A Tactical Triumph
‘On the battered and blocked line of dirt, timber, wire-netting, concrete and dead, which was all that remained of the once splendid trenches of the front system, the whole attack had poured so swiftly that the Germans had no opportunity to resist. They were bombed in their dugouts or bayoneted within two yards of them.’—Colonel Hugh Stewart describes the New Zealanders’ attack at Messines on 7 June 1917.143
By the opening months of 1917, the strategic outlook for the Allies had not improved. The Russians were now effectively out of the war and the Bolsheviks had seized power in Moscow. The Italians had been decisively beaten at Caporetto, and the Germans had declared a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping. By April 1917, 800,000 tons of shipping had been sunk and Britain now faced the prospect of defeat by starvation.
On the Western Front, morale in the French Army had collapsed after the failure of the Nivelle offensive, and mutinies had forced it temporarily out of the line. The Americans had entered the war, but it would be a year before their manpower and industrial strength could be effectively mobilised. Historian John Terraine described 1917 as ‘the black year of the war’ for the Allies, with good reason.
For the New Zealanders based at Sailly, the trench warfare went on. On 21 February, a battalion of Aucklanders, preceded by a 98-gun bombardment, raided a section of the opposing German trenches, blowing up bomb stores, destroying machine guns, and taking 44 Germans prisoner. The ‘stunt’ was again a costly one: over 150 New Zealanders were listed as killed, wounded or missing.
The German response was chivalrous. Instead of shooting down the Aucklanders who were attempting to recover their wounded from no-man’s-land, German soldiers climbed out of their trench, put their hands in the air, ordered a machine gun to cease fire, and allowed the men to recover their wounded. When all were in, they lowered their hands, stood down and the war went on. Ormond Burton described the incident as ‘the finest and most chivalrous thing that I saw during the whole war’.144
Meanwhile, the War Council in London was pressuring New Zealand to provide a second division for service on the Western Front. The country, however, was growing war weary and increasingly unwilling to make more human and financial sacrifices for the imperial cause. Defence Minister Allen felt that New Zealand was sending more than its fair share of reinforcements, and it was now having difficulty finding enough men back home for food production and essential industry. In the end, the government agreed to provide another brigade, but only on condition that it be formed out of existing reserves in England and did not require reinforcing. New Zealand, Massey now made it clear to the War Council, could send no more than 100,000 men to the Western Front.
Russell was unhappy with the 4th Brigade proposal and strongly opposed it from the start. It would make his division ‘the odd one out’ in France, he argued. It would be difficult to billet, and he would be continually fighting to stop it from being used for ‘navvy’ work instead of being rested and trained for the next offensive. The choice, however, was ultimately not his, and he would now have to make the best of the situation. In March 1917, Brigadier-General Herbert Hart was appointed to command the new 5000-strong brigade, raised from troops in, or soon to arrive in, England. The four-brigade New Zealand Division now numbered 24,000 men, which made it numerically the strongest of the British divisions in France.
By March 1917 plans were well underway for a major thrust against the Germans in Flanders, in what came to be known as the Third Battle of Ypres. The plan had two major aims. The first aim was to drive the Germans off the ridges overlooking the Ypres salient, including the Messines–Wytschaete ridge and the Passchendaele Ridge further north. These ridges were strategically important as they gave the Germans a commanding view over the whole of the British lines around Ypres, and the ability to strike at the flank of any attack originating within the salient.
The broader and more ambitious objective was to clear the Germans out of Belgium altogether with a thrust out of the Ypres salient towards the English Channel, supported by a separate landing from the sea behind German lines. A key element of the plan was the capture of the German-occupied ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge, from which enemy submarines and other naval units were threatening British merchant shipping and troops and supplies moving across the Channel to France. By liberating the Belgian ports and driving the Germans back across the Belgian border, Haig was aiming for a major strategic victory.
The Flanders offensive would be divided into two distinct attacks, separated by seven weeks. The first of these, the capture of Messines–Wytschaete ridge, would be the first step in securing its southern flank in preparation for the main offensive at the end of July. Haig gave the job to the Second Army under General Sir Herbert Plumer. The attack would be carried out by Godley’s II Anzac Corps and the British IX and X corps, supported by tanks, aircraft and artillery. Their objectives were the German front line below the ridge, the fortified villages of Messines and Wytschaete, and the Oosttaverne Line some 1000–2000 metres behind them on the reverse slope. Plumer’s attack would be preceded by a 17-day preparatory bombardment by 2266 howitzers and field guns—over 700 more than were in action at the Battle of the Somme.
