Closing the Gap
‘At the moment we did not know the exact details but we did know that the Germans were racing to get through. They had in fact only about two more miles to make—roughly to the crest of the big ridge rising above us. If they could take and hold this they had command of the Amiens railway. Amiens and Doullens would fall and the British line would crumple up. Two miles! Almost at once our leading battalions swung out—1/Auckland and 2/NZRB. Morale was at its highest. The British had broken but we were New Zealand going into the breach. Challenge and response! What the Turks could not do at Chunuk the Germans would not do on the Somme.’206
By the end of 1917, the Germans were in a stronger position to achieve victory on the Western Front than at any time in the past two years. Russia had signed an armistice with Germany in December, and the German high command could now transfer nearly 50 divisions of infantry to the west for a final, war-winning offensive.
Hindenburg and Ludendorff planned to exploit this superiority by launching an all-or-nothing offensive in the west in February or March 1918. Its success, it was hoped, would allow Germany to negotiate a peace settlement with the Allies from a position of strength. At a minimum, Germany aimed to secure its borders, retain control of the industrial capability of occupied Belgium, and incorporate French coal and iron resources into its Ruhr industrial region.
Ludendorff’s plan for the Kaiserschlacht was to smash through the British front line on the Somme then swing north and drive the British Army back on the Channel ports, the vital lifeline through which troops, their weapons, ammunition, food and other supplies moved between England and France. Britain and a militarily exhausted France, the reasoning went, would then be forced to sue separately for peace on German terms before American troops arrived in strength on the Western Front. It was the last throw of the dice for the German armies, and Ludendorff was well aware that it would either win or lose them the war.
The British high command was aware of what was to come, but not where and in what force. Haig believed that the main thrust of the German assault would be against the fronts of his First, Second or Third armies, the guardians of the Channel ports, and had built up his reserves behind the northernmost Third Army. He was cleverly and deliberately deceived. The German assault would come not against the obvious fronts, but against Gough’s Fifth Army, the weakest of Haig’s four armies and still recovering from the holocaust of Passchendaele four months before.
The German offensive began at 5 am on 21 March 1918 as nearly 6500 guns and over 3500 trench mortars opened up on British lines in the most intensive artillery barrage of the war. Artillery positions, machine-gun posts, telephone exchanges, road junctions and brigade headquarters were obliterated, ammunition dumps destroyed and whole garrisons annihilated. Five hours later, 76 German divisions attacked through thick morning mist on a 65-kilometre front, infiltrating the British front line, bypassing strongpoints and thrusting deep into enemy territory. The ‘Michael offensive’—the greatest German onslaught since 1914 and arguably the decisive battle of the war—had begun.
By nightfall on 21 March the Germans had penetrated the British forward and battle zones to a depth of 13 kilometres, inflicted over 38,000 casualties—including 21,000 prisoners of war—captured 500 guns, and taken nearly 260 square kilometres of territory. Two British armies—the Third and the Fifth—fell back, and over the next six days would retreat some 60 kilometres before the rapidly advancing Germans. Although 10,000 of the attackers had been killed and 29,000 wounded, the British Army had suffered its first real defeat since trench warfare had begun three and a half years earlier.
On 24 March, the Germans crossed the Somme and broke through between the French and British armies, capturing Bapaume and Noyon. The British high command feared that if the Germans reached the vital road and rail junction of Amiens, they would cut its armies off from the Channel ports of Rouen and Havre. On 26 March, at an emergency conference of generals and politicians, Marshal Ferdinand Foch was given overall command of Allied forces on the Western Front.
When the Germans struck on 21 March, the New Zealand Division was in Flanders recovering from the disaster of Passchendaele five months before and enduring a particularly grim winter in the Ypres salient. Alerted to the threat of a major German offensive on the Western Front, Russell had maintained a rigorous programme of training in the techniques of open warfare and the tactics of fire and manoeuvre. Section and platoon commanders were schooled in the use of ground, direction and control of fire, and quickness of decision in dealing with a range of battlefield situations. Once again, as he had done after the Somme and Messines, Russell weeded out men who were now too tired for war, and removed platoon and company commanders who were not up to the job.
