20.

The King Presents Americans with Medals for the Hamel Battle

‘The [Australian soldiers] were not greatly impressed by pomp and circumstance.’

Tim Fischer, former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia

ON THE AFTERNOON of 8 August, General Monash informed General Rawlinson that he was keen to exploit the successes of that momentous day by immediately pushing on east and advancing all the way to what the Allies called the Hindenburg Line, after its creator, General Paul von Hindenburg – the Germans actually called it the Siegfried-Stellung, or Siegfried Line. This formidable structure, rated impregnable by the German press, was the last German line of defence before occupied Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany itself lay open to Allied armies.

General Rawlinson responded that while the whole situation was being considered by higher powers, he was temporarily knocking Monash’s idea of continued eastward advance on the head, ordering Monash to instead focus on cooperating in the continued advance of the Canadian Corps on the Australians’ right, which was pushing southeast towards Roye. This order resulted in the Australian 1st Division making solid gains over 9–11 August, taking towns and territory from the German Army on the northern flank of the Canadian advance, against increasingly stiff resistance during which many British tanks were knocked out. Meanwhile, to the north, the 10th and 13th Australian Brigades encircled and eradicated German positions in the twisting valley of the Somme, extending and consolidating the Australian gains there.

Sunday 11 August brought a hectic series of meetings for General Monash, who began the day at Chateau Bertangles working on plans for his recommended eastward push. Quite early in the day, Winston Churchill paid him an unheralded visit, to congratulate Monash on the 8 August victory. First Sea Lord during the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, of which he had been an architect, Churchill was now Britain’s Minister of Munitions.

At 11.00 am, Field-Marshal Haig arrived at Chateau Bertangles for a short planned visit. Haig came to formally thank Monash for his work to date, bringing General Lawrence with him. This was the first time since 3 July that Monash and Haig had seen each other, and they, and Lawrence, no doubt discussed the performance of the Americans who had fought in league with the Australians, and also discussed American commander General Pershing – Haig was due to meet with him the following day.

While the trio was still in discussion, General Sir Julian Byng, commander of the British Third Army, arrived to join the gathering. Haig, on learning that Monash planned to confer at 2.30 that afternoon with all five of his Australian divisional commanders at Villers-Bretonneux – the Australian 1st Division had its HQ in the town, and the 2nd Division its HQ on its western outskirts – said that he would return for that conference, as he had yet to meet all of these Australian generals.

Just before noon, after Haig, Lawrence and Byng had departed, Monash received a call from General Rawlinson, who told him that the Allied commander-in-chief, France’s Marshal Foch, would be arriving for an urgent meeting with Monash that afternoon to give fresh orders regarding the tactical policy of the next few days. With Haig now on the road and out of contact, Rawlinson had set the meeting to take place at Monash’s Bertangles HQ at 3.00. On learning from Monash that both he and ‘the Chief’ would be at Villers-Bretonneux at 2.30 that afternoon, Rawlinson promptly rescheduled the meeting with Foch for the same place.

Duly at 2.30, the Villers-Bretonneux meeting got underway beneath the shade of a stand of trees beside the road, with Field-Marshal Haig, General Lawrence and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Henry Wilson, in attendance with Monash, Glasgow, Maclagan, Jellibrand, Rosenthal, Hobbs and their chiefs of staff. Across the road from the conference place stood a bird cage, a POW pen, containing 3000 German prisoners. Along the road poured an endless line of Australian troops, vehicles and prisoners under guard, while, beside the road, the first train to traverse the now-repaired line from Villers-Bretonneux to Amiens steamed past. In the background, Australian field batteries boomed, sending shells towards German targets to the east.

After Haig made a short speech beneath the trees in praise of Monash’s ‘perfectly worked out’ battle plan for the advance to the Hindenburg Line, the open-air meeting began, led by Monash, only for General Rawlinson and his deputy General Montgomery to also drive up and join in. Not long after, Canada’s General Currie arrived, followed by Generals Kavanah and Godley, then the Tank Corps’ General Elles and the RAF’s Major-General Leo Charlton. Hardly had these generals joined the meeting than another three cars drove up, delivering France’s Prime Minister Clemenceau, Finance Minister Louis-Lucien Klotz, and Marshal Foch. ‘We all squatted down on the grass,’ Monash would say, ‘while great maps were spread out and Rawlinson commenced to expound the situation and ask for our opinions.’²⁵³

This meeting was the largest gathering of senior Allied war leaders that ever took place on the Western Front. It doesn’t bear thinking about what might have happened had a German shell randomly landed on that meeting under the trees at Villers-Bretonneux. Only days before, on 6 August, Lieutenant-Colonel McSharry, CO of the 15th Battalion and one of the best and brightest of the Australian field commanders, had been killed in just such a manner, out in the open. While helping a wounded man into cover at Vaire-sous-Corbie during a German bombardment, McSharry had fallen victim to that bombardment. For his courage, he would be posthumously awarded a second DSO.

The tragic killing and maiming of many top Allied commanders at the one place and time may not have changed the course of the war, but it would certainly have lengthened it. Luckily, no German shell landed on this conference, at which options for the drive for the Hindenburg Line were talked through before everyone took their leave. General Rawlinson had already told Monash that his desired eastward push could be resumed by the Australians and Canadians on 15 August, and at this meeting informed him that he was going to lend him a British division, the 32nd, to hold the line north of the Somme and so allow the Australian divisions to narrow their front for the push east. But before Monash could focus on the big push, he had to turn his attention to another interruption – this time in the form of a royal visit.

As early as 2 August, Monash had been advised that George V, King of England, would be coming to France to review Australian troops who had won the Battle of Hamel and to personally present British gallantry medals to American officers and men for their deeds during that Fourth of July operation. For security reasons, it was only on 11 August that it was confirmed that the king would pay his visit the following day, when he would also formally knight General Monash.

King George’s top-secret visit to the front began at 11.30 am on Monday 12 August at the Molliens Chateau HQ of the American 33rd Division. General Bell had ordered Colonels Sanborn and Davis to be in attendance with those of their men of the 131st and 132nd Infantry who were available for presentation with British military decorations for their roles in the Battle of Hamel, plus an honour guard made up of 100 men and their officers from the 33rd Division.

Despite the fact these regiments had taken part in the Battle of Hamel against the wishes and orders of American commander-in-chief General Pershing, who would later play down the battle, Pershing was also in attendance when men from his units were presented with the British medals. For King George was also to present Pershing and his chief of staff General Tasker H. Bliss with decorations – this was all made possible because the American government had only recently ruled that American service personnel could accept foreign awards and decorations. Pershing had motored to Molliens from his General HQ at Chaumont on the Sunday, joining Bliss, who had preceded him. The pair stayed the night at Chateau Molliens with General Bell. This was the first time Pershing and Bell had met in the flesh since the Battle of Hamel, and Pershing was clearly still seething about the way the men of the 131st and 132nd had been used by the British on the Fourth of July.

Knowing this, over dinner Bell went into colourful detail about their Independence Day exploits. ‘Their services had been urgently requested, general,’ Bell stressed, ‘and they acquitted themselves well.’²⁵⁴

When the king arrived at Bell’s HQ on the Monday morning, medal recipients well enough to attend had been brought in – from the trenches on Chipilly Ridge, in the case of the 131st Infantry. They joined the American troops of the honour guard, who were drawn up in a hollow square at the rear of the chateau. Eleven officers and men from Sanborn’s 131st and eight from Davis’s 132nd received British medals. The British Distinguished Conduct Medal had been conferred upon the 131st’s Corporal Thomas Pope. But, as Pope was still confined to a hospital bed in England as he recovered from his gassing on 5 July, he was not present for the presentation by the British sovereign.

Three rooms in the chateau had been set aside for King George’s use, and, shortly after his arrival, Generals Pershing and Bliss were invited to join him in one of them. Dressed in the uniform of a British field-marshal, including, like John Monash and his Australian generals, riding boots and breeches, the slight, neatly bearded king presented Pershing with the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and Bliss with the order of St Michael and St George. Had Pershing and Bliss been British, the king would have draped the orders around their necks, but as they were Americans, who had been traditionally averse to royal ceremony ever since ditching the king’s predecessor George III a century and a half before, George V simply handed the decorations to the generals in their presentation cases.

‘I am anxious to have as many American troops as possible serve with the British Army, general,’ King George told Pershing. ‘Their presence has an excellent effect in stimulating the morale of our men. Although Britain’s troops have never lost spirit, they have been sorely tried. I am not a politician, and I do not see things from their point of view, but I think it would be advantageous to have some Americans serving with my armies. I hold friendly sentiments for America, and it would mean a great deal after the war to be able to say that the two English-speaking peoples had fought side-by-side in this great struggle.’

‘I entirely agree, Your Majesty,’ Pershing replied, ‘that friendly relations ought to be stronger after the war, but we are forming an American army of our own and will require practically all our troops as soon as they can be brought together.’

‘I appreciate that fact,’ King George persisted, ‘but I hope that some of your divisions might remain with the British Army.’

‘I can make no promises in that regard,’ Pershing, equally persistent in his view, came back.²⁵⁵

The king and the American generals then adjourned outdoors for the medal presentation ceremony. Members of Colonel Sanborn’s regiment who had medals pinned on their chests by the king on the steps of the chateau this sunny summer’s day included Sergeants James Krum, Raymond Powell and Albert Erhardt, Corporals Andrew Schabinger and Harold Zyburt, Private William Linskey, and stretcher-bearer Christopher Keane.

Among members of the 132nd recognised by the British for their Hamel exploits were medical officer Lieutenant Frank Schram, 2nd Lieutenant Harry Yagle, Sergeant Frank Kojane, Corporals Albert Painsipp and John De Smidt, and Private Harry Shelly. General Pershing would record that the American medal recipients were immensely proud at the honour bestowed on them by the British sovereign. It was an occasion the men of the 131st and 132nd would remember for the rest of their lives.

As King George moved on, Pershing departed for a scheduled meeting with Field-Marshal Haig, where he intended demanding the return of his troops, irrespective of what the king had said. As for George V, he arrived at British III Corps HQ at Querrieu at 12.15, where he inspected representatives from the British 12th, 18th, 47th and 58th Divisions drawn up in drill order and steel helmets. By a little after 1.00, His Majesty was lunching in the open on a rise near Querrieu overlooking Villers-Bretonneux. Running a little late following lunch, shortly after 2.00 pm the king was driven up the shady avenue to Chateau Bertangles, which was lined with hundreds of captured German weapons and vehicles, the horse-drawn vehicles complete with their teams.

General Monash was surprised that the king arrived with a small entourage of just a knight of the realm and a military aide from the Fourth Army. As he stepped down from the open car, King George was greeted by Monash, then took the Royal Salute from the honour guard and formally inspected the guard with the general. All the while, official Australian photographer Captain Wilkins was snapping away; Monash had made a point of having him on hand to record the occasion.

In addition to ensuring the event was recorded on film, Monash had taken his usual preparatory care in stage managing the king’s reception at Chateau Bertangles, arranging for 500 Australian Corps men who had participated in the Battle of Hamel and another 100 from the Royal Garrison Artillery to be present. Now, in the quadrangle outside the chateau, these 600 troops bussed in for the event stood waiting at attention, rifles on their shoulders. Among those men were the newly promoted Company Sergeant-Major Ned Searle and other Australians decorated for their heroic deeds during the Battle of Hamel, who had received their medals from General Monash in July.

Two Australian Corps men would receive the Victoria Cross as a consequence of the 4 July operation. The first, the 1000th VC ever awarded, went to the 15th Battalion’s Two-Gun Harry Dalziel, who had survived his grave head wound but was still in a serious condition in an English hospital. Said Dalziel’s citation when his VC was gazetted in London on 16 August, four days after King George’s visit to the Australian Corps, ‘His magnificent bravery and devotion to duty was an inspiring example to all his comrades, and his dash and unselfish courage at a most critical time undoubtedly saved many lives, and turned what could have been a severe check into a splendid success.’ The second Hamel VC went to Jack Axford of the 16th Battalion, who, in September, would be presented with his medal by the king at Buckingham Palace.

Meanwhile, Harry Dalziel’s 15th Battalion colleague Ned Searle had to be satisfied with the Military Medal, and promotion. Ned’s medal citation noted, ‘His coolness and courage throughout were most inspiring, and had a steadying effect on his men.’ Knowing my great-uncle Ned, he may well have joked that he hadn’t realised that VCs were rationed to one per battalion per day. But the fact that he had souvenired the uniform of the German officer he captured almost certainly counted against him. Likewise, Frank Shaw, whose efforts also seemed worthy of the Victoria Cross, was presented with the Military Medal. By venturing as far as the quarry on 4 July, contrary to orders, he is likely to have cost himself a higher award. Searle’s company commander, Captain Ernest Bradley, was awarded the Military Cross, then the officer’s equivalent of the Military Medal.

The king, after moving along the lines of decorated Australian soldiers, stopping every now and then to chat with one soldier or another, Searle and Shaw among them, climbed the steps to open French windows and entered one of the reception rooms, where he was introduced by Monash to their host, the white-bearded marquis. Back out on the steps, Monash presented his divisional commanders and senior staff to His Majesty, while, crowded at the chateau’s upper windows, junior members of the corps staff watched proceedings.

A square of carpet had been laid at the top of the steps, with a small table and footstool placed on them, in preparation for Monash’s official investiture as a Knight Commander of the Bath (KCB). Monash, in his memoirs, remembered this carpet as being located in the middle of the quadrangle outside the chateau, but as photographer Wilkins recorded on film, it was at the top of the steps, in front of the open French window used by the king.

The royal investiture of knights traditionally involves the use by the monarch of a sword, but King George had not come equipped with one, and a sword did not form part of the battlefront equipment of Australian officers. So, a frantic search for a sword, of any description, was instigated in the chateau. An epee, a fencing rapier, apparently the property of monsieur the marquis, was produced, and with Monash dropping his right knee onto the footstool and bowing his head, King George tapped him lightly on each shoulder with the rapier, dubbing him Sir John, in front of Monash’s smiling officers and staff. After Monash rose, the king took the insignia of the knighthood from the small table and presented it to the general, then shook him warmly by the hand. After giving a short speech in praise of Monash, the king then asked the victorious general to conduct him on a tour of the collected war trophies.

George took particular interest in the captured German transport horses. ‘I hope that they will soon learn the Australian language,’ he remarked to Monash with a smile.²⁵⁶

And then the royal Rolls pulled up in front of the chateau steps, and the king and his two companions clambered in.

‘Three cheers for His Majesty!’ called the commander of the honour guard to all the assembled troops, as the car slowly drove off. ‘Hip-hip!’

The response from the Australian infantrymen was so unenthusiastic it was barely audible.

‘Three cheers for His Majesty!’ the commander of the guard repeated with irritation. ‘Hip-hip!’

This time, the cheers were a little louder, but more ironic than patriotic. It was a reminder, says Monash biographer and former Australian deputy prime minister Tim Fischer, that Australian soldiers ‘were not greatly impressed by pomp and circumstance’.²⁵⁷

The royal visit had lasted just half an hour. Now, General Monash and his men could get back to winning the war.

Early in the afternoon of that same Monday 12 August, General Pershing met with Field-Marshal Haig aboard Haig’s advance headquarters train near Wiry-au-Mont, and Pershing and his aide Colonel Carl Boyd lunched with Haig and his senior staff officers in a railway dining car. ‘We chatted about everything except the object of my visit,’ Pershing would later complain. Several days earlier, Pershing had written Haig a letter in which he had said he wanted the return of at least three of the five American divisions then undergoing training with the British Army, for an attack he was planning for his new American First Army against a German salient at St Mihiel. Following lunch, Haig took Pershing to the railway car he used as his office, and at last addressed the subject of the American general’s letter.

‘I understood, Pershing,’ the field-marshal said, ‘that the American divisions had been sent to be trained, and to serve on the British front. Now, just as they have become useful, it is proposed that they be taken away. I had hoped that these divisions would remain, and would be disappointed to have them removed.’

Pershing countered by reminding Haig of the original understanding they had, that these American troops were at all times to be under Pershing’s orders, and that they were to remain behind the British front while in training and only be used in battle to meet an emergency. The Australian attack at Hamel had been an offensive action, one that in no way could be characterised as an emergency, and yet troops of the 131st and 132nd Infantry had been thrown into that attack.

‘We are all fighting a common enemy, Marshal Haig,’ Pershing went on. ‘In my opinion, the best way to help toward victory is for the Americans to fight under their own flag and their own officers. I assure you that your desire to have American troops is fully appreciated, and I regret the necessity which impels me to make this decision just at this moment, but in accordance with our agreement I must insist on having them.’

‘I acknowledge the understanding we had,’ Haig unhappily responded. ‘And, although I need your troops, I realise your position, and your reasons for their withdrawal. Pershing, of course you shall have them. There can never be any difference between us.’²⁵⁸

When Pershing left the train, it was with the agreement that Haig would give him back three of his divisions as soon as British replacements could be brought in to fill their places behind the lines. Sure enough, on 23 August the 33rd Division would be withdrawn from the Somme and from General Read’s American II Corps, despatched north to Toul, just west of Nancy in the Lorraine region. Two other American divisions were also withdrawn and sent north to join Pershing’s First Army.

This would leave Read, who had started with five divisions, with just two, the 27th and 30th, which were then still officially on attachment to the British Army and undergoing training behind the lines in the Ypres sector in Flanders. Having given Pershing the minimum that he’d asked for – the return of three of his five divisions – and no more, Haig fully intended employing the remaining two American divisions to best effect while he had them.

To complicate matters, General Rawlinson had just advised the Chief that General Currie was now privately refusing to take his Canadian Corps against the Hindenburg Line with the Australians on 15 August as Monash planned. Currie was asking for the Canadians to be sent back to their past stomping ground, in the Arras sector, from where he wanted to launch his own drive to the Hindenburg Line.

General Monash, when he wrote about this episode several years later, would be most gracious about Currie’s demand to go back to Arras. He said he understood completely that Currie wanted his men to advance through territory they were familiar with. But Monash, and many others in the know, must have suspected that Currie didn’t want his Canadians to again share the limelight with the Aussies, nor be the subject of direct comparison between the successes of the Australian and Canadian Corps. The nearest Monash came to criticising Currie would be when he wrote, ‘Corps commanders were inclined to be jealous of any encroachment upon their frontiers, or upon the tactical problems in front of them.’²⁵⁹

Diplomatically, Monash never expressed his disappointment in Currie, to him or anybody else, but he was clearly frustrated by the setback to his own offensive plans when Rawlinson acceded to Currie’s demand. The Canadians progressively pulled out and headed north, leaving two Canadian divisions temporarily under Monash’s command until the transfer was completed in late August – for several weeks Monash controlled eight divisions and 200,000 men, by far the largest Allied corps command of the war.

Once all the Canadians had returned to Arras, another two divisions would be needed to take their place beside the Australians when Monash launched his strike east. Putting off the 15 August start date for Monash’s planned next offensive to allow for the changeover, Rawlinson would make a suggestion to Haig – in place of the Canadians, why not give Monash the two American divisions that remained under British control, for the Australian general’s Hindenburg Line campaign? But that was still several weeks, and several battles, away.