by Peter Brune
Arrived by a hospital train at Rouen & was taken to No. 10 General Hospital . . . This Rouen front, on which I conclude this diary, is certainly more cheerful than that celebrated ‘health resort’ Villers Bretonneux where I passed so many exciting moments, where gas & shells were as plentiful as rabbits in N.S.W. I am truly thankful to be alive & sound as I close this off.3
As his troops approached the Somme, General Monash was aware of the AIF’s dwindling numbers and physical condition, but also conscious of the fact that he had the initiative and the momentum. He then had to make a critical decision. To pause, or for that matter to slow his advance, was to allow the Germans a respite that would give them an invaluable opportunity to fall back over the Somme, stiffen their defences, enhance their fire plans and further reinforce their positions. It is here, at the Somme, that we witness a crucial attribute in a great commander: the ability to know the military and physical limitations of both his subordinate commanders and their soldiers, and then push them even beyond what they themselves believe to be those limitations.
Just prior to reaching the Somme, Monash had decided that each of his three available AIF divisions—the 3rd to the north of the river and the 2nd and 5th to its south—were to push on, on a one-brigade front, with their ‘two remaining Brigades arranged in depth behind it’.4 For simplicity, and to save time and therefore a maintenance of the momentum, each division was to fight along a clearly defined front or sector. There was to be no intricate and time-consuming ‘leapfrogging’ of divisions, and each brigade was to continue its advance until it had reached ‘the limits of its endurance’.5 He estimated that such reserves of energy might last for some two days per brigade, and therefore, with a three-brigade rotation, for six days per division. Further, he decided that if necessary, each division might have to undertake two rotations.
Orders are easy to issue, but as stated, the efficacy of even the most astute orders often relies on the senior commander’s judgement and resolve to see them carried out in their entirety. The commander must possess an unshakeable degree of confidence in his subordinates’ capacity to implement them. From divisional commander through the chain of command to the platoon commanders alike, the battles of Mont St Quentin and Péronne would require rapid decision-making, close and swift liaison between infantry units, with supporting arms, and often, because of time constraints, the necessity for verbal orders only. Time was of the essence.
The artillery support for the capture of Mont St Quentin and Péronne presented three challenges. As for the infantry, speed of movement in the advance and the consequent test of endurance was the first. Gunner James Armitage, 3rd Division Artillery, 28–29 August 1918:
The position of the line changed sometimes a couple of times a day. We eventually found the battery—on the other ridge, hidden amongst heaps of German road metal. We also found the rest of the battery there too—teams, wagons, headquarters, everything . . . That night we camped in old French 1916 dugouts recently vacated by the Germans and struck camp at 3 a.m. and moved our horse teams up behind the guns while they opened up on an attack.
. . . I shall never forget carting ammunition to the guns in their new position. Each team made three trips. Three times we went into that damned gully and each time I thought it would be our last. The Hun was bombarding the dump with 5.9” and 8” shells and each time we had to gallop through this inferno, in a positive hail of flying shell splinters, coils of barb wire, planks and girders.
Everything he had in that dump was flying about. Each time we arrived we gathered in a cutting and the six teams tried to time the series of salvos and take it in turn to make a wild dash.6
The second challenge was the necessity for the continued elimination, or at least neutralisation, of the enemy’s artillery and the destruction of his machine gun posts. Monash ordered that on the approach to the river, two guns from each battery would ‘come under the direct orders of the Infantry Commanders for the purpose of engaging with direct fire any machine-gun nest which was holding them up’.7 The third imperative was to continue to provide localised smoke cover for infantry advancing on German machine gun nests. This was accomplished by the order that all batteries would use ammunition composed of one-fifth smoke shells. A smokescreen on an infantry approach—and on call—was still of paramount importance.
The next concern was tanks. We have noted the ever-declining numbers of tanks and trained crews that had begun to beset the 5th Tank Brigade since Amiens. After its recent sterling support of the AIF’s 1st Division, the Brigade was withdrawn and placed in GHQ Reserve. It would be some seventeen days of ‘hard work making their tanks fit for further action, overhauling engines and training’ before their next action.8 And even then, the Brigade would be able to deploy far fewer tanks and crews than the heady days of Hamel and Amiens. The difficulties in the movement of tanks across the Somme aside, once across (had they been available), they would have been of inestimable value.
