Pozieres

by Scott Bennett

  ‘Why?’ responded Howell-Price. ‘It’s 150 yards behind my front line.’ 11

  Smyth was wrong. Aerial photographs taken later that morning confirmed that the objective set for the upcoming attack was actually the 1st Brigade’s front line. Birdie visited Hooky’s headquarters and confirmed the disturbing error. Hooky’s staff redrafted and reissued orders. Hooky blamed intelligence officers for the confusion; he thought they too often stayed cooped up at headquarters rather than visiting the front. He demanded that they provide him with their daily reports in the future.12

  The confusion about the location of the front-line trenches continued that evening when shells from the preliminary bombardment fell directly on Howell-Price’s 3rd Battalion. Howell-Price sent a message back to headquarters:

  Can this matter have attention please? At present I am endeavouring by all means possible to stop our artillery from firing and now it is 45 minutes since I sent my first message and one gun is still firing with disastrous effect.13

  Coupled with occasional desultory shelling from their own guns, the Australians were also shelled by the Germans. It seemed that the Germans had noted the activity opposite them in the early hours of 16 August, and rightly guessed that a major relief operation was underway.14 Foxcroft, now a lance-corporal and one of the most experienced men in his platoon, had sheltered in the support trenches with his section since 4.00 a.m. the previous morning. Covered in mud, he kept a close eye on his anxious reinforcements. ‘Standing to all night expecting huns to attack, some men in trenches for their first time, had [a] job to keep them awake,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘Had to dig half buried dead out of trench and build up parapet before daylight.’ Foxcroft dug out his mate, Roy ‘Bluey’ Wilson, after an exploding shell buried him, only to discover that his head had been blown off. Foxcroft’s sergeant, John May, was also blown to smithereens. When morning came, Foxcroft remembered that he and what was left of the platoon felt ‘very tired’. 15

  Nearby, Sergeant John Edey, 5th Battalion, tried to manoeuvre his platoon up a narrow trench toward the front line. The shelling terrified his men, who became horribly bunched. A shell landed in the middle of them and practically buried them all. Edey tried to dig them out. ‘All I could do was scrape down till I located a face, and then continue till I could locate another, and so on,’ read his war-time diary. The soldiers were in terrible pain, with parts of their equipment sticking into their bodies. ‘Faces, faces, was what I was after. Just to get them all breathing,’ he recorded. As Edey exposed faces, he placed steel helmets over them to protect them from the shelling. ‘In most cases the lower part of the legs were entangled, and so it was dig to the very end.’ Disturbingly, as each man wriggled free, they disappeared toward the aid station, leaving Edey alone to complete the task.16

  Edey’s men scampering to the rear was an understandable reaction. George Londey’s diary description of being buried under six feet of earth by a massive shell provides an appreciation of the sheer terror they must have felt: ‘My toes were all I could move. There was one man two or three yards on my left buried up to the neck.’17 Londey remembered verging on unconsciousness as the little air in the space near his eyes and nose became stale. He knew that life was being squeezed out of him and he feared that he’d be another of those killed, smothered to death.

  After 20 minutes, Londey was dug out. ‘I was sent out of the line and felt better when I got a stiff tot of rum,’ he wrote in his diary. Understandably, men like Londey, after surviving such terrors, lost their will to fight.

  Later in the day, a sergeant assigned a new platoon to John Edey, who assessed them as being ‘a team of war babies, 16-year-olds; the first time in the line for them all’.18 They arrived with a much-needed Dixie of stew: ‘I had to stand over the newly arrivals and personally compel them to eat, they were that scared.’ As Edey tucked into the stew, a shell burst overhead, breaking his leg and tearing his calf muscle. He made his way back to a dressing station, edging along the trenches on his elbows. I Anzac Corps could ill afford the loss of experienced Gallipoli veterans such as Edey.

