Chapter Thirteen

THE ENEMIES OF ALL MANKIND

*

Even amid all this destruction, my thoughts often went back to my wanderings in the Arctic, and I was more than ever convinced that the aeroplane was the answer to exploring unmapped regions with speed and safety. Someday, when the world would return to normal, I hoped I could sail through the polar skies, not in the pursuit of an enemy man, but of the secrets of nature that would help conquer the enemies of all mankind.

Wilkins’ autobiography, Thrills1

In five years, Wilkins had been captivated by the pure, white heart of the Arctic and saddened by the black heart of civilisation. Could war ever be stopped permanently, he wondered? Could this ‘Great War’ really be the one to end all wars? And if it could be, then how? As the Allies pushed the Germans steadily back towards the Hindenburg Line, Wilkins’ mind focussed on the problem of freeing mankind from the anxieties that forced people to commit the destruction he was witnessing. Civilisation could only flourish in a world where the physical needs of everyone were secure. Freedom of thought and freedom of action were important, but, above all, people needed to be free from worry about their physical welfare. ‘Men will argue over religion and politics, but they will fight over food’, he often said. Wilkins believed that if people could be certain of their basic needs — food and shelter —there was less likelihood they would go to war. He would later contend:

The secret of peace does not depend so much upon periodical abundance of supplies as it does on the certainty of the supply. If we can provide for all peoples of the world, security according to their individual understanding of their personal needs, we will at once provide a better opportunity to exercise Christian ethics and bring about real brotherhood of man, irrespective of race, nationality or creed.2

Having witnessed the devastating affects of drought when he was young, Wilkins thought the ability to predict the weather, so that farmers could maximise their crops and provide food for the world, was how humanity could avoid destroying itself on some future battlefield:

The weather knows no boundary. It has fronts, but no frontiers. It is not subject to border regulations and it must be considered universally, in respect to any productive plan. We must learn [the weather’s] secrets so far as to be able to predict its movement and its influence on the production of human needs and the provision to satisfy those needs.

The effect of the movement of air, or in other words, the effects of climate, has much to do with the requirements of mankind. Given a foreknowledge of the conditions that climate will impose, we might then use our knowledge of the soil and the sea to provide for the material needs of humanity, not only regionally, but universally as well.3

Wilkins realised that understanding the weather alone would not solve the problems facing humanity, but it was a key component. Importantly, from his point of view early in the 20th century, it was a component where he could make a contribution.

Wilkins continued to refine his ideas while the war moved from forest to forest, from village to village, and from farm to farm. Combatants used natural cover such as railway embankments, hills, and canals to snipe at each other or engage in small battles. Wilkins would load his box of glass plates and, usually with an assistant, move with the patrols as they fought their way forward.

It appears, on some days, that Bean waited for Wilkins to return so he could record what was happening along the constantly shifting front. A typical example was recorded on 22 August 1918. Bean saw Australians escorting two German stretcher parties from an aid post to a small cemetery on a hill above him. The Australians told Bean they were burying dead Germans in a newly created cemetery. Bean thought a photograph of it would be a good idea, and hurried to the area:

On the way, I noticed, coming from the top of the hill overlooking Bray, two men, one of them carrying a camera. It was Wilkins and Sergeant Lowe. They had been right to the outskirts of Bray and had photographed a similar burial of Germans at the battalion headquarters down the hill …

‘You only had to dodge the machine-guns for about fifty yards [46m]’, Wilkins said.4

A day later, the 3rd Battalion captured a 15-inch gun near Chuignes, and Bean asked Wilkins to photograph it. In the evening, Bean saw Wilkins’ car return, and the driver, Dick Silvester, ‘looked a bit scared’. Silvester explained that Wilkins and Lowe had not returned after going to photograph the gun. He had waited a couple of hours before assuming they were dead, then left. Wilkins and Lowe returned, later that night, having hitched a ride on a truck.

Wilkins sometimes took prisoners on these trips. ‘He has taken the surrender of a wounded German after the troops mopped up at Etinhem’, Bean observed. ‘And once before the same thing happened.’

