The two remaining brigades of the Australian 4th Division, the 12th and 13th, commanded by Major General Sinclair-MacLagan, had earlier been hurriedly sent south towards Albert during the early-morning hours of 27 March. Another crisis had developed. For some unknown reason a British division that was protecting the town had been ordered to withdraw, and the two Australian brigades were ordered to fill the hole in the line. The Germans were close to taking the vital railway line of Amiens, just west of Albert. Within hours General Monash received similar orders that his 3rd Infantry Division was to head south towards Amiens. The German plan to roll up the British flank by attacking Arras had stalled, with Byng’s Third Army managing to hold back the assault. Now, true to his doctrine of rewarding success with reinforcements, Ludendorff revised his plan: he would take Amiens, which was seemingly within his grasp.1

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However, all would not go to plan for Ludendorff. As the German advance was slowing down, the frontline troops outpaced their logistical supply. Even more disturbing was that these men were discovering the overflowing wealth of the Allied depots, as described by Captain Rudolf Binding:

Now we are already in the English back areas . . . a land flowing with milk and honey. Marvellous people these, who will only equip themselves with the very best that the earth produces. Our men are hardly to be distinguished from English soldiers. Everyone wears at least a leather jerkin, a waterproof . . . English boots or some other beautiful thing . . . and there is no doubt the army is looting with some zest . . .

Today [the next day] the advance of our infantry suddenly stopped near Albert. Nobody could understand why. Our airmen had reported no enemy between Albert and Amiens. The enemy’s guns were only firing now and again on the very edge of affairs. Our way seemed entirely clear. I jumped into a car with orders to find out what was causing the stoppage in front . . . I . . . took a sharp turn with the car into Albert.

As soon as I got near the town I began to see curious sights. Strange figures, who looked very little like soldiers, and certainly showed no signs of advancing, were making their way back . . . There were men driving cows before them on a line . . . others . . . carrying a bottle of wine under their arm and another one open in their hand. Men who had torn a silk drawing-room curtain off its rod and were dragging it to the rear as a useful bit of loot. Men with writing paper and coloured notebooks. Evidently they had found it desirable to sack a stationer’s shop. Men dressed up in comic disguise. Men with top hats on their heads. Men staggering. Men who could hardly walk . . .

When I got into the town the streets were running with wine. Out of a cellar came a lieutenant of the Second Marine Division helpless and in despair. I asked him, ‘What is going to happen?’ It was essential for them to get forward immediately. He replied, solemnly and emphatically, ‘I cannot get my men out of this cellar without bloodshed.’ When I insisted . . . he invited me to try my hand, but it was no business of mine, and I saw, too, that I could have done no more than he. I drove back to Divisional HQ, with a fearful impression of the situation. The advance was held up, and there was no means of setting it going again for hours.2

Not all German frontline troops had the opportunity to wallow in such rich luxuries, as recalled by soldier Edwin Kühns, who wrote in his diary that the ‘food got worse. [Then] on Easter Sunday, we had nothing except half a loaf of bread per man . . . Everyone was miserable, as they were hungry. A comrade brought a joint of horsemeat from a horse that had been killed, which we had to roast, but everyone had only about a quarter of a pound. That was the first horsemeat that I had knowingly eaten. It was very tough, but it tasted good.’3

Indeed, it was not only the German soldiers who were suffering. Their draught animals too were in a poor state, as recorded in a General Headquarters Intelligence Summary: ‘the gun teams consist of only four horses and wagon team of two . . . it appears that the Germans are finding considerable difficulty in obtaining light draught horses. On the other hand, they have a fairly large number of Belgian horses for their heavy artillery; Russian horses are used for the transport of infantry companies and to draw machine-gun vehicles. The horses are, as a rule, in poor condition and underfed.’4

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During the night of 27 March, the men of the 4th Division started their 32-kilometre hard slog towards Albert, knowing the Germans were less than 4 kilometres east. The Germans rarely launched heavy attacks at night, and the Australians pushed on. They had no choice, as they needed to be at their destination by first light. Commanding the 48th Battalion was Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Leane, a 40-year-old merchant from Boulder in Western Australia. He gathered his officers around him on hearing they were to move out. One of his officers, Lieutenant George Mitchell, a 24-year-old journalist from Thebarton in South Australia and a veteran of the landing at Gallipoli, recalled his CO telling them at the briefing: ‘Gentlemen . . . there is no front line between us and the enemy. His position is not known. We start at midnight on a twenty-mile march towards Albert. We must protect our own flanks and be prepared for anything.’5 Mitchell also recalled that as the men began to prepare for the move, the local villagers were into a panic. There was ‘weeping and wailing. They implored us “It is retreat? It is retreat?” They begged us to stay and defend the place. They told us they had lived there for 36 years. They went from cupboard to cupboard picking out their most precious possessions. The skipper and others tried to soothe them.’6