  It seemed that no one was concerned with being a hero anymore — most soldiers, among them Eric Moorhead, just wanted to survive. ‘You would not have called us heroes if you had seen us,’ he wrote in his diary on 17 August, ‘quivering at the knees and smoking cigarettes to keep the nerves up.’19 Even Moorhead’s officers couldn’t stomach the thought of another attack; he wrote that ‘to get the battalion declared unfit many of us were practically ordered to parade sick’. The doctor at a dressing station in Fricourt didn’t accept the exhausted men’s claims, and they rejoined their battalion the next day.

  Mackay sensed his men’s utter exhaustion. Seven days of fighting in July and August had resulted in 741 casualties to his battalion: one hundred every day; four every hour; one every 15 minutes.20 Mackay felt that his men could no longer withstand the rigours of war. Minor wounds, a scare, or a close shave had them scampering back to aid stations for treatment. He castigated them: ‘A man is not wounded if his face is splashed with dust, or if a small clod hits his back. We must learn to keep cool and to steady the new men.’ No one seemed to listen. One of Mackay’s lance-corporals could not stand the strain any longer, and deserted. Mackay, who had always assiduously protected his men, would later promulgate the man’s sentence, which was most likely to be death by firing squad — although these sentences were always commuted to penal servitude in the Australian Imperial Force.

  News of the incident also troubled John Treloar. ‘I realise that grave offenses must bring serious punishments,’ he wrote in his diary, ‘but I cannot help thinking of those who are interested in the man back home.’21 It seemed odd that an Australian soldier could volunteer his services to the Empire and then risk being killed for later withdrawing the offer.22

  Foul weather, confusion about the front line’s location, and German shelling threw the 1st Division’s attack preparation into the usual confusion. But what possibly concerned White, Birdie, and Walker the most was the fading resilience of their troops. Could these spent men muster another effort or two to take the farm before they completely unravelled?

  Hooky Walker’s eastward and northward attacks around dusk on 18 August followed a now well-established script; it was one that Charles Bean seemed familiar with, writing in his diary: ‘without losing heart, anticipate getting in [to the trenches] but holding is another matter’.23 As anticipated, the German bombardment compromised the digging of jumping-off trenches; battalion headquarters received written orders so late that they had to communicate them by phone to their companies; troops were shelled by their own guns; advancing troops captured some objectives, but were forced to retreat as their flanks were dangerously exposed; and many deaths and wounds resulted in trivial gains.24 In one disturbing incident, troops in the supports refused to help others struggling to hold a position. The sights and sounds of a night battle — orange flashes, bursting flares, panicked screams, whistling bullets, yelled instructions, and muffled explosions — terrified the inexperienced reinforcements that had replenished the battalions. In a sign of growing discord between the Australians and Gough, Bean recorded in his diary a rumour that the general, displeased with the attack’s failure, had the cheek to tell Hooky that he ought to go up Pozières and see things himself.25

  No one seemed to recall whether it was the fifth or sixth attack toward the farm; each fatiguing effort seemed to merge with the next. Although the Anzacs’ assault had failed to gain any ground, Rawlinson’s Fourth Army attack upon Guillemont had some success, with the outskirts of the village being reached and held; however, the attack upon High Wood largely failed. The 18 August attacks aimed to straighten the line before Haig launched his mid-September offensive. Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson noted that Rawlinson, in his nibbling and poorly planned attacks, showed no sign of achieving this objective.26 Rawlinson’s operation suffered the same shortcomi
ngs as Gough’s: piecemeal attacks delivered on narrow fronts with insufficient troops.

  The continuing strain of repeated assaults and prolonged bombardments did, however, place further stress on the German defenders. All available reserves had been put into the line. The 28th Division’s commander warned that he would no longer be held responsible for the defence of the second and third lines.27 General Max von Gallwitz, concerned with the precarious nature of his defences, visited the front line. He realised that a further breakthrough would bring the enemy to the rear of Thiepval, making his own men’s position untenable.28

  Von Gallwitz needn’t have worried. In the 1st Division sector, Hooky had already notified corps headquarters that, due to severe casualties, he doubted his men would be fit to engage in anything more than very minor offensives. Despite this, White requested that the division conduct one more limited action before its relief: could Hooky’s division clear the Germans in front of Fabeck Graben and then secure the higher ground? This would straighten the line, making subsequent actions much easier to launch.

