by Peter Brune
. . . in every offensive operation, large or small, a definite limit was set to the task performed . . . under no circumstances whatever, no matter how tempting, were these limits to be exceeded . . . To allow troops a free hand to exploit a local victory, by continuing their advance indefinitely, had often led to complete disorganization and an inability to resist the shock of the enemy’s inevitable reaction.51
The Battle of Amiens was nonetheless a crushing Fourth Army victory. To the spectacular success of 8 August a further five miles of enemy territory was taken (no mean feat by Great War standards), giving a total advance of some twelve to fourteen miles. And all this in four days. Field Marshal Haig now decided to shift the BEF’s offensive northwards to General Byng’s Third Army line. It also suited him to comply with Currie’s request that his Canadians be returned northwards to their familiar Arras area and the First Army.
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The Australian Corps HQ, Bertangles Chateau, mid-afternoon 12 August 1918. King George V alights from his car and is escorted into the grounds of the chateau. There is a long guard of honour consisting of around 100 soldiers from each of the five AIF Divisions that have contributed so much to the great Amiens victory. They are assembled beside the long, narrow tree-lined drive to the chateau. The approach and the grounds of the chateau are proudly adorned with the trophies of war: a startling array of German artillery, machine guns, vehicles, horses and search lights. After brief introductions and conversation with the AIF’s five divisional commanders, Monash is knighted by the King as a Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath.
This investiture is worthy of comment on three grounds. First is the obvious recognition of Monash himself. Second, this event put an end—once and for all—to any attempts by others to question, much less unseat, Monash from his command of the Australian Corps. But third, and most importantly, the investiture was surely the symbolic event that marked the final and irreversible maturation of the AIF into a cohesive, superbly led Corps (from top to bottom), where meticulous staff work and planning, and a resulting sound doctrine, had seen a masterly execution (with the equally impressive Canadians) of a Great War set-piece operation.
While all this was impressive enough, the Australian Corps commander, his divisional commanders and his soldiers would soon provide fresh evidence of their military prowess by a striking operation that embodied many more military attributes than just those of a set-piece battle.
CHAPTER 8
Our horses hated it and whimpered
As a consequence of Field Marshal Haig’s wise decision to cancel the Fourth Army attack for 15 August and shift the main BEF offensive northwards to General Byng’s Third Army front, a vital eight-day interlude was gained before Rawlinson’s resumption of his offensive on 23 August. This respite gave the Fourth Army the priceless opportunity to reconstitute its all-arms formula for success that had been so evident on 8 August.
The period 15–23 August was marked by two important imperatives. In the case of the Australian Corps, the first necessity was for a much-needed rest. By this time, the Corps had been fighting for some five months without a decent break. While still maintaining sufficient strength on its front, efficient corps and divisional staff work was required to enable all five divisions to enjoy an equal period of rest. General Gellibrand’s 3rd Division was relieved by the British 17th Division on the 12th; the 4th and 5th AIF Divisions relieved the 1st AIF and 17th British Divisions on 16 and 18 August; and the 32nd British Division relieved the 2nd AIF Division the next day. This process required an even-handed treatment by Monash. Peter Pedersen, in his masterly Monash as Military Commander, has pointed out that although the length of this rest was relatively short, ‘by ensuring that hardship was shared equally, Monash forestalled any impression among the men of one division that they were being called upon to do more than the others’.1 The second necessity was a resumption of ‘Peaceful Penetration’ of the German line, which aimed at an aggressive elimination of desired enemy strong posts in villages and woods.
This pause also gave each division’s artillery invaluable time not only to enjoy a brief rest, but also to recalibrate their guns and begin the task of gathering or at least receiving accurate intelligence through sound ranging, flash spotting and aerial photography. It was crucial to learn the locations of prime German guns, likely reserve concentration areas, headquarters and logistics targets, and also to redeploy guns and stockpile ammunition. In contrast to the German defences at Amiens, this new enemy defence line was protected by a thick belt of wire, the cutting of which now became a Fourth Army artillery priority.
While the need for a rest had applied to the infantry and artillery, it most definitely was needed for the 5th Tank Brigade:
By this time all the Tanks of the Brigade after many days of marching and fighting were in urgent need of a thorough overhaul . . . on the 15th all tanks were collected at Aubigny and Frouilloy [sic], where all tracks were broken and a thorough mechanical overhaul begun, the Australian Corps having given a promise that no Tanks would be required for the next 10 days. This hope proved illusive as on the 19th of August the 5th Tank Brigade . . . received orders to prepare to take part in another action on 23rd August.2
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Having secured Marshal Foch’s endorsement for a shift in the BEF’s offensive from Rawlinson’s Fourth Army to General Byng’s Third Army north of the Somme, Field Marshal Haig planned a three-phase operation. On 21 August the Third Army was ordered to capture the ground along the Albert–Arras railway running from Beaucourt to Moyenneville across a 14 000-yard front. The next day, to conform to this Third Army thrust, the left or northern Fourth Army flank was to advance along a 12 000-yard front from the Somme to Albert. On the third day (23 August), both armies were to embark on the main objective: a line from Mercatel around three-and-a-half miles south of Arras in the north, to Herleville in the south, about four-and-a-half miles below the Somme. If these objectives—across a 33-mile-wide front—were achieved, then Byng’s Third Army would advance on Bapaume, the Fourth Army was to proceed on its southern flank, and General Horne’s First Army was to join the advance to the extreme north beyond the River Scarpe. The Australian Corps’s participation in this plan was to occur on the second and third days (22–23 August). On 22 August the Fourth Army’s III Corps, with the AIF’s 3rd Division, was to advance on the Third Army’s right flank, while on the following day the remainder of Monash’s Australian Corps would join the offensive south of the Somme and ‘capture the valley and slopes ahead’.3
On 22 August General Gellibrand’s 3rd AIF Division, tasked with the right-flank advance astride the Third Army’s 47th, 12th and 18th British Divisions to their north, faced a significant problem. The British portion of the front bent a considerable distance back from Gellibrand’s front. As a consequence, the British were faced with a 4000-yard advance while the Australians were to thrust just half that distance. To allow for this discrepancy in ground, an intermediate objective was chosen for the British and ‘to conform with this, a first objective was also chosen for the 3rd Division’.4 Once this 1500-yard Brown Line first objective had been gained by the 3rd Division, a pause of 66 minutes was to be taken to allow the British to ‘arrive into line’.5
If the Australian Corps was well led by Monash, then the next few days bore ample testimony to the highly competent leadership of his divisional commanders. General Gellibrand’s plan of attack for his advance on the 22nd is a strong case in point. The ground in his 3rd AIF Division sector was dominated by a plateau that stretched from Tailles Wood to the slope above the village of Bray. Realising that an artillery barrage preceding his attack would be most difficult on this ground, Gellibrand decided to attack ‘Happy Valley’ about 1000 yards north of Bray, which would allow him to use a creeping barrage on the approach and then facilitate either an encirclement of Bray or a later frontal assault, or both. He deployed his 9th Brigade’s 33rd Battalion for his left flank, his 35th Battalion in the centr
e and the 3rd Pioneer Battalion on his right, with his 34th Battalion in reserve. His use of the Pioneers as infantry on the right flank overlooking Bray was necessitated by the fact that his 9th Brigade was now reduced to three battalions.
On 22 August, despite the fact that a heavy German bombardment of an hour’s duration fell on the front line at 2.30 am, few casualties were taken. When another bombardment occurred at around 4.00 am, twenty casualties were inflicted upon the left flank’s 33rd Battalion and six on the 35th Battalion as they assembled on their start lines. At 4.30 am, as the 3rd Division’s creeping barrage began to fall some 300 yards ahead, the 9th Brigade’s soldiers advanced into a morning mist coupled with what Charles Bean described as ‘dust whipped up from the dry ground, and the smoke of phosphorous [sic] and high explosive, it [sic] filled the valley with haze so dense that the men could barely see ten yards’.6 Strains of Hamel and Amiens. The mist and dust and high explosives that inhibited the attackers’ navigation and identification of enemy positions also provided a screen of concealment against German machine guns and artillery. Bean has further recorded that the creeping barrage ‘was good but, inevitably in such broken country, seemed rather ragged’.7 He more than likely adopted the term ‘rather ragged’ from Lieutenant-Colonel Morshead’s 33rd Battalion Report on the operation:
Our barrage was very ragged and inaccurate and was very difficult to follow. A very large number of our casualties on the advance were inflicted by our own shells. The 47th Division on our left advanced slowly and with hesitation and had to be urged to keep up to the barrage. The enemy did not make a determined stand; his morale was not high. Machine gunners were an exception; they maintained a heavy fire until our troops rushed them, when they eagerly surrendered.8
Three points are of interest. First, as Bean stated, the barrage was indeed put down in ‘broken country’, which was no easy task. Second, near the conclusion of his report, Morshead lists his casualties as being two officers and fifteen other ranks killed and seven and 98 wounded, and that ‘most were slight’ and that ‘compared with the enemy our casualties were very light’.9 And those casualties were over the two days 22–23 August. Third, his soldiers’ sterling efforts in ‘rushing’ the German machine gun posts must surely have been greatly facilitated by that creeping barrage. Gellibrand’s report stated that, ‘A German Battalion Commander and Staff, captured early in the advance, could speak of nothing but the rapidity with which the men were on them and round their machine guns.’10
By this time, initial morning mist, artillery smoke, a creeping barrage, concentrated and accurate machine gun fire, and experienced infantry fire and movement, were characteristic elements of a BEF attack. In the centre and right of the attack the 35th Battalion and the 3rd Pioneers also gained their Brown Line objective.
Although the planned 66-minute halt on the Brown Line enabled the enemy to ‘partially reorganize and shorten his artillery barrage’,11 and to bombard the Australians with gas just twenty minutes before they resumed their offensive, the Green Line was taken by 8.30 am. On the right flank the Pioneers were able to move two companies down to the edge of the village of Bray.
Although III Corps captured most of its objectives, when the cavalry attempted a break-through from the head of ‘Happy Valley’ a predictable outcome ensued. Lieutenant-Colonel Morshead witnessed this futile act:
A party of the Northumberland Hussars, the remnants of a squadron, galloped down the Brasy–Fricourt Road shortly after the capture of the Green Line. They suffered heavy casualties from machine guns and aeroplane bombs on reaching our left flank . . . 2 officers and 10 men followed by about 20 riderless horses galloped towards Bray and reached the outskirts of the village. All except one officer became casualties. The cavalry displayed the greatest courage and dash, but shock action against a nest of machine guns can only end in failure.12
To ensure contact between the British 47th Division and the left flank of the 3rd AIF Division, one company of the reserve 34th Battalion followed in the rear of the 47th. This company captured the key Chalk Pit position (about 1500 yards north of Bray) and held that feature until relieved by the British. In line with Gellibrand’s original plan, the village of Bray was to be later seized by attacks from the west, north and the front. Despite heavy German shelling and the ‘particularly oppressive’13 heat that day, the 9th Brigade spent the remainder of the morning of 22 August digging in and consolidating their Green Line objective.
At around 4.00 pm, with the probable intention of retaking the Chalk Pit and ‘Happy Valley’, the Germans counter-attacked. The 3rd Division would later record that:
On the front of this Division [the 3rd] the line was held throughout and the attack repulsed with loss to the enemy. The troops on our left, however, were forced to withdraw to their first objective (the Brown Line). This left the flank of the 33rd Battalion exposed to attack from the rear. The situation was saved, however, by the prompt action of the Left Company Commander, who immediately occupied the Chalk Pit and formed a defensive flank along a minor spur running into Happy Valley. Extra machine gunners were moved into position on the high ground north of the Bray-Corbie Road and later, when the enemy using Happy Valley as a covered approach, attempted to penetrate behind our left flank, these guns were able to assist in checking this new thrust.14
When Gellibrand deployed his 11th Brigade’s 43rd and 44th Battalions forward to further bolster that vulnerable left flank, all further German attempts to turn the 3rd Division’s flank were thwarted. From nightfall on 22 August, although heavy shelling on selected Australian locations was undertaken, there were no further efforts by the enemy to retake that prized ground. Thus, with the Third Army’s advance on 21 August having attained nearly all of its objectives on the northern approach to the old Somme battlefields, with III Corps having taken the first of its objectives, and with Gellibrand’s 3rd Division in possession of its final Green Line objective—and gamely hanging on to their tenuous left flank—the stage was now set for a further advance the next day.