During the first half of the year, British tunnelling companies had also been busy, driving 21 mine shafts packed with a million pounds of explosives deep under German lines on the crest. As in previous offensives by the Second Army, detailed preparations had been made for the attack—gun pits dug, cables laid, dugouts excavated for advanced brigade and battalion headquarters, regimental aid posts and dressing stations, dumps pushed forward and assembly trenches completed.
After two weeks in the warmer climate of southern France, Russell had recovered sufficiently to again take up the reins of command and prepare his division for the offensive to come. There were the usual inspections of frontline infantry positions, artillery batteries, signals, and transport units, with the general as always casting a critical eye over every operational detail.
Training for the forthcoming offensive began at the end of March, with every effort made to achieve realism. A large model was built of Messines Ridge and its defences, and every officer taking part was given the chance to study it. Replicas of trenches—both British and German—were dug and from these the troops, including the New Zealanders, rehearsed the attack by day and night. Russell and his commanders worked to ensure that every man was efficient in the full range of infantry weapons, and that junior leaders were proficient in the skills of fire and movement. ‘No stone was left unturned to instruct every man in what he had to do,’ wrote infantry officer Spencer Westmacott. ‘The men spoke jokingly of all of this and of themselves as being “in the fattening paddock”.’145
Russell was confident that the Messines offensive would give his New Zealanders the opportunity to show their abilities in open warfare to best advantage. His men, he wrote to Allen, could well have a better natural aptitude for this type of fighting ‘than many of our people from the other side of the Channel’.146 By mid-April, he seemed satisfied with what had been achieved in the training so far. His diary of 16 April noted: ‘With Corps Cdr to Guelines to see the Rifle Bde put through an attack on marked positions to represent Messines. The Army Cdr was there also. We all thought the practice good. The men looked extraordinarily fit and ready to do anything . . .’
The task allocated to the New Zealand Division was a critical one—the capture of the dominating ground occupied by the village of Messines. Their success or failure would determine the outcome of Godley’s corps plan, including the success of the supporting Australian 3rd Division. Russell realised early on that once it was captured, the village would be an obvious target for German artillery. His brigades would deal with the problem by outflanking Messines and establishing a defensive line beyond it. He would commit to the village, or its remnants, only the minimum number of troops needed to clear its cellars and bunkers before they took shelter from the inevitable retaliatory bombardment.
On 21 May, the British artillery began its preliminary bombardment of the Messines Ridge, everywhere cutting the enemy’s wire defences, smashing in trench lines, and reducing Wytschaete and Messines villages to rubble. The same day, Haig began a round of visits to corps and divisional headquarters across the Second Army to check on planning for the coming battle. One general was sacked out of hand as a result of these interrogations. Russell’s diary noted merely that Haig ‘looked at our plans—discussed one or two details, spoke pleasantly of NZers work and departed’.
Haig, in fact, had been impressed with Russell’s battle plan, but suggested a change to allow Messines village to be taken in three jumps to avoid creating ‘an awkward salient’, and to allow the artillery to do its job more effectively. A divisional commander faced with a ‘suggestion’ from the commander-in-chief would normally take it as an order to be followed, but Russell stuck to his original plan and there was no apparent fallout.147 Haig’s war diary observed only that Russell seemed ‘a most capable soldier with considerable strength of character. His problem is a difficult one but he and his officers and men are all most confident of success.’148 Overall, Haig rated the Messines attack as the most carefully prepared he had seen so far in the war on the Western Front.
On 5 June, Russell attended his last corps and divisional conferences before the attack, and visited his brigadiers and their men. ‘All serene,’ his diary of 6 June noted. ‘Up the line for the last time . . . After dinner met several parties on their way up to the assembly trenches and wished them good luck—they are all very cheery and confident.’
