by Peter Brune
Officers Commanding Sub-Groups will detail Officers who will, both day and night, move over their areas in order to ensure that the orders are being obeyed.
No movement of guns and wagons is to occur by day under any pretext whatever, without special orders from D.A.H.Q. [Divisional Artillery HQ] Guns are to be calibrated, battery positions re-sected, and guns placed in position and left strictly without any movement in their vicinity by day. NO registrations are to be carried out.
Normal harassing fire will continue until Zero Hour.32
These elaborate Fourth Army plans for secrecy were jeopardised by two events. During the early hours of 6 August on the III Corps front, as an initial ‘leapfrogging’ of a division by another was in progress near Sailly-le-Sec, the Germans mounted an attack. In the ensuing action, trenches were lost and around 250 prisoners were taken. Despite the fact that a III Corps counterattack regained much of that lost territory, some of it remained in German hands. Luckily the Germans learnt nothing. Monash understandably complained to Rawlinson, whereby the latter informed Lieutenant-General Butler that his Battle of Amiens had begun a day early, and he was to capture the lost ground forthwith. But Monash harboured concerns—accurate as subsequent events were to prove—that the critical III Corps Chipilly Spur objective may well not fall on 8 August. He therefore ordered Major-General Sinclair-Maclagan, whose 4th Division, after its ‘leapfrogging’ of the 3rd Division, was to be on the left-flank approach to the Blue and Red Lines, to be prepared to bend his left flank ‘back towards Morcourt, and to establish, with a reserve battalion, a flank defence along the river [Somme], facing north from Cerisy to Morcourt’.33
The second event was a chance occurrence. Just before sunset on 7 August, an enemy shell landed among sixteen supply tanks and their stores, which had been deployed in an orchard on the outskirts of Villers-Bretonneux. Thirteen tanks and their stores were destroyed. However, the resulting inferno failed to attract German suspicions of an offensive.
The historical significance of the following day’s offensive was not lost on Lieutenant-General John Monash. In a message to the soldiers of his Australian Corps he said that:
For the first time in the history of this Corps all five Australian Divisions will tomorrow engage in the largest and most important battle operation ever undertaken by the Corps.
. . .
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 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 forever in the history of our home land.34
***
Gunner James Armitage’s 30th Field Artillery Battery was to support the 3rd Division’s left-flank thrust. His diary for 8 August portrays the eerie approach, and then the beginning of a fearsome artillery barrage:
We took our guns across ‘Circular Quay’ [a pontoon bridge] queuing up with hundreds of other vehicles quietly enough, with only an occasional shell dropping in the background. When we reached the little village the Hun started shelling it but, luckily for us, concentrated his fire on the road entering from the east while we and most of the traffic were on the west road.
We got out on to the flat marshy country where our guns were to be sited. It was utterly still. Vehicles made no sound on the marshy ground. There was no talking and only an occasional random burst of German machine gun fire and an odd gun going off in the distance. Only the constant display of enemy verey lights going up from their trenches worried us. The silence played on our nerves a bit. As we got our guns into position you could hear drivers whispering to their horses and men muttering curses under their breath, and still the silence persisted, broken only by the whine of a stray rifle bullet or a long range shell passing overhead.
We started putting out our lines of fire, calculating our charging fuse settings so that our shells would keep bursting ahead of our advancing infantry . . . Each crew’s world centred around his gun.
At 4.29 a.m. silence reigned everywhere. Jerry appeared to be sleeping peacefully, unaware that hundreds of men had their fingers on hundreds of triggers. Away on our right we heard the stutter of some battery whose watch was a few seconds fast, then all hell broke loose and we heard nothing more. The world was enveloped in sound and flame, and our ears just couldn’t cope. The ground shook and our little sphere heaved.