Wilkins was also keen to get photographs of Germans surrendering, and Bean noticed, ‘while the troops were mopping up he was with them. But the only prisoner that party took, coming out of a cellar I think it was, didn’t make a picture to please him — I think the light was too bad’.5

In order to keep up with the retreating Germans, Australian daylight patrols moved from shell hole to shell hole, and from dugout to dugout, calling for Germans to surrender. A day after he photographed the gun at Chuignes, Wilkins accompanied the 9th Brigade, hoping to get better photographs of Germans surrendering. The small detachment was accompanied by Lewis gunners, and Wilkins recorded in notes accompanying his photographs that, ‘although the enemy were in retreat, there were booby traps to watch for, and every dugout was treated with suspicion’.6

On this occasion, two Lewis gunners were sent along the north side of a canal to fire into the dugouts in an attempt to scare the Germans into coming out. Wilkins took photographs of the party as it slowly advanced. The officer led with a bomb raised in his hand,* followed by men with bayonets fixed to their rifles. The party worked its way through the village of Cappy, but found no Germans hiding. A kilometre beyond the village, at the edge of a quarry, the nine-man group came under attack. Germans had appeared behind a small rise on the other side of the canal, and were spraying the party with machine-gun fire. Everyone ducked for cover under an embankment. Wilkins put his head up beside the Lewis gun to see where the attack was coming from, and a bullet ripped past him. He kept his head down.

[* The term ‘hand grenade’ did not come into vogue until World War II.]

By this time, Allied artillery had begun to bomb Cappy, so the officer with the group rolled down the embankment, and crawled away to let headquarters know where they were. A sergeant now led the party. As the artillery barrage crept towards them, the remaining men had to decide whether to stay where they were and risk coming under friendly artillery fire, or roll down the hill and risk being shot by the Germans. They decided to wait and, luckily, the artillery barrage passed over them. Now, concerned the Germans might get their machine-gun around behind them, the sergeant decided they should make a dash to escape. Bean, who reported the story, wrote:

They got out of it by rolling over, one by one, until they were down the bank about ten yards [9m] and in safety. One or two men who didn’t keep so low were shot and at least one of them killed. Wilkins held his camera in his hands over his head as he rolled. And so they got away.

Bean then lamented, ‘He got no good photographs out in that quarry. The light was not good or else there was nothing particular to see. The pictures of the patrol going past the dugouts are interesting.’7 Wilkins thought so, too, because photographs of the patrol were among the collection of prints from the war that he kept for the remainder of his life.

War correspondent Keith (later Sir Keith) Murdoch also recorded an example of Wilkins in action as the Anzacs marched steadily forward, mopping up the dispirited Germans:

[The Germans] ran away through the fog, and they ran forward with their hands up, through our line. Their feeble balance tottered when the [artillery] barrage descended and our eager men, though worn and reduced in numbers by many fights, were so close under the barrage that in most cases they had bayonets and bombs at the dug-out entrances before the Boche emerged.

In several cases the Boche refused to come out until he was bombed. One party of thirty Boches could be heard quarrelling as to who should come out first. It was then decided that the martyr should be a Red Cross man, who shuffled uneasily upstairs bearing a white flag. Mr Wilkins, the official photographer, who went out with the first wave to the second objective, collected forty prisoners.8

The ease with which the Germans were being pushed back ended abruptly at the Somme River. On a bend in the river, the Germans held the town of Péronne. Just as importantly, they held a strategic hill to the north of the town called Mont St Quentin. Péronne and Mont St Quentin were east of the river, and the Germans, having retreated across it, were frantically destroying the bridges to slow the Allied advance.

Monash realised that the key to taking Péronne was Mont St Quentin. The high ground afforded a commanding view of the river, and the Germans could easily bombard anyone attempting to cross. Monash devised a daring and risky plan: his forces would cross the river to the north, sweep down and take Mont St Quentin, and then surprise the enemy by attacking Péronne — not from the heavily fortified western side, but from the north. The plan entailed a long and exhausting march for the men, while others would make a noisy demonstration of firing on Péronne to convince the Germans that the attack was coming from across the river.