With ‘shuffling of boots on the cobblestones’, recalled Mitchell, ‘the platoon merged into the company, the company into the battalion, the battalion into the division, and we were on our way’.7 As they marched in silence south, to their left just a few kilometres away numerous coloured Very lights exploded in the darkness, rising and falling continuously. British and Australian airmen flew overhead, and all could hear the result of their bombing and strafing missions as they attacked the packed enemy columns advancing along the roads heading west.8 It was an exhausting slog, but few men if any fell out. Even so, the ‘long hours of marching’, recalled Mitchell, ‘told on us. Platoons became groups supporting each other. Men fell as they walked, got up unaided, or were hoisted to their feet. At each hour’s halt every man dropped where he stood. At the end of the ten-minute interval the stronger shook or booted the weaker till they awoke’ and they continued the long road south.9

As the men marched, they passed through the villages northwest of Albert. The historian of the 45th Battalion, 25-year-old professional soldier Major Joseph Lee, wrote that the roads were ‘congested with French civilians, the great majority of whom were walking and pushing handcarts or wheelbarrows on which were piled their cherished belongings; others were leading or driving a few goats or cows. It was a pitiful sight to see old men, women, and children, plodding wearily along, leaving behind them their homes which soon would be in ruins.’10

The Australians were now close to the battlefields of 1916, including Pozières, Mouquet Farm and Thiepval – all now occupied by the German Second and Eighteenth armies, as was Albert. The loss of Pozières, taken with the spilling of so much Australian blood in 1916 (23,000 casualties), was especially upsetting.

As his men marched through the night and early-morning hours, Sinclair-MacLagan was making his way south in a motor vehicle, searching for the British Third Army VII Corps headquarters to assess the situation and obtain orders.11

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A few kilometres west of the 4th Division, also travelling south and parallel with Sinclair-MacLagan’s division, was General Monash’s 3rd Division. Monash, however, had managed to ‘recruit’ a fleet of buses to help transport his men towards Amiens. Like Sinclair-MacLagan, he was also in search of the VII Corps headquarters and its commander, Lieutenant General Walter Congreve, thought to be located somewhere near Corbie. Word soon reached Monash that the corps headquarters had moved to Montigny.12 Earlier, Haig had ordered Congreve to be prepared to fall back against the river Ancre if need be; however, Congreve had misunderstood the instruction and ordered his men to fall back towards the river. Now a 10-kilometre gap existed between the VII and XIX Corps, and the Australians had to breach it. Just after midnight on 27 March, Monash made his way to the VII Corps headquarters, halfway between Amiens and Albert. He reported to Congreve, whose corps was holding the southernmost sector of the Third Army’s line. This sector was defined by the western outskirts of Albert, passing across the Ancre around Dernancourt. What was left of the Fifth Army was responsible for the area south of the Somme. Monash recalled:

They were seated at a little table with their maps spread in front of them, examining them by the light of a flickering candle. As I stepped into the room General Congreve said – ‘Thank heaven, the Australians at last.’ Our conversation was the briefest. He said – ‘General, the position is very simple. My corps at four o’clock today was holding the line from Bray to Albert, when the line broke, and what is left of the three divisions in the line after four days’ heavy fighting without food or sleep are falling back rapidly. German cavalry have been approaching Morlancourt and Buire. They are making straight for Amiens. What I want you to do is get into the angle [junction] between the Ancre and the Somme [rivers] as far east as possible and stop him.’13

Congreve further stressed that he needed Monash’s division to ‘get as far east as you can, but I know of a good line of old trenches, which I believe are still in good condition, running from Méricourt-l’Abbé towards Sailly-le-Sec. Occupy them, if you can’t get further east.’14 Before leaving Congreve’s headquarters, Monash telephoned ahead and told his staff to get the men ready to move out at once.15

Just as Monash left, Sinclair-MacLagan arrived and was informed that Albert had fallen to the Germans. He was instructed that his two remaining brigades of the 4th Division had the critical task of supporting the two British divisions who were defending against any German attack from the direction of Albert and Dernancourt, by occupying the high ground just north-west of both towns, 5 kilometres west of Albert, along the old Amiens–Albert road. With the fall of Albert, the 9th (Scottish) and 35th divisions of the British VII Corps (Fifth Army) were falling back, taking up a position aligned with the northern banks of the Ancre, behind and south-west of Dernancourt village, which left Amiens exposed. Sinclair-MacLagan’s two Australian brigades were to be positioned just north of the Australian 3rd Division on the other side of the Ancre to block any German advance from the Albert sector.16

Together the two Australian divisions were to bridge the line between the two British armies, to stop any German advance westward from Albert and hold the high ground come what may. They were to occupy old trenches that had been constructed by the French in 1915, but the French authorities in 1917 had permitted the land to be recultivated, and most of the trenches had been backfilled and their wire removed.17