On 25 March, the division was ordered to cut short its training and rush south to the old Somme battlefield where the British Army had already lost most of the territory won in the bloody fighting of 1916. There, with three Australian divisions, it would attempt to plug a 6-kilometre gap between two corps of the Third Army, through which German storm troops were now rapidly moving to threaten the key railway junction at Amiens. Russell noted in his diary: ‘Word has come that we are to be ready to move south at once to the Somme to help hold up the German offensive, which has been let loose on a 50 mile front—the men very pleased I hear.’
But moving a division rapidly from one part of the front to another was a major exercise at the best of times. There were some 16,000 combat troops to be transported by train, truck or foot, along with their food, ammunition and supporting artillery batteries. There were the machine gunners with their weapons, field ambulance units with their medical equipment and supplies, the divisional transport and the men, wagons and horses that would keep a division mobile in the field.
Logistics aside, getting to the battlefront was an ordeal for men who had spent a hard winter in the trenches of Flanders and were probably well below their peak. Railway wagons and trucks took them most of the way, but the final leg of the journey involved a forced march of up to 70 kilometres in light fighting order, which meant that they were without packs, blankets or greatcoats. The fires of burning villages by night, the rumble of distant artillery, the crowds of French refugees and panic-stricken stragglers from British units streaming to the rear, left the men in no doubt about what lay ahead.
At 6 am on the morning of 26 March the 1st Battalion of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade passed through the village of Mailly-Maillet. They and the units that followed would attempt to fill the gap in the British line between the nearby villages of Beaumont-Hamel and Serre and drive the Germans back, or at least halt them in their tracks.
By committing his battalions piecemeal to battle without artillery support, Russell was taking an unavoidable risk. But by nightfall his men had cleared the enemy from the village of Colincamps and were holding a strong and continuous line from west of Beaumont-Hamel to north of the Serre road. By the morning of 27 March the New Zealanders had linked up with the Australian 4th Brigade at Hébuterne, closing the gap between two British corps and the road to Amiens.
The Germans counter-attacked all that day in an attempt to break through, abandoning their infiltration tactics for full-frontal assaults on the New Zealand positions. Well led by their NCOs and junior officers, the men fought back tenaciously and the line held. Russell’s message to his commanders was blunt: the enemy had been held, the division was now protected by wire in front, on its flanks and to its rear. There would be no retreat.
Russell was well aware of what he was demanding. His outnumbered troops were fighting off repeated attacks—for 36 hours without the support of their artillery—and for three days they were short of food, shelter, blankets and warm clothes. The men coped by stripping deserted French houses, barns, cellars and gardens of whatever they could find, including wheat, vegetables, livestock and caches of wine. On the night of 28 March, it began to rain and the New Zealand trenches were soon knee-deep in mud and water. Captain George Tuck rated that week as one of the hardest in his battalion’s history: ‘How the men stood the terrible strain,’ he wrote, ‘I cannot tell.’207
Endure it they did, and on 30 March the division counter-attacked and captured the high ground of La Signy Farm, which gave it clear visibility over the Ancre valley and over the German positions, along with nearly 300 prisoners and more than 100 captured machine guns. Although a small operation in tactical terms, this was the first successful offensive action taken by the British Army on the Western Front since the start of the Michael offensive nine days earlier. Russell’s diary entry was brief: ‘Melville and a battalion of Rifle Brigade carried out a very successful advance giving us good observation of Serre—200 prisoners and 90-odd MGs.’
On 3 April, Russell wrote to Allen:
Before you get this you will know that we are in the middle of what is reputed to be the biggest battle on record. Our Division came in on [sic] the nick of time. There was a big gap, and by dint of hard marching we managed to fill it just in time . . . After spending the night in getting from one headquarters to another, making plans, getting orders etc, I remarked to the GSO1 that I was not sure that we were not in for a catastrophe. However, it turned out otherwise, and a miss is as good as a mile.208
If the tactical situation was fraught, the change of environment was much to the liking of Russell and his division. ‘The men are all extraordinarily fit and thoroughly appreciate the change from the Ypres Salient, which was a disgusting spot,’ Russell wrote. ‘There it was nothing but mud, duckboards, carrying parties and general discomfort. Here we are on lovely open rolling country where wheeled transport can, by following the folds of the ground, get nearly up to the front line.’209 Hailing the arrival of spring after a long hard winter, Russell quoted his favourite Roman poet, Horace: ‘Nunc hyems abest redeunt iam gramina campis’—‘Now the long winter is over and the grass returns to the fields.’
