For the German High Command, 1918 was going to be a crucial year. Two elements were uppermost in the commanders’ thinking and planning: the arrival of sixty German divisions from the Eastern Front, approximately 900,000 men, to bolster their troop numbers on the Western Front; and the fear of a million American troops entering the battle and dramatically shifting the balance of power. The response to both issues needed planning and careful thought, but what dominated their discussion was the desire for a decisive victory, with one last offensive to take Paris and drive the British into the sea.
At home, however, the German people were pessimistic and becoming increasingly hungry as the British naval blockade, which had been in place since the beginning of the war, started to bite. The Germans had pinned their strategic hopes on their own blockade of Britain to bring their enemy to its knees but it hadn’t yet done so. The German hunger was a state of affairs that stretched back to the bleak winter of 1916–17, the ‘turnip winter’, when the German people substituted their potatoes and meat with turnips, which were usually fed to livestock. Soup kitchens were a common solution, yet many people died of malnutrition and sickness. At the same time, food was kept on farms and often not shared with those in the cities or in the German army, who found their rations reduced. To counter the resentment of the German people, the government introduced a programme, ‘sharing scarcity’, which went some way in restoring morale.
In a November 1917 speech to German military commanders, General Erich Ludendorff stated that the German army needed to launch an offensive by the end of February or early March the following year, before the deployment of American forces in large numbers would likely turn the tide of the war in the Allies’ favour.
Planning began on what the Germans called the Kaiserschlacht – the Kaiser’s Battle. The German command decided on an offensive that would push through the Allied front at strategic points and capture the key city of Amiens before striking quickly for Paris. The British army would then be in tatters, and any support it might receive from the French would be compromised by different languages, command structures and weapons. Then, after a ceasefire and armistice, the war would be won.
With the exception of the German army’s initial invasion of France and Belgium, and the Verdun offensive, the Germans had so far fought a defensive war. Launching an offensive such as this required a major rethink. Since 1915, the Germans had developed and improved a new trench assault tactic that involved the cooperation and coordination of artillery with attack troops, the Stosstruppen or stormtroopers – mobile units armed with new Bergmann light machine guns. These elite troops could quickly bypass points of resistance, like machine-gun positions, and stream deep behind the front line to cause confusion and fear. They were followed by units who mopped up and dealt with prisoners while the attack surged forward. However, the success of this tactic would lie in dash and an offensive spirit, something the German army had not practised. As a result, over fifty divisions were withdrawn from the line for the training and attack manoeuvres necessary for the planned offensive.
The crucial question was where would be best to strike: where along the French and British front, and against which Allied general, and which army? Thought was initially given to driving the British from the Ypres Salient, which had been fought over relentlessly since late 1914, but the weather and the muddy ground would pose problems. For the Belgians, it was the last small sector of their country in Allied hands, while for the British it was a lasting symbol of resolve, defensive spirit and sacrifice.
Believing the French would defend Paris while the British would focus on defending their supply ports on the Channel, the Germans opted to split the two armies by attacking at their junction. Ludendorff suggested Picardy in France, which was the boundary between the French and British armies, and also a line thinly held by British General Sir Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army. The Fifth Army consisted of many composite units, which included new and inexperienced troops.
In the end, the Germans drew up a number of possible plans, including an initial offensive south of Ypres (Operation George), the Verdun offensive (Castor and Pollux), an attack around Arras (Max) and the Picardy offensive (Michael). Ludendorff toured the northern sector of the front in late December 1917, reporting on findings and further discussing options at a meeting with German commanders at Bad Kreuznach on 27 December. Ludendorff finally selected the focus as the fifty-mile (eighty-kilometre) front between Arras in the north and Mont St Quentin in the south. This offensive became known as Operation Michael.
The British and the French knew an offensive was coming, as they were aware of the Germans’ troop trains arriving from the east, their strategic deployment of fighting divisions, concentration of artillery and seemingly endless build-up of ammunition stores. However, the Allies were confused as to where the offensive would be launched, and the Germans’ delay into early 1918 increased their sense of paranoia and confusion. The British and French discussed the idea of placing thirty divisions in reserve, but the British had enough problems manning their own front as available men were so limited, and Haig had already reduced the size of a division from twelve to nine battalions. Also, the reorganisation that would be required, as well as the disruption to morale and the need to train officers, made a large reserve unrealistic. Instead, the British and French agreed to provide mutual support should any threat materialise.
The British had adopted the German idea of defence in depth, with up to twelve miles (twenty kilometres) of defence in three separate zones: the forward zone, a lightly held zone where only scattered posts might delay and break up an attack; a second line where the real battle would be fought, and the attacker exhausted and mopped up; and a third zone in the rear to despatch troops to precise areas under attack and to provide a final line of defence.
Since November 1917, German troops had poured into France until there was an estimated total of 150 divisions available for an offensive. This rose to 180 by February and, by late March, to nearly 200. Facing the British from Arras to La Fère and the River Oise were a total of sixty-five divisions, with over 6000 guns and nine tanks. To counter this, the British could muster only twenty-six divisions: twelve under General Sir Hubert Gough and fourteen under General Julian Byng. Ludendorff had enough artillery to attack along a thirty-one-mile (fifty-kilometre) front with guns spaced at twelve yards apart. This was less than the six yards per gun that the British had at the Battle of Passchendaele, but the German guns were far more intensive, especially with the minenwerfers (short-range mortars) of various calibres. Eventually, new planning saw the front extend to forty-four miles (seventy kilometres), into which the Germans committed between forty and fifty divisions with guns, including 1000 weapons from the Eastern Front, outnumbering the British by five to two.
Germany’s Crown Prince Rupprecht, Commander of the German Sixth Army, expressed misgivings about the vagueness of the planning, the absence of a firm objective and the potential outcome should the offensive fail. While it had been agreed that an offensive of some sort must be launched, the fear was that the initiative would be lost and the effectiveness compromised by attacking at different points along the front. Nonetheless, while some modifications were made, the final orders for the battle were issued on 10 March, nominating 21 March as the start date.
Further plans were drawn up for an attack south of the River Oise (Operation Archangel) and north of Arras (Mars), which were to be the ‘hinges’ for the main attack. Further attacks were also in preparation north of Armentières at Messines and Kemmel (George II) for early April, as well as attacks further south near Rheims (Roland).
At 4.40 am on 21 March 1918, the German offensive began, falling principally on the weak defence line of Gough’s Fifth Army at Picardy and the stronger defence line of General Byng’s Third Army further north. The Germans had carefully selected targets, concentrating on British artillery, rear support areas and frontline defences. Their initial artillery barrage, in the first five hours of the attack, fired from 6500 guns over 1.2 million shells and mortars, which were mostly gas mixed with high explosive.
British gunners, now under heavy fire and gas, were forced to operate in gasmasks and, with the fog and smoke, found observation and target recognition difficult. Consequently, the SOS flares fired by their frontline infantry mostly went unseen. At the same time, the German stormtroopers moved through the ill-prepared and incomplete British defensive lines, avoiding machine guns and other strongpoints. They very quickly overcame the British defences and forced back the British troops, who were retreating in a disorderly rabble. Not only were the Germans using well-rehearsed infiltration tactics, but they also by this time had been re-equipped with lighter weapons, special padded uniforms and large bags for grenades.
The German advance surged on, completely shattering Gough’s Fifth Army. By 9.30 am, the British had suffered an estimated 8000 casualties and, by the end of the day, had suffered over 38,000 casualties including 21,000 captured. The Germans, however, suffered more; nearly 40,000 casualties, of whom nearly 11,000 had been killed. The first day of the German offensive was more costly in combined casualties than the deadly first day of the Battle of the Somme.
On this opening day of the German offensive, the AIF troops were still in Flanders, where they had been since the close of the Battle of Passchendaele in November 1917. The war diary of the 1st Brigade shows them near the infamous Hill 60, south of Ypres, while the 2nd Brigade was in camp near Vierstraat, north-west of Messines. Other AIF brigades were at Zillebeke and Spoil Bank, Neuve Église, around Ploegsteert Wood, Wytschaete, Locre and Meteren, and as far west as Lumbres near St Omer. While many were in training camps, like Vauxhall and Bulford, others were holding frontline positions, conducting raids and being raided. Near Hill 60, Allied artillery batteries were continually active, keeping German positions under constant bombardment, particularly at night.
On the morning of 21 March, news arrived at AIF unit headquarters of the opening of the German offensive. Many units had received intense shelling at exactly the same time as the Germans attacked south of Arras, around thirty-four miles (fifty-five kilometres) away. The 3rd Brigade near Zillebeke reported, ‘Enemy artillery increased in intensity to a regular bombardment at 4.30am. HE [high explosive] and all kinds of gas used.’1 Nearby, the 8th Brigade reported ‘At 4.40am enemy opened heavy bombardment all along our line and Messines Ridge. This continued until 6.40am when it fell on our front posts and enemy seen coming towards post no 2.’2
For the 14th Brigade, positioned near Wytschaete, heavy shelling fell along their front at 4.45 am, five minutes after the opening barrage to the south. Their war diary records, ‘7.25am, enemy raid on 55th Bn post. Dummy raids on posts. Apparently they are in conjunction with some larger operation.’3 At this time, the brigade was hoping for a rest in the Merris area, ‘but if the battle down south continues our rest will be very much curtailed in all probability’.4 Concern spread as the men realised the situation was serious, and something they would quickly be involved in.
The 14th Brigade soon reported that, ‘We have received news of the general attack on the 3rd and 5th Army fronts and on the French front in the Rheims sector. We had little news except that the bombardment started at 4.23am. Later information timed 1pm from GHQ to the effect that the enemy have attacked on a large scale and have entered forward system about Lagnicourt, Louverval and Bullecourt on the 3rd Army front and on the Fifth Army about La Fere.’5 The fact that these places, which marked significant 1917 battlefields, had been taken by the Germans caused great consternation for the Australians, who had suffered so badly there.
With this ominous news came orders for the AIF units to be prepared to move south. Within hours of the offensive opening, the 9th Brigade received orders to move to Watou, west of Poperinge, and from there to Doullens and finally Heilly on the Somme. That day, Brigadier General Harold ‘Pompey’ Elliott attended a conference at divisional headquarters, and similar conferences were held by other AIF divisions. Elliott’s 15th Brigade was at Ramillies Camp, near Mount Kemmel, when they received the order to move at short notice and hurry preparations. They were to move first to Meteren and on through countless small villages, finally ending ‘in a reserve area guarding bridges crossing the Somme, from Aubigny to Vaux-sur-Somme’.6
On 23 March, the 14th Brigade reported that, ‘Our war news today shows that the situation down south has developed very seriously. At 11.45 pm last night reports were to the effect that he [the Germans] had begun attacks again on practically the whole front and he appears to have gained a considerable amount of ground, especially on the Fifth Army front. Our news comes about 12 hours late and we wait anxiously for tomorrow’s budget.’7
By 25 March, the AIF was on the move south. Unlike the British, they were rested and keen, and the 8th Brigade war diary noted, ‘the spirit of all ranks is of the highest order and when we do come to close grips with the Boche, the traditions the force has made for itself will be supplemented by still greater deeds on the part of our men.’8 Further, the war diary noted, ‘all ranks in good spirits and very fit.’9 It was time to defend, to fire on rows of German assault troops and settle old scores. The Germans were the ones running at the guns and providing the targets now, not the Australians, as had so often been the case in the past.
As the orders came in, each brigade and battalion began their move south. Many orders were confusing and contradictory, and changes were made while units were on the road as commanders tried to predict where they would be best positioned to stop the surging German advance.
The 4th Brigade, for example, began their move south starting from Neuve Église. Their journey took them to the point where they occupied a defensive line north of the Somme, from Souastre to Bienvillers-au-Bois. A similar course was taken by other brigades, with the focus on getting Australians into the line in front of Amiens to stem the German advance there.
Arriving on the Somme, the Australians faced the disheartening reality of seeing the Germans quickly overrun all the battlefields they had fought so hard for and won at such high cost earlier in the war. Gone was Bullecourt and the outpost villages, Bapaume, Gueudecourt, Pozières; even Albert and the leaning statue of the Virgin atop its cathedral. The history of the 22nd Battalion reads:
The fluctuating fortunes of war had now enabled the Hun to overrun the old battlefields, capture Albert and bring his forces to the very gates of Amiens. The city was under fire, its splendid cathedral in danger, its streets littered with debris and tangled wire. The morale of the Twenty-Second was magnificent, and every man was, at least temporarily, exalted by the emergency, and his knowledge of the seriousness of the time.10
The exaltation didn’t last. The men were not happy to be back in the Somme, where the billets were considered ‘poor and generally dirty’.11 Places like the village of Dernancourt were famous for being filthy, lousy and uncomfortable. Private Lynch in Somme Mud states, ‘How we hate the hole! Dirty dilapidated dwellings, remains of sheds and damp, foul-smelling cellars house our battalion. We’re as mud-stained, wet and weary as the place itself.’12 The 14th Brigade war diary mentions that, ‘We rather expected something worse, and before very long we shall probably be spending our nights in the cold and wet without cover at all.’13
As the AIF streamed south, the Germans pushed further towards Amiens, a major Allied supply centre. Its railway terminus, station and marshalling yards were the target of two long-range German guns: the eleven-inch (twenty-eight-centimetre) Amiens gun on a railway siding near Harbonnières, and a fifteen-inch (thirty-eight-centimetre) naval gun in the woods near Chuignolles. With the Germans already through Albert, the Australians were spread in a line from the River Somme in the south through to villages as far north as Hébuterne and Saulty.