  Hooky couldn’t see the sense of such a ‘half hearted’ effort to clear an area about the size of a local park.29 If he had to attack and incur casualties, shouldn’t the objective justify the cost? Therefore, the revised objective included a large portion of Fabeck Graben.30

  John Forsyth doubted that his brigade would be of much use in the coming attack. In a note to Hooky, he explained that in five days he had lost 850 men and he had two weakened battalions strung out over a frontage of 1500 yards, while a third verged on collapse after digging trenches and carrying out fatigues throughout the night.31 With or without Forsyth, the formal attack in broad daylight would occur as planned on Monday 21 August. He hoped that the clumsy tactics previously employed by the Anzacs would be modified before the assault.

  On Saturday 19 August, the clearing weather gave Foxcroft a chance to clean the mortar-like mud from his rifle. Absorbed in the task, he reacted slowly to the whine of a whiz-bang. Foxcroft explained in his diary that its explosion threw him to the muddied floor of the trench, showering him with dirt and knocking the air from his lungs. He lay still. After a minute, he tried to move his limbs. He could feel his legs, arms, and head, and as far as he could tell he didn’t have a wound to his stomach or chest. It seemed that the fine, dusty soil, churned up by shell after shell, had muffled the blast and saved his life. Foxcroft thanked God for his luck.

  His injuries were moderate: the top of his middle finger had been blown off, and shrapnel had lacerated his shoulder and face. A stretcher-bearer dressed his wounds. He worked his way back through the narrow trenches to a dressing station, where he felt safe enough to enjoy a smoke, a cup of tea, and a plate of hot soup. An orderly snipped off the finger that hung by a sinew of flesh, and dressed the wound.

  He arrived at the Canadian General Hospital at 4.00 a.m. the next morning and was taken to a makeshift tent with 40 beds. It took some time for his wounds to be treated, as others, including his mate Paddy South — a stretcher-bearer with his hand blown clean off — were priority patients.

  The next day, Foxcroft received something that any man who had ever been under a German bombardment cherished. It wasn’t a medal or citation, but a small tag with the handwritten words ‘Evacuate to England’ scribbled on it. Arthur’s war was over for now; he had his ‘blighty’ wound that he would recover from in time.

  On 24 August, he arrived at Dover and transferred to No. 1 Eastern General Hospital at Cambridge, which was packed with 62 beds in each ward. Foxcroft, for the first time in months, slept in a real bed with clean sheets and soft pillows. At the time, it likely would have seemed well worth the price of one finger.32

  Second Division soldiers such as Alex Raws waited for the inevitable calling for their units to continue the fight around Mouquet Farm. Raws had recently been suffering from inexplicable fainting spells. ‘It is difficult to know whether it is not just nerves,’ he wrote in a letter to Lennon.33 He expected their next fight to be short and sharp, on account of their diminished divisional strength; then, once they got through this, they could expect an extended period out of the lines reorganising and reinforcing. On Monday 24 August, he wrote to his father, hinting that the prospect of Goldy turning up alive was low, as he had not been found at any hospital:

  I write of him coldly and without emotion, because, Father, it is impossible that one give way to the expressions of grief just now. And I do trust that you and Mother, should good news not have reached you, will be able to sustain yourselves.

  Alec then wrote a candid letter to his brother, disclosing that Goldy’s death had shocked him more than he thought possible. He finished with a revelation:

  I honestly believe Goldy and many other officers were murdered on the night you know of, through the incompetence, callousness and personal vanity of those in high authority. I realise the seriousness of what I say, but I am so bitter, and the facts palpable, that it must be said. Please be very discreet with this letter — unless I should go under.

  It was the last letter he ever wrote.

