Our Great Hearted Men

by Peter Brune

  We had our objective, but the battalion on our right flank [the Canadians] was held up and our flank was open . . . so we had to retire about three hundred yards . . . We started off back and I had to give covering fire with the Lewis gun while the others retired, so I was last to go back. The brutal [German] was sniping all the way and he is some sniper too. They started as soon as I got up to go back and it was very unpleasant . . . I had to run about fifty yards and then flop to get a breather, as the gun was pretty heavy and every time I got up it was like a nest of hornets around me. Well once when I got up they put a bullet through the butt of the gun about an inch away from my hand and split a long piece off it and knocked the butt plate off. Well I got back to the rest of them behind a dugout and they must have seen us run in there, because . . . he started shelling it at point blank range. He put two shells behind us and the next one hit right on top of the dugout. I was getting the gun ready for his counter attack when the shell landed. A piece as nearly as big as my head hit the gun and tore the radiator off, bent the barrel into the shape of an S and exploded some of the rounds in the magazine. I got a piece in the back of the knee, but if the gun had not been there the piece that hit would have taken my leg off . . . I hardly felt the wound, I looked around and my No. 2 was lying alongside me with his arm hanging off [he later bled to death] . . . Then I looked at the other five but they were all dead so . . . I had my leg tied up and it felt alright so I decided to stay. I got another gun and fixed it up, but after three hours my leg got so stiff I could hardly walk so I handed the gun over to another chap and went out to the dressing station. They put me on a motor lorry and sent me to the Casualty Clearing Station where we were put on a hospital train for the base hospital . . . next day my temp went down and I felt a lot better so they took me to the pictures [operating theatre] and gouged the bit of ‘William Tell’ out of my leg. When I woke up the sister told me I was for the place where the King lives . . .35

  While Private Reg Johanesen and his 2nd Brigade’s 8th Battalion had been thus occupied, its 7th Battalion on the left flank had suffered severely. After having crossed its start line it too had been met by heavy machine gun fire. The 2nd Brigade’s Unit Diary would later report that:

  This was especially severe on the Left (7th) Battalion front, as their left flank was now in the air, owing to the failure of the 7th Aust. Inf. Brigade to advance in conformity with us. Throughout the whole of the advance to the RED line the Left (7th) Battalion was troubled severely by this flanking M.G. fire, the enemy seemed to quickly realize the situation and moved his M.G’s to our exposed flank. In the later stages of the advance to the RED line, our men were being shot down from the front, the flank and the rear. (The 7th Aust. Inf. Brigade did not pass the jumping off line until 4.30 p.m. or two hours and 50 minutes after our advance had commenced).36

  Here, as was so often the case on 9 August, we find a breakdown in communications. The 2nd Division’s 5th and 7th Brigades were to have gone through the 8th Brigade and, in unison with the 1st Division’s 2nd Brigade, pushed onto the second objective (the Red Line). It ran from the Old Roman Road to Framerville and thence to a point on the railway midway between Rosières and Lihons.

  The time frame involved for the 2nd Division’s journey to their start lines, and their subsequent moves forward, were similarly obstructed by poor communications and a lack of inter-arms coordination, as had been the case across the Australian Corps that day. At 7.55 am the 2nd Division informed its brigades that they were to form up behind the old Amiens line by 11.00 am, and then be ready to push onto the second objective after the first had been captured. A brigadiers’ conference was held at 9.30 am. At this meeting it was decided that the 5th Brigade would move on the left flank, and the 7th Brigade on the right (alongside the 1st Division’s 2nd Brigade); that each of those brigades would deploy two battalions forward and two in reserve behind them; and that there was to be no artillery barrage. Both Brigade Commanders then ordered their Battalion COs to meet them at their new HQ at 11.00 am. In the case of the 5th Brigade’s 20th Battalion, that order did not reach it until 11.15 am, while the 17th Battalion’s Lieutenant-Colonel Sadler ‘found no one of his brigade [the 5th] yet there’.37 It would be 1.30 pm before the conference finished, the precise time that the 1st Division was moving through the 15th Brigade. Charles Bean has stated that, ‘There is no record of any message to or from the 1st Division or the Corps as to the 2nd Division’s zero hour . . .’38 Although tragically late, the 7th Brigade did in fact inform the 1st Division of its start time. The 1st Division Unit Diary records that at 3.15 pm ‘2nd Aust. Divn. is on our left, their 7th Bde is in touch with our 2nd Brigade, but reports it will not be ready to move until 4.30 p.m.’39 Further, that same Diary records that at 5.30 pm the 1st Division was ordered ‘not to advance until the Canadians moved up beyond present line’.40 In short, although the 1st Division had advanced without flank support from the 2nd Division at 1.30 pm, it did in fact have the option of halting its advance at 3.15 pm when it was informed of that Division’s start time—just as it was about to do due to the Canadians’ slower progress.