Another problem for Monash was logistics, and it was linked to his artillery requirements. In a mere 21 days the Fourth Army had captured roughly 30 miles of territory. By Great War standards this was a monumental victory. In terms of the BEF’s logistical achievements such an advance deserves high praise. In his excellent study British logistics on the Western Front, Ian Brown has pointed out that:
In August [1918] the QMG [Quarter Master General] looked back on the trials of the spring [Operation Michael] and made the ironic observation that they had helped to prepare the BEF’s administrative services for the advance of the summer, in that they had forced the services to deal with a return to mobility.
. . . In 1916, Haig could not have so easily switched the axis of his attacks, but the administrative excellence brought about by four years of hard-won experience made it a relatively simple matter by 1918. The advances in August had been well-supported, and a 27 August policy of concentrating advancing broad-gauge railways and roads had worked well. By August 1918, all types of ammunition, with the exception of 6-inch howitzers, remained readily available, and the problems of previous years with bad fuses and high explosives were no longer serious.9
Thus, by the time the Australian Corps gained the western bank of the Somme on 29 August 1918, General Monash could look to artillery support that was manned by highly trained personnel; had surmounted many of its technical challenges; and had, well before this time, been integrated into an exceedingly efficient all-arms system of war that had maximised its performance.
Monash’s artillery problem at this time, therefore, was not one of personnel, or shells, or a lack of field artillery—his problem was transporting his slow and cumbersome heavy artillery to his everdistant front. In his The Australian Victories in France in 1918, he quite understandably devoted space to this issue. Unlike his more mobile field artillery, the 60-pounders and particularly the heavier tractor-drawn 6-inch guns (their restricted ammunition stocks aside) were purely road-bound. They had to contend with congested, cratered roads that were often booby-trapped or mined. Any decrease in their numbers could compromise the attack on Mont St Quentin and Péronne. Thus, the Australian Corps’s engineers and pioneer battalions would play a critical role in the coming battle, both in terms of transport from the rear and of crossing the Somme.
***
The proposed capture of Mont St Quentin and Péronne would bear no resemblance to the meticulously planned, set-piece and interlocking-arms confrontations such as at Hamel or Amiens. When the Australians reached the Somme bend on 29 August 1918, they were to encounter an enemy on ground that possessed an abundance of defensive advantages. The Australian Corps front now stretched along the river from roughly St Christ in the south, some two miles northwards to Brie, and thence a further three miles to Péronne, before flowing further northwards for some two-and-a-half miles to reach Cléry, where it bent almost at right angles to follow its western passage to the sea. At Péronne the Cologne River flowed in from the east to join the Somme.
Crossing the
Somme was the first challenge for any attack. At the time that barrier was, according to Monash, ‘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’.10 For prewar commercial purposes, the Somme Canal had been built in an attempt to overcome this extensive and uneven stretch of marshes and river width, part of which passed along the western side of the river and through the Australian perimeter. The Canal du Nord (uncompleted in patches) had also been constructed, stretching across the river at Halle then travelling in a north-easterly direction. Bridges aside, any infantry attempt to cross the Somme would necessitate an inevitably slow and exposed wading through the extensive waist-deep marshes, followed by the deep-water obstacle of the river itself, and all that against the German Machine Gun Corps, whom Monash described as ‘the best of all his services’.11
There were four Somme bridge crossings south of the bend on the Australian front: at St Christ, Brie, Eterpigny and the main bridges that were the road and railway entrances into Péronne itself.
While the Somme was a major obstacle, there were also two dominant high-ground features on the eastern side of it that provided clear and distant observation over any assault. The first and higher was the pencil-shaped Bouchavesnes Spur, which lay around 2000 yards north-west of Péronne. Its highest point (around 425 feet) lay just south of the village of Bouchavesnes and overlooked Cléry on the Somme’s bend, and, more importantly, the second high-ground feature. This was the 300-foot-high Mont St Quentin, which lay across the Tortille River Valley from the Bouchavesnes Spur around 1500 yards north of Péronne. The term ‘Mont’ is a flattering one—‘hill’ would seem a more realistic title. Mont St Quentin possessed three important military attributes. The first was the open, rolling ground and gradual rise to it, which offered superb observation of any approach on Péronne from the west, north or south. The second was its bare slopes, which also provided excellent observation and little cover for an assault. Those slopes were ringed by extensive belts of rusted barbed wire and a substantial interlocking trench system. The Mont St Quentin village ruins and its wood were on its western side and therefore furnished added defensive cover.
Thus, there were three descending topographical ‘steps’ to the Somme in the area: the Bouchavesnes Spur overlooking Cléry and Mont St Quentin; the ‘Mont’ overlooking Péronne (Monash referred to Mont St Quentin as Péronne’s ‘sentinel’);12 and the sloping ground from Péronne down to the Somme. Therefore any plan to capture Péronne would be entirely contingent upon taking both high-ground features. A failure to do so would invite concentrated artillery and machine gun fire from either, or mutually supporting fire from both.
***
As Monash’s British 32nd Division and the 5th and 2nd AIF Divisions came onto the Somme south of the bend—the 32nd on the right or southern flank, the 5th in the centre and the 2nd on the left—he had initially planned a two-phase operation for the capture of Péronne. The first phase was to ‘closely follow the enemy with vigorous patrol action and not become involved in heavy fighting’.13 By 29 August this speedy, continuous advance had been most successful. The second phase now looked to ‘bring him to battle and if possible hustle him across the river and follow closely on his heels’,14 and thereby disrupt the German occupation and preparation of bridgeheads, and subsequently capture Mont St Quentin and Péronne. Peter Pedersen has left us with a succinct reason as to why Monash made this first western frontal assault:
. . . he was confronted with a dilemma. Although it was the most direct attack, it was also the quickest and simplest and, if the Germans were disorganized, it might succeed. But for the past few days machine-gunners had contested his advance stoutly, necessitating at Foucaucourt, for example, a heavy bombardment before it could proceed. Monash would have had to cross the river in front of them. The scheme was no more than a gamble and a desperate one at that.15
At a conference held at the 2nd Division HQ at 2.30 pm on 28 August,16 it was decided that Major-General Rosenthal’s 2nd Division, having the wider front, would attack on a two-brigade front (the 5th and 7th Brigades), cross the Somme at Halle and Omiécourt, and capture the high ground at Mont St Quentin. Major-General Hobbs’s right-flank 5th Division, using his 8th Brigade, was to cross the river at Brie and capture Hill 80 near Doingt. Hobbs’s 15th Brigade was to follow it up. Should this pincer movement on Péronne succeed, the Germans would be forced to withdraw from what would now constitute an indefensible town.
For the 2nd Division’s northern or left-flank crossing of the Somme and subsequent attack on Mont St Quentin, its 5th Brigade was to be supported by Private William McLennan’s 2nd Machine Gun Battalion.
Born at Sandford near Casterton, Victoria in August 1882, McLennan had been a professional ornithologist, and by the outbreak of the war had worked at Cairns, on the Great Barrier Reef, at Atherton Scrubs and in the Gulf Country. He had volunteered but been rejected for service in September 1914, and again in March 1915, with another rejection. Consequently, he resumed his career by working in the still relatively unexplored Arnhem Land, where he made a number of valuable discoveries. As a result of an illness from this expedition, he arrived back at Cape York in August 1916 and applied to join the AIF for a third time in March 1917. Third time ‘lucky’. McLennan arrived in England in August 1917, and in France in January 1918, at the age of 36.