I was gun layer . . . I was relieved after about half an hour which was about as much as a gun layer could stand at that pace. The sound waves beat against my head and I looked around to find us half buried in shell cases. There was no wind and lots of men were made violently ill by the discharged cordite fumes. The smoke hid our aiming posts to add to our difficulties, but we were not fired on once . . .35
Any detailed examination of the 5th Tank Brigade reports36 for Hamel and Amiens will testify to the repeated observation that mist, fog or smoke barrages tended to hamper the tanks’ navigation in terms of identifying ground obstacles and/or enemy posts. But the salient point is that those perceived difficulties were far outweighed by their positive attributes. The first was the diminished German ability to identify their tank targets, in terms of either their artillery fire upon them, or by the employment of armour-piercing bullets from posts. The sudden appearance of a steel monster out of a screening mist, fog or smoke barrage, accompanied by mutually supporting and disciplined infantry—and, for good measure, a concentrated creeping artillery barrage and machine gun barrages—caused either a quick death or a far more palatable end: surrender. The enormous numbers of German prisoners taken on 8 August 1918 at Amiens are a reflection of the interlocking arms’ employment of sound intelligence, surprise and concentration of firepower.
On the Australian Corps’s left flank (adjoining the Somme), Major-General Gellibrand’s 3rd Division’s main features of the ground to be taken were the trenches in the Accroche and Acquaire Woods, and the German battery area in the southern part of the Cerisy Valley.37 Despite the initial dense fog, which caused some of the troops to fall a little behind the creeping barrage, the 3rd Division’s forward troops were able to maintain contact with their tanks and, in spite of German machine gun fire from wheat fields, were able to press forward, occupy the woods by 6.00 am and were digging in on the Green Line by 8.15 am.38
At 8.20 am the protective barrage that had been covering the 100-minute pause on the Green Line, which had allowed for consolidation and the ‘leapfrogging’ of the 4th Division through the 3rd, ceased. Although the 4th Division’s approach to the Red Line met ‘light hostile Artillery fire from the commencement’, the battalions on the left flank ‘encountered considerable machine gun and artillery fire from the high ground North of the River Somme’.39 By 9.40 am the Germans had concentrated 77-mm field guns and machine guns on the Chipilly Spur. According to the 4th Division’s War Diary, ‘these caused many casualties to the 4th Brigade and several tanks were put out by the field 40 guns’.40
It is all too easy for the historian—and the reader—to learn that the Australians came under German machine gun and artillery fire from this menacing feature. It is entirely a different matter to have experienced it. After his participation in the artillery barrage in support of the 3rd Division’s initial thrust, Gunner James Armitage was involved in his artillery unit’s deployment forward. During that day he witnessed the consequences of artillery placed on a nearby high-ground feature employing direct fire:
At 9 a.m. we limbered up our guns and started our advance into captured territory. What was left of the roads after our shelling was blocked with traffic and, until now, we had hardly had a she
ll returned at us.
However, we now learned that all had not gone so well on our left. The English troops had been held up and ran into trouble on some bad ground and had been unable to silence the enemy guns on their sector. In consequence of this, when we made our advance, we came under flank fire from enemy guns.
