CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

‘As Usual My Boys Were
… Just Splendid’:

Relentless offensive

JUNE–NOVEMBER 1918

A FORTNIGHT AFTER Elliott became aware of this crushing setback, he discovered that he had been awarded the CB in the King’s Birthday honours for his role at Polygon Wood. It did not alleviate his acute disappointment, but there were gratifying reactions to the announcement. Not only did he receive letters from AIF generals including Monash, Hobbs, Rosenthal, and McNicoll; numerous admirers of lower rank congratulated him as well. ‘All of us who know you are pleased’, enthused a friend working at the AIF’s London headquarters, ‘I have not heard today of a more popular award with anyone than your CB’. Also sending a congratulatory letter from London was Captain Robinson, the capable and principled former Fifth Division intelligence officer who had approved Elliott’s controversial Polygon Wood report before it was suppressed:

It could not have been better deserved. The ‘official’ grounds for the distinction could be made convincing enough to all minds. But the thing which specially appeals to me, and I think too to all Aussies, are the unwritten yarns about Pompey Elliott which are bandied from mouth to mouth. You tell one of them yourself, and immediately someone answers with a better! And all together we find them among the most stimulating tonics and aids to winning the war that we know — from the … hat story onwards. I would not venture to write this if I did not thoroughly believe it, and thank you for it.

Elliott and his brigade returned to front-line duty in mid-June 1918. With his headquarters at Heilly, Pompey took over responsibility for the left half of the new sector allotted to the Fifth Division north of the Somme. ‘Great deal of work to be done’, he noted, his purposefulness undiminished. He had been away from home nearly four years, had known more than his share of tribulation and sorrow in that time, and his children were growing up without him. Moreover, he was also approaching his fortieth birthday, the kind of personal milestone that can sometimes prompt reflective reassessment. Even so, any wavering of his commitment was unthinkable. He had a passionate lifetime interest in soldiering, and this was the greatest war there had ever been. His sense of comradely identification with the men he was commanding remained fervent and profound (though it was frequently masked by the demanding demeanour he maintained to maximise their proficiency). And the principal war aim — stopping Germany, the main aggressor — was still far from fulfilled.

‘We will win in the end’, he told Kate in mid-June, ‘but it will be a long time yet I fear’. As Elliott realised, the Germans had more divisions available for transfer from Russia to France to supplement the numerical advantage they already possessed over the combined forces of their adversaries. In March and April the British had narrowly averted disaster; a separate German offensive in May drove the French back no less than 32 miles, bringing the attackers within 50 miles of Paris. Elliott’s brigade returned to something of a lull on the Somme front, but this had a calm-before-the-storm feeling about it in an atmosphere of continuing crisis. A renewed German onslaught somewhere soon seemed inevitable.

Meanwhile aggressive AIF skirmishing ensured that there was no respite for the enemy. With their confidence and resourcefulness higher than ever, the Australians repeatedly gained both ground and prisoners in spontaneous local exploits of remarkable initiative, skill, and tactical proficiency. Elliott’s brigade was prominent in this well-recognised AIF phenomenon, which became known as ‘peaceful penetration’. It was in fact the astonishing enterprise of Corporal Doug Sayers who, along with three 58th Battalion privates, brazenly and successfully attacked a patrol of 30 Germans in broad daylight on 5 April, which ushered in peaceful penetration on the Somme. At first Pompey found reports of such exploits hard to believe; when they were confirmed beyond doubt, he concluded that the enemy ‘seems to have completely lost his punch’. The Australians had ‘established a wonderful supremacy’, he added:

The Bosche … is no match … when it comes to personal combat. The Intelligence reports of these patrol encounters are joyful reading. I feel like going out myself for a rough and tumble, for the sport seems as harmless for us as chasing and rounding up barn door fowls.

The effectiveness of peaceful penetration had more than local significance. Ascertaining when and where the next German offensive would occur was a top priority; newly captured prisoners tended to be a fruitful source of information, and if these prisoners could be secured by peaceful penetration there was no need for the set-piece raids that were usually more costly and accordingly less popular. Peaceful penetration, however, suited some areas more than others. The sector the 15th Brigade entered in mid-June was relatively exposed; with scope for purposeful patrolling limited, raids would be necessary.

Elliott’s fortieth birthday on 19 June engendered few pleasant memories. The Germans kept shelling the headquarters he and Tivey were sharing at Heilly chateau with a ferocity that eventually prompted Hobbs to insist on them moving further back. Furthermore, Elliott spent his birthday sick in bed. Like Hobbs and many others, Pompey was battling the unpleasant effects of an influenza epidemic in the AIF: ‘it has made me as weak as a child’, he told Kate, ‘I can hardly hold the pen’. He was also concerned about a raid the 58th Battalion was going to carry out that night. Dissatisfied with Watson’s arrangements, he suggested several alterations; but Watson felt that these changes might deprive the raiders of the advantage of surprise, and the debilitated brigadier did not press for them. Afterwards he wished he had insisted. The raiders were repulsed (despite inflicting more casualties than they sustained themselves) without managing to get into the German trenches or capture any prisoners.

In contrast, a raid by Scanlan’s 59th Battalion three days later was a complete success. Five prisoners were captured, other Germans were killed, notification of the unit concerned reached corps headquarters in fifteen minutes, and the only Australian casualty was wounded by a retaliatory German bombardment. And early in July, after thorough preparations, the 58th made another attempt at the spot where it had been unable to penetrate on 20 June. This time it, too, was successful.

A few days later the 15th Brigade participated in Monash’s first operation as commander of the Australian Corps. The importance of the battle of Hamel lay not so much in its scope or the magnitude of German losses in personnel and territory (though they were highly satisfactory). More significantly, this stunning triumph after months of anxiety and sometimes desperate defence highlighted the Germans’ vulnerability to a powerful, well-planned assault and underlined Monash’s capacity to organise one. Since 21 March the Germans had penetrated far, alarming British strategists and seeming at times within sight of victory; but their fundamental objectives were unfulfilled, and their great effort had taken its toll (as the success of peaceful penetration confirmed). Early on 4 July the Australians advanced about 2,000 yards, captured Hamel and the ridge beyond, and secured all their objectives in only 93 minutes. This notable feat was the biggest offensive success for the Anglo-French forces and their allies since the Germans had launched their onslaught on 21 March.

The contribution of the latest British tank was a highlight. Ever since Bullecourt the Australians had regarded this innovation with suspicion and hostility, but both the planning of tank operations and the performance of the tanks themselves were much better at Hamel. Even officers scarred by Bullecourt were full of praise for these more reliable and more manoeuvrable machines. The methods of tank–infantry co-operation which were successfully utilised with artillery and aircraft support at Hamel constituted a promising model for larger enterprises. Other features of Monash’s plan included sophisticated artillery barrages, specially assigned aircraft to muffle the noise of approaching tanks, clever use of smoke, and the employment of planes and tanks to convey supplies to forward units. There were also a variety of co-ordinated feints and other measures to deceive the enemy.

The 15th Brigade undertook the main diversion. For some time Elliott had been advocating an advance of his brigade’s front near Ville-sur-Ancre (about four miles north of Hamel), and this attack became part of the overall design. Pompey had envisaged it as a night operation, so that his men would be able to consolidate in their new line before morning and would be therefore less susceptible to German artillery fire from the Morlancourt heights to the south. He was unhappy about zero hour being shortly before dawn — to coincide with Monash’s battle plan — because his men would be decidedly vulnerable to this shellfire while digging themselves in without the cover of darkness. His forceful protest to Hobbs produced additional protection in the form of a smoke screen. The aim was to seize the German trenches east of Ville from the Ancre to three-quarters of a mile south of the river, positions worth capturing not only for their intrinsic significance but also in order to provide a diversion to assist the main assault south of the Somme.

Elliott placed Scanlan in charge of organising the attack. It was to be carried out by two companies of his 59th and one from the 58th, and would be supported by artillery, trench mortars, and machine-guns (but no tanks), with a 60th company and another 58th platoon ready to help if needed. The attackers were able to scrutinise a model of the area to be blitzed, and also benefited from intensive practice after being withdrawn from front-line duty well before the assault. Captain Forbes Dawson, whose 58th company would be advancing on the far left alongside the Ancre, even arranged on his own initiative for his men to have four days’ tuition in handling German machine-guns.

Having established an advanced brigade report centre under Captain Doyle, Elliott left Gollan in charge at brigade headquarters and went forward shortly before zero hour to monitor developments at 59th Battalion headquarters, where Scanlan would be directing the attack as it unfolded. The barrage descending at 3.10am was punctual and powerful. Early news from the right augured well. The 59th companies were soon reported to be consolidating on their objective and sending prisoners back.

On the left, however, Dawson’s company had a tough fight, particularly the platoon nearest the Ancre. This platoon, under Lieutenant Ivo Thompson, was faced with a narrow approach across marshy ground as well as belts of wire and determined machine-gunners. Thompson handled the platoon superbly, spreading his men out and organising a series of successful assaults against these machine-gun posts, which enabled his men to attain their goal. They were consolidating there when another machine-gun opened up ahead. Thompson was in the process of arranging a further co-ordinated rush to deal with it when he was killed. His men hung on despite their losses, and Dawson, covered in blood himself after a facial wound, was pleased to find that the other 58th platoons engaged had also reached their objectives. With most of their Lewis guns clogged with mud from the swampy marshland, Dawson’s decision to ensure that his men were adept at using captured enemy machine-guns proved invaluable.

Meanwhile the 59th companies in the centre and right had also been engaged in tough fighting. At one stage Captain McDonald, in charge of the centre company, resorted to sending back a terse message by pigeon: ‘SOS and reinforcements, Mac’. Eventually, though, the 59th men prevailed. The 15th Brigade had attained all its objectives, but the enemy, stung by this reverse, gave Pompey’s men a torrid time after the fight with a prolonged burst of heavy shelling.