  Like Raws, privates Denis Howard and Tod Nicholson heard the rumours that the 2nd Division would return to the front line. When confirmed, they decided to go absent without leave and visit Paris. The 6th Machine-gun Company history explained that with some cash, a little French, and a commanding officer willing to turn a blind eye, Howard and Nicholson set out for the French capital. The army, constantly on the lookout for deserters, had military police stationed at key points leading to Paris. Howard and Nicholson managed to board a train carriage occupied by two French soldiers, two elderly women, and a little fat boy consuming a pastry, who all initially suspected that the two men were spies. However, although they didn’t understand the ‘lingo’, Howard and Nicholson shared a bottle of wine with their companions, and the sympathetic soldiers donated their overcoats to disguise them as French ‘froggies’. Eventually they reached the city, where they noticed that a great commotion ensued whenever any of the locals discerned the word ‘Australian’ on the shoulder of their tunics. The men enjoyed hot coffee, biscuits, and cheese with some friendly Parisians, as well as the beautiful sights of Place de la Concorde, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Notre Dame cathedral. Howard marvelled at the Parisian streets, which were ‘infested with small red taxi cabs which seemed to rush hither and thither without any regard for traffic rules’. Two a.m. found the weary men safe in a pensione. When they returned to the Somme, burdened with parcels of wine and food, their only punishment was a stern talking-to from their major.34

  Soldiers such as Howard and Nicholson were more fatalistic after their first stunt at Pozières and were now prepared to break the army’s rigid rules, knowing that they could be dead or maimed within the week. Often, jail seemed a more alluring prospect than another stunt.

  Ernie Lee, the 14-year-old runaway who had landed at Marseilles in early June, seemed another Anzac contemptuous of the army’s strict rules. At Étaples on 26 June, Lee had been charged with being asleep at, and then absent from, his post. Days later, he was found guilty of the charges. While his battalion fought on the Somme, Ernie served out a 28-day jail sentence; while he was serving, at home Herman and Mary Lee discovered that their son had enlisted, and at the request of the Australian Imperial Force completed a statutory declaration, revealing his true age.35 Upon his release, Lee disappeared for 24 hours and was charged with being absent without leave and refusing to obey an order.

  Strangely, Lee’s jail sentence conflicted with the dates that the 1st Division returned to Pozières; it didn’t make sense when the evening Herald claimed he’d fought at Pozières. Perhaps Lee had embellished his service record to acquaintances, or perhaps a journalist had incorrectly assumed that Lee, being part of the 17th draft of reinforcements for the 5th Battalion, had fought at Pozières.36 In any case, he would soon find himself in much more serious trouble. Lee’s behaviour, like t
hat of Nicholson and Howard, was a prelude to the escalating disciplinary problems that the Australian Imperial Force would confront.37 After the Somme, droves of disillusioned Anzacs would go absent without leave or commit serious offences, resulting in their imprisonment. This disturbing problem would tug at the fabric of the Anzac story.

  As Raws, Nicholson, and Howard suspected, the 2nd Division relieved the 1st Division on 21 August. Holmes’s 5th Brigade replaced Forsyth’s weakened 2nd Brigade, which had suffered almost 1000 casualties since 15 August.38 Those battalions not involved in the upcoming attack, such as Gordon Bennett’s 6th — which had been under shellfire for six days — were relieved first. ‘God how we welcomed our saviours who relieved us,’ read a soldier’s diary note. ‘The men were so excited and nervy after their long trying vigil awaiting events, that they kissed each other.’39

  In a last-gasp effort, Sinclair-MacLagan’s 3rd Brigade, along with fresh 5th Brigade troops — about 1000 in all — would storm Fabeck Graben at 6.00 p.m. in the late afternoon light of 21 August and, it was hoped, capture about 1000 yards of the trench immediately in front of the farm. Bean, who observed the attack preparations at divisional headquarters, noted that ‘there was a great deal of anxiety about this attack’ although ‘it has pleased the wonderful General Gough who controls this army’.40