Russell relished the return to combat as a relief from the boredom and hardship of the Ypres salient. As the German attack faded, he wrote to his sisters: ‘We are much to be congratulated on the fact that the Boche screwed up his courage to this point and came at us. I was afraid he would not and a dreary vista of interminable trench life faded into an uninviting distance.’
On 30 March, a successful counter-attack by British, Australian and Canadian troops marked the turn of the tide for the Allies, halting the German advance just 17 kilometres east of Amiens. On 5 April, 10 German divisions launched a fresh assault on the Third Army front in a last attempt to batter their way through to Amiens. At 5 that morning they began a heavy bombardment of New Zealand positions, perhaps the heaviest the division would face in the whole war. At 8.30 am, the German infantry attacked in an attempt to break through to Colincamps, now nearly 2 kilometres behind the British front line—only to be heavily repulsed by the fire of the division’s machine gunners.
The German regiment that the New Zealanders fought against that day later acknowledged the ‘colossal toughness’ with which the New Zealanders had held the line south of Hébuterne. Captured German officers who had been in the attack described it as their most terrible experience of the war.210 Corps commander Lieutenant-General Harper acknowledged the key role the New Zealanders had played in checking the German advance and closing the gap between the two British formations on the Somme.
By now, however, the Germans had outrun their artillery and lines of supply, and this, combined with the failure of their assaults on the Third Army front, brought the Michael offensive finally to a halt on 5 April, just 14 kilometres short of Amiens. With German losses at a quarter of a million men, Ludendorff was forced to concede that the enemy’s resistance was now ‘beyond our powers’.
The Germans, Godley told Allen, had not made anything like the progress they had hoped for: they had failed to capture either of the strategic points—Amiens or Hazebrouck—they had aimed for, or to separate the French and British armies, or to make any appreciable advance towards the Channel ports.211 Churchill was equally dismissive. The Germans, he wrote, had failed to achieve a single strategic objective and had done little more than reoccupy their old battlefields on the Somme and the regions they had devastated a year before.212
Despite colossal losses, however, the Germans had made impressive gains in 15 days of battle. They had driven a huge bulge into the Allied line and recaptured ground on the Somme that had been won at such fearful cost by the Allies in 1916. They had taken around 1900 square kilometres of territory, over 1000 guns, and inflicted over 240,000 casualties on the British and French forces, including 90,000 prisoners.
Nearly 2400 of these casualties were soldiers of the New Zealand Division—once again a heavy price for a small national force to pay. The division, however, had fought its first defensive battle of the war for 11 days on end, in foul weather and without adequate food, shelter or clothing. It had taken over 400 German prisoners, along with 137 machine guns, and it had closed the gap in the line between Beaumont-Hamel and Hébuterne—albeit in the nick of time.
Ludendorff launched several other offensives in the following months, all of which followed the same pattern: ‘shock attack, initial success, ultimate failure’. At a particularly dangerous moment in April, the British, in Haig’s famous words, had their ‘backs to the wall’, but the line held and the German onslaught was finally halted.
Russell, however, was much impressed with what the Germans had achieved during the Kaiserschlacht: ‘I admit we have nothing in the least to be proud of surveying the operations as a whole,’ he wrote to his sisters in mid-April. ‘We were superior in numbers and guns to the enemy in 1916 and 1917, and according to Lloyd George are at least even with him this year. And yet he has succeeded in as many weeks in doing far more than we did in as many months.’
Why had the Germans done so well? In Russell’s view, it was because their soldiers were on the whole ‘better educated, and more efficient and thorough, and better disciplined. If his men are told to do a thing—to stick it out in a trench, or whatnot—they do it. Not because they are braver men—I do not think they are as brave—but because they have learnt to obey. Democracy owes the Germans an enormous debt, if it has learnt the lesson of discipline and self-denial.’
Russell sensed that the war was now drawing to an end, with inevitable defeat for the Germans. ‘There will be scares, unfounded rumours, perhaps disasters,’ he wrote to his sisters, ‘but at the end the wild beast will have exhausted itself, and we must then soberly set to work to put our somewhat damaged house in order.’ He noted that the woods near him were full of wildflowers and enclosed some violets in the letter ‘for luck’.