  During the night of 9 August it became apparent that the Fourth Army attack had, on the whole, been successful. The Canadians were to have advanced some six to ten miles to the line Roye–Hattencourt–Hallu. On their right flank (from Roye northwards) they managed to advance a couple of miles, while on the left or northern flank (Hallu southwards) some four miles were gained. If the Australian Corps’s advance had been poorly coordinated, then the Canadian thrust was no less so, with similar poor communications causing differing start times. At around 8.30 pm on the night of 9 August, General Monash had learnt that the right flank of the 2nd Division and the left of the 1st had attained their first-phase objectives.

  ***

  Late on 9 August General Monash, frustrated by the lack of progress across the Somme by III Corps, persuaded Rawlinson to allow him ‘to take in hand the situation at Chipilly’ by giving him ‘a limited jurisdiction over the north bank of the Somme’.41 The pending departure of General Butler from his III Corps command on sick leave gave Rawlinson an excuse for implementing Monash’s request.

  On the morning of the 10th, General Sinclair-Maclagan’s 4th Division’s 13th Brigade took over this front as far as the Bray–Corbie Road and General Gellibrand’s 3rd Division relieved his two remaining brigades south of the Somme. After the Chipilly Spur had been taken by a joint Australian, British and American effort, Monash planned to take ground astride the Somme by an advance north of the river by the 13th Brigade and south of it by the 3rd Division’s 10th Brigade. The 13th Brigade’s objective was the Etinehem Spur and the occupation of a line on that feature’s eastern side. On the southern side of the Somme, the 10th Brigade’s task was to pierce the German posts on the Amiens–St Quentin Road, and march along it a distance of around 1500 yards and then turn north for the river. This pincer operation was to be undertaken at night with the limited support of tanks. The intention was to conceal their locations and deceive the Germans as to their numbers.

  On the northern side of the Somme, the 13th Brigade, supported by two tanks driving up and down the main road, caused the confused Germans to retire through Bray and allowed the Australians to occupy the Etinehem Spur. But south of the Somme the 10th Brigade came up against strong German machine gun posts. The 5th Tank Brigade History would later record that:

  Almost from the outset of the attack heavy enemy machine gun fire was encountered from the large enemy dump by the side of the main road. Tanks were unable in the dark to locate machine guns and could not assist the infantry to make progress. It was therefore decided to abandon the operation and withdraw the Infantry under cover of unaimed [sic] fire from the Tanks, who were themselves recalled when the Infantry was clear.42

  After a further two days of heavy fighting with little tank and artillery support, and reinforced by the 3rd Division’s 9th and 11th Brigades, Monash’s Somme thrust yielded the villages of
Proyart and Méricourt and the woods alongside the Somme.