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At around 8 a.m. on 27 March, a convoy of buses and lorries were finally taking Monash’s men along the Amiens–Albert road – part of the famous old Roman road to Bapaume – which traversed the high ground just north of Ancre. Monash wrote that the ‘spectacle of that infantry will be ever memorable to me, as one of the most inspiring sights of the whole war. Here was the Third Division – the “new chum” Division, which in spite of its great success in Belgium and Flanders, had never been able to boast, like its sister Divisions, that it had been “down on the Somme” – come into its own at last, and called upon to prove its mettle.’18

Again the Australians found themselves to be the only ones advancing, as all around them British troops, including staff officers and artillery, were falling back along with frightened villagers. One British soldier yelled to the advancing Australians of 3rd Division: ‘You’re going the wrong way, Digger! Jerry’ll souvenir you and your —ing band too.’19 Many other similar taunts were yelled by the retreating British troops. Indeed, a passing artillery brigadier told Lieutenant Colonel John Lavarack, a 33-year-old professional soldier from Brisbane who was Sinclair-MacLagan’s chief of staff: ‘You Australians think you can do anything, but you haven’t a chance of holding them.’ The Australian officer replied, ‘Will you stay and support us if we do?’ and the British brigadier willingly agreed.20

The men took the taunts in their stride; they were confident and believed in themselves, and were determined to hold the line. The Australians did not know, however, that most of these British troops were not frontline troops but belonged to labour companies and heavy-artillery batteries that had been ordered to the rear to help clear communications while British staff officers were rushing back to organise men and construct some type of defensive position. Even so, while taking a rest and cleaning his rifle an Australian soldier turned to an old villager and said, ‘Fini retreat, Madame – beaucoup Australiens ici.’ [No more retreat, Madame – many Australians here.]21

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Monash’s 3rd Division crossed the Ancre at Heilly, about 6 kilometres west of Dernancourt, then moved about 1.5 kilometres east to the town of Méricourt-l’Abbé. To date most of the men attached to the division had been based in Flanders. They were not used to fighting in open green fields – until now they had fought in the mud, filth and blood of the trenches in and around Ypres. Stretcher-bearer Bert Reynolds recalled in a letter to his mother: ‘things altogether different to the old state of affairs, where a fellow lived like a rabbit and did not dare show his head above ground, there is none of that here’.22 The historian of the 42nd Battalion wrote: ‘Our fighting in Northern France and Flanders had been associated mainly with mud and at best, uninteresting tunnels, saps, and labyrinths of trenches. But here was a contrast. We could not help comparing, unconsciously perhaps, our previous experiences with this countryside of such marvellous beauty. The scenes over which our operations were now taking place consisted of green fields, wheat crops, and prolific cultivation. Sheep and cattle, abandoned by their owners in their hurried exodus, browsed unconcernedly before our trenches.’23

Even though this part of the Western Front was new to them, as they marched through the villages and towns of the Somme the Australians were received as if they were coming home. In cottage after cottage the troops found on the walls ‘photographs of Australians who, in the old Somme days, had been taken into the family circle, and who were still eagerly remembered . . . [and] heard the civilians cry “Nos Australiens!” – “Our Australians!”’24 As the men marched on, the same old jokes were told. All had heard them before, but they still always managed to get a laugh:

A Yankee who could speak German asked a prisoner if he thought they were winning the war. He said, ‘Yes, God is with us.’ The Yankee said, ‘That’s nothing – the Australians are with us!’

Another – a Chinaman said, ‘One shell come, English soldier run away, two shell come, Chinaman run away. Three shell come – Australians say Bas—ds.’25

It is likely that other dominion forces, including the New Zealanders and the Canadians, were telling the same jokes or very similar about themselves.

By midday, two battalions of Monash’s 3rd Division had relieved the remaining exhausted British troops, who had maintained a thin screening force in the old French trenches that were blocking the advance to Amiens between the Somme and the Ancre. Some of these men were Scots who at first refused to be relieved, as recalled by one of Monash’s staff officers, Major George Wieck, a 37-year-old South African War veteran from Paddington in Queensland: ‘It was simply amazing how many British units, parts of the retiring troops, reported themselves saying that they were quite ready to fight so long as they could find someone to cooperate with or take orders from.’26

Among those now taking up the line just north of the Somme were Edmunds and his mates of the Australian 8th Field Artillery Brigade.

The Germans, with Amiens in sight, were advancing under their artillery barrage, the main thrust being down the valley of the Somme. If they could brush the Australians aside (only part of the Corps was here yet) the Channel Ports would be theirs and the division of the British and French Armies accomplished. No doubt Ludendorff . . . was awaiting the events of that day with keen anticipation. Almost as soon as the barrage opened, our OC received his orders. We pulled out of the quarry and ascended the hill; we reached the crest, and today the memory of the panorama before our eyes from the hilltop is as vivid as on the early morning so long ago . . . We were looking up the valley of the Somme towards Hamel about a mile and a half [2.4 km] away; our view of the battle extended from Villers-Bretonneux on the right to Hamel, then over the Somme to wooded broken ground on the left.27