‘My Brigade only had a small part’, Elliott told Belle, ‘but what they had to do they did magnificently’. The enterprise had succeeded as both an attack and a genuine feint — the 15th Brigade had significantly helped the main operation at Hamel, in conspicuous contrast to certain lamentable previous attempts at diversion, the fiasco of Fromelles in particular. Pompey was full of praise for Scanlan’s arrangements and the way the attackers had comprehensively defeated an entrenched enemy force, despite being greatly outnumbered:

The boys were splendid, particularly the 58th boys from Geelong under Captain Forbes Dawson. We did not know that there were three times as many Boches in their trenches as we had, but notwithstanding that we hunted them out and killed about 120 of them, captured 17 machine guns from them and 64 prisoners, whilst the rest bolted like rabbits.

While 15th Brigade casualties were appreciably fewer, Pompey was yet again saddened by the loss of outstanding officers. ‘I lost three of the very finest officers I have ever had’, he lamented. As so often happened, it was the bravest and best, like Lieutenant Thompson, who were taken. ‘To my very great regret’, Elliott wrote, ‘Lieutenant Facey, 59th Battalion, a brilliant officer, was killed’. An athletic 31-year-old Mansfield farmer, Steve Facey had joined the 59th during the terrible 1916-17 winter, and so quickly distinguished himself that he was promoted from private to sergeant within a month. After Polygon Wood, where Facey captured several pillboxes almost single-handedly, acquiring a number of machine-guns and about 50 prisoners in the process, Elliott arranged for him to do officer training. He topped the course. Back with the 59th, Facey was given a key role at Ville. Again he was superb, leading his men to their objective in fine style, but was killed while marshalling them to repel a counter-attack. ‘I have never heard such unanimous regret expressed throughout the Brigade as for the death of this officer’, Pompey told Hobbs.

Two other first-rate lieutenants were also killed, Merv Knight and John Moore. Knight was one of the 4th Light Horse NCOs recruited by Pompey to fill officer vacancies in the brigade after Fromelles. He was widely admired: ‘[o]ne of the finest fellows we ever had and a great loss’, wrote Doyle. Moore had joined the brigade in February 1917 and, like Facey, was rapidly promoted. Awarded the Military Medal at Bullecourt, Moore was sent by Elliott to an officers’ school, where he did well. Now a lieutenant, he won the Military Cross for a remarkable exploit while leading a raid, and later received a bar to his MC for ‘daring and dashing leadership’ at Villers-Bretonneux. Moore ‘had a most brilliant career in front of him’, Pompey believed; ‘utterly fearless’ and ‘a magnificent athlete’, he had ‘great physical strength’ and a ‘most winning personality’. When problems emerged with the Stokes mortars owing to inferior ammunition, and Pompey decided one of his best officers was needed to revitalise the 15th Brigade’s battery, he chose Moore, who was vindicating this decision with inspiring leadership when he was struck by a German shell.

Arrangements had been made before the Ville attack for Elliott to have a month’s leave. He certainly needed a rest. Although ‘I have thrown off the influenza it has left me feeling distinctly stale’, he told Kate before the fight:

I shall be very glad to go on leave. It is now over 7 months since I was in England, and it has been a very anxious, trying time.

With the 15th Brigade soon to be withdrawn, he arranged with Hobbs to go on leave on 10 July.

In London Elliott had an enjoyable reunion with a pair of Ormond College luminaries, J.G. Latham and the deputy master ‘Barney’ Allen. Latham, as adviser to Australia’s minister for the Navy, Joseph Cook, had travelled to England with Prime Minister Hughes, and Allen had arrived there as one of the 437 Ormond men who enlisted in the AIF (Pompey had presided when 21 of them, including George Elliott, attended a dinner for ex-Ormond members of the AIF at St Omer in August 1917). Latham had visited the AIF with Hughes and Cook just before Hamel. On his return to London he informed D.K. Picken (who had succeeded MacFarland as master of Ormond in 1915) that AIF morale was ‘as high as possible’, adding that ‘the reputation which our fighting men have won for themselves and for Australia is almost beyond belief’. Latham also told Picken that he and Allen had recently ‘spent a most pleasant evening’ with Brigadier-General Elliott. ‘Nobody could stand higher than Elliott in the estimation of his men’, declared Latham. ‘He has been doing great work, and has won a fine reputation as a fighting General’.

Soon afterwards Elliott travelled to Boston, Lincolnshire, for another reunion. This one was with his cousin Nellie (sister of Charlie Elliott), her husband, and their engaging young children — Alec, a precocious deep thinker, and Helen, who was exuberant and playful. ‘The children are darlings’, Elliott told Kate, and the regard was mutual. After meeting him earlier in the war, Alec and Helen had gravely informed their friends that ‘Uncle Harold’ was ‘the most important man in the world — more important even than the King!’

A highlight of Elliott’s leave was his visit to his Scottish in-laws. Kate’s mother had fond memories of Ullapool in the highlands of north Scotland, and Elliott had been invited to stay by Jessie Campbell, Kate’s second cousin. ‘It is a lovely place right enough, but a terrible place to get to’, he reported after a journey involving four trains, a meandering bus and extensive delays. The Campbells and their relations rolled out the red carpet. Jessie, awed by such an illustrious visitor, gave him a room with two beds in it so he could rest in one during the day without affecting the comfort of the other one he was to sleep in at night. She even proposed to serve him meals apart from the rest of the family until he demurred. And they ‘will insist on calling me Sir, as if I don’t get enough of that in France’. Elliott did his best to be unintimidating, and had an enjoyable time even though it rained for much of his stay. He was shown where Kate’s father came from and where her mother was born, and met so many of Kate’s relatives — including a ‘dear old’ Mrs Cameron ‘just trembling with excitement because I knew something of her daughter’ (a resident of Geelong) — that he asked Kate to send him a ‘genealogical tree’ showing where each of them fitted in, because it had become ‘all mixed up in my head’.

Elliott had moved on from the Campbells to spend a few days with Milly Edwards at Bryn Oerog when he received an urgent summons to rejoin the 15th Brigade. He still had a week of his leave to go, but momentous developments were afoot. The Australians were about to spearhead an ambitious onslaught that could be crucial to the outcome of the whole war. Many participants at Hamel had complained that the swift success there had been insufficiently exploited; why call a halt after a limited advance and dig in to prepare for a severe response from the enemy artillery, when they could have penetrated much further and even captured those very German guns? This reaction, while understandable, overlooked the very real limitations of an advance on a narrow front.

But there was nothing limited or narrow about the undertaking Elliott was recalled to take part in early in August. The aim was to end the enemy threat to Amiens and its vital rail network once and for all. For the first time, all five AIF divisions would be involved together. Moreover, the Australians would be advancing alongside Canadians, which was also unprecedented. The enterprise was sure to benefit from the mutual affinity between these two armies and their confidence in each other’s proficiency. And this time the objectives were undeniably expansive. South of the Somme the AIF was to penetrate the front east of Hamel and Villers-Bretonneux, and push forward over five miles. With complementary advances by the Canadians on their right and the British III Corps on the left, the attack frontage was no less than thirteen miles long.

Monash’s planning was again meticulous and masterly. Successful Hamel innovations were again a feature. There were detailed arrangements for tank–infantry co-operation, with each tank assigned a particular role under a particular infantry commander. The Germans, as at Hamel, became accustomed to a regular early-morning barrage of mixed gas and smoke shells, so that when the onslaught began with a smoke screen without gas they would be disadvantaged by having their gas masks on when suddenly attacked in their trenches.

No Australian formation would be advancing further than Elliott’s brigade. The AIF assault was divided into three phases. Two divisions were to attack side-by-side until they reached the first objective (the green line), where they would consolidate. Two other AIF divisions would then pass through them and press on to the second objective (the red line), with scope to exploit further ahead, if appropriate in the circumstances, to a third objective (the blue line). The 15th Brigade had been assigned the second and third objectives on the AIF’s far right, where the blue line was furthest away; the Canadians would be on the right of Elliott’s men, and Tivey’s 8th Brigade on their left.

Preparations in the 15th Brigade proceeded methodically after the brigadier’s hasty return, a process involving not just the usual conferences but also the distribution of a series of ‘Preliminary Instructions’ on particular topics. This enabled units to assimilate vital information gradually instead of having to resort — as they had too often previously — to a less effective last-minute cram when the operation order belatedly materialised from above. Monash’s arrangements reflected his conclusion that

the true role of the Infantry was not to expend itself upon heroic physical effort … but, on the contrary, to advance under the maximum possible protection of the maximum possible array of mechanical resources, in the form of guns, machine guns, tanks, mortars and aeroplanes; to advance with as little impediment as possible; to be relieved as far as possible of the obligation to fight their way forward.

‘I fully agree with that statement of principle’, Elliott wrote when he later read it.

There was a palpable air of confidence in the AIF. The battle was clearly going to be a stroke of rare magnitude and an unusually well-orchestrated one. Peaceful penetration had repeatedly confirmed the Australians’ ascendancy over the Germans. And having all AIF divisions assembled together at last was profoundly satisfying. It was unfortunate to lose part of his leave, but Elliott would have been more disappointed to miss this battle. Many in his brigade shared his anticipation that it could result in a red-letter day for the AIF. With all AIF divisions ‘gathered together’ for a really big assault, wrote Downing, this was a ‘long hoped for’ development that ‘no adventurous soul could wish to miss’; there were ‘high prospects of a sweeping and brilliant success’.

On 6 August Elliott’s headquarters received from Monash a stirring message to be conveyed to ‘soldiers of the Australian Army Corps’. They were about to ‘engage in the largest and most important battle operation ever undertaken by the Corps’. It would be ‘one of the most memorable of the whole war’. They would ‘be supported by an exceptionally powerful artillery, and by tanks and aeroplanes on a scale never previously attempted’. By attaining their objectives they would ‘inflict blows upon the enemy which will make him stagger’, bring the conflict ‘appreciably nearer’ to completion, and win ‘a glorious and decisive victory’ that would not only ‘re-echo throughout the world’ but ‘live for ever in the history of our home land’.

The 15th Brigade benefited in particular from the innovative ‘double leapfrog’ manoeuvre designed by Monash. If Elliott’s men (like other brigades assigned the most distant objectives) started, as usual, behind the formations engaged in the first phase, they would have so far to go that just the process of getting into position to begin their allotted task might well be enough to tire them out. Astutely anticipating this problem, Monash arranged for them to be bivouacked closer to the front line than the 7th Brigade, which was to pass through them and secure the first objective; they would then advance through the 7th Brigade on their way to the red line. Not only did this arrangement benefit Pompey’s men by significantly shortening their approach march; it also provided them with a couple of days’ rest before the battle in the familiar surroundings of Villers-Bretonneux. Elliott’s temporary headquarters was a dug-out in the very path of his brigade’s famous counter-attack. Being back there for another operation of the utmost significance was a good omen. Even conditions during the countdown to zero (4.20am) were ‘very similar’, the brigade diary recorded; ‘the night was quite clear and calm’, and the enemy unsuspecting.

The battle of Amiens (as it came to be known), on 8 August 1918, was a brilliant success for the 15th Brigade and the whole AIF. When Elliott’s men left their bivouacs around 2.00am and moved forward towards their assembly positions, visibility was minimal owing to a thick mist as well as the darkness. Although this mist helped concealment and maximised surprise, officers in Denehy’s 57th, leading the right of the brigade forward (with the 59th on their left), were unsure whether or not they were heading in the intended direction until they discerned through the veil the number 57 glowing prominently to guide them. This effect was produced by punctured holes in a petrol-tin lit from within by a candle and hoisted on to a pole, a deft touch that reinforced the impression that the organisation of this undertaking was first class.

Further confirmation was the tremendous barrage that descended at zero hour. The 7th Brigade moved off in its wake. Elliott’s men had to wait on their tapes for an hour, but casualties were few; the enemy’s response was ‘feeble’, Pompey noted. The artillery pounding the Germans was much more sophisticated than it had been even just two years earlier. Counter-battery techniques, in particular, proved devastatingly successful, all but silencing the German guns and playing a crucial role in the triumphant result.

At 5.20am the 15th Brigade advanced, guided by compass. The mist continued to cause directional uncertainty until it lifted at eight o’clock, revealing a breathtaking panorama — the whole enterprise was proceeding like clockwork. At 8.20am, right on time, Elliott’s men began passing through the 7th Brigade. The red line was three miles ahead, and there would be no creeping barrage to guide them. Assistance would be provided by tanks, along with a few field artillery brigades that were being hurried forward. Resistance from German infantry was meagre, but the enemy artillery now became troublesome until the tanks supporting Elliott’s men intervened. Bayonvillers, a village in the 15th Brigade’s path, proved no obstacle. Scanlan’s 59th skirted around it to the north and south in accordance with the brigadier’s cherished envelopment methods; Watson’s 58th, coming up behind, mopped up effectively. Pompey’s leading battalions reached the red line shortly after ten o’clock.

The main impediment to their rapid progress was the difficulties experienced by the Canadian brigade alongside them; Elliott’s men did their best to help. Nevertheless the 15th Brigade’s momentum was so impressive and the enemy disarray so evident that Denehy and Scanlan decided to push on to the blue line straightaway, without even waiting for the tanks that had been allotted to help them in the third phase. The village of Harbonnières was a potential stumbling block, but the 59th Battalion, with other tanks making their presence felt, swiftly secured it. By eleven o’clock an Australian flag was fluttering from the Harbonnières church spire.

It was an exhilarating day. Not only was the 15th Brigade’s achievement extraordinary after four years of mostly stagnant conflict; its success had been duplicated throughout the AIF. In seven hours the Australians had advanced seven miles, capturing no fewer than 7,925 prisoners and 173 guns, as well as vital documents and copious engineering materials. ‘It was a splendid performance’, Rawlinson enthused, ‘as fine a feat of arms as any that even this war can produce’. AIF casualties, by Western Front standards, were relatively light; although any losses were begrudged, for once the gains seemed to justify the cost. As Downing observed, absent for the most part were ‘the usual depressing concomitants of a major action — rain, tumbled waves of earth, enemy barrages, mutilation’ — and ‘it was more like a picnic than a battle’. For the Germans it was a shattering reverse. Their chief strategist described it as ‘the black day of the German Army in the history of this war’, a disaster demonstrating beyond doubt that victory for his side was no longer feasible.

Elliott was delighted. ‘As usual my boys were … just splendid’, he told Kate. They had advanced further than any others, and captured ‘a splendid haul of prisoners and guns’. ‘Best of all’, he enthused, there were ‘very few casualties, not a single officer killed and not many men’. Many Australians sensed that Monash’s painstaking planning had been crucial; as far as Pompey was concerned, the improved organisation since Birdwood’s departure was no coincidence. ‘As soon as we got out of his hands we did better than ever’, he asserted. Elliott had been busy up forward for much of the day, especially when trying to overcome the difficulties on the right, which were caused mainly by the Canadians’ slower progress; but everyone was weary — infantry, gunners and tank crews alike — and in a couple of localities he had to settle for only partial attainment of the blue line.

The main setback for the attackers on 8 August, however, occurred north of the Australians. There, General Butler’s III British Corps was required to advance less than half the distance covered by the AIF but was unable to achieve its main task, the capture of Chipilly. Accordingly, the German guns ensconced there became, as Monash feared they would, ‘the chief instrument of the enemy’s resistance on the Australian front’. Astonishingly, an enterprising AIF patrol of two sergeants and four privates managed the following night to do what Butler’s corps could not. The intrepid half dozen drove the Germans out of Chipilly, capturing hundreds of prisoners (assisted by British infantry advancing in their wake) and ending enemy harassment from that quarter. Butler, increasingly suffering from stress and insomnia, was replaced, to Pompey’s unbridled satisfaction — he still felt that Butler had wrongly delayed the famous Villers-Bretonneux counter-attack and had been unjustifiably given credit for its success.

Outstanding planning had been integral to the triumph of 8 August, but the organisation of endeavours to exploit it was substandard. Rawlinson, Rosenthal, General Currie of the Canadians, and even Monash were all at fault. Elliott’s contribution, in contrast, was highly creditable. The proposal eventually adopted was that Glasgow’s First Division would have the main Australian role in a further co-ordinated advance with the Canadians. However, undistinguished administration resulted in Glasgow’s division arriving much too late. With zero hour not far away and still no sign of the First Division, a Canadian brigade major appeared at Elliott’s headquarters with an urgent plea for help. Could the 15th Brigade, he asked, move forward to protect the left flank of the Canadians as they advanced? Elliott was eager to help, but said that approval from Hobbs was necessary. Hobbs gave it. Gollan hurried away to the red line to inform the 60th and 58th Battalions (which had been in support the day before) that they were to leap-frog the 57th and 59th in the front line and attack.

Each battalion was on its way forward within 20 minutes of receiving the order. There was, unlike the previous day, no specific objective — the men just had to push on until the First Division materialised. Moreover, though the Canadians on the right and Tivey’s brigade on the left were advancing with both a barrage and tanks to help them, Elliott’s men had neither. Their task would not be easy, and they were far from fresh after their exertions the day before. Pompey was frantically busy with all the unexpected arrangements. The way he rounded in frustration on a hapless signaller when the only remaining line to any of his battalions was suddenly broken reflected his anxiety about this challenging improvised enterprise. Advancing on either side of Harbonnières, the 58th and 60th were shelled by several German batteries, but pressed on until intense machine-gun fire from a line of sunken huts prevented even gradual progress. In view of this hold-up, Pompey characteristically decided to go forward and assess the situation himself.

Not long after his arrival close to the front, a tank rolled across from the Canadian sector to offer assistance. Elliott, having quickly grasped what was required, bustled over to convey instructions. He was standing alongside it talking to the crew when he felt a sharp pain in his rump — a German bullet had smacked his left buttock. It was uncomfortably sore but not a serious wound, and he was contemptuous of suggestions that he should be evacuated to the rear for treatment. He did allow his own rear to be attended to, as long as it did not interfere with his direction of the fight. The upshot was an unforgettable spectacle — the brigadier perched on a prominent mound, surveying the battlefield intently and dictating messages uninhibitedly, with his trousers round his ankles and underlings fussing over his behind. Onlookers were amused by this further confirmation of his wholehearted commitment; there were also ribald remarks about the awesome amplitude of his posterior. According to Scanlan, seeing ‘Pompey with his tailboard down having his wound dressed’ was one of the sights of the war.

The unanticipated contribution of Elliott and his men on 9 August helped to make a success of that day’s poorly co-ordinated exploitation of the breakthrough. The 58th and 60th Battalions eventually managed to overcome the resistance that held them up for two hours. Applying sustained pressure, the 58th advanced by alternate rushes under covering fire north of the line of sunken huts where German opposition was most determined, and succeeded in manoeuvring round behind these huts. Resistance began to waver and, as the 60th and 59th pressed forward, ended altogether. This line of huts proved to be an impressive divisional headquarters. Elliott came forward to take them over, acquiring valuable documents as well as trophies and equipment. In the afternoon Glasgow’s First Division arrived at last, and passed through the 15th Brigade. To Downing, the ‘fresh faces’ of these newcomers ‘contrasted’ with the ‘unshaven … grimy and wan’ visages of Pompey’s weary men.

One of them, a young 60th Battalion Lewis-gunner, was struggling after a series of stressful front-line experiences, no sleep for 60 hours, concussion from a German shell burst and, worst of all, the discovery that his best mate had been killed. With the 15th Brigade withdrawn, he was trudging disconsolately back in a daze when he felt a comradely hand on his shoulder. It was Pompey. ‘You’ve had a rough day, lad’, said the general. Touched by this sensitivity, the youngster began to cry; the brigadier was sympathetic. After that encounter ‘I really worshipped old Pompey’, the Lewis-gunner confided decades later.

Elliott and his men had certainly earned a rest. Their performance on 9 August was, as Bean acknowledged, magnificent: the 15th Brigade had selflessly positioned itself to bear the brunt of ‘a desperate effort of the enemy which otherwise would have been exerted upon the Canadian flank’. There was unstinting gratitude from the Canadian divisional commander, who knew Elliott had readily agreed to help although his men were tired and would be advancing without artillery support:

It is difficult to express the appreciation which I, and all units under my command, have for the unselfish spirit in which this decision was made and for the very gallant co-operation which was thus given us.

Similarly, the commander of the Canadian brigade closest to the Australians acknowledged that he and his men owed ‘a very great debt’ to Elliott and the 15th Brigade for the ‘very prompt and generous action’ which ‘enabled our attack to proceed in the initial stage and saved us numerous casualties’. He wrote to thank Elliott ‘most heartily’. Pompey was magnanimous in reply. Although ‘the same co-operation would have been proffered to any other troops similarly placed, it was a very great pleasure to be able to co-operate with the Canadians’. The 15th Brigade had ‘long looked forward’ to being ‘placed side by side’ with them, and ‘the result of the recent operations has fully justified this wish’.

Pompey’s contribution on 9 August was hardly the conduct of a commander who was unreliable as a team player. Moreover, his stipulation that assistance from his brigade was conditional upon approval from Hobbs contradicts those detractors who claimed he was too inclined to act independently of his superiors or the overall tactical situation. In fact, what happened on the afternoon of 9 August made Elliott’s outstanding contribution seem even better. Having passed through the 15th Brigade, the stalwarts of the 7th Battalion (including some veterans he had commanded at Gallipoli) suffered severe losses as they advanced without support on their left — just as the Canadians would have that morning without Pompey’s impromptu assistance — because Rosenthal’s Second Division did not arrive forward until well after it was directed to do so.

Elliott’s superiors, from Monash right up to Foch, were determined to maintain the pressure. The transformation since the months of desperate defence presented the promise of a substantial strategic gain at long last. With a weakened, war-weary enemy plagued by disorganisation and increasing demoralisation, a policy of relentless aggression might bring the ultimate reward of victory, and not just in the foreseeable future but quite soon, perhaps even before next winter. The challenge was to avoid being dazzled by this tantalising prospect into initiating inappropriate operations. Rash enterprises could still be punished by defenders of even mediocre strength and morale, and the most proficient attackers — the Australians in particular — were themselves under-strength numerically and anything but fresh. Meanwhile top-level German strategists, aware that winning the war was now beyond them, were desperately trying to infuse their forces with the steel to remain steadfast so they could negotiate peace on terms that were not devastatingly one-sided.

In these changed circumstances Haig issued a general order to announce the adoption of a new approach. The order reached Elliott’s brigade on 23 August:

To turn the present situation to account the most resolute offensive is everywhere desirable. Risks which a month ago would have been criminal to incur ought now to be incurred as a duty. It is no longer necessary to advance in regular lines and step by step. On the contrary each division should be given a distant objective which must be reached independently of its neighbour, and even if one’s flank is thereby exposed for the time being … The situation is most favourable. Let each one of us act energetically, and without hesitation push forward to our objective.

Two days later (as Gollan recorded in the brigade diary) Elliott reinforced this message in a personal address to his men:

The Brigadier addressed each Battalion separately and thanked the men for their splendid work since coming to the Somme area in March last. This, he said, did not imply that the units had done nothing prior to coming to the Somme, but the past six months had been the most strenuous the Brigade and the whole AIF had experienced. All ranks had acquitted themselves with credit, and there was not the slightest doubt that but for the AIF the enemy would have occupied Amiens and there was no telling what would have happened then; probably the whole course of the war would have altered … Now was the time to strike — while the enemy was reeling under the blows already given him. All men should realise that our efforts now would have a great effect on the termination of the war.

The fine line to be negotiated in trying to force the issue, now that the Germans were in a palpably bad way, while avoiding imprudent enterprises was underlined by a proposal involving the 15th Brigade in mid-August. Elliott’s men had been given a key role on the Fifth Division’s left in another large assault involving two AIF divisions and the Canadians. They had returned to the forward area and involved themselves in all the extensive preparations, all the deliberations, details, and discussions, only to be notified on the eve of the battle that it had been cancelled. This late change was initiated by Currie, who felt that the operation was unlikely to prove worthwhile even in the new environment now prevailing. The 15th Brigade was directed instead to revert to peaceful penetration.

Elliott’s men gave the Germans no respite, and succeeded in pushing them back gradually. Pompey was particularly pleased with a 59th lieutenant whose patrol managed to capture the startled occupant of a German latrine. On 23 August the Australians again spearheaded a major assault supervised by Rawlinson, but Elliott’s men were given a subordinate role assisting a fresher formation, Glasgow’s division. Having played its part capably in another pronounced success, the 15th Brigade was withdrawn for another brief spell, which was especially welcome after a burst of hot weather. ‘I never saw the war looking so promising for us’, Elliott told Kate, ‘but when the Bosche gets back on his old fortified Hindenburg line it may be a different tale’. As well as writing frequently to Kate, he was still writing chatty letters regularly to his children:

I am living in a nice old house today laddie, but the shells have broken all the windows and two cheeky little swallows have come in and built their nest alongside a roof beam just over my table and hatched young ones there, and I didn’t want to sack them so I had to have a board nailed on the beam under the nest to stop them making a mess of my table and papers, and the wee things didn’t mind a bit and are up there now just as cheery and cheeky as anything and their mum and daddy are flying in and out all day long feeding them.

By 29 August the offensive that had begun three weeks earlier had brought the AIF to one of the Germans’ strongest defensive positions at the Western Front. Péronne, the famous fortress now confronting the Australians, was protected not only by its massive ramparts and elevated south-eastern suburb of Flamicourt, by wooded hills to the east and further high ground to the south; even more daunting was the dominating height of Mont St Quentin a mile to the north, a formidable, sentinel-like bastion bereft of cover. Its occupants enjoyed commanding long-range observation to the north, south, and west. Yet another natural advantage for defenders here was the Somme itself. Fringed by numerous channels too deep to wade across and extensive marshland up to 1,000 yards wide, its canalised course curved in a sharp, almost right-angled bend near Péronne. Assisted by a tributary, the Somme further fortified the fortress by forming a moat around it. The beleaguered Germans had occupied Péronne and Mont St Quentin with specially chosen volunteers from five different divisions who were determined to resist the Australians. German strategists were counting on being able to hold their adversaries up in front of this exceptionally powerful stronghold for a considerable time — certainly long enough for them to make the mighty Hindenburg Line some fifteen miles further east, if in due course they had to fall back to it, virtually impregnable before winter.

The Fifth Division had returned to the front on 26 August under Monash’s system of frequent rotation. Hobbs initially gave Tivey’s 8th Brigade front-line responsibility with instructions to maintain the pressure. Late on 27 August Hobbs asked the 15th Brigade ‘to reconnoitre forward with a view to leap-frogging through the 8th Brigade and carrying on the advance’. Next morning Elliott and Gollan borrowed a car from Fifth Division and scrutinised the front themselves. The 8th Brigade had succeeded in pushing back the enemy considerably, but Pompey was unimpressed by what he saw when he reached the forward area south of Péronne:

The pursuit was being carried out with little energy … I … actually passed out into no-man’s-land on the right and, finding there was no opposition, urged the Co[mpan]y Commander whom I met to push forward and so turn the flank of those holding up the advance on the left. He did so. There seemed to me a lack of intelligent leadership and the Co[mpan]y Commanders had not been fully instructed as to their work.

With the Germans on the back foot and the situation fluid, Pompey was typically ebullient. He was intent on ensuring there would be no respite for the enemy when his own men, then approaching the front in a long arduous march across the ravaged Somme battlefield of 1916, took over from the 8th Brigade.

On the morning of 29 August, with the 15th Brigade likely to relieve Tivey’s men later that day, Pompey once again proceeded well forward. With him was Dave Doyle, who later reminisced about this memorable reconnaissance:

General Elliott was absolutely fearless. He was a great believer in seeing things for himself and would go anywhere. He would plod along with a complete disregard of shellfire … Accompanied by a member of his staff and a couple of signallers, Pompey set off to have a look at things. They went through the front line and down to the edge of the river. This in broad daylight. Coming back the small party was actually sniped at by a battery of whizzbangs — and the shooting was pretty good. Reaching a trench, the General found an old enemy dugout about fifty yards in advance of our front line. ‘This will do for Brigade headquarters’, said Pompey … Probably on no other occasion during the war did a general establish his headquarters in advance of his front line.

Specific instructions materialised at midday. The 15th Brigade, Hobbs told Gollan, was to advance through Tivey’s men, cross the Somme four miles south of Péronne and establish itself on the far side. Pompey was eager to oblige — even though it was by no means clear that all the Germans in the vicinity had retired across the Somme — and he summoned his battalion commanders to a conference at his remarkably advanced headquarters. There they were, Scanlan told Bean afterwards, ‘away out in front without a digger in front of them’. As Bean wrote in the Official History long afterwards, they were perched ‘high above the river … standing on the old parapets with maps and field glasses’, clearly visible to the Germans, as they ‘planned the intended advance’.

A few hours later, with battalions already moving in accordance with these arrangements, came sudden news of a change of plan. Monash had decided to tackle Péronne and Mont St Quentin with a co-ordinated, flexible operation involving three AIF divisions the following morning; on the right the Fifth Division’s role was to be undertaken by the 15th Brigade. But the order cancelling its relief of the 8th Brigade four miles south of Péronne did not arrive until after this changeover had commenced, and a dispatch rider who was sent to tell Elliott he was wanted at a divisional headquarters conference got lost. It was midnight by the time Pompey received this message.

Hurriedly returning from the front on horseback, he too missed a turn-off in the dark. It was 1.30am before he reached Hobbs’s headquarters and received his instructions — to transfer his brigade north to the area west of Péronne occupied by Wisdom’s 7th Brigade, to follow that formation when it crossed the Somme at dawn, and then to move through it and continue the advance. Elliott relayed this information to Gollan immediately by phone, sent his staff captain Clarrie Lay to Wisdom’s headquarters, and snatched a few hours’ badly needed sleep. Gollan’s concern about the possibility of runners getting lost prompted him to deliver these important instructions to each of the battalion commanders personally. The brigadier commended him for showing ‘great devotion to duty, as it was a very arduous and unpleasant task in the darkness and drizzling rain’.

Early next morning Elliott was on his way to his repositioned headquarters when he met Lay. Wisdom, Lay reported, had already decided that a crossing was impossible; even a relief, in Wisdom’s opinion, would be inadvisable before nightfall. ‘As it was very misty I disagreed’, Elliott affirmed, but the reprieve was a blessing for his men. Some were very weary, having trudged forward to replace 8th Brigade units only to retrace their steps after the order cancelling the relief reached them. With the 15th Brigade now taking over the task of crossing the Somme in front of Péronne, all Pompey could do was to ensure that the relief of Wisdom’s brigade began as soon as possible that evening. He directed that once his battalions were in position (the 57th, 58th, and 59th in the front line, in that order from right to left, and the 60th in reserve), they were ‘to institute a vigorous system of patrols to probe the marshes fringing the river and canal, and endeavour to find crossing places’.

During that night and the following day, 31 August, Elliott’s men tried to get across but were unsuccessful. They ‘found every approach guarded by the enemy, and machine-gun fire was opened on every movement’, Pompey noted. One patrol did manage to reach the far side at night, but the swampy expanse that then confronted them proved impenetrable. Another priority was to prevent the enemy from completing the destruction of any bridges still intact; Elliott was not convinced that the Germans had rendered all of them absolutely impassable.

Meanwhile an astonishing exploit on the 15th Brigade’s left, the partial capture of Mont St Quentin by the 5th Brigade of Rosenthal’s division, together with progress further north by Gellibrand’s Third Division, prompted Monash to throw two additional brigades into the fray. At dawn on 1 September the 6th Brigade was to complete the seizure of Mont St Quentin, and Cam Stewart’s 14th Brigade was given a most challenging task. Monash wanted it to deliver a left hook to the enemy by moving north and then east, crossing the Somme in the Second Division’s area, before swinging around to attack Péronne from the north-west.

This was a complicated manoeuvre to organise at short notice. The 14th Brigade units had to cover a sizeable distance, and their multiple objectives included the staunching of enemy resistance not only between Péronne and Mont St Quentin but also within the fortress town itself and beyond. Elliott, familiar with the difficult ground the 14th Brigade would have to cover just to get into position, considered all this a tall order and said so at a conference called to discuss and refine the arrangements. Monash’s aim was to exert maximum pressure on Péronne from the north; activity south-west of Péronne (where Pompey and his men were situated) was to be an adjunct only. But Elliott’s concern about the immensity of the 14th Brigade’s task was persuasive. Hobbs authorised him to persevere with the 15th Brigade’s attempts to cross the Somme, with a view to providing whatever support was possible for Stewart’s battalions. On his way back after the conference Elliott had some awkward moments when enemy gunners positioned on the heights opposite used their perfect observation to good effect.

Next morning the 14th Brigade’s attack began auspiciously. At 7.30am Elliott was informed that Stewart’s men had gained some sort of a foothold in Péronne. Immediately galvanised, the brigadier hastened forward, and located Scanlan and the acting commander of the 58th, Major Ferres (Watson was in England on leave). Both had their boots off, and neither seemed imbued with urgency. Pompey sought to alter this state of affairs, but Scanlan was unresponsive:

‘Have you heard what the 14th Brigade’s done? Are your men across the river?’

‘We have taken all possible steps, General’.

Scanlan explained that patrols had been dispatched, and men would be sent across as soon as a viable crossing was located.

‘But aren’t they across there yet?’

‘All possible steps are being taken’.

‘Damn it, I’ll take them over myself!’

With that Pompey headed off alone, down the slope to the canal, in full view of the Germans opposite. He made for a bridge that was reportedly destroyed and impassable:

I found that the whole bridge had collapsed from the explosion, but that one of the steel girders had lodged across the canal in such a way that it was comparatively easy for an active infantryman to cross, and did so.

Clambering up the eastern bank, he found a useful vantage point, but a German machine-gun deterred him from lingering. Returning to the canal, he directed a 59th platoon posted near the bridge on the western side to come over. He ‘waved his arm and bawled out to us to follow’ him across, wrote one of the first to do so, who described Pompey’s solo exploit as a ‘not altogether unusual’ feat for ‘our famous Brigadier’.

After repositioning this platoon, Pompey hurried back across the broken bridge, intent on getting more of his brigade over as soon as possible. In his haste he trod on a loose beam and plunged spectacularly into the canal. It was ‘very deep … with steep sides’, he found, and ‘I had considerable difficulty scrambling out’. Scanlan and Ferres, having decided after the brigadier’s hasty departure that they ought to go after him, laced up their boots and followed him down the slope, but German machine-gunners delayed their progress. They were taken aback when he panted up towards them, dripping wet. For the next few hours he once again became an arresting sight, directing developments with undiminished vim although trouserless. Doyle again:

While his only pants were drying the Brigade Commander stalked about clad only in his shirt. The spectacle of his portly figure strutting on the parapet, looking through his field glasses and shouting out messages for transmission to Division, is unforgettable.

He was later told that divisional communications had been hampered because so many signallers were circulating the news that ‘Pompey’s fallen in the Somme’.

The 58th and 59th companies sent across the Somme after Pompey’s dynamic and diverting intervention were unable to achieve much. He wanted them to attack Flamicourt in an envelopment manoeuvre: the 59th was to advance from the south, while the 58th proceeded to Péronne and utilised the 14th Brigade’s progress there to launch a thrust towards Flamicourt from the west. But Flamicourt was a tough nut to crack. The railway station was a particular problem. It afforded excellent visibility for the resolute machine-gunners garrisoned there, and had been transformed by concrete and steel reinforcement into a virtual pillbox impervious to even direct hits from heavy guns. The 59th companies made some progress towards it, but the inaccessible marshland and the lack of available cover combined with the defenders at the station to bring them to a halt.

Meanwhile Ferres took his 58th companies and the battalion intelligence officer, ‘Mick’ Moon VC (who had recently rejoined the brigade), to the west of Péronne. They found Norman Marshall’s 54th Battalion pinned down with no intention of attempting any further advance. The 58th companies, like their 59th counterparts, realised that their projected task was, for the time being at least, unfeasible. Elliott was notified that

circumvented as they were by the ditch and marsh on either flank, and with every street leading northwards swept by machine-gun fire from the northern ramparts, which the enemy still held, it was impossible, despite every effort, to make any headway.

That evening, having transferred brigade headquarters further forward to a position with a marvellous view overlooking Péronne, Elliott reviewed the 15th Brigade’s dispositions with Scanlan and Ferres, and was then notified that Hobbs had summoned him to a conference. A car was sent to collect him, but the driver could not locate his headquarters. After a lengthy delay Pompey decided to set off on foot, but ‘having missed the track in the dark I had a very rough time of it getting over the old battlefield to the rendezvous’. By the time he arrived, frustrated and exhausted after wandering around for hours in ‘a maze of tumbled trenches and barbed wire’, it was after 2.00am and the conference was long over. Twice in four days a Fifth Division emissary had failed to find him; each time he had then lost his way trying to proceed alone to his destination.

When Hobbs told him what had been decided in his absence Pompey was appalled. As part of a renewed assault ordered by Monash to be carried out early next morning by the Second and Fifth Divisions, the 14th Brigade was to tackle the same objectives it had been previously unable to attain, and the 15th Brigade was to assist once again by advancing towards Péronne from the south. Elliott, however, had concluded that the previous day’s attempts by his men had demonstrated the impossibility of accomplishing what his tired brigade was being asked to do, and he felt that the 14th Brigade was in a similar situation. He believed that since none of the other ‘senior commanders concerned had made a personal reconnaissance of the ground’ they ‘were inevitably quite unaware of the difficulties involved’. The assessment he gave Hobbs was blunt:

I felt obliged to tell the Divisional Commander that the task laid down was far too great for already exhausted men and that in setting it they were courting disaster. He replied that he had not wanted to do it but we must protect the flank of the other Division. [Nevertheless] if I was convinced my men were too exhausted for the task in front of them, he would put it before the Corps Commander [Monash]. I knew that I could barely reach my battalions in line as it was [and] if, as was almost certainly the case, the Corps Commander, who could know nothing of the ground…, ordered the matter to proceed I would never get the orders through in time, so having made my protest I decided I would carry on.

Since it was now too late to stop the operation, any notion of allowing the 14th Brigade to tackle such a daunting assignment unaided was unthinkable to Pompey. But how could his brigade help when its allotted task was, he believed, impracticable? No alternative method of assistance, he concluded after frantic evaluation, seemed more feasible. All he could come up with — ‘conceived’, he later admitted, ‘as a sort of forlorn hope’ because he ‘felt obliged to attempt the impossible’ — was a proposal

to defile my men in single file across the enemy’s front …, join in the fight for Peronne itself and later advance southwards. I was satisfied that unless something like that were done the 14th would be badly defeated, they had been allotted far too big a task for their strength, and although my own proposal seemed to me hairbrained … there was this bare chance that the enemy would never dream that anyone would be mad enough to attempt it, and the occasion required desperate measures.

Hobbs reluctantly agreed. The previous night, he noted in his diary, he had been busy until 3.00am after a ‘very difficult and trying day’, but this situation was the most onerous he had ever known: ‘I have been up against many trials, difficulties and problems in my life, but never have I had to face such an awful responsibility and danger’. Elliott, who wholeheartedly endorsed Monash’s maxim that infantry should ‘advance under the maximum possible protection of the maximum possible array of mechanical resources’, felt that the 14th Brigade’s task was a departure from this principle of such magnitude that it was difficult to justify. His forthright assessment reinforced Hobbs’s misgivings, and Hobbs made sure that Monash knew the extent of the exhaustion in Fifth Division. Monash was aware that he was making severe demands on Hobbs and his division, but was ruthlessly determined to give the retreating enemy no respite, no time to make the defences stronger than they already were: ‘I was compelled to harden my heart and to insist that it was imperative to recognise a great opportunity and to seize it unflinchingly’. The concern of Elliott and Hobbs about the task facing Stewart’s men was to be validated by the casualty figures. Eight different AIF brigades were engaged at Péronne and Mont St Quentin; the 14th Brigade had nearly twice as many losses as any of the others.

Armed with Hobbs’s consent to his audacious amendment, Elliott galloped back to his headquarters to organise its implementation. At 4.15am, with zero hour less than two hours away, he briefed his battalion commanders, carefully concealing his own misgivings about the desperate gamble. He decided to lend the 58th to his former colonel Norman Marshall, whose 54th Battalion had established itself in western Péronne and had been trying to clear the rest of the town. Two battalions, the 59th and 60th, were to follow the rest of the 14th Brigade around or through Péronne, while the 57th remained behind ready to advance if appropriate.

Ferres sent Moon away to get in touch with Marshall urgently. Moon had never run two miles harder, but when he reached 54th Battalion headquarters he found, to his amazement, that Marshall and the staff were sound asleep. From this legendary leader Moon was expecting to hear crisp instructions for the deployment of the donated 58th Battalion as well as appreciative thanks for his brigadier’s admirable gesture (which Bean later described as ‘almost unprecedented generosity’). Yet all he received from the drowsy colonel was a vague referral to the 56th Battalion, which was ‘running the show’. Unbeknown to Moon, however, Marshall had managed to get hardly any sleep for three days, had no idea that the 58th Battalion had been allotted to him, and had mistakenly concluded that the 56th had taken over the main role in Péronne.

Meanwhile the 58th companies had reached Péronne and were proceeding along the main street when an enemy barrage caught them. About 40 men were hit, including Ferres himself and two other senior officers. Ferres lost a good deal of blood from a painful thigh wound, but managed to keep going despite limping badly. He was endeavouring to reorganise the battalion when Moon turned up with disconcerting news of the shemozzle concerning Marshall and the 54th. Ferres paused to reflect. He could either sit tight and wait for his superiors to sort out the mess and give him clear instructions, or he could attack on his own initiative immediately.

He decided to attack. The Germans defended fiercely, most notably a machine-gunner operating from a far upper window. But the attackers, led by 26-year-old Wimmera farmer Lieutenant Tom Slaughter, worked their way methodically from house to house, Lewis-gunners engaging the defending positions while their comrades manoeuvred round to the side and then charged: ‘this method proved effective without exception’, Ferres observed. Eventually even the elevated machine-gunner was toppled, along with his gun, into the street. It was a tough fight, but the 58th performed brilliantly and Péronne was conquered.

This was a marvellous achievement, but German resistance nearby had by no means ceased. The 59th and 60th Battalions had been pinned down, like the 14th Brigade units they were supporting, by machine-gun fire from St Denis Wood north of Péronne and from Mont St Quentin further north. ‘Whole attack held up’, Scanlan informed Elliott, after personally reconnoitring the most advanced positions; ‘14th Brigade report heavy casualties’. Even though the 58th was mopping up Péronne, Scanlan added, ‘considerable artillery fire and a further advance along spur east of Mont St Quentin is essential for any further advance to be made’ by the 59th and 60th (and the units with them). Tom Kerr, commanding the 60th while Layh was on leave, concurred. Elliott, accepting and endorsing this assessment, passed it on to Hobbs. Ferocious shellfire from the Germans as well as the lethal chatter of their machine-guns continued to speak volumes about their resolve to repel the Australians. The sustained bombardment endured by the 59th seemed even of Polygon Wood severity; to the hard-pressed 58th in Péronne itself (as Elliott later reported), ‘the very foundations of the old city seemed to rock and sway as if in the throes of an earthquake’.

In the afternoon Hobbs directed Stewart to organise an advance eastwards towards St Denis Wood. Stewart did so, and a copy of these messages reached 15th Brigade headquarters. Once again Elliott reacted to an initiative from his superiors with abhorrence. It was precisely what he had strongly advised Hobbs not to authorise until the Germans overlooking that valley were removed. Pompey had ‘no doubt’ that the attackers would be ‘utterly annihilated’. Convinced he had a better grasp of the situation than any other senior commander (thanks in particular to Scanlan’s valiant inspection), he telephoned Hobbs to protest. If the proposed operation was undertaken despite his recommendation to the contrary, Pompey told Hobbs, he was prepared to help carry it out, but would resign the following day: ‘I would no longer serve in the forces if men were wantonly sacrificed without proper reconnaissance and knowledge of the situation’. Hobbs, no doubt wondering when his tribulations in this organisational nightmare of a battle would end, responded by convening a divisional conference at Elliott’s panoramic headquarters. Not only would the superb view assist their deliberations; Pompey’s propensity to get lost while trying to find someone else’s headquarters made it a good idea to have this one at his.

At 6.00pm Hobbs, Elliott, Stewart, Tivey, and their staffs began a thorough review of the situation. The upshot was vindication for Pompey. It became apparent that Hobbs and Stewart, unlike Elliott, had been basing their decisions on faulty maps, which incorrectly situated the tactically vital feature of St Denis Wood. The operation opposed by Pompey was cancelled, the 14th Brigade was relieved, and a new policy was initiated. For the time being the aim was not to push the enemy hard, but to just keep in touch in order to discern any retirement quickly. Bean was no doubt aware of this controversial aspect of the battle (Pompey, of course, was characteristically frank about it in his report), but opted not to mention it in the Official History. It seems that no account by anyone else has referred to it either. While it is true that compiling a compressed account of the complicated fluctuations of this five-day battle was no easy task, a vehement protest involving a resignation threat by the most famous brigadier in the AIF — especially when the basis of that protest was vindicated — surely should have been mentioned in the Official History.

The main fighting in and around Péronne was over, but the 15th Brigade remained in the forward area for several days before being withdrawn. Elliott’s men were engaged in consolidation and line-straightening, exploitation and pursuit. During these activities Pompey continued to make his invigorating presence felt, reconnoitring advanced positions to ensure that vigilant probing was maintained and no opportunity was missed.

Doyle accompanied him on some lively escapades. ‘The General goes forward and I have a wild chase through Peronne after him’, Doyle noted in his diary on 4 September, referring to their visit to 57th Battalion headquarters, despite vigorous enemy shellfire, because Pompey wanted to inspect front-line developments. At one stage the boyish exhilaration Elliott sometimes displayed under fire became evident as he spotted a boat, lowered his burly frame into it, and rowed about exuberantly with his reluctant intelligence officer while shells crashed into the water nearby. ‘I hope they don’t mistake us for a dreadnought and sink us’, Pompey roared gleefully above the din. Hearing a cat meowing in distress, they rowed across at the brigadier’s instigation to rescue it.

While relishing these high-spirited adventures, Pompey was well aware that extreme demands were being made on the stamina of not just Doyle but the whole brigade. On 3 September, Elliott noted, his men ‘were too exhausted to do any patrolling and rested where they lay, too exhausted in most cases to go for their food’. Two days later he told Hobbs they were ‘absolutely done … and must be relieved’. Soon afterwards they were.

Once more Elliott and his men had been prominent in an outstanding accomplishment. Hobbs felt that it was as good as anything yet achieved by the AIF: ‘how our men achieved the success they did is beyond me in the face of the difficulties they had to surmount’, he wrote. Rawlinson described this triumph more than once as ‘the finest single feat of the war’. He was not the only well-credentialled observer to think so. The Australians, although outnumbered and pushed close to the limit of their endurance, had overcome tenacious resistance from specially chosen defenders and driven the Germans out of a formidable bastion, which they had intended to retain for at least a month. And, yet again, there had been crucial contributions from the 15th Brigade and its tempestuous leader. Saluting these contributions on 7 September, Hobbs declared publicly that there was no better general in France than Elliott (and admitted privately that he had been right to protest against the operation that was cancelled five days earlier).

As usual after a big battle, Pompey obtained numerous personal narratives from 15th Brigade participants, and compiled an incisive report of his own. In this document he praised the ‘excellent’ artillery liaison, and commended the ‘communications forward of brigade’, which ‘worked well’, although contact with Fifth Division had been maintained less successfully. He again upheld the importance of personal reconnaissance by commanders: those ‘unable or unwilling to do this must … leave all initiative to the officer on the spot’. His report did not conceal his hostility to the proposed operations he had amended on 2 September. He also criticised Rosenthal’s ‘persistently exaggerated’ claims of the Second Division’s progress, which had exasperated him during the battle and, he felt, hindered the 14th and 15th Brigades’ endeavours.

To Kate, Elliott emphasised the ferocity of the conflict and the gruelling impact on his brigade. It was five days of ‘almost incessant fighting night and day’, which ‘raged with the utmost fury’. The combat was ‘just about as terrible as it could be’, he told Belle. After a supreme effort his valiant men had won another marvellous victory, but

oh, Katie, the poor old Brigade! It would break your heart to see all that is left of them, the bravest wan, haggard and drawn, the others like men in a sleep walk almost … For the first time in my life I am hoping we shall not be engaged until the men have a little rest. It was an awful experience.

The AIF was being stretched to the absolute limit. Numerically its battalions were woefully under-strength. Reinforcements were inadequate; the flow of recruits from Australia had slowed to a trickle. The AIF’s outstanding proficiency in small-unit tactics compensated to some extent; the skilfulness and experienced professionalism that now supplemented the courage and dash Australian soldiers had shown ever since April 1915 was an important factor in their 1918 triumphs. But more and more was being asked of fewer and fewer. Monash was pushing the AIF hard because he felt that he could significantly shorten the war by doing so, but there were increasing signs that this policy was not without risk.

The culmination was a rebellious strike in the 15th Brigade. Early on 5 September, with Elliott’s men looking forward to an overdue withdrawal, the 59th Battalion was ordered to pursue Germans retreating east of Péronne. Three platoons of B Company, together with a few men from A Company (about 60 in all), refused to budge. Scanlan spoke forcefully to these rebels, but they remained defiant. They were feeling too exhausted and too exploited, they told him. There had been no proper rest for far too long, and they were fed up with having to do more than their fair share just because the British were not up to it. At 7.15am Scanlan called at brigade headquarters and notified Elliott. Nonplussed and embarrassed, he then offered his resignation. Bean described this incident as ‘the first recorded mutiny in the AIF’, but his account in the Official History misdated it (a mistake which has prompted at least two historians to state incorrectly that the 59th was afflicted by two mutinies in September 1918).

Elliott’s response to this challenging situation confirmed the quality of his leadership. He told Scanlan to go forward with the rest of the battalion, leaving the strikers where they were, and to forget about resigning. Pompey then sent Bob Salmon to ask the dissidents for a written statement outlining their grievances. The document they gave Salmon emphasised their exhaustion, overwork, and lack of relief. It also accused ‘the Australian Higher Command’ of failing to bring these circumstances sufficiently to its British superiors’ attention, a neglect that had forced the rebels to act drastically as ‘the only way they can impress the authorities of their needs’.

After studying this statement, Elliott went to the rebels and addressed them in compelling style. There was no blood-and-thunder bluff and bluster. He began by saying that he had carefully read their grievances. In some, he conceded, they had ‘cause for complaint’; but the action they had taken was a dubious way to pursue redress. It amounted to a particularly serious crime for a soldier, more so than they probably realised, and a slur on the battalion, the brigade, and their gallant comrades who had fought and died alongside them. He himself was greatly saddened, not just in his capacity as their brigadier but because he had a special association with the 59th, having commanded its ‘parent’ battalion, the original 7th, in some of the AIF’s most famous battles. Referring to a 1797 mutiny in the British navy by way of precedent, Pompey observed that genuine grievances had motivated those naval mutineers but the ringleaders were shot nonetheless. Urging the 59th dissidents to reconsider, he told them that he proposed to leave and return in half an hour. If, after reviewing their attitude, they still refused to go forward, he would have them sent to the rear; if, however, they agreed to come back to their unit, he was prepared to speak on their behalf when the incident was officially investigated because he believed they did not fully grasp the gravity of their action. The brigadier then left. When he returned 30 minutes later the rebels indicated that they wanted to rejoin the battalion.

This incident was a clear warning about the danger of pushing the AIF too hard. Elliott certainly heeded it. First and foremost was the obvious requirement to provide his men with the rest they so desperately needed. He was on the phone to Hobbs soon after Scanlan reported the trouble in the 59th (as Hobbs noted in his diary):

Gen. Elliott rang me up at 7.30am and told me his men were absolutely done, fed up and on the verge of mutiny and must be relieved. I told him they would be tonight.

Elliott was similarly responsive concerning other grievances in the rebels’ statement. Not enough food was reaching the forward area, the rebels claimed, and they were not getting a ‘fair deal’ from the battalion medical officer. Elliott appointed Doyle to inquire into the food complaint, and called for an immediate report from the 59th’s doctor. Doyle’s formal inquiry on 6 September concluded that the accusation about inadequate rations was, as Elliott put it, ‘without any substantial foundation, but undoubtedly some grievances did exist’ (he passed these on to Hobbs). The medical report was unequivocal:

The men are one and all suffering from excessive fatigue, loss of sleep and nervous strain. In my opinion the limit of endurance has been reached for most of the men.

Elliott, pleased that his inclination to handle the rebels with kid gloves was supported by Hobbs and Monash, continued to do his utmost to avoid any repetition of the incident. He urged his battalion commanders to ‘nurse the men at every opportunity’. They had to be ‘rested as much as possible’. Pompey arranged for an instructional lecture to be given about the provision of rations to remove any misapprehensions on that score, and reminded his officers that there was plenty they could do to reduce tedium in the ranks by fostering an intelligent interest in military and non-military activities. Stimulating recreational pursuits should be another priority. The brigadier also instructed his battalion commanders to emphasise that everything possible was being done for the men, and to reaffirm that redoubled effort now might well produce ‘a speedier termination of the war’. At the same time senior officers had to be ‘on their guard against anyone who might take advantage of momentary discontent and exhaustion’ to whip up further agitation.

Other Australians emulated B Company of the 59th in rebelling because they felt they were being unfairly overworked to compensate for conspicuous British inadequacy. A group of 119 men in the 1st Battalion refused to advance when directed to participate in an attack on the outer defences of the Hindenburg Line. But there were no further incidents of that kind in the 15th Brigade. However, later that month Elliott had to contend with an even larger bunch of strong-willed recalcitrants. Trouble arose this time in a different battalion over a different issue. The cause of the mutiny that erupted in the 60th Battalion late in September 1918 was the decision to disband it.

Disbandment had been on the cards for some time. In January 1918 Birdwood had foreshadowed to Defence minister Pearce that a reduction of one battalion per brigade was probably inevitable as a result of dwindling reinforcements (Britain and other combatant nations had already implemented such action). It was decided, partly because of the Australian government’s reluctance to approve this unpalatable step, not to break any unit up unless this became unavoidable. The 36th and 52nd Battalions had been disbanded shortly after their gallant attacks at Villers-Bretonneux on 4 and 25 April respectively, and the 47th Battalion in the 12th Brigade had been dissolved as well. By August various other AIF units were significantly under-strength, and senior British strategists were insisting that it would be administratively inefficient not to disband more. But most Australians felt profoundly attached to their battalion, and Monash resisted the pressure. So long as the battalions each ‘have 30 Lewis guns it doesn’t very much matter what else they have’, he maintained. Birdwood, however, was still GOC AIF, and he sided with his British superiors; Monash eventually had to yield.

Monash’s acquiescence was influenced by the sudden authorisation of home leave for original Anzacs. Soldiers from some combatant nations had occasionally been able to go home on leave during the war, but the tyranny of distance had prevented their Australian counterparts from being allowed to do so. After four years away, that opportunity had now been obtained for the early enlisters by Prime Minister Hughes, who spent much of 1918 in England combatively engaged in a range of war-related matters. In September, during one of his visits to France, he met Elliott for the first time. The Prime Minister arrived very late at the brigade parade Pompey had organised especially for him (having not turned up at all when one was scheduled the previous day), stayed very briefly and, the brigadier felt, ‘looked very absent-minded and had little to say’. (In fairness to Hughes, he did have a lot on his mind in mid-September.)

Pompey did not think much of Billy Hughes, and believed that the introduction of home leave for the originals was ‘a big mistake’. These experienced men included many of the best leaders and trainers, and were the ‘backbone’ of the AIF. Pompey himself had been deprived of Layh, who accepted the offer of a place in the first batch of returning originals and departed on 14 September. With Denehy and Scanlan also eligible for leave, Pompey was concerned that he might lose three capable colonels in quick succession. Besides, this was no time for easing up or complacency — with the Germans ‘more or less crippled’, now was the time to finish them off. The decision ‘shows the absolute folly of allowing politicians like Hughes to meddle with the Army’, Pompey fulminated. ‘If Mr Hughes had been in the pay of the Germans he could not have dealt us a more paralysing stroke’. Monash was also unimpressed with the Anzac leave initiative, which potentially affected over 6,000 Australians and made it harder to resist the pressure for further disbandments.

Each AIF brigade apart from the first four was to be reconstituted on a three battalion basis. With three units already disbanded, seven more battalions were to be broken up immediately, including one from the 15th Brigade. The 60th had always been the most vulnerable battalion in Elliott’s brigade. At an early stage, instructions were circulated that in those AIF brigades containing battalions recruited entirely from one state, as the 15th Brigade was, ‘as a general rule, and unless there are special reasons for the contrary, the fourth (or junior in numerical order) is to be eliminated’. In the aftermath of Villers-Bretonneux the 60th evidently only narrowly avoided the fate suffered by the 52nd, which had also lost heavily in that famous counter-attack on 24-25 April. On 14 May Elliott cabled a fervent plea home to his friend Duigan, who had commanded the 60th before succumbing to severe ill-health:

AIF authorities decree 60th Battalion too weak [to] carry on … no other reinforcements available. 60th Battalion fought hardest, penetrated farthest [into] enemy’s ranks, killed most, lost most men [at] Villers-Bretonneux. For such a deed as this [the] French grant Croix de Guerre, the Germans the Iron Cross to their regiments, ensuring men immortal renown. Australia leaves hers to perish like sheep in drought time to please her Bolsheviks. Such regiments are not bred in a day … In all Melbourne [are] there not a thousand volunteers to save this regiment created from its suburbs, blood of its blood, flesh of its flesh, bone of its bone, having won imperishable fame, from dissolution and the Brigade robbed of its right arm?

However, dispatch of this cable was blocked by Birdwood, who directed Hobbs to reprimand Elliott for what he described as its indiscreet wording and ‘severe criticism of Military Authority’.

Four months later, when disbandment was decreed by Elliott’s superiors, the earlier instructions applicable to same-state brigades were repeated, confirming the 60th’s vulnerability. On 24 September Elliott was briefed about an imminent AIF assault on the Hindenburg Line and ordered to disband the 60th immediately. He decided to transfer the 60th into a combined and strengthened 59th Battalion, with the 60th becoming A and B Companies of the 59th, and the ‘old’ 59th comprising the new C and D Companies.

The rearrangement was to be formalised at a parade on 26 September. Beforehand Major Tom Kerr, the acting 60th commander, told Elliott that the men were upset about the battalion’s dissolution, but he was not anticipating any of the rebelliousness already evident in other AIF battalions sentenced to disbandment. At the parade, however, few of the 60th men complied when Scanlan issued orders to them. Elliott, who was present (having assured Kerr he would speak to the men), was furious. One mutiny was more than enough. He rode up and gave them a piece of his mind in no uncertain terms.

‘This nonsense must cease at once’, Pompey thundered. He told the rebels he was surprised and pained to witness such defiance. If they were not going to obey lawful orders they would find themselves with a different brigadier, because he was not going to command a mob. In the AIF the death penalty could be imposed for desertion or mutiny. Where a large body of men mutinied, the ringleaders would be executed. If their identities could not be determined, then probably one in every ten would be shot. Pompey was so fired up, and expressed this threat with such menace, that some onlookers became convinced that he was prepared to shoot every tenth man himself there and then. ‘We’ve got bullets too’, remarked one of the rebels.

Changing tack, influenced perhaps by that pointed interjection, Elliott proceeded to explain why the disbandment decision had been taken. ‘What’s the use of keeping a full battalion staff with transport organised to administer a thousand men’, he asked, merely ‘to follow 200 men about the country?’

It’s no use blaming the AIF authorities … Blame the politicians in Australia who, when we enlisted, promised to support us to the last man and the last shilling, [but failed to provide] the reinforcements to keep our splendid force going.

When asked months earlier to nominate the worst battalion in his brigade, Elliott continued, he had replied that there was ‘no worst and no best’; in that situation, his superiors had directed, it was the last battalion that had to go. He read out the passionate cable he sent Duigan to avert the demise of the 60th, explaining that it had been suppressed. He concluded with an appeal to the dissidents’ better judgment, urging them not to be influenced by outsiders, and said he would leave them for half an hour to enable them to reconsider their position. It was a memorable address, as the diary of one of the rebels attests:

Col. Scanlan … ordered slope arms — none budged. He then demanded it again — none stirred. Then old Pompey on his big black neddy fell on us like an avalanche. Man he was mad. If he’d had his revolver a few would have been shot very likely. He … detailed the law dealing with mutiny. Then he dealt with the necessity of being broken up. Then he pleaded.

