He then mentioned one or two of his friends who stood like granite rocks.
But many other fine men broke to pieces. Everyone called it shell-shock but shell-shock is very rare. What 90% get is justifiable funk due to the collapse of the helm—of self control. [And then, under bombardment] I was buried twice and thrown down several times—buried with dead and dying. The ground was covered with bodies in all stages of decay and mutilation and I would, after struggling free from the earth, pick up a body by me to lift him out with me, and find him a decayed corpse. I pulled a head off—was covered in blood.
But through it all was the undeniable shining star of brotherhood, of what Australians called ‘mateship’. Major J.C. Toft wrote, ‘When one gets close to rough chaps as some of these men were, one finds hidden qualities. All these men were wicked in the Church sense. All had a keen sense of humour . . . one was particularly impressed with the fact that those of Irish descent loved most a scrap . . . One standard of honour was demanded. Each should do his fair share.’ All sects, creeds and types were in the trenches with Toft, he said; ‘men from Hobart to Lismore to Cairns, from Emerald, Barcaldine, Longreach, Winton, Cloncurry and Charters Towers . . . men of different habits and thought saw much in each other to love.’ There was a feeling that if such fraternity could be applied in civil life after the war, the world would be redeemed.
The Australian campaigns began first with the AIF’s 5th Division under the unpopular but ambitious General McKay in front of the French village of Fromelles, north of the Somme, in July 1916. It was a deadly and failed attack of the kind military men called ‘a demonstration’, designed to stop German forces from moving southwards towards the Somme front. One Gallipoli soldier said of Fromelles, ‘We thought we knew something of the horrors of war, but we were mere recruits, and have had our full education in one day.’
The casualties were about 6000, and the shattered division would be marched out to be replenished by new troops who would need training. Soon after, on 23 July 1916, three Australian divisions, the 1st, 2nd and 4th, were at various stages thrown against the German line at the village of Pozières in the Somme Valley. The 1st Division captured the village on the first day, but hanging on to it was deadly. The 2nd Division took over and mounted two further attacks, and then the 4th Division went up into the line and beat off the final German counterattack. The three divisions suffered in excess of 13 000 casualties. Mouquet Farm, on the ridge north-west of the wrecked village of Pozières, was by 3 September 1916 attacked nine times by these same three Australian divisions, resulting in another 11 000 Australian casualties. Surrounded by the Allies, it would fall in September 1916. There followed a freezing winter on the Somme, which at least cemented the mud in place but was the coldest the native-born Australians, and probably the immigrant diggers as well, had ever endured.
Again, it would be wrong to think that casualties would cease to be inflicted both at the front and in the reserve lines between major assaults. In early October 1916, for example, the 19th Battalion was in the line near Ypres in Flanders and on 4 October undertook a raid led by Lieutenant Heath and two second lieutenants and fifty other ranks. Even though retaliation directed by the German artillery on the Australian lines was very light, it killed one man and wounded four others. On 14 November, the 19th had been moved south again to the Pozières region, in front of the villages of Flers and Eaucourt L’Abbaye, and went into action accompanied by the Northumberland Fusiliers to take at least temporarily part of the enemy’s first line, capture prisoners and assess German strength. In this sadly forgotten operation there were Australian casualties of twelve officers and 369 other ranks—about a third of the Australians committed.
In the spring, the fortified French village of Bullecourt, between Cambrai and Arras, was the target for an Australian 2nd Division offensive between 3 and 17 May 1917, which though partly successful produced a number of ferocious counter attacks. The Australian casualties at Bullecourt amounted to 8000 men.
Entrained for the north that same spring, the Australians took part in a successful assault on a ridge running between Messines and Wytschaete. Australian tunnelling companies had, like similar British units, dug saps under the enemy lines—such as the deep tunnel dug by the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company under Hill 60—and at the start of the assault nineteen underground accumulations of high explosives were detonated, causing instantly an estimated 10 000 German casualties. British and Anzac troops took all their objectives on 7 June, but German counter attacks continued until 14 May. Messines was the opening battle for the 3rd Division, led by John Monash, part of the Anzac Corps and of General Plumer’s British Second Army, and unjustly mocked for their lack of involvement until now as ‘deep thinkers’, contemplators rather than actors. In this battle the 4th Division was led by Major General William Holmes, who had commanded the New Guinea expedition. Within a month, he would, unluckily, be killed by a shell while escorting the tall, urbane Labor Premier of New South Wales, William Holman, on a tour of the front. But every day there were unlucky shells for some members of the AIF. And in terms of objectives reached, Messines was considered a success.
‘I died in Hell, they called it Passchendaele,’ wrote Siegfried Sassoon. In that battle, near Ypres in late July 1917, when the French army was beginning to mutiny on a serious level, the 3rd Division struggled through acres of mud against furious machine-gun fire. A number of Australian divisions were then committed throughout September in the same campaign—known as Third Ypres—fighting either side of the Menin Road and in the gas-drenched Polygon Wood, where cement strongpoints held them up. The gain of a few miles and the straightening of the salient seemed to satisfy the generals, but the Australian losses in just over a week in September were 11 000. With the provisos given above about minor raids and offensives and artillery barges, the campaigning for the autumn closed and another bitter winter began. On 2 February 1917, Private John Keneally wrote to his brother: ‘Supposed to be the coldest for fifteen years . . . when you want a wash or shave you have to get a bucket of ice and put it on the stove. You said in your letter you would like to have a bit of this life. Get that out of your head . . . If you ever come near the front I’ll shoot you myself rather than let you go in the trenches.’
With the Russian revolution of February 1917, the Russian army had become first rebellious and then mutinied. Lenin and his Bolsheviks accomplished the revolution later in 1917 by telling the army he would make a separate peace with Germany. In the meantime, the Russians undertook no offences in the east. The Germans now had many extra and rested divisions to hurl against the British in March 1918. Ludendorff, the German commander, hoped to smash his way through Amiens, dividing the French and British armies, and swing north to capture the Channel ports, thus encircling the British. The three major attacks on the Western Front from late March, throughout April and into May were known as the Kaiserschlacht, and soon after they began the Germans’ intention seemed to switch from capturing the Channel ports as a chief objective to simply smashing an irreparable wedge between British and French and—something that now looked possible—the destruction of the British army before the Americans were ready to fight. The attack on the Somme Valley was known as Michael, another a little to the north was Mars, and the smaller offensive in Flanders was codenamed George. The collapse of the British front on the Somme early in the offensive seemed to be catastrophic, with men stampeding rearwards through villages once won by rivers of blood, heading towards Amiens. Moved down from Flanders, where they had been posted during the winter, the Australian Corps of five divisions (the 4th Division being, however, a mere shadow held in reserve) was now commanded by the Australian civil engineer and citizen soldier John Monash. The AIF advanced through the melee of British Fifth Army retreat, and in the villages they marched past British stragglers by the thousands retreating westwards, some of whom called to them, ‘You won’t hold them.’ The sight of the British, many of them n
ew and untried soldiers who had been given a job for which they were not ready, escaping in such numbers and in such disorder would create an ultimate belief, justified or not, that the Australians were asked to do more than their fair share, a perception which would generate mutiny amongst the diggers later in the year.
There is no doubting the morale or the determination of the men of the Australian Corps at the stage of the German attack. While the 3rd Division took a rest in its advance in the village of Heilly, on its way to hold the angle between where the Ancre River entered the Somme, the historian C.E.W. Bean claims that a digger, cleaning his rifle, called to a village woman suffering obvious distress and anxiety, ‘Fini retreat, madame. Fini retreat—beaucoup Australiens ici.’ Townspeople west of Bapaume, loading up farm wagons and lorries to join the stream of refugees from what seemed like an unstoppable German attack, saw the diggers and cried, ‘Les Australiens. Pas necessaire maintenant.’ An Australian was told, ‘Vous les tiendrez’: You’ll hold them. And that was indeed what happened.