  The events on the Australian Corps’s southern front during the concluding two days of the Battle of Amiens (alongside the Canadians) saw the eventual capture of Lihons and Rainecourt by the 1st and 2nd Divisions. Those two objectives were taken in the face of stiffening German resistance around Lihons, and conducted across ground consisting of a maze of old trenches, wire and shell craters, which furnished ample locations for German machine gun fire. Despite enemy counter-attacks, those two objectives were held. Monash would later assert that, ‘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.’43

  If 8 August 1918 constituted a masterly break-in of the German Amiens defences, and indeed accomplished what General Ludendorff famously termed Der Schwarze Tag (‘the Black Day’) of the German Army, then the events of the following three days most certainly did not constitute the ever-elusive break-out that Haig and Foch had so desperately desired. Prior and Wilson have raised a telling point as to the physical condition of the soldiers of the Fourth Army by the night of 11 August:

  There could be no expectation that troops in this condition would be able, in a few days’ time and without substantial tank support, to make headway against an enemy with fresh (if disorganised) divisions and increasing quantities of artillery—the latter, it should be noted, largely unsubdued by British counter-battery fire. This was a prescription for disaster.44

  In his diary, Corporal Cliff Geddes, 4th Division’s 13th Battalion, provides us with a graphic illustration of this pertinent point:

  11 August 1918:

  It is a cheerful spot we have come out of the line to, several dead horses lay around, & in a trench here I saw one of the most pitiful sights I have seen in the war, & Goodness knows everything about it is ghastly enough. The Tommies here [III Corps] had a very rough time, didn’t have a walkover like on our sector—in fact before the Big Stunt started, they were attacked by Fritz & had to win back that ground before the big battle in the face of heavy opposition. In a trench we saw 4 Tommies lying dead, in full equipment, two had their heads blown off. A corporal was in front, & they were evidently just advancing along the trench, with the corporal in the lead, a sort of little advance party, on patrol, when a shell came & got them all. They lay on their backs dead, one behind the other, a grim spectacle of war’s horror . . . Our chaps buried them & also the dead horses lying around.

  13 August 1918:

  We . . . got the rotten news we are to do another stunt in a day or two in the Harbonnieres sector. We have to capture a wood. By jove, they are making it hot, we’ll have hardly any men left soon. Oh well, I shall hope & pray for the best as usual. One can only trust in Providence.

  We tramped on & on, it’s got dark, still we trudged on with the weight of our packs pulling our shoulders down, & our feet getting sore again. Passed through a village battered to pieces, like a mighty rubbish heap, not one building was left with a roof or walls standing. The chaps were awfully disgusted, it is red hot after a big stunt, to have to march like this, & go straight in for another. At 10.15 p.m. we got to our resting place—there weren’t any dugouts to sleep in, & no shelters, & as we had neither greatcoats nor blankets with us, we simply had to lie down on the bottom of an old trench with just a waterproof sheet & freeze all night.

  14 August 1918:

  It was too cold to sleep with no covering last night, & a chap isn’t refreshed for the fray . . . We were told today the stunt was postponed indefinitely . . .45

  The ‘stunt was postponed indefinitely’ thanks to the common sense and resolve of General Currie. On 11 August it had been decided to merely pause operations pending a renewal of the advance for either 14 or 15 August. But when Rawlinson visited Currie on 13 August, the Canadian made it clear that he was totally against an extension of the offensive. He reinforced his argument by producing aerial photographs of the Canadian front, which graphically showed abundant German wire protecting a myriad of trench systems, which would reduce the offensive to an all too familiar 1917 slogging match of little ground gained at the price of heavy casualties. When Rawlinson then called on Haig the next day (14 August), he showed him Currie’s graphic evidence. Faced with this photographic proof—and the fact that Currie and the Canadians had their distinguished record behind them and, more importantly, were an independent entity—Haig postponed the offensive.

  That same day Haig faced his Supreme Commander. When Foch ordered Haig to continue the advance, Haig stood up to him by pointing out that he was ultimately responsible to his government. Foch backed off.