At 3.10 am on 7 June, 19 great mines exploded with devastating force under the German lines on the ridge. Captain Lindsay Inglis was there:
As the big guns opened, every near object showed clear cut in the light of their flashes. At the same moment six great fans of crimson flame slowly expanded upwards from the other side of the valley. The ground rocked beneath us in an earthquake . . . In less than a minute the whole face of the Messines Ridge was submerged in billowing clouds of dust and smoke.149
Russell’s men now faced the toughest job of the day—‘assaulting uphill into the heap of rubble that had been transformed into a fortress’.150 The battle plan required two battalions to advance side by side to capture the first and second German trench systems. The following battalions would divide the village between them—half passing through the village to assault the outer ring of defences; half remaining in it to deal with the German garrison.
Following the creeping barrage closely, the New Zealanders caught two German divisions in the act of relieving one another. Spencer Westmacott described the result:
Crowded together in front, support and communication trenches, the slaughter was terrific on the enemy side. So perfect was the timing of the artillery barrage and so close followed the infantry that the enemy could not use his machine guns, it being impossible to place and man them properly before being smashed by shellfire and the crews blown to pieces.151
The first phase of the battle—the capture of the German front line—was achieved relatively quickly. The detonation of the mines had destroyed most of the garrison, and the fire of German artillery against the advancing troops had little effect. In the second phase—the capture of the crest of the ridge—the New Zealanders encountered stiffer opposition, but not for long. The troops applied their by now well-practised tactics of fire and movement. Snipers held the attention of the machine gunners from shell holes while the other sections worked around the flanks of the positions, rushing them and destroying or capturing the crews. Pillbox garrisons that attempted to resist were outflanked and similarly captured or destroyed.
By 7 am the village of Messines was in New Zealand hands, along with 438 prisoners, 11 artillery pieces, 39 machine guns and 13 trench mortars. Russell’s description of the assault was brief: ‘Attacked at dawn after a successful assembly, with no disturbance or shelling to speak of. All our objectives were gained up to time. Messines gave slight resistance. Later on a brigade of Australian 4 Divn went through and established themselves on a line further east.’
New Zealand casualties were so far light, but it was not to last. The ridge was now crowded with troops and German shellfire throughout the day took a rising toll of killed and wounded. Russell wanted to protect his men by withdrawing one of his two brigades, evacuating Messines itself and relying on a combination of artillery and machine guns to break up German counter-attacks.
Army headquarters would not allow it—the front line, he was told, would be held in strength and both brigades would stay on the ridge. Despite this, Russell was able to withdraw his men from the ‘shell-trap’ of Messines and position them around the village. Visiting New Zealand Division headquarters on 9 June, Haig noted that Russell was holding Messines with machine guns in great depth, and that all his men were positioned around and outside the village to avoid shellfire.
For Plumer and his Second Army, Messines was a triumph. The Germans had been forced off the southern arc of the high ground that dominated Ypres and the countryside nearby, and the front had been pushed back 3 kilometres at its furthest point. The British now held the Messines Ridge from the Douve River to Mount Sorrel: ‘Behind was a ploughed-up wilderness, ahead a green and unspoilt countryside with the towns and woods of the Lys Valley visible in the far distance.’152
Godley described the capture of Messines as ‘quite the greatest success of the war so far, all of it achieved with much lighter casualties than those incurred on the Somme’. ‘I cannot tell you,’ he wrote to Allen, ‘how proud I am to have had command of the NZ Division, and to still have it with me. You may tell the people of New Zealand with authority that there is no Division in the British Armies in France which has a higher reputation.’153 Messines, noted divisional historian Colonel Hugh Stewart, was a classic example of battle undertaken with limited objectives, combining outstanding leadership at officer and NCO level with fine fighting spirit.154
German losses from the offensive were severe. Some 10,000 soldiers were killed by the mine explosions alone, and over 7300 were taken prisoner. General von Kuhl, chief of staff to Crown Prince Rupprecht, described the battle as ‘one of the worst tragedies of the world war’. The British and Dominion forces, however, had also suffered. Total casualties from the attack were 25,000—half of them incurred by the Anzac divisions and largely because of overcrowding on top of Messines Ridge. The final cost to the New Zealand Division was nearly 3700 killed, wounded or missing.