On the Ancre the Australians could see German reinforcements pouring from buses in the background. The entire effort along the front involved ferocious fighting, shell and machine guns and all the rest of the horrors. For now, however, the Australians stopped the German advance on the Somme. This was a point at which all that Australia would come to believe of the diggers was validated. In Australian minds ever since, the idea has been that the four divisions of the Australian Corps saved the West, though many modern historians dispute that idea, claiming amongst other things that the Germans had by now overstretched themselves.
Characteristic of the Australian morale was a letter from Private John Keneally of the 19th Battalion in the 2nd Division written on 14 April 1918.
Things in this part of the world have livened up a good deal since old Jerry started his offensive, but his little game will soon come to an end . . . His losses are terrible. They come over massed and it is quite a treat for our gunners to get going on them in the open, quite a change to get him out of his dugouts. All you can see is dead Fritzes lying about in scores . . . I think it is his last dash and it won’t be long before the boys are all coming home again . . . I’ll settle down in some quiet spot when this bit of a squabble is over.
On the eve of Anzac Day the Germans took the village of Villers-Bretonneux. The Australians had earlier captured it, but it had been lost by the two battle-weary British divisions placed there to hold it. Now the orders were to recapture it. In innumerable horrifying conflicts during night assaults, Sergeant Charlie Stokes and Lieutenant Clifford Sadlier of Subiaco in Western Australia decided to take the German machine guns in front of them which were killing and maiming the men of the 51st Battalion. Their crazed assault, throwing bombs or grenades as they went, was successful. This was just one of many such furious encounters that night of face-to-face fighting when Australian young men struggled so intimately with German young men that they could smell the other’s sweat and terror and the accretions of mud and blood and brain matter in uniforms.
Here ended the German offensive and the historian of the 5th Division, which had been so savaged at Fromelles, was able to declare, ‘Thereafter, no German ever set foot in Villers-Bretonneux, save as a prisoner of war.’ The town, if not captured, would have provided a position from which Amiens could be reduced to ruins by artillery.
In the summer of 1918, the Americans arrived in numbers. According to Bean, the Australians were still heavily used: ‘The Anzac fronts provided a quite extraordinary proportion of the news in the British communiqués,’ he wrote. On 10 June, under Monash, the Australians seized the latest German front system at Morlancourt, south of Albert. Now the Battle of Hamel, a village just south of the Somme, was planned with great intensity by Monash and his staff, and according to Monash was meant to serve as a model of what could be done on the Western Front by collaboration between aircraft, artillery, tanks and infantry. The story of Hamel will be told later in this narrative, but this eminently successful assault gained in less than an hour more than many previous attacks had managed to gain in a month. Amongst the successes of the day was the capture of the enormous rail-borne ‘Amiens gun’, capable of pounding the city of Amiens from a distance of 15 miles (25 kilometres). The account of the Australian plans to blow it up and then to souvenir it instead is told in homely fashion by Corporal John Palmer. ‘Les Strahan one of our sappers in the party had been a driver in the Western Australian railways, and he found there was still a head of steam, he asked for a fair go, instead of blowing the gun up he got the engine going, we were told then to try to get it back if possible into a cutting so it could be camouflaged.’ This sort of collision between world history and Antipodean dryness and practicality is one of the aspects of the Great War which would fascinate Australians of future generations. Despite the triumph of the day, there were over 2000 casualties. One of them was Private Edward Wylie who, with his comrades of the 59th Battalion, captured a sunken road. It was, however, partly within range of a machine-gun position. Sergeant G. Robertson wrote: ‘Wylie lifted his head to look at a machine-gun position opposite when he was hit right in the throat. Within a few minutes Wylie, a man named O’Mara (shot through spine and killed instantly), Davies (through back) and Curly Hendry (through head instantly) were killed.’