  ***

  In his Official History, Charles Bean examined the reasons for the heavy casualties of 9–11 August. As an example, he pointed out that during those three days, the AIF’s 1st Division took losses of around 100 officers and 1500 other ranks. He asserted that those heavy casualties would have been ‘lightened and the effectiveness of the attacks increased if the operations had been even fairly well co-ordinated by Rawlinson, Monash, and Currie and their staffs’.46 The reasons for this poor coordination, according to Bean, were that not enough time was allowed for senior commanders to confer and then explain their orders to their subordinates; and that the communications system required for that process was ‘not yet sufficiently arranged for’.47 Bean then bolstered his argument by quoting Rawlinson’s Chief of Staff, Montgomery, as having stated that, ‘I have no doubt that lives could have been saved and a more satisfactory advance made on the 9th if the attacks of the various divisions had been properly co-ordinated.’48

  Bean could have gone further. It was all very fine for commanders such as Rawlinson to point to poor coordination. The truth is that such coordination, with the then existing means for its implementation, was quite simply impossible in the time allowed. In other words, the strikingly successful ‘coordination’ of the artillery, tanks and infantry of 8 August was not possible on the 9th. We have discussed the tremendous difficulties of the artillery to move forward rapidly and concentrate its guns, gain accurate intelligence as to enemy batteries, and then deliver intense, pinpoint fire onto German gun positions. Thus, the artillery’s capacity to provide smoke cover for the tanks and infantry advance of the previous day was subsequently lost, and its even more crucial role in the elimination or at least the neutralisation of German gun batteries was also lost. It should have come as no surprise to the Fourth Army and senior Australian Corps commanders that the high ground around Lihons was always going to provide superb observation of any approach to it, and would therefore accommodate concentrated German artillery and machine gun fire. The astute use of the high ground in any battle is as old as war itself. Thus, the failure to acknowledge this German high ground feature and plan for its elimination, or at worst its neutralisation, was the major reason for the casualties taken. Next, that artillery handicap greatly affected the infantry and tanks. The forfeiture of any initial artillery barrage at all on the 1st Division front constituted an unforgiveable neglect of the prime ingredient for the success of the previous day. A tank advance in broad daylight under spasmodic smoke cover, no creeping barrage, and with no strong counter-battery fire was always going to cause crippling tank casualties. And those losses were immediately transferable to high infantry losses caused by the inability of the tanks to provide mutual support to the infantry. The events of 9–11 August were thus a chain reaction caused by rushed and therefore inadequate staff work, which led to a total breakdown in the mutual support between the interlocking arms that had been the very crux of the success of the previous day. Major Laskey’s 2nd Tank Battalion Report for 9 August says it all:

  I should like to express the opinion that the decision not to employ our artillery at the start of the operation was unfortunate. Had the artillery been used to keep under fire, and to smoke commanding positions from which hostile batteries could over
look the field of operations (of which the most obvious was the high ground running North West from LIHONS) it would not have been possible for the enemy’s guns to remain for a period of over two hours in action, unmolested. Had such areas been searched by Heavy Guns, with H.E. and smoke, the fire of such batteries would have been much impeded, or silenced. As soon as the battery that caused all the damage was seriously engaged, it withdrew.49

  The tanks of the 5th Tank Brigade (and indeed the Tank Corps itself) were a finite resource. To squander that resource both in terms of its machines and their crews was a foolhardy action. In short, if more time was needed to replicate the events of 8 August (surprise aside), then that time should have been taken. The emphasis should have been on coordinated firepower, not manpower.

  It might be argued that any delay in following up the outstanding success of the break-in of 8 August might have allowed the enemy to concentrate reserves in terms of his artillery, machine guns and infantry, and thus cause heavy casualties anyway. Prior and Wilson have astutely negated such a theory:

  . . . in vital respects the Fourth Army’s planners were applying the means of victory [on 8 August]. Pre-eminent among these was the counter-battery programme.

  . . . had the German artillery survived the bombardment unscathed, it could have exacted a fearful toll on the advancing infantry and tanks.50

  During the changed circumstances of 9–11 August, the Germans’ artillery and machine gun fire exacted that ‘fearful toll’.

  In contrast to Haig’s unrealistic determination for an advance at Amiens into ‘open warfare’, there would seem to be no shortage of evidence that, in contrast, Monash, Currie and Rawlinson originally saw the Battle of Amiens as a set-piece or ‘bite and hold’ operation. Peter Pedersen has asserted that Monash had learnt that lesson at Messines: