypres a staggering 38 093—over 55 000 in total.1 By the end of the year those enormous losses had drained the pool of trained reinforcements in England and left the AIF some 18 000 men under strength. Further, while required enlistments from Australia were estimated at around 7000 a month, only about 5000 had been forthcoming, and that monthly recruiting shortfall was now further increasing. Given the approaching winter and the prospect of its remaining in the front line, the AIF by the beginning of 1918 would struggle to maintain its infantry establishment.2
Prime Minister Hughes had attempted a political solution to this ongoing manpower problem by the instigation of two conscription referendums. The first was conducted on 28 October 1916 and failed by the narrow margin of some 72 476 out of a total vote of 2 247 590. This contentious debate divided the nation and caused a Labor Party split and the formation of the Nationalist Party under Hughes. The second referendum occurred on 20 December 1917 and was lost by a slightly larger majority. The First AIF was destined to remain a volunteer force for the entire war. Clearly, the needed manpower would have to be supplied by a reorganisation of that force.
It is here, towards the end of 1917, that five important characters enter our story.
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General William Birdwood had had a long association with the First AIF. Born in India on 13 September 1865, he had been educated at Clifton College in Bristol and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Short and lean in stature, a teetotaller, Birdwood had served in India on the North West Frontier and as an officer on Lord Kitchener’s staff during the Boer War. Kitchener, now a
s British War Minister, posted him to command the Anzac Corps in Egypt in December 1914. After having been promoted to Lieutenant-General in October 1915, when the AIF was doubled in early 1916 Birdwood was given command of the I Anzac Corps and served with it on the Western Front through 1916–17. Known as ‘Birdy’ to the rank and file, he had the common touch and was admired and trusted by the Australians. In that respect, he was unique among British officers.
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Lieutenant-Colonel Brudenell White was chosen as the original Chief of Staff of the 1st Division, First AIF. Born on 23 September 1876 at St Arnaud, Victoria, he moved with his family to Queensland in 1881. Following a number of failed attempts on pastoral properties, the family settled in Brisbane. After taking a job as a bank clerk and studying in his spare time, Brudenell White joined the 2nd Queensland Regiment and later the Australian Military Forces. He saw brief service during the Boer War, was the first Australian Military Forces officer to attend the British Staff College, and subsequently served for a time at the War Office in London. In 1912, back in Australia, White, as Director of Military Operations at Army HQ, devised plans for the raising, training, equipping and deployment of a combined Australian and New Zealand force in the event of war with Germany.
As Chief of Staff of the 1st Australian Division prior to Gallipoli, and after having been promoted to Brigadier-General in October 1915, White planned the highly successful Anzac evacuation of Gallipoli. He subsequently had the primary role back in Egypt in the expansion of the AIF into four divisions, and then journeyed to France as Brigadier-General, General Staff, AIF.
He was above average in height, lean in build, blue-eyed, fair in complexion, and had a strong but calming physical presence. White’s incisive mind, professionalism and loyalty all combined to produce a superb level of staff work in the First AIF. If Birdwood was the high-profile, popular commander of the Australians, then White was the driving force behind its impressive operational record.
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Charles Bean was born at Bathurst, New South Wales, on 18 November 1879. His father Edwin was born in Bombay, the son of a Surgeon-Major in the Army of the East India Company. After having failed selection for the Indian Civil Service, in 1873 Edwin took a job as a tutor in Hobart; the following year he became assistant classics master at Geelong Grammar School; and in 1877 was appointed headmaster at All Saints’ College in Bathurst. In 1889, three years after Charles had entered this school, ill-health caused Edwin to take his family back to England. In 1891, Charles Bean attended Brentwood School (his father was its headmaster), and after three years was enrolled at Clifton College in Bristol.
Two experiences during the twenty-year period leading up to the Great War decisively moulded Charles Bean the man, the future journalist and Official Historian. His time in England, and particularly at Clifton College, was the first. Bean’s father had been the sixth student to enrol at Clifton, and that school’s ethos had been ingrained into Charles both through his father’s influence and his own attendance there. Clifton embodied the values of an imperial education: the best man to administer the empire—or defend its interests on the battlefield—was a gentleman of character, who studied literature and the classics, and who acquired much of his moral training on the sports field. Such a man had to be gracious and humble in victory; stoic and ‘manly’ in defeat; and thus made his decisions and stood by them with a high moral ideal. Charles Bean’s childhood at home and at school thus exemplified a love of England and Empire. Among the Old Cliftonians who served in the Great War were Field Marshal Haig, General Birdwood, General Hugh Elles (Tank Corps) and Major-General Percy Hobart. Clifton produced five VC winners during the war, and 582 of its students made the supreme sacrifice.
In 1898 Bean won a scholarship to Hertford College, Oxford University, where his education was further extended by a study of the classics. After graduating, he subsequently failed to gain a posting in the Indian Civil Service, studied law, taught briefly at Brentwood College, and found his way back to Sydney in 1904. After having been admitted to the New South Wales Bar that year, and having also briefly been an assistant master at Sydney Grammar School, Bean decided on a writing career rather than teaching or the law.