It would seem that despite being embroiled in the horror of the front line, McLennan found bird-watching—often in the middle of an enemy shelling, or during a lull in the fighting—a form of therapy. The addenda to his diary contains a month-by-month record of his observations. But his diary also records the more sinister and often ongoing Great War soldier’s experience of gas. During the six-month period March–August 1918, his diary recorded its gradual impact:
9 March: Got a slight dose of it. Makes one sneeze & cough, burns the lungs & makes the eyes water. 21 March: 7 am. Hun sends some gas shells over, get a bit of it in the trench, it burns the lungs some. 19 May: Hun sending over sneezing gas in his HE shells, get a dose of it. 3 July: Hun goes mad & strafes the village, puts a lot of shells a short distance from our little home. Gas in his HE, get a dose of it. 6 July: My lungs burning like hell, coughing a lot, can’t use respirator. 10 August: Suddenly discover that there is gas over, sneezing & mustard, have got a bad dose; can’t wear my respirator.17
On 29 August 1918, McLennan described the 5th Brigade’s 18th Battalion progress:
4.30 am. D coy [18th Battalion] go forward. We follow, the load seems to weigh very heavy. Reach a sunken road 1000 yds ahead & rest awhile. Our officer goes ahead to get in touch with Btn . . . Our officer returns we move on to cross roads 500 yds ahead. Daylight now. The infantry are going over, we go with C Coy on the river flank. Our objective a bridge 3000 yds ahead. 2 of our guns . . . go with a company on our right. Over we go in artillery formation. For a thousand yards there is nothing doing; then the Hun starts using his MG’s from across the river & from a wood on the right front. Come to the canal and find that the bridge is destroyed . . . Our officers go forward to investigate canal, as we have to cross it . . . Our officers return, they have found a partially destroyed foot bridge across the canal. Hear that there were some mines attached thereto. Mr Duncan first tried the bridge, then cut the mines away. The infantry cross over first & line the opposite bank of the canal. We follow. Our objective is now about 1000 yds away but we cannot get to it during the day as the Hun holds a strong commanding position across the river . . . MG bullets come whistling down the canal. Plenty of Huns to be seen about the ridges across the river & in the ruins of Clery. Hun spasmodically shelling the area we have left across the canal. Send over a few big shells trying to get the lock on canal about 50 yds from our possy. 11 am. Hun sends over 3 salvos of Whiz bangs at the lock. The right flank appears to be well advanced. The rest of the Btn come in from there about midday.18
Whilst
the 18th Battalion was thus engaged, the 19th Battalion on its right had gained the high ground overlooking the canal. But as soon as it was reached ‘a battery of 77’s firing from Halle and intense M.G. fire from Ommiécourt [sic] arrested further progress’.19 After subsequent patrols failed to find crossing points, all movement by the Brigade was suspended until dark.
The 2nd Division’s right-flank 7th Brigade encountered similar opposition. On its southern flank Barleux was taken and the canal reached by 9.30 am, while at its centre, although the high ground at La Maisonette was taken, its 28th Battalion then came under concentrated machine gun fire, which screened a German retreat across the canal and the demolition of bridges. On the 7th Brigade’s left or northern flank, ‘the 27th Bn came under shell fire from Mont St Quentin very early in its advance, and to this was added M.G. fire when it reached the high ground west of Biaches’.20 As with the 5th Brigade, the 7th Brigade now suspended all movement until dark.
While these events were in train on the 2nd Division front, to the south, the 5th Division’s 8th Brigade, with its 31st Battalion on the right or southern flank, and its 29th on the northern flank, pushed eastwards at 5.30 am towards its objective of Brie.21 The 31st Battalion Unit Diary:
Great progress was made by the Battalion and also the Battalion on the left (29th). There was no opposition to the advance—the enemy apparently had retired across the SOMME as was anticipated . . . At 11.30 am orders were received from Brigade HQ that posts were to be established on or near the river . . . The companies marched out at 12.15 pm . . . As soon as [A Company’s] three platoons had left the trench to move forward they came under direct fire from 77 mm guns on the high ground on the other side of the river . . . there was continual M.G. fire and sniping from the E bank of the river and also all moving targets were engaged [by] two enemy 77 mm guns . . . The guns were engaged by 18 pdrs and 4.5 How. [Howitzers] and forced to limber up and retire. During the evening enemy artillery was not so active, but his machine guns were going all night.22