For the moment at least, Russell could afford to relax a little. Tom Seddon recalled riding with him to a conference of divisional commanders in the days after the German drive towards Amiens had been halted. ‘I shall never forget that expedition. Our horses swung into a joyous canter and a General from whose brow the anxieties of previous weeks had been lifted recited snatches of poetry. It was “The Last Ride Together”.’213
While conceding that his division had by now ‘a great reputation’ among the British armies in France, Russell was predictably still hard to please. ‘Some troops, of course, fought well—most did—but some want training badly,’ he wrote again to his sisters. ‘Training and more training—we all want it. You can practise in war only what you have learnt in peace. It is a grave mistake to think that the battlefield is to be the schoolroom. It is too expensive.’
Russell was clearly worried by the division’s sluggish response to the crisis of 21 March. Its failure to establish itself at Serre northwards to Hébuterne after first arriving on the Somme, he complained, had cost it a good many lives and casualties. He had subsequently been criticised by General Johnston for wanting to treat his infantry as if they were mounted rifles. ‘I accept the criticism. I certainly do expect the New Zealand Infantry both in thought and action to be at least 50 percent quicker than the New Armies.’214
The Anzacs, however, had been critical of the performance of some of the British units serving alongside them during the Kaiserschlacht, and many derogatory comments had been made about their morale and fighting abilities. On 30 April, Birdwood directed his commanders to discourage negative comments about the fighting qualities of British troops compared to those from the dominions. ‘We are the same blood,’ he wrote to Russell in person, ‘and the creation of friction by criticism is only playing the German’s game.’215
The same issue seemed to trouble the New Zealand Government. In June, Allen wrote to Birdwood: ‘There are some [NZ officers and men who have returned] who say that some of the “Tommies” can’t or won’t stand up to the fight. It is hinted that some are wanting in physique and have not that strength of purpose and will which makes for success . . . There are ugly rumours about some of the British troops breaking and running.’216 Much of this criticism, however, was unfair. While some British units broke as the Germans attacked in overwhelming force during the March and April offensives, others held out stubbornly or fought to the finish.
As the German offensive continued, the War Office stepped up its pressure on the New Zealand Government for more troops, asking that reinforcements be doubled for five months (from 800 to 1600 a month). The Government agreed, subject to the availability of shipping, and to the formation of a new tank battalion. Allen, however, was worried about the arrangements. He wrote to Godley: ‘If that rate proceeds, we shall just about exhaust our manpower by May 1919, unless we reduce the age or find some other means of securing more men.’217
In mid-1918, the furlough issue emerged again after a decision by the New Zealand Government that no more men were to be given home leave. Angered by the decision, Russell, his brigadiers and other senior officers protested to Godley. Godley reported to Allen: ‘They were most indignant in view of the fact that the sending of the limited number who have gone, and who it has been proposed to send, was to make up for the disappointment caused by the scheme for returning the original Main Body men in considerable numbers having failed.’218
Allen, however, was strongly opposed to the furlough in any form. In July he outlined its drawbacks to Russell, and particularly the problem of getting men back to the front after home leave:
At the present time we have had about 300 men returned and only 10 have so far re-embarked. Apparently when they get back here their nerves begin to go. Men plead sickness and a great many have been turned down on medical examination. Their friends begin to raise an outcry that they have done their bit and should not go back again. Other next-of-kin who have not been able to secure their relative’s return are sending in applications day by day asking that their boys may be returned . . . The whole question bristles with difficulties . . . I am sure that it will result in considerable wastage to the Expeditionary Force at the front.219
The issue of venereal disease amongst the troops also resurfaced at this time, possibly because of the activities of controversial anti-VD campaigner Ettie Rout on the home front. Russell’s approach to the problem, like Rout’s, was typically pragmatic—all New Zealand soldiers going on leave in London and Paris should be compulsorily issued with prophylactics (condoms). He wrote to Allen:
I am so absolutely convinced of the urgent necessity of protecting, not only the men, but also the womenfolk of New Zealand, that I would not hesitate to support anything which gave a fair hope of mitigating the evil. Moral suasion has had 2000 years in which to do its work, and the result is clear evidence that we must support moral suasion with practical means.
The ‘principal chaplains,’ Russell assured Allen, had been consulted and had given him their full support.220
It was a bridge too far for Allen, who worried perhaps that news of a mass issue of condoms to the troops would provoke a public backlash in morally conservative New Zealand. He replied to Russell: ‘I hope there is no need for this at the present time. I presume the chaplains and officers are being constantly reminded of the necessity of stiffening up the moral fibre of your soldiers, especially with regard to the question of immorality. I hope you have had a talk with the Prime Minister and Sir Joseph Ward on the subject.’221 Whether Russell did so is not recorded.