As at the Somme, Russell emerged from Messines with his reputation significantly enhanced. His careful planning and tactical grasp had impressed Haig in the days before the attack. His subsequent performance in securing and holding the village had marked him out as a man to watch. ‘At Messines,’ wrote Pugsley, ‘Russell showed that he learnt the lessons of the Somme, using a combination of all-arms tactics, trained infantry, artillery, machine guns and tanks in support, backed by engineer effort and logistic preparations.’155
Russell, however, was adamant that the New Zealanders’ success could have been achieved at much less cost. As he put it to Allen: ‘Had we been allowed—as I proposed—to reduce the garrison, our losses would have been considerably smaller with the same result.’156 Without naming names, Russell made clear his feeling that lack of tactical common sense had caused his division unnecessary casualties. Army commanders, Russell told Allen, needed to think more carefully about how to conserve men’s lives, and about the conditions under which they compelled men to fight.
Could a practical, non-professional soldier like himself be better at the business of fighting than a career officer in the British Army? Russell’s letter seemed to hint as much: ‘I do sometimes think that a non-professional mind takes a more detached view of the operations than those who have given their whole lives to the study of these problems.’
Russell sent Allen a full description of the Messines offensive, which Allen then read to an approving House of Representatives. ‘The battle in a few words,’ Russell wrote, ‘was won through the weight of metal thrown onto the enemy positions, and the mettle of the men who advanced to attack them. Everything went like clockwork. The actual positions were carried at very light expense. Our losses began to mount up after we had reached our different objectives.’157
What Russell did not tell Allen was his narrow escape from death on 8 June when he and Brigadier-General Brown went up to the front line to inspect his division’s positions. A shrapnel shell burst over the party, killing Brown instantly and wounding another senior divisional officer. Russell escaped without a scratch. On 10 June, he confessed to being nearly ‘bagged by a sniper’ when he and another senior officer were on an inspection of the New Zealand front line. The bullet went clean through his helmet, this time inflicting a minor scalp wound.
Shortly after, a deputation of senior officers confronted Russell in his quarters and bluntly, if kindly, told him to take fewer risks. Allen reinforced the message in a following letter: ‘Napier Johnston [divisional artillery commander] tells me that you yourself run too many risks. I hope you will not do this in future.’158 Two months later, 2nd Brigade commander Earl Johnston was shot dead as he inspected his trenches early one morning. Russell’s diary of 7 August noted: ‘Poor Earl Johnston was killed by a sniper up at Steingnaast Farm at 6 in the morning—a very sad affair.’
The Battle of Messines was over, but the fighting went on. The weather was continuously wet, the German bombardment of New Zealand positions was severe, and night bombing raids by enemy aircraft were frequent. Casualties in the division now averaged 50 per day. On the night of 26 July, Russell dispatched troops of the 2nd Wellington Regiment to attack the village of La Basse Ville. The fighting was hand to hand and typically grim: bombs thrown into a large cellar at a sugar refinery destroyed the entire 40-man German garrison. A platoon fighting its way up the main street against fierce opposition succeeded in capturing the village, but was forced out of it by a counter-attack the next morning.
But now came an unwelcome distraction from the business of fighting. It appeared in the form of 14 conscientious objectors (COs) sent over from New Zealand and into Godley’s care as II Anzac Corps commander. By mid-1917, government policy, as determined by Defence Minister Allen, was that conscientious objectors would serve a prison term in New Zealand, after which they would be transported to Europe and there treated as normal soldiers. If they refused non-combatant duties, they would suffer the standard military punishments, including courts-martial and execution by firing squad. The official belief, however, was that the reality of frontline warfare, strict discipline and the example of men already conscripted to fight would soon pull them into line.
In July 1917, 14 of the most obdurate of the COs were secretly loaded aboard a troopship and shipped to England. They arrived at Sling Camp in September after enduring considerable mistreatment en route. The NZEF commander in England, General George Richardson, took a tough line with the objectors from the start, ordering immediate detention and field punishment. After this, they were dispatched to frontline units in France.
Russell and the commandant of the New Zealand base at Etaples in France, Lieutenant-Colonel Mitchell, supported this policy but were initially overruled by Godley, who felt that sending the COs into the trenches would inevitably result in disobedience or desertion, a firing squad and martyrdom—to his mind, the worst of all possible outcomes.