Because III Corps had failed to capture its final 22 August objective, General Rawlinson was forced to abandon his plan for a general advance on 23 August and instead opt for two separate operations. The first was the prize of Bapaume, which would be captured by the Third Army with his III Corps assisting it on the right or southern flank. The second was the thrust south of the Somme by the Australian Corps and the 32nd British Division. The Australian 1st Division’s objective anticipated an advance of between 2000 and 3000 yards across roughly a three-mile front to gain the plateau beyond the Froissy Valley, while the 32nd Division was to capture Herleville.
The 1st AIF Division’s attack was to have three phases. The first was to be a movement by the 2nd Brigade on the right (the southern flank) and the 1st Brigade to its left. Both brigades were to deploy two battalions in front and two in support. That first or main objective, which at its deepest point consisted of some 2000 yards of ground, ran from around 1000 yards east of Foucaucourt, bending back northwards to the eastern side of Chuignolles. The objective of the second phase (the first exploitation) ran roughly from just east of Chuignes north-west back to the Somme and about 350 yards from the Froissy Beacon. Phases one and two were allotted to the 1st and 2nd Brigades. Should their objectives be taken, the 3rd Brigade was to push through the 1st and seize the objective of the third phase (the second exploitation line), which ran virtually due north from outside Chuignes to the Somme, and covered, at its widest northern point, a further distance of some 2000 yards.
In the planning of this attack we note the employment of many of the tried and tested inter-arms attributes of Hamel and Amiens. The British 32nd Division, on the right or southern flank, was to have twelve Mark V Tanks from the 8th Tank Battalion in support; the 1st Division’s 2nd Brigade was to attack in the centre with twelve tanks from the 13th Tank Battalion; and on the left or northern sector, the 1st Division’s 1st Brigade was to be supported by twelve tanks from the 2nd Tank Battali
on. To assist in rapid supply, three Mark IV Tanks were allotted to each of the 1st and 2nd Brigades. These tanks were able to deliver 46 tons of stores, including two loads of ammunition, grenades, drinking water, picks and shovels, sand bags and materials for wiring to nine different locations.15 This feat was even more noteworthy since those nine points were ‘inaccessible to Field Transport’.16
As at Hamel, ‘demonstrations were carried out by the 5th Tank Brigade with the Battalions of the 1st Australian Division’ during the week before the attack.17 It is probable that the lack of such ‘demonstrations’ prior to 9 August might have been a contributing factor to the 1st Division and the Tank Corps’s poor coordination on that day, as the 5th Tank Brigade would later record that ‘as a result of this practice the co-operation of Tanks and Infantry in the Battle [of 23 August] was beyond praise’.18 To cement that spirit of coordination and mutual trust, prior to the attack, the tank officers were billeted with their infantry counterparts and—as at Hamel—all tanks were to carry an infantry scout.19 In yet another Hamel initiative, the 1st Division Report for 23 August noted that ‘Aeroplanes . . . flew continuously over the forward area between 9.30 p.m. and 1 a.m. night 22/23rd and from zero minus 1 hour to zero, in order to conceal the noise of Tank engines. Normal Field Artillery and M.G. fire was also employed for this purpose.’20
The artillery for the assault of 23 August was also well prepared. Employing the same predicted fire intelligence attributes of Hamel and Amiens—and mindful of the time needed for their implementation—the artillery was able to dispense with a preliminary barrage, gain the key advantage of surprise, but still fire accurately on selected targets. The initial creeping barrage was to move at zero plus three minutes and then lift at a rate of 100 yards every two minutes for three lifts. This was to be followed by lifts of 100 yards every three minutes up to and beyond the final objective. The barrage was to consist of ‘50% Shrapnel 25% 106 Fuze, H.E. and 25% 101 Fuze delay or non delay H.E.’21 Smoke would also be used to screen the tank–infantry approach. The firepower of the assault was to be supplemented by a machine gun company to provide barrage fire for each attacking brigade.