Meanwhile, the war went on. The New Zealand Division remained active throughout the middle months of 1918, practising tactical manoeuvres by day and raiding German trenches by night. On 18 July, the division repulsed a 100-strong German raid, preceded by a heavy bombardment, on its own line. A mopping-up party that went out afterwards counted 32 enemy dead and captured 14 prisoners and three machine guns.
While the combined-arms training continued, there was no slackening in Russell’s emphasis on the basics. A memo issued after a divisional conference in April noted that the discipline of the division required stiffening up, especially its standards of marching and saluting. It recommended that any battalion whose men were ‘brought up’ for non-saluting should be required to do a half-hour of saluting drill.
By now, however, Russell’s health, and therefore his fitness to command, had become a serious issue. He was suffering from repeated bouts of bronchitis, and the rheumatism in his damaged wrist and broken ankle was troubling him. In early June, Haig alerted Godley that Russell had come to the head of the list of major-generals to be recommended for command of a full British Army corps, and that he might be required to take up a new command at any time.
By late June, the prospect had become a full offer, but Russell’s response was ambivalent. He told Haig’s private secretary that he was about to go to England for repairs to his wrist and ankle. In any case, he would insist on choosing his own brigade commanders before accepting the appointment. Godley felt that if Russell took up the offer of a corps, he should succeed him in command of the NZEF and Chaytor should, in turn, succeed Russell in command of the New Zealand Division. Russell seemed to be unenthusiastic about the prospect, which would in effect mean him taking responsibility for two separate forces. ‘I do not welcome the idea,’ he wrote in his diary on 27 June. ‘[I] think it a good thing a detached officer such as he [Godley] should command.’
Godley, however, stood his ground, recommending to the New Zealand Government that Russell should succeed him as NZEF commander. ‘Should he not take my place, a rather anomalous situation would be created of my commanding the NZEF, Chaytor commanding the Division, Richardson commanding in England, and Russell in command of a British Corps with nothing whatever to do with the NZ Forces.’222
By mid-July, with Russell still on sick leave in England, the opportunity for a corps command had passed. General Lawrence, the Chief of Defence Staff, and Haig himself both expressed regret that the offer could not have been kept open, and hoped that another opportunity might arise in future. Russell’s candid thoughts on the matter of a corps command are unknown, but he could well have accepted Haig’s offer had he been confident that his health was up to the task.
Sick leave, however, was not without its compensations. Although on crutches, Russell was able to spend time with his sisters, Milly and Gwen, and his daughter Jan, at their home in Petersfield, Hampshire. In the evenings, Jan would read him Marcel Proust’s letters and together they would practise their French.
By the end of July, Russell was back in harness, but his health had not noticeably improved and Godley was worried by the implications of this for the division. ‘I am afraid Russell is rather seedy and cannot walk,’ he wrote to Allen, ‘and I am rather disturbed about it, as it is not right for the Division to go on for so long with him only half fit.’ Godley thought the best solution would be for Russell to hand over the division to Chaytor and move to England where he would command the NZEF from a base in London.223
Russell had no disagreement with this. He was still very lame, and every winter his bronchitis was getting worse. A change of commander, he felt, would be a good thing for the New Zealand Division. He wrote to Godley: ‘I have always been a strong believer in an occasional change of blood. It is true the Division is doing fairly well, but might do better still—but it will not do so until a new broom is installed.’224
Godley discussed the issue with Russell and Lawrence, and together they agreed that a change of command should be made. Russell would go to England to command the NZEF in Godley’s place and Chaytor would take command of the division in France. Godley informed Allen accordingly:
It may save Russell from a breakdown, and it will be of inestimable value to Chaytor and to NZ in the future that he should get a chance of a command in France . . . Russell has commanded the NZ Division quite admirably for the three years that he has had it and I hope you will let him know that the NZ Government appreciates it.225
The switch of command was never made. The great British counter-offensive had begun a month before, and on 21 August the New Zealand Division took its place at the leading edge of Haig’s ‘100 Days’ advance that would end the war on the Western Front. In spite of his declining health, Russell remained in effective command of his division until the enemy was finally beaten in the field.