In coming days the Allies continued forward, with the Australians making the pace, but by now the shortage of tanks left the infantry less protected. On 23 August 1918, Private Albert Golding wrote, ‘The French are pushing Jerry back down south, and we tell each other that the war is just about over, but each one knows that it won’t end for three or four years yet.’ On the last night of August the Australians crossed the Somme River to assault a mound named Mont St Quentin which overlooked Péronne. Mont St Quentin was like all the hills and ridges of this war—just high enough to give an inordinate advantage to those who held it and barely noticeable as a rise. By 7 a.m. the Australian troops had captured the slope and summit. They had taken 14 500 prisoners and 170 guns since 8 August, and the guns would be repatriated to Australia and donated to municipalities for display in such places as public parks, where they can be seen to this day.
The Germans were forced out of Péronne by 3 September, and retreated now to the Hindenburg Line. Throughout September 1918, the Australians attacked that line, the last and best prepared of the German trench systems. They were frequently in the open, advancing across fields which had not been ploughed to hellishness by artillery, and their casualties were still high. ‘By the way I lost one of my old mates Barney Heffernan,’ wrote Private John Keneally to his mother. ‘You have his photo I think I sent on which we had taken when we first arrived in England. He had a fairly hard knock and died of wounds.’
At 5.20 a.m. on 18 September Monash’s troops went forward against a fiercely defended Hindenburg Line. They were escorted by only eight tanks, but Monash had ordered the construction of fake tanks to undermine German perception. The Australians penetrated quickly and could thus boast of being the first into the Hindenburg Line, where that day they took 4300 prisoners. Some days later, Australian and US troops were the first to advance against the centre of the Hindenburg Line at Bellicourt. There were heavy losses, not least amongst the untried 27th American Division. After four days the third section of the Hindenburg Line was breached. The Australians broke beyond and slept in the comfortable reserve German trenches and ate German supplies.
The last attack was against Montbrehain village beyond the Hindenburg. There were a final 430 Australian casualties. It was the last battle for the Australians. The Americans replaced them. Most of the Australians had been fighting for six months without a break, and eleven out of sixty battalions had been amalgamated into other units for lack of men. In the Australian army, there had been 27 000 casualties since 8 August. Captain Francis Fairweather wrote, ‘Unless one understands the position it would seem that the Australians have been worked to death as w
e have been going continuously since 27 March, but they are the only troops that would have the initiative for this type of warfare.’
After the Armistice, the landscape opened up. On 27 November 1918 John Keneally wrote, ‘We are today about 20 Kilo from the Belgian border. The French towns we have come through which were recently held by Fritz are in a bad way. No one could believe what a hard time the civilian population have had under the Hun . . . they are all practically starving but the Jerries will pay dear for it all.’ Billy Hughes thought the same way.
The Australian forces engaged throughout the war totalled 417 000 which, though much less a number than the armies of the major powers, was a massive commitment for a population of 4 million. The casualty rate was nearly 65 per cent wounded, prisoners of war or stricken with serious illness related to the war. Nearly 60 000 would die. This was a higher rate of casualties than those of the British forces, and much, much higher than those of the Americans. Billy Hughes would remember this as well.
THE CATEGORIES OF MISERY
In popular imagination, World War I has become predominantly a war of mud. Mud intruded in sundry ways. In front of the village of Lagnicourt in March 1917, the ground had begun to thaw so that the rifles of a South Australian battalion were choked with mud within 50 yards of the German line. Seven of the South Australians’ Lewis machine guns also clogged, and a man spent all his time running from post to post, trying to clean them with strips of German blanket. Combine that degree of liquefaction with the cling of mud upon uniform, boots and other equipment and one gets the picture of the wallow of France and Flanders. ‘In every depression,’ wrote C.E.W. Bean, ‘the flooded craters lay brim to brim like the footprints of monstrous animals.’