Adding to the confusion and the traffic were French civilians fleeing the fighting. In Barly, the French were packing up to leave as the Australians came into the village. A note in the 13th Battalion’s history states:
Towards Bapaume could be seen the smoke of a burning village which caused them to hasten their loading. And then spontaneously it seemed, the inhabitants learnt that we were Australians. ‘Les Australiens, Les Australiens’ they were heard calling out to one another. The unloading commenced and later saw the furniture being carried back into the homes from which it had just been removed. ‘Pas necessaire maintenant. Vous les tiendrez’ an old man told one of our transports as he drove his empty wagon back into its shed. ‘Not necessary now. You will hold them.’
‘We’ll have to see the old bloke is not disappointed,’ said the Digger when the remark was translated to him.14
The first major action for the AIF was at Hébuterne on 26 March, when the 4th Brigade – made up of the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th Battalions – just beat the Germans to the village, which was largely unoccupied, albeit with limited German patrols that had not by this time consolidated and secured it. As the brigade moved to take up its defensive position, British soldiers streamed westwards, warning that ‘Jerry’s got tanks galore’15 and telling the Australians they were heading the wrong way. The 4th Brigade commander, General Charles Brand, had ridden his chestnut horse into Hébuterne, much to the amazement of the men, whereupon he rallied his officers and addressed them, ‘Colonels, colonels, get your men assembled here just as they are.’ As the men gathered around him, he said, ‘I’ve just ridden into the place we are to attack.’ One digger turned to his mate and said, ‘Silly old blankard. You’ll be getting shot,’ to which his mate replied, ‘You’re a Dinkum Steve.’16 There was indeed great respect for General Brand, who had taken the initiative to gain intelligence on the German situation in the village by himself.
Meanwhile, remnants of the British 19th Division were found outside the village exhausted, frightened and without food or water. When they learnt of the Australian relief, some broke down and openly wept.
As they entered the village, the Australians forced out German patrols and established a defensive line on the eastern side using overgrown trenches from the fighting in 1916. To cover the line, the 13th Battalion spread across the front of the cemetery, with the 15th to the north and the 16th to the south. The 14th remained in reserve. Realising they would be there for some time, the Australians made themselves comfortable, purloining livestock and raiding the cellars for wine. Bean wrote of this time: ‘Such conditions of warfare have never been known in the AIF and the campaign took on the complexion of a picnic, or of a children’s escapade, a world removed from the experience of previous years. The conditions of the previous month in Flanders faded in memory like an evil dream.’17
Meanwhile, the Germans renewed their attack. Heavy shelling, often with captured guns and seemingly limitless ammunition, now fell upon the Australian line. German frontal assaults were swept away with heavy casualties for the attackers. A 13th Battalion report on 3 April stated that one company of the battalion had noted 200 German casualties, with one Lewis gunner accounting for eighty, while the war diary stated: ‘Enemy casualties were extremely heavy. 300 to 400 of the enemy were seen running away … and made excellent targets for our machine guns.’18 Yet the men were soon exhausted from the endless work of digging, carrying supplies and patrolling. At night the cold kept them awake and the fighting meant daytime sleep was impossible.
The fight to hold Hébuterne was to see the 4th Brigade remain in position for over two weeks without relief. To their north, British divisions were rotated in and out of the line, but the Australians remained. A note to Colonel Douglas Marks, the Commanding Officer of the 13th Battalion, from General Brand simply stated, ‘Dear Marks. The Corps Commander is afraid to let the defence of Hebuterne out of our hands.’19 So the Australians stayed and took the fight to the confident Germans by continuing their patrolling and ‘peaceful penetration’, a quaint euphemism for trench raiding, which was a tactic the Australians specialised in.
Charles Bean summed up the men’s attitude:
in the present crisis, they [the Australian troops] could see how every blow counted towards the winning of the war. At last the Australians were being used where their fighting spirit told. They had stopped the enemy easily; they could see the Germans were disconcerted, prone to become bewildered and faint-hearted; in the maze of grass-covered trenches the German posts and patrols should be easily outplayed. The Australians therefore merely waited for better weather conditions and then continued to nibble at the German front, seizing a sap here, a length of sunken road there, battalions or companies acting on their own initiative.20
Further south, the Australians were facing the German advance on the Somme and Ancre rivers. The Germans were now just over twelve miles (twenty kilometres) from Amiens, and the situation was grim. If the Germans were able to get across the rolling farmland to the city, they could virtually take the train to Paris, and to victory.