Things got uncomfortable until we entered a bit of a sunken road and here we were given ten minutes in hell. A German battery of 5.9 guns was dug in . . . and had an open sights target of all of us. In a few minutes of unmolested shooting the Huns had our column a mass of blown up tanks, guns, wagons, men and horses. The mess was indescribable. The horses went down with their drivers and the gun wheels shattered. We decided to get out but it was amazing how our drivers stayed with their horses and tried to get them free. A gun team, from some other battery, trying to gallop away along the top of the bank was literally blown on top of us—horses, gun and all . . . A fourth division battery, ordered into action against this German battery, was blown off the face of the earth before it could get its guns unhitched. They had 80% casualty [sic] . . . we returned to try and salvage our gun. The sight was beyond description. Heaps of debris consisted of vehicles, men and horses and shattered guns. Our kits, tied to the wagons, were scattered in rags everywhere. Our gun was hardly worth salvaging but, with the help of ordnance, we got replacement parts for it and got it back into service. My gun team got out of this horrible business with extraordinary luck. Only one of the four of us was killed and two wounded but our horses didn’t fare so well.41
And from an infantry perspective, Corporal Cliff Geddes, 13th Battalion, 4th Division, was also exposed to the consequences of the hold-up over the Somme:
We climbed another hill, & were nearly on our objective line, when we struck Hun machine guns in a sunken road, & they poured a fire onto us & made it lively. I saw 2 running away about 400 yards off, & had the satisfaction of bringing one down as he ran. Our O.C. Capt. Geary (only made a captain a few days ago) was shot dead, he was a fine old chap the boys called him ‘John.’ Then a couple of tanks went down, and a lot of Huns came running back with their hands up. ______ was that wild he turned his Lewis gun on to some of them, they had just killed John Geary near him. Poor Ted ______ was killed too, no stretcher-bearers were handy to take him away, & he bled to death. The 16th Bn now pushed on further ahead & we began to dig ourselves in. He was putting shells over now, & several were being hit. Lor’ we were tired, & at 3 p.m. we actually had to move on up to the front line another mile & a half . . . When we got up we found the 16th Bn had suffered heavy casualties from machine guns & shells coming up, owing to the Tommies on the flank having been held up. It is awful to see the dead, & badly wounded lying about, wish the awful affair would soon end . . .42
On the Australian Corps’s right flank, the 2nd Division’s progress to the Green Line was also rapid and cost little in casualties. By 7.30 am its two leading battalions had dug in on that objective, and machine guns and trench mortars had been sited. During the advance, a company of the 17th Battalion had rushed the village of Warfusée and captured a German artillery battery ‘complete with officers’.43 The Division also noted that their tanks ‘cleared up machine gun posts in fine style and one mopped up Warfusée’.44 The 2nd Division also recorded that it had managed to capture 44 officers and 1500 other ranks, 27 77-mm guns, seven 4.2s, eight 5.9s, 26 trench mortars and 108 machine guns.45
Private Len Clarkson was a nineteen-year-old clerk from Adelaide. After training in England, he had arrived in France in June 1918, and had been posted to B Company, 32nd Battalion, 8th Brigade, 5th Division. On 8 August his 5th Division (Major-General Hobbs) ‘leapfrogged’ the 2nd Division on the Green Line and proceeded eastwards towards the Red Line:
Soon we reached the German front line—a mass of powdered earth; our guns had absolutely annihilated the trench. A few dead lay about but most of the birds had flown. Then we gained their second line and similar results of our gunfire were observed. It was evident that the enemy was in full retreat but we could see nothing ahead of us so dense was the mist.
Then it lifted and I saw a sight I will never forget. Everywhere swarmed our troops, the whole country seemed ALIVE with them. An hour later we were right back to his field guns and half an hour later signals went up in front to say that our first objective . . . had been gained.
Here we saw a sight which demonstrated what wonderful work our artillery had done. There was a battery of German guns and everyone had been knocked out. Even the limbers bringing up ammunition had been blown to atoms and every man and horse killed.
The ground about here was a shambles, nothing but shell holes and churned up earth. Our barrage had now lifted and was preparing our way to our next objective . . . The tanks were doing wonderful work and dozens of them were on ahead of us patrolling, dealing with machine guns and ‘mopping-up’ villages . . . These tanks have a nasty habit of going over a machine gun and crushing the lot. There were supply tanks keeping up with the advance with ammunition and water and also tanks to bring back wounded . . . Prisoners were coming in in droves—hundreds of them. They all looked scared to death and heartily glad to get out of it. We employed them carrying back our stretcher cases and helping the walking wounded and, needless to say, they had to disgorge souvenirs before they left.46
***
During its operations on 8 August at Amiens, the 5th Tank Brigade had lost 40 tanks through direct hits, and three had been put out of action by landmines. They had fired nearly 1700 rounds of 6-pounder ammunition and over 66 000 from their machine guns.47
As we have seen, as a part of their tank support for 8 August at Amiens, the Australian Corps had been allotted sixteen armoured cars from the 5th Tank Brigade’s 17th Armoured Car Battalion. Given that the most suitable ground in the Australian Corps’s sector was on its southern or left flank (which contained the key Villers-Bretonneux Road), twelve of those cars were to support the 5th Australian Division, and four were deployed as a Corps reserve. To ensure every chance of their arrival at the front, three tanks from the 5th Tank Brigade were attached, in order to tow those vehicles over trenches and shelled ground.48
The plan for those cars was based on the lesson of Cambrai, which had seen them deployed at around ‘Zero + 5, by which time the Tank attack had penetrated to the zone of intact roads used by the enemy’s transport’.49 In other words, the Australian Corps’s occupation of the final Blue Line objective foreshadowed the opportunity for an armoured car operation on its right, or southern flank, to achieve as much damage as possible to the enemy’s personnel, organisation and transport.