The second major experience in the shaping of Charles Bean was his subsequent prewar experiences in Australia. After writing a number of articles for the Evening News (edited by Banjo Paterson), Bean eventually secured a position as a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald. Subsequent articles led Bean to write two character-forming books. Although he was sent to the outback to write about the wool industry, On the Wool Track (1910) became a study of that industry’s men rather than the industry itself. And, following a journey down the Darling River on a steamship, The Dreadnought of the Darling (1911) further developed and indeed enhanced Bean’s concept of the exemplary Australian. If his father and Clifton College had nurtured in him all that was cherished in the Imperial Briton, then according to Bean, rural Australia had bred an even better man: a wiry, tough, resilient survivor from a harsh environment, where the qualities of resolve, initiative and mateship were ingrained.
Following a two-year stint as the Sydney Morning Herald representative in London (1910–12), Bean returned to Sydney as a leader writer for the Herald. In September 1914 each Dominion was asked to nominate an official correspondent to accompany its forces overseas. The Minister for Defence, George Pearce, invited the Australian Journalists’ Association to select a correspondent, and in a subsequent ballot of its members, Bean narrowly won the appointment from Keith Murdoch of the Melbourne Herald.
Charles Bean was the only war correspondent to remain at Gallipoli for the entire campaign. His detailed yet concise observations and notes (in 226 notebooks) taken during the AIF’s campaigning at Gallipoli and in France (1916–18) were the basis not only for his despatches, but for his later monumental postwar volumes of the Australian Official History.
To Charles Bean, the Australian soldiers’ deeds at Gallipoli and in France and Belgium were the very personification of the rural Australian he had identified and so admired in his On the Wool Track and The Dreadnought of the Darling. And in Bean’s eyes, one man quickly became the very embodiment of all that he admired in this Australian. His name was Brudenell White. At the Victoria Barracks in Melbourne on 20 September 1914, the newly appointed war correspondent first met the Chief of Staff: ‘From his first word I felt he was my friend.’3
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Keith Murdoch was born on 12 August 1885 at West Melbourne. The third of seven children born to the Reverend Patrick Murdoch (a Presbyterian minister) and his wife, Annie, he was born one year after the family’s arrival in Melbourne from Scotland. As a youth he was ‘Tall, strongly built but slow in movement, with dark hair and heavy brow’.4 But he suffered from an acute and embarrassing stammer, which inhibited his communication skills at school and caused an early shyness and difficulty in making friends. The end result was a powerful ambition and work ethic that saw Murdoch become dux of his school. Later, he opted for a career in journalism.
His first interview with the chief of staff of The Age was less than auspicious: although his mother accompanied him, the youth with the stammer made little impact, and his mother was advised to ‘put him in a bank’.5 Murdoch’s father then intervened and arranged an interview with the proprietor of The Age, David Syme, who devised a diplomatic solution: Murdoch would have his chance as The Age district correspondent for Malvern. In truth the position was a tough challenge: it was at the very bottom rank of journalistic jobs; and it was assigned into ‘enemy territory’, as the citizens of Malvern were not Age readers but more attuned to the conservative ideals of the Argus. Moreover, it was an unsalaried position with payment at one shilling for each eight lines of published writing; and, as a consequence, the task of making even a modest wage and promotion was monumental.6 However, Murdoch’s work ethic, his speedy shorthand, his growing development of significant contacts, his incisive interviewing and ability to create newswo
rthy local stories, and his energy in analysis of the required format for Age articles all led to an increase in his ‘published writing’ and therefore his pay. He improved the circulation of that paper in Malvern, and Murdoch was making his way in his chosen profession.
In April 1908, after having diligently saved some £500, and realising that in London he could seek treatment for his stammer and aspire to a start in Fleet Street, Murdoch sailed in steerage to England, with letters of introduction from The Age, contacts with the Presbyterian Church in London through his father, and, through his father’s further influence, a reference on a prime ministerial letterhead from Alfred Deakin that referred to him as ‘a well-known and much respected young journalist’.7 When Murdoch sailed for London he left with an informal assurance that a job with The Age awaited on his return.
Keith Murdoch’s eighteen-month stay in London was a further test of his determination. While his treatment for his stammer improved that condition marginally, few journalistic opportunities were forthcoming, and, after having missed a position with the Pall Mall Gazette when his stammer failed him during the final interview, he returned to Australia via the United States. After his arrival in Melbourne, Murdoch’s continued grit saw his job back at The Age begin at £4 a week and by the end of 1911 it had risen to £7. With his speech impediment now under reasonable control, Murdoch became the paper’s Commonwealth parliamentary reporter, which facilitated critical ongoing contacts with Andrew Fisher (through Murdoch’s father) and such notable politicians as Billy Hughes and George Pearce. His prewar career continued to blossom: in 1910 he became a founding member of the Australian Journalists’ Association; two years later he secured the job as the Melbourne political correspondent for the Sydney Evening Sun; and in July 1914 he accepted the provisional position of news editor of Hugh Denison’s Sydney World with the longer term position of the editorship of a new Melbourne daily. But the onset of war forestalled those plans.