In a record of personal impression I shall not dwell at any length on those hard, undecided earlier battles by the Somme (Armentières and the first and second battles of Pozières) which, with the Gallipoli landing, the Lone Pine endeavour, and last and greatest of all, the immortal turning point at Amiens, are the milestones on the Anzac march. History will deal with these in more calmly considered fashion through the years to come, when the secrets of strategy and purpose are laid bare, and even those who fought the fiercest of these struggles may, for the first time, realise just what they were trying to do. I was still with the 23rd Battalion when the first Pozières battle was fought, and had transferred to the 22nd when the Old German Lines were attacked a second time. In neither case was easy right of way offered. In the first attack the 23rd had about five hundred casualties. When the turn for the 22nd came their later losses were heavier than those of any battalion on the Somme—800 men and 32 officers in a strength of 1100, including reinforcements. The losses were sustained less in the actual storming of Hun positions than in hanging on to them under a grimly Niagara of shells.
In these fights one had acquaintance with several battalion commanders whom it was an honour to serve. Amongst them was Colonel William Brazenor who was the Adjutant of the 71st Citizen Regiment when I served in that Ballarat unit. He became Colonel and Commanding officer of the 23rd Battalion, acted often as Brigadier and won the DSO and Bar. He won also the confidence of his men, at the very outset, in two qualities which have ever commandeered the respect of Australian soldiers—cool courage in action and absolute justice in all things. No better example could be cited to confound that heresy so popular with civilians—which still dies hard—that the preparations of peace time had been of little value in war where the unexpected, the unforseen, became the rule of operations. Colonel Brazenor started as a text book soldier, one who knew the theory and technique of his job outright. In the essentials a strict disciplinarian, in trifles a wise ruler, everything that he had learned in peace training was afterwards a gain to his command.
Lieutenant Colonel George Morton and Major Matthew Baird, two other Ballarat officers much admired, had the bad luck to be passed out, the first-named from Egypt, the latter at Gallipoli. Another distinguished leader was Colonel Wilfred Fethers, whose gifts in outright candour and clear expression made it impossible for anyone to misunderstand his meaning, especially his censure, just as his fine personality commanded always loyal obedience. He was knocked out at Pozières, so lost to a battalion which valued him.
Brigadier General Robert Smith, whose decorations include the DSO and CMG was another leader of the resolute type, and led the battalion with distinction at Bois Grenier, Armentières, Pozières, Ypres and other fighting sectors. He was above all things a sticker, with determination and will power developed to the highest degree, very severe on defaulters behind the line, but an inspiring leader in front of it. That is where he came by most of his honours and his nickname ‘Fighting Bob’. He had a fertile mind for any ruse likely to embarrass the enemy. At Bois Grenier there was a gramophone in the first trench, and the CO one night suggested putting on a couple of records to interest the enemy, for the lines were very close just there. The Huns applauded and shouted encore. ‘Give them another,’ said Colonel Smith. Again the enemy applauded, but the encore this time was a sudden burst of fire from the machine guns which had been carefully trained on his parapet beforehand in correct anticipation of actual happenings.
Brigadier General Charles Brand, CMG, DSO, wounded in the South African campaign, was another who duplicated in the first degree the qualities of soldier and gentleman— game, genuine, genial. Colonel Aubrey Wiltshire, MC, DSO, Captain and Adjutant of the 22nd Battalion on Gallipoli, and who had the good fortune to see it through with the corps, was another soldier who learned his lesson in peace and applied it quietly but thoroughly in war. He won his way up when yet very young, was for months in command of a battalion without the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, because at twenty-six he was considered too young for the seniority. Those who knew and served with him had, however, no doubts on that point. As he lay wounded at Pozières my batman, Jones, wished to bring him in, but was told to take a wounded private first. ‘And don’t swear like that, Jones,’ the Colonel added. It made an impression. ‘He’s a good man,’ explained Jones to his mates, ‘and if he says it’s not right to swear, then it isn’t right, and I’m knocking off.’
Until he left the field disabled, the 23rd had a very efficient commander in Lieutenant Colonel George Knox, CMG, who in his second baptism—that informal christening by the ranks—became, entirely without reproach, ‘Nobby Knox’. He too had citizen training with the Scottish regiment before the war.
Never was the union of the churches more completely achieved than in the happy chaplain-companion of Chaplain Albert Bladen of the 23rd Battalion and Chaplain Edward Goidanich of the 24th Battalion, both of whom did so much for the spirit and comfort of the troops in the darkest days at Gallipoli and along the Somme. One was a Wesleyan, the other a Roman Catholic; men of different faiths but exactly the same immortal type—helpful in difficulties, comforting in sorrow, perennially cheerful in periods of peace. They jibed at, joked with and thoroughly understood each other. Everyone loved the two cheerful padres, the two constant pals. In their example, their character, their splendid attitude in all circumstances, hundreds gained a new conception of religion that, without profession perhaps, will yet influence them through life. Chaplain Goidanich got his DSO; Chaplain Bladen won it many a time—all the time. Once as he read the burial service by a soldier’s grave at Gallipoli, a Turkish shell found the quiet hollow and burst close to him. The mourners ducked for shelter. When the smoke cleared the brave old Padre alone stood erect, unshaken, no tremor in the solemn words, ‘Ashes to ashes; dust to dust.’ When his time expired Chaplain Bladen refused to go home, preferring to be with the lads he loved and served so well to the end.
I have often been asked about the Australian point of view in those striving days around and after Pozières, when the pendulum of battle showed no particular bias. As to the possibilities of war, it may be illustrated briefly. When rations were abundant, supply certain, we were winning the war; when they were short we were losing it, but all felt that it would all be a matter of years. Comparisons between France and Gallipoli were frequently made, and, summing up considerations, the decision was, ‘Better six months of France than six weeks of Gallipoli.’ It was a just estimate. In spite of the greater perfection of the German mechanism for war, the Australians soon realised that they were morally his masters. There was nothing of brag in the belief that in close combat one Anzac was as good as two Huns, for time and again they proved it. On anything like equal terms the Bosche always flinched from the test of the bayonet. Their moral had been established in dependence upon the power of multitudes rather than of men. Neither in character or courage have they any regard for our sporting maxim ‘man to man’. The mass is everything, the unit little. In initiative the Australian was surpassed by no other troops fighting in Europe; his weakness was want of self-restraint. In the one quality he represented the maximum, in the other—almost equally important— the minimum, and, though with experience came a greater self-restraint, we paid for it heavily in casualties, bought with much of our best life-blood.
Amongst civilians in Australia one finds a sort of pride in the impression that their fighting men were undisciplined, and that it didn’t really matter. Both impressions are utterly wrong. Only boys or weak headed men hold glory in that belief now. The tendency to make a cheap hero of the man who despised discipline did much harm in Egypt, but that error, scorched at Gallipoli, was killed outright in France. The fact is that in the essentials of discipline, absolute obedience in battle, the end at which all the ridiculed formalities of peace time aim, the Australian had no superior. He not only possessed discipline, but was proud of possessing it. An officer who had proved himself in the only way that counts could rely upon his men for implicit obedience, even command that outward show of respect which no thinking leader greatly values for its own sake, rather as the symbol and indicator of that disciplinary method and understanding which is so very important in action. The salute, for example, is a favourite subject either for a joke or a jibe, but like almost every other ceremonious detail there is a material purpose behind it which the civilian does not always grasp. Of all illusions that flourish best when transplanted, this one about discipline—a hardy annual in Australia, a noxious weed that was soon cut down in France—was furthest from reality. War is the great school of self-discipline—there, only, may the uncertain come to know themselves.
The realisation that one has nerves as well as muscles comes to most men in a campaign where the stunts follow each other in fairly rapid succession, and is always an unpleasant discovery. The unsettling suspicion that I was taking rather too much care of myself became, at about this time, an unhappy obsession. I found myself ducking to them occasionally, getting little jumps from shells bursting much too far away to be really dangerous. The natural antidote for that ailment is a short rest, though one cannot always get leave just at the moment he most needs it, and possibly in that way many misunderstandings have occurred. If it were only possible to cultivate perfect candour, the sensible thing would be to see the Commanding Officer and explain but, just when your nerves are punishing you, is about the last moment you would choose for such a confession. I was in a support trench at the time about three hundred yards behind the line, and, what mattered most of all, in charge mainly of reinforcements. It would never do for men new to the front line to get the impression that an officer was funking. A man may fool himself, but he will not fool the quick intelligence surrounding him, by whose conclusions he is made or damned.
Having occasion to go up to the front line, I decided, in no spirit of heroics, but as the plain way of testing myself, to walk across the open instead of following the communication trench, so in a conspicuous Sam Brown belt—which was never worn up the line—and swinging a swagger cane, I started across feeling sure that I would be sniped en route. I had a couple of close shaves, but, in reinstating self-confidence, the experiment was quite satisfactory. Hauled before headquarters for this indiscretion, any reason was given, of course, except the right one. Later on, at Les Boeuf, I was carpeted for indiscretion a second time. The Bosche patrols were very busy just then. Their snipers used to creep up at night within a hundred and fifty yards of our line. While one fired a pistol flare to light up the parapets, the others got ready to snipe anyone they happened to surprise outside the trench. It was exasperating, so Jones and I rushed out at a favourable opportunity with the idea of getting behind them for a shot. It came off. One of the Bosche, whom I could just see on the sky line, walked boldly right into the glare, and though the first shot missed, the second crumpled him up. Someone must have talked, for again there was a lecture.
I saw the perpetual battle between will and nerve fought out to a magnificent finish in the case of Lieutenant Walter Filmer, 22nd Battalion, who had been my senior in the City of Ballarat Battalion at home and, like many more, had to sink his rank before he was accepted for service. He came first to the Western Front in October 1916, when the season and trenches were at their worst—mud, cold and a concentration of all the miseries. He had become a Sergeant Major in Egypt and got to Ypres as we were about to take over Sanctuary Wood, so on the night before I took him for his first view of the front trenches. They were the worst I had seen, inundated with water, clogged with mud, and as we trudged along the gutter that was to be our happy home next day, Filmer asked, ‘Where’s the front line?’
‘You’re in it now,’ I explained, and he was silent for a long time, thinking.
As we went back across the open the Huns were searching the roadways with machine guns and got a burst very close to us. Several bullets passed between us, one went under my foot. Filmer insisted that I was hit, and was not content until he had run his hands over my back to make sure. I could see that he was rattled. I was not surprised when, a few nights later, he asked my permission to go out with the scouts, explaining candidly that he wished to prove himself. So he was sent on wiring and bombing excursions, later went out alone, and so found himself again. He was killed at Bullecourt, having won the reputation of being the most courageous of a company which had amply proved its daring, an epitaph hard to win. While carrying Stokes shells up to the line he was wounded and told to go back. ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘they must have the shells,’ so he struggled up again just as the Germans in a counter attack almost annihilated the wasted company, and there severely wounded a second time, Filmer fell and was never seen again.
The ironies of war have seldom been more happily pointed that in an incident on the Somme. Companies had been instructed to send night patrols into no man’s land, but one company commander, mistaking the order, sent out his whole strength, and moving round at night I suddenly discovered that a section of trench was empty, and my own flank in the air. A whole company had vanished and no one knew where. The Commanding Officer delivered himself on the subject with incisive eloquence, and his vocabulary was exceptionally fine. Upon him was the responsibility, and he was for the moment in despair. Just then the Hun batteries opened a surprise bombardment of our trench, and it continued for some time with exceptional fury. No part of the line was so heavily battered as the section which should have been held by the lost company, which sitting out safely in the darkness heard the iron torrent tearing overhead. Before nightfall the report came that the company had reoccupied the trench without casualties.
‘By Heavens, I’ve got it!’ explained the CO, ‘It’s nothing short of inspiration,’ and he wrote: ‘This officer, acting on his own initiative, took his company out into no man’s land, and so escaped the heavy fire which the enemy laid upon his trench soon afterwards.’ The immediate result was a Military Cross, and never were the congratulations offered by comrades more genuine. As Shakespeare said, ‘Our indiscretions oft do serve us well, when our deep plots do fail.’ The man who had missed his decoration in many good things, and won it in his only mistake, was the very best of fellows.
The German sense of humour was illustrated in an incident at Fleurbaix about the time the first Zeppelin was brought down in England. With canvas and wire we made a very good imitation of a model airship, and labelling it with the number of the lost Zeppelin, carried it out one night and suspended it to a tree in no man’s land. As soon as it was light the Bosche saw the model and the point, and did not rest until he had strafed it with machine-gun fire.