The sixteen cars had three roles: six cars were to operate to the north of the road; a further six south of it; and four were to drive directly down the road to carry out a reconnaissance in depth of the German lines. Each car carried axes for clearing minor obstacles such as trees, and four ‘slabs of Gun Cotton [an explosive] in case a heavy obstruction was encountered’.50 In addition, the towing tanks each carried three artillery bridges for trench crossings.
By zero plus three and a half hours, after the Australian Corps Pioneers had cleared the road, the towing tanks and cars were able to drive through Warfusée and, despite an initial slow pace due to their own heavy artillery fire and a number of fallen trees, they were able to pass through the forward infantry to cause utter havoc in the German rear. Lieutenant E J Rollings, the OC No. 8 Section, provides us with an example:
I received orders to proceed to FRAMERVILLE to find out any useful information I could and to do as much damage as possible, then go on to VAUVILLERS, do the same there, and also N.E. side of HARBONNIERES. Leaving the lying up point . . . I proceeded up the Main Road and . . . we came in touch with large numbers of the enemy on both sides of the road, these afforded excellent targets as they got up out of their trenches etc., and ran along the open ground, thus giving us a chance to do our job properly, which we did. This continued along the road including Hospitals etc. till we turned down the road fo
r FRAMERVILLE. Here we again had them absolutely by surprise, we raided all round the village including the German CORPS H.Q. where I hoisted the 5th Australian Flag.
A very large quantity of enemy transport was shattered, drivers killed and horses in many cases, also bullocks, the remainder dashed up and down the road madly colliding with each other and blocking the road. This could not be avoided, though as many as possible were killed clear of the main road.
After mopping up all we could find I searched every road, track and field to try and get to VAUVILLERS but could not do so, so I returned to the centre of the village again, and was just in time to greet 4 Staff Officers who rode up to the H.Q., these were killed, one being dragged away by the stirrups till the horse fell.
. . .
Large numbers of prisoners surrendered to us and I brought two good batches down to the Australian line who took them over.
Nearly every German we saw waited till we were close up till they discovered who we were, they were absolutely dazed. Men running from the Infantry came right up, in some cases as near as 50 yards before they realised what was happening. It was real murder.
Absolutely no Artillery from either side, it is by far the finest fighting day I have yet had.51
The four cars engaged down the main road in the reconnaissance in depth of the German lines did not do well: one was hit by German field artillery at close range, the second had its wheels badly splintered, and the third ran into the side of the road and damaged the chassis. During the day the armoured cars fired 26 880 rounds at targets from 50 yards and upwards.52
***
While 8 August 1918 had been ‘the finest fighting day I have yet had’ for Lieutenant Rollings in his armoured car, that first day of the Battle of Amiens constituted a classic break-in operation. Within a half a day across a front of some 15 000 yards, the offensive reached a depth of about eight miles, and in the process laid waste to at least five German divisions. Over 400 guns were captured, the German casualties numbered approximately 15 000, and a further 12 000 were captured. And by Western Front standards, the roughly 8800 casualties sustained by the Fourth Army on that day—particularly for the ground gained, and the utter destruction and demoralisation of their enemy—were low.