Working quickly, Australian engineers built and repaired bridges over the Somme. The battle began on 30 August and, with difficult fighting, the Australians crossed the river to the north, then took Mont St Quentin. By 3 September, after suffering 3,000 casualties, the Australians had captured Péronne. General Henry Rawlinson, commander of the British Fourth Army, described it as the ‘greatest military achievement of the war’.9

It was not a ‘set piece’ battle like the ones Monash had planned and implemented at Hamel and Amiens. Previously, he had laid out his plans and instructed his brigadiers to adhere strictly to his orders. In crossing the Somme and attacking Péronne from the north, the fight had moved quickly, often outpacing lines of communication, and Monash was forced to rely on his officers to make decisions for themselves.

During the Battle of Péronne, Wilkins was unable to know in advance where he might go to get the best shots. Instead he crossed the river and chased the action from village to village, sometimes getting ahead of the advancing Anzacs. A day after the battle commenced, Bean noted:

[H]e had been over with the 6th Brigade … when it took the village of St Quentin in its afternoon attack. [Wilkins] had got a photograph of the men going over the top; and then followed them up with the second wave. They were working through trenches and the losses were mainly, in that part, by the Germans having machine-guns laid on the shallow or tumbled parts of the trench. When men started to go through these the first man might get through but the second man would get shot. Wilkins says that the second line was getting shelled and he went forward partly because he thought he would get away from the shelling, taking Sergeant Jackson with him; but they did not avoid the shelling that way for the Germans soon shortened onto them and made it very hot.10

Murdoch inspected Péronne after the battle and reported, ‘We pick our way gingerly about Péronne as our courageous photographer, Wilkins, says it is wise to get a photograph of a building immediately, because it is impossible to say when it will go skyward.’11 Other references to Wilkins have him darting about the action, appearing briefly to report from the battle, leaving a box of exposed plates, and then disappearing again.

As the Germans pulled out of Péronne, Wilkins got ahead of the Australian soldiers and was the first into Tincourt, a small village 7 kilometres east. Bean observed that he ‘entered the village as the Germans were still leaving it’. At Tincourt, Wilkins waited until a company (the 3rd Pioneers, which was being used as infantry) caught up to him. The company was exhausted, and one of its officers told Wilkins they had pushed past Péronne knowing they were ‘right out ahead of anyone else’. They had decided to press on and rush the German post at a small plantation forest on the outskirts of Tincourt. Bean noted:

The German machine-guns caught sixteen of them as they rushed the trench. But they then killed every German in the place — at least a dozen; all except one youngster who put his hands up and ran for dear life, straight back towards our lines. They hadn’t the heart to shoot him.12

Wilkins and the 3rd Pioneers then settled down for the night, camped at Tincourt, and watched the Germans dig their trenches at Marquaix, less than a kilometre away.

Wilkins moving with the front-line troops, sometimes getting ahead of them and bringing back intelligence, was worthy of special recognition again. Four days after the Australians captured Péronne, Bean took time to write to Monash:

My Dear General,

Following our conversation the other day, I wish to bring to your notice the exceedingly gallant work of Capt. G.H. Wilkins MC (General list).

During the whole of the fighting that has occurred from the 8 August to the present, Capt. Wilkins has shown the greatest and most conspicuous gallantry. He had been in the front line in every important engagement in the long series in which Australian Corps had been engaged carrying out his duties with a coolness and efficiency which has constantly proved an example to those around him, and of great value to the force. During the fighting of the 8 August at Bayonvillers and elsewhere, and during the following days at Rosieres and Lihons, he went out on several occasions far ahead of the front line, generally alone or with one orderly. Again at Cappy working ahead of the line he did work of great value with the patrols at great risk and under close range machine-gun fire. In the subsequent fighting at Bray and in Péronne and notably in the second attack on Mont St Quentin, in which he again went over with the front line of attack, this officer exhibited a devotion to duty and a disregard of personal danger worthy of the highest praise and gave an example of great value to his fellow and his country.

Captain Wilkins has probably been in the fighting more constantly than any other officer in the corps. His work has led him daily through barrage, frequently of a very severe nature. But I think that the facts above stated of themselves justify a recommendation, which would I feel be made without doubt if this officer were in any battalion in the AIF, for a Bar to the Military Cross.13 [Medals are not awarded twice. Instead, if a soldier wins the same medal a second time, a Bar is added to the ribbon of the first.]

No immediate action was taken to give Wilkins a Bar to his Military Cross — most likely because Monash had plenty on his mind at the time. Still, before the end of the month, Wilkins would distinguish himself in such a manner as to ensure he received the award.

Ludendorff had originally intended to defend his line at the Somme River, but the swift, surprising, and successful attacks by the Australians, in conjunction with attacks by the English and Canadians, convinced him he had no option but to retreat to the Hindenburg Line. All the ground gained by the Germans from their spring offensive had been lost. Before retiring completely, the Germans made a stand at an old British trench system west of the St Quentin Canal. The Allies attacked this defensive line on 18 September. Two Australian divisions captured 4,300 prisoners, took 76 guns, and thrust far beyond the divisions fighting on either side. The success of the battle proved that the morale of the German soldiers was low. Many were simply walking forward, their hands in the air, ready to surrender. Dawn on the 19 September found a great part of the Australian line looking down on the St Quentin Canal and the Hindenburg Line beyond.

In England, politicians, dignitaries, and newspapermen who had previously not wanted to wade through the muck of the trenches now clamoured to witness the excitement of the Germans on the run. Wilkins’ ability to travel about the front was, apparently, becoming known beyond Australian military circles, because he and artist Will Dyson were asked to take a group of reporters, which included Sherlock Holmes’ creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to where they could see the famous Hindenburg Line and, if possible, witness the fighting.

On 20 September, Wilkins and Dyson met the party at the Amiens Railway Station and took them to see where, on 8 August, the Battle of Amiens had been fought. Then the group drove to a ridge just south of Jeancourt. Wilkins studied the landscape and noticed that the Germans were shelling the Australian front line. He told the group that he expected it would be at least ten minutes before the shells reached their ridge. Wilkins took them along a road and into a trench, past a horse that had been recently killed, with the red foam still on its mouth, ‘which impressed them very considerably’. They watched the Allies shelling the Hindenburg Line when, suddenly, a shell burst close by. Wilkins ‘quietly and quickly got them away again in a masterly fashion’ and they were ‘delighted, having seen … the actual men themselves who were, or had been, in the thick of it’. The group later reported their near-escape to Bean. Conan Doyle described it as, ‘the most exciting day of [my] life’.14

The next role given to the Australians, which Haig referred to as the ‘main attack’,15 was to breach the Hindenburg Line at the point where the St Quentin Canal ran through a 5-kilometre tunnel. Everywhere else the canal was an obstacle to the advancing troops, but not on the flat ground above the tunnel. The Germans expected the main thrust to come there and, naturally, it was where they concentrated their defence.

Monash knew the Hindenburg Line would not be overrun easily. It may not have been as well-manned as it had been in 1917, but it was still a formidable obstacle. The trench system in front of it was 6 kilometres wide, with a warren of underground shelters that provided refuge from artillery shells, while there would be no possibility of surprising the entrenched and desperate enemy. To smash through the barrier, Monash was given a force greater than he had ever commanded, which included British, Australian, and two American divisions. The two American divisions, however, were short of officers. They were, according to Bean, ‘very strong in men but with half their officers detached at schools of instruction’.16

The attack began on the foggy morning of 29 September. For many years after, what happened that day remained a mystery. Early reports from the battle were that an American battalion was seen entering Gouy, more than a kilometre beyond the tunnel. The Australian divisions, following at 9.00 a.m. to carry on the second stage of the attack, ran into German machine-guns firing at them through the fog, long before they reached the Hindenburg Line. As it was thought the American battalion had already breached the line, the Allies resisted the use of artillery, lest their shells fell on the Americans. Eventually, the Anzacs spent three days, without artillery support, scrapping their way blindly to the Hindenburg Line. It was a bloody shambles. Bean wrote in his diary, ‘For the first time in twelve months we have come back from a battle that went wrong.’17 He later commented, ‘I never saw so many dead men on the battlefield in the last two years as I did on the morning of 29 September.’18

Only when the history of the Germans defending the line was written was the truth revealed. At the launch of the attack, many American companies, which were short of officers, could not find their way through the fog. Most of the all-too-few officers were quickly killed or wounded, leaving leaderless American troops to wander about, unsure where to go. Some of them penetrated the Hindenburg Line, but were driven back and pinned down by a German counter-offensive.

The Australian 40th Brigade, which was part of the second attack, met small parties of retiring Americans who explained they had lost their way in the haze, were without officers, and did not know what to do. The area around Gillemont Farm was covered in fog, but to the north of it Americans were seen retreating along the Macquincourt Valley. According to Bean in the official history:

German anti-tank guns blazed at the retiring Americans from down the valley, as did other field guns behind Gillemont Farm on the ridge. These, and machine-guns, caused tragic loss as the untried troops scrambled out of this or that trench to shoot and then make the run back up the valley, heading towards Willow Trench [the forward Hindenburg outpost line] … or up the bare knoll north of it.19

The Australian brigades had strict orders not to get involved with the tasks set for the Americans, but to stick to their own objectives. However, on this occasion the situation looked so serious that Colonel Lord of the 40th Brigade ordered men to Willow Trench to stop the Germans. Lieutenant Boden, a former boxing champion, was the first to reach the trench, and found it crowded with Americans. Some were unhurt, while others were wounded or dead. It was a desperate situation until, according to Bean’s history, ‘another officer arrived, wearing the white ribbon for polar exploration’. In the confusion, Wilkins, going forward with his movie camera, had stumbled into Willow Trench at the other end, where he found another group of Americans who thought the bombing they heard was shells fired from a long distance. Wilkins explained that he put down his camera:

Things were in a terrible mess. Most of the American officers were killed. The men were quite lost in a country new to them. They were being fired at from all quarters. In the fog they didn’t know which direction they had to advance. It was on that day that I was tempted to pick up a gun and have a shot at the Germans myself.20

Bean recorded in his notes:

A Lewis gunner was cleaning his gun. Wilkins asked why he was not shooting. He said that he did not know that there was anything to shoot at — or some such remark. Wilkins told him that unless he used his gun that he would never be able to use it again. The Germans were then within about ninety yards [82m] of them in the same trench, the men standing throwing their potato-masher bombs over the parapets, down into the trench, and a [German] officer and another man standing up outside in a shell hole directing them.21

Wilkins rallied the Americans and got them to fire at the Germans lobbing the bombs. By that time, Boden had arrived at Wilkins’ end of the trench, and he also tried to organise the Americans to mount a resistance. Boden called up his platoon for support, but some of them were killed before they could reach the trench. The Americans now lined the trench and put up a stout defence. Boden and the American Lewis gunner were killed, and Wilkins received superficial wounds in the chest and face. [Boden was posthumously awarded the Military Cross for his part in the action.] But the German attack was stopped. Bean wrote, ‘The Germans, forced to earth, tried to bomb up the communication trench from the old support line, as well as up Willow Trench, but parties of Australians and Americans drove them back [and] stopped the enemy’s advance.’22

Bean also noted, ‘Obviously there was nothing more to be photographed in that direction, so [Wilkins] worked around to the right.’23

For his part in the defence of Willow Trench, Wilkins was awarded a Bar to his Military Cross. This time, it was General Birdwood, commander of the British Fifth Army*, who signed the recommendation for the award. In his recommendation, he summarised Wilkins’ work since the German spring offensive:

[* When Birdwood was promoted to command the British Fifth Army, he was replaced by Monash. Birdwood, however, still retained overall administrative command of the AIF.]