At Etaples, where for the time being they remained, the objectors suffered more mistreatment, ranging from threats of courts-martial and execution to beatings and imprisonment with hard labour. Most of them eventually succumbed, agreeing to non-combatant duties as stretcher-bearers, but three of them—Kirwin, Briggs and Baxter—held out and still refused to serve.
At this point, Russell visited the divisional field punishment camp and sought Briggs out personally. Briggs was told quite bluntly that if he was in Germany, he would have been shot, but that the military authorities had come to the conclusion that he was ‘honest and sincere’ in his attitude and that he would be treated differently. ‘You know Briggs,’ Russell is quoted as saying, ‘you are fighting for freedom; so am I. But I use different methods from you. Your methods may be right or they may be wrong. Mine may be right or they may be wrong. I didn’t hold the same ideas when I was your age that I hold today.’159
Russell sent Briggs to work for a month in the divisional stores depot at Cape Belles, at the end of which he would ascertain whether there had been a change of mind. On the face of it, it was a humane gesture from a commander to a man who had already suffered much for his beliefs; but whatever Russell’s motives, they had little effect—Briggs told his captors that he would go on resisting any attempts to break him to the end.
Godley now changed tack and decided to send all three into the trenches in the hope that being under fire with fellow New Zealanders would finally reform them. Here they were deliberately exposed to shellfire and, in the case of Baxter and Kirwin, given Field Punishment No. 1 and starved and beaten by the division’s military police. A wire cable was put under Briggs’s arms and he was dragged over rough ground and duckboards, which ripped off his clothes, lacerated his body and tore a hole in his thigh. In spite of being the worst treated, Baxter and Briggs held out. Baxter was eventually hospitalised, found ‘insane’ and sent home in August 1918. Briggs was invalided back to New Zealand six months later.
The extent of Russell’s involvement in the harsh treatment of the 14 objectors is unclear, but it appears that both he and Godley, fully preoccupied elsewhere, were prepared to leave responsibility for their management in the hands of Richardson and Mitchell. It was Mitchell who implemented Richardson’s policy of isolation and punishment, and it was the brutal treatment handed out by his military police that finally broke the resistance of all but two of the objectors.
Ormond Burton, however, believed that Russell’s involvement in the issue was essentially benign. Arriving at a divisional details camp, he noticed a group of COs under guard. ‘They had apparently been given a very bad time by the military police of the Army Corps. Evidently there was a considerable deal of sympathy for them. Some said General Russell had rescued them from the detested “Red Caps” [military police]. This I think was probably true for the General was a very humane man.’160
The New Zealanders were not the only ones to treat conscientious objectors harshly. Some 16,000 British citizens objected to military service on grounds of conscience during World War I. A government tribunal found some 4000 of these to have a genuine case for conscientious objection and offered them alternatives to frontline military service, including agricultural and medical work. Those who refused were generally sentenced to prison, in many cases with hard labour, and many were brutally treated. Thirty-four British COs were sentenced to death, although all of these sentences were commuted.
There were more unwelcome distractions to come for Russell in the wake of Messines. In August 1917, Lieutenant-General Godley came under attack in the New Zealand Parliament from the MP for Eden, Christopher Parr. Parr had made a personal visit to the Western Front that year and had spoken to many officers and men of the division. His subsequent comments to the House were as scathing of Godley as they were complimentary of Russell and Richardson. He credited Russell and Richardson with ‘the excellent efficiency and morale’ of the division in England and France; Godley, on the other hand, was immensely unpopular and bitterly disliked by all ranks. Parr suggested to the House that Godley be replaced with the ‘beloved’ General Birdwood, then in command of the Australians on the Western Front.161
Russell felt that the criticisms of his superior were undeserved, and reiterated this in a letter to Allen three months later: ‘Popularity, or otherwise, is not the test of a soldier’s virtue. Well-intentioned of course they are, but many criticisms levelled against the conduct of the NZEF are unfounded.’162 The cautious use of ‘many’ rather than ‘all’ criticisms may be significant, given that Russell’s comment was made just a month after the Battle of Passchendaele, in which Godley, as II Anzac Corps commander, had played an undistinguished role.