French General Ferdinand Foch, a national hero after his 1914 defence of Paris at the First Battle of the Marne, declared, ‘We must fight in front of Amiens. We must fight where we are now,’21 while Field Marshal Haig uttered his famous ‘backs to the wall’22 remark to steady his troops. British General Walter Congreve, VC, understood the danger along the Somme of a German breakthrough and said to General John Monash, Commander of the AIF’s 3rd Division, ‘Thank Heavens – the Australians at last,’23 adding, ‘At four o’clock today my Corps was holding the line from Albert to Bray when the line gave way. The enemy is now pushing westward and if not stopped tomorrow, will certainly secure all the heights overlooking Amiens. What you must try to do is get your divisions deployed across his path.’24
The Australians, well understanding their responsibility and role, had marched into the line determined to hold their position and win a place in military history for bold, audacious fighting and defence.
With the German capture of Albert, villages to the west towards Amiens had now came under direct attack and shelling. German troops advanced towards Dernancourt, where the AIF’s 47th and 48th Battalions of the 12th Brigade had established a thin defensive line along the Albert–Amiens railway. The Germans quickly attacked and, on 28 March, made nine determined assaults on the railway embankment beside the village. The 12th Brigade’s war diary notes, ‘All attacks by the enemy were repulsed with heavy losses and machine guns, Lewis guns and riflemen were busy all day operating against wonderful targets.’25 Australian snipers were also active, accounting for an officer and twenty other ranks killed and, on the following day, a further twenty-five Germans.
To support the extended front line, the brigade’s 45th Battalion dug a strong support line on the hillside north of the village. Reports came in that a woman or women in the village were waving and pointing to where Germans were located in one of the houses, an incident reported by Charles Bean: ‘She pointed behind her as though Germans were in the house. We waved to her to come over, but she shook her head. She also appeared to be using very unladylike language, probably using insulting words.’26
A number of sentry posts were established to cover the expanding front line. One of these, under Tasmanian Sergeant Stan McDougall, kept watch on a level crossing on the northern side of Dernancourt. As dawn broke on 28 March, a thick mist covered the valley, but the alert sergeant heard the slap of bayonet scabbards on the thighs of advancing Germans. He quickly warned his men, and they had just enough time to prepare as the Germans advanced out of the mist. Immediately, German stick grenades landed among his men, taking out a Lewis-gun team who had just begun firing into the advancing line. McDougall picked up the Lewis gun, firing and killing two German machine-gun crews.
As he advanced along the railway embankment, McDougall saw a party of Germans below him and immediately fired into the group, hosing them with bullets and leaving most dead. He then fired on another party of Germans advancing across the embankment, but by now his left hand was badly burnt on the casing of the Lewis barrel. His mate, Sergeant Lawrence, a Cloncurry station overseer, came to his aid, holding the gun so that McDougall could continue firing with his unburnt hand. For this action, McDougall was awarded the Victoria Cross. He went back to Tasmania after the war, married and had a career in the Tasmanian Forestry Department before his death at seventy-six in 1968.
Over the next week, attacks continued on the Australian line at Dernancourt as the Germans sought weak points in preparation for a larger assault. This came on 5 April, with some of the heaviest attacks ever experienced on an Australian line. The Germans initially attacked the reverse side of the railway embankment and were driven off, but determined German attacks finally drove the Australians off the top of the railway embankment and back up the hill towards the 45th Battalion support line. Charles Bean described this attack as ‘the strongest ever met by Australian troops … and one of the most difficult to resist’.27
That afternoon, the 45th Battalion counterattacked, charging down the slope and into the Germans. As they advanced they suffered severely, but once among the enemy their savage hand-to-hand fighting saw the Germans retreat in disorder, leaving the ground covered with their dead.
North and south of the Albert–Amiens road, the Australians were spread out to block the German advance. Brigadier General John Gellibrand’s 12th Brigade was soon rushed to the valley between Millencourt and Hénencourt, villages familiar to the men from the fighting of previous years. To the south, another line from Morlancourt down to Sailly-Laurette on the Somme was also established by General Monash’s 3rd Division. His 44th Battalion was ambushed on the night of 28 March with heavy casualties, but over the following two days the brigade launched a determined counterattack, resulting in significant German losses. The presence of four of the five Australian divisions in the region – the 1st Division was still further north – provided great reassurance to both the French and British High Command. Each day the Australian battalions improved their defences, carried up supplies of food and ammunition along a shortened supply line and even began peaceful penetration on the German lines. Amiens was safe for now, but given the number of Germans facing them, their challenge was to hold the line.