Captain G.H. Wilkins, Australian Official Photographer, during the whole period of the German offensive, and the British offensive which followed it, carried out his duties in a manner which brought a most marked credit to his unit amongst all the troops engaged. During the period in which the Australian Corps was attacking, from 8 August to 3 October, he was in the front line at some period during the day of every battle, and on six occasions during that period went over with the attacking infantry. During the attack on Mont St Quentin the coolness displayed by him was a marked encouragement to those around him.

In the Battle of the Hindenburg Line on 29 September, Wilkins went over shortly after the attacking Americans and found the Germans bombing them back up the trenches on the left flank. Under machine-gun fire at close range he worked forward into the trenches held by the Americans, together with his sergeant, and on reaching the position organised the Americans who had lost their officers, and directed operations until the German attack was checked and supporting troops were arriving. He then left and continued to carry out his duties, frequently under heavy fire, during the rest of the day.24

A week after the attack, which eventually saw the Allies capture the Hindenburg Line, the Australians fought their last battle of the war. It was a short, costly, and ultimately unnecessary fight to capture the town of Montbrehain. After that battle, the front line in the area was taken over by the Americans, while the Australians were withdrawn for a well-earned rest.

Still, Wilkins continued to impress Bean with an almost fanatical desire to accurately capture every historical record possible:

Wilkins came to me one day with a serious face and informed me he was conscious of a gap in his photographic records; he had not yet taken any satisfactory picture of German infantry actually fighting. He hoped to remedy this by getting some pilot to fly him so low over the German line that he could get a useful set of pictures of the German line in action.25

It was a plan Wilkins never had the opportunity to put into action. Germany’s allies were capitulating, and its own forces were spent. The end was inevitable. Wilkins stayed at the front until the very last minute, later writing:

I knew when the Armistice was to be declared, so I arranged to be in the front line in the morning. The few hours with the troops in the morning was one of the most trying of my experience. To see the men shot down, knowing that in a few hours the war would be at end, was harder to bear than any other part of the war.26

At 11.00 a.m. on 11 November 1918, the guns finally fell silent.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS September–November 1918

The Battle of Mont St Quentin and Péronne

The Battle of the Hindenburg Line

The 15-inch gun captured by the 3rd Battalion can be seen in E02994. Film footage can be seen in F00018, starting at the displayed time code 01:36:38:00. Sergeant Lowe, who accompanied Wilkins as an assistant during this period, can be seen in E02902. A battlefield burial can be seen in E03092.

The photographs of the Battle of Mont St Quentin and Péronne start at E03142, and continue for approximately 200 shots. Mixed in with these photographs are pictures of dignitaries and officers.

Wilkins accompanied a patrol as it pushed forward to capture German prisoners, shortly before it came under fire and some of the men were killed. The patrol can be seen in E02992. ‘Wilkins was first into Tincourt’, wrote Bean. Wilkins photographed the village while it was still in the hands of the Germans (E03243).

Wilkins and Sergeant Joyce, taking a photograph of the Hindenburg Line, can be seen in E03915. Bean, Murdoch, and another correspondent, G.L. Gilmour, watch the attack on the Hindenburg Line in E03511. The AWRS collecting depot during this period can be seen in E03684 and E03685.

A trench near Gillemont Farm, and Australian soldiers moving up to support the Americans, can be seen in E03418. Another trench near Gillemont Farm can be seen in E03478. For the attack on the Hindenburg Line on the morning of 29 September, Wilkins carried his movie camera. The footage is shown on F00018, starting at time code 00.40.42. The first title on the silent film reads:

In the last great battle of the AIF on September 29, 1918, two American divisions attacked the Hindenburg Line. They were checked near Gillemont Farm. Australians following them broke through.

The film then shows the explosions of the artillery barrage, followed by soldiers leaving the trenches and rushing forward. The next title states:

The official photographer, Captain Wilkins MC, was with the leading Australians. After photographing this tank and these infantry under machine-gun fire, Captain Wilkins and Sergeant Joyce were both slightly hit. They had to drop the camera in a shell hole and join the fight.