1916
Haig should have blamed the impetuous lightweight Gough for the initial shortfall at Pozières. But instead he made some ill-informed errors, which led to ill-informed judgements, and he accused Birdwood and Legge of poor preparation. The accusation was justified, but mainly because Gough had pushed too hard and without method.
The main issue was that Haig and Gough, the cavalrymen, did not emphasise the importance of artillery, both in preparing to be attacked by it, and in using it tactically. As a result, the Germans kept on pulverising the Allies with it, and the casualties mounted in what was fast becoming the costliest month in history since British Government records were first kept.
The enforced wait for the next attack was shocking for the Australians. The Germans kept shelling and killing, and brave men became unhinged. They could do nothing but stare out into the blackness or the haze, knowing that at any moment they could be casualties like so many around them. No number of breaks for card games and cigarettes could make up for the unpredictable, nerve-racking gamble with death that beset the trenches.
Legge accepted the criticism from Gough and wanted to attack again with his remaining 10,000 2nd Division infantry. A second attack was prepared for 4 August. The jumping-off trenches had been a failure in the first attack, mainly because of the lack of preparation due to the unremitting enemy fire.
On 4 August, Gellibrand learnt in the hour before dawn that the jumping-off trench for 6th Brigade was not complete, again. The Germans had the trench covered.
Gellibrand sent for Savige to make sure the preparation was right. This was a dangerous assignment, but to Savige, no more than what he had already been through. He sent up a prayer, as always, and scrabbled through the mist of dust, shrapnel and gas to find the two ends of the trench in question. He was in a working party of 12, but just as they began, the party’s commanding officer was struck and killed by shrapnel. Savige took control, and led the working party in an assault against 10 German soldiers who were occupying an adjoining communications trench. They captured four of them and chased the rest out.
Under fire, Savige organised the completion of the jumping-off trench. It was done by 8 p.m., an hour before the planned launch.
One other issue remained: leadership. So many officers in 6th Brigade had been killed that at least 18 soldiers had to be commissioned in the hours before the fresh battle was set to begin.
At 9.15 p.m., Legge was able to direct the attack of seven battalions in line against the two German trenches on the ridge. This time, without Gough’s pressing, he got the preparation right, especially with the artillery bombardment. The brigades assembled and went over the top as they had before, with 7th Brigade in the centre, the 5th on the right and Gellibrand’s 6th on the left.
This time a battalion of the 5th ran forward first as the final shell barrage came down on the German trenches. The stunned Germans were overcome and surrendered without a struggle. The other battalions swarmed towards the second German trench. The 7th Brigade discovered that the artillery had found its mark and at first kept the Germans pinned in their bunkers. When the enemy soldiers realised what was upon