Leaving the rebels for half an hour after giving them plenty to think about had worked well with the 59th dissenters, who were ready to comply on his return, but the 60th recalcitrants were not convinced so easily. Not the slightest disrespect to the brigadier was intended, a number of spokesmen assured Elliott, but several concerns about the disbandment remained unresolved. ‘It seems like deserting our dead’, some said with tears in their eyes. So Pompey had further explaining to do. There was no foreseeable prospect of recruits or returning wounded rebuilding the battalion to its former strength; the identity and colours of the 60th would be retained to the extent possible — the training unit in England would now be known as the 60th Battalion, and ex-60th men would be able to retain their colour patches; the 59th was not a more appropriate battalion to disband, despite the recent refusal of some of its men to advance; and any rumour that the Australians would be transferred to Fifth Army so they could be squandered in gratification of Birdwood’s latest ambitions was simply not true. These responses did the trick. Pompey handed the men back to Scanlan, and all four companies of the newly constituted 59th marched away together in fine style.

But it was a close call. In every other AIF battalion supposed to be disbanded in September 1918, the repugnance of the rank and file resulted in non-compliance. The intensity of feeling among the 60th men was no less; the difference was the calibre and influence of their brigadier. It was, as Bean recognised, ‘a tribute to the unrivalled hold of Brig-Genl “Pompey” Elliott on the loyalty of his men’ that the 60th Battalion only agreed to join the 59th ‘after being addressed by this beloved stout-hearted Australian’.

The following day, however, there was a revival of the trouble. Overnight Pompey’s men were visited by rebels from other battalions earmarked for dissolution; they reported that they had successfully prevented their units from being disbanded. These other dissidents, having maintained an independent existence under their own leaders (assisted by sympathetic comrades who donated or pilfered rations for them), had been given a reprieve — much to Elliott’s disgust — and allowed to participate as reinstated battalions in the major operation about to be launched against the Hindenburg Line. In those circumstances renewed agitation in the 60th was predictable, and Elliott was not surprised when a deputation of 60th men asked to see him on 27 September.

He went over all the arguments again, adding that the rebels’ apparent success in other battalions was illusory. All they had gained was a temporary reprieve; their battalions would still be disbanded after the attack, if necessary by denying them reinforcements so that they gradually withered ignominiously. He reminded his men that the 15th Brigade was about to go forward for an important operation; the Americans would be attacking initially, and the AIF had to support them and exploit their success. Any 60th men who were not prepared to help their comrades would be taken to the rear, locked up, and charged with mutiny. It was another challenging test of his leadership and influence, but his spirited appeal to his soldiers’ loyalty and his blunt outline of the consequences of rebellion proved a persuasive combination. He was understandably proud:

By using my influence to its utmost I managed to sway the men over the line, and they marched off in grand style. My Brigade is the only one in which the reorganisation was successfully accomplished.

Elliott was pleased to be in an operation involving the Americans. He and his men had developed an excellent rapport with a group of Americans attached to the 15th Brigade in June. In the 15th Brigade’s sector there were three separate barriers in the Hindenburg Line system. They were, in the order Elliott’s men would encounter them, the main Hindenburg line, the Le Catelet line, and the Beaurevoir line. The Americans’ objective was situated beyond the Le Catelet line. Once they had consolidated there, the Australians (including the 15th Brigade) were to pass through them and undertake a more difficult open-warfare advance over two miles further past the Beaurevoir line.

However, as Elliott went forward on 29 September to follow his brigade’s advance, leaving Gollan in charge at (rear) brigade headquarters, he noticed ‘a great deal of confusion’. Numerous American stragglers, apparently leaderless, were backtracking. Elliott himself halted several of these groups and turned them round. ‘Americans seem to be disorganised’, he told Hobbs. Pompey’s chagrin was intense as he realised the extent of the fiasco, which was largely attributable to the Americans’ inexperience. (Afterwards he learned that the 15th Brigade lieutenants loaned by him to help these uninitiated allies with mopping-up and other front-line techniques had not carried out this important task because an American general had kept them at his headquarters to show him how to run the battle.) Moreover, Pompey found,

the 59th lost heavily from surprise fire from flank and left rear as well as front, coming from trenches we had been informed had been captured already, and it was necessary to take steps to deal with them.

In fact, this battalion’s commander had a narrow escape. Scanlan was leading the 59th through dense wire at the main Hindenburg line — with thick fog limiting visibility and the Americans’ objective still two miles ahead — when he was startled by a warning shout. His adjacent adjutant had suddenly spotted a German 30 yards ahead who was taking aim at them. Scanlan immediately ‘fell among the wire, tearing my hands and my trousers but saving my life’, while the Lewis-gunners accompanying him quickly dealt with this German post. However, it was obvious that things had not gone according to plan. Far from it. On the 15th Brigade’s left the Americans operating in front of Gellibrand’s Third AIF Division had made even less progress (although on the right, where the British 46th Division performed brilliantly, the situation was more satisfactory). It was going to be up to the Australians to attain — without the vital element of surprise or much artillery assistance — most of the American objectives as well as their own.

Once again Elliott and his brigade were equal to the challenge. The brigadier told his battalion commanders to organise an advance themselves as soon as possible, and to take the Americans forward in the process; the colonels were to tell him what they had decided, and he would arrange artillery support. Denehy and Watson decided to attack the Le Catelet line at 3.00pm. They arranged for their battalions (Scanlan’s 59th was now in reserve) to be assisted by tanks and Americans, as well as the supporting barrage requested by Elliott. But this barrage proved to be disappointingly feeble, and the alerted Germans rained a lethal fire on the attackers. Nearly all the tanks were hit straightaway, no less than half the 58th men engaged soon became casualties, and the 57th suffered severe losses as well. Nevertheless, after ferocious fighting, the 15th Brigade established itself in the Le Catelet line. Next morning Elliott went forward to confer with Denehy, and became involved in the organisation of various subsidiary manoeuvres to consolidate his brigade’s gains, but essentially the main focus on 30 September was on retrieving the much more serious situation on the left.

That night, however, Elliott was summoned to a conference, where he learned that an attack on a wide frontage was to be launched early the following morning. Arriving back at his own headquarters around midnight, he briefed his waiting battalion commanders about the operation. All three battalions in the 15th Brigade were to advance together, with Norman Marshall’s 54th alongside the 59th.

A sharp ancillary barrage rendered enemy resistance to this attack much less formidable. Each of Elliott’s battalions soon reported success. Pompey encouraged them to exploit beyond their assigned goals. When Denehy notified him that the 57th had reached its objective and could probably have gone further though the men were very tired, Pompey’s reaction was characteristic: ‘Damn it, if you can do it, do it now!’ Hobbs was so encouraged by the reports of rapid progress reaching him that he urged Elliott’s men to tackle the Beaurevoir line, the last of the three barriers in the Hindenburg system. However, like the Le Catelet line, it was strongly held — German resistance remained fierce at these main barriers though less determined between them — and this task was never really feasible for Pompey’s exhausted, depleted units. That night the 15th Brigade was withdrawn, having completed (as Bean stated in the Official History) its ‘exceedingly difficult task of confronting the Beaurevoir Line’.

That was the final battle for Elliott and his men. On 5 October, in fact, the last AIF brigade still engaged was withdrawn. The Australian Corps, having spearheaded the rupture of the mighty Hindenburg Line system, scored a prolonged rest as well as lavish praise from Rawlinson for its ‘series of successes unsurpassed in this great war’. ‘We are away back in peace country’ where it ‘seems like there is no war at all’, Elliott wrote, but the carnage was never far from his thoughts. His brigade had done ‘splendidly’ in the Hindenburg Line battle, but it was ‘another three days’ dreadful fighting’, he told Kate. Saddened once again by the casualties — which included over 30 officers in his brigade, and reduced it to the numerical strength of one and a half battalions — he was dismayed to find two of his ‘old 7th boys’ among the killed. They included George Elliott’s friend and football team-mate Stan Neale, a fine officer ‘who had been right through from the very beginning’, had ‘never had a scratch or been ill at all’, and was about to depart for Australia on Anzac leave.

In a letter to J.F. Henderson Elliott described in admiring detail the extraordinary gallantry of 23-year-old Lieutenant Norman Dalgleish, one of his pre-war Essendon boys. Not only had Dalgleish kept going despite multiple wounds; he had also insisted — even after a shell fragment smashed into his head, inflicting terrible injuries and rendering him speechless — on informing his superiors personally (with a mixture of sign language, writing, and sketching, the paper scarred by blood pouring from his face) that his beleaguered company badly needed reinforcements. They arrived, thanks to his exceptional dedication, just in time. Conveyed to hospital, Dalgleish asked a nurse to help him compile gallantry commendations for two of his NCOs. That task completed, he collapsed and died. Touched by Pompey’s stirring letter, Henderson read it to Dalgleish’s father (who ‘broke down completely and cried like a child’, Henderson told Elliott), and gave it to the Melbourne Herald, where it was reproduced under arresting headlines: ‘AS HIS LIFE-BLOOD FLOWS, OFFICER COMPLETES TASK: DUTY DONE WITH LAST BREATH’.

Pompey was also particularly affected by the recent death of one of his original 7th Battalion officers, Eric Connelly, who had re-enlisted after being sent home with a severe Gallipoli wound. Having shown impressive talent as a staff officer in the Third Division, Connelly had been fatally wounded by an aeroplane bomb dropped near his camp. He was a ‘splendid fellow’, Pompey wrote, and the wife he had married just before leaving Australia the second time was now on her way to England. ‘Won’t it be a dreadful shock to her on her arrival, away from home and friends and everything’, he reflected.

Compared to the ubiquitous torment inflicted by this terrible war, another decoration was merely a pleasant distraction. Still, it was undeniably satisfying to be recognised with the French Croix de Guerre and a citation proclaiming that the 15th Brigade’s ‘brilliant results’ were ‘due in a very great measure to his personality, his strength of character, his initiative and his military talents’. The crushing devastation of the hopes and ideals of a generation was irreparable, but at least the conflict was hastening to its finale. Under sustained pressure the Germans kept retreating; their national cohesion rapidly disintegrated. Peace negotiations began, and an armistice ended the fighting on 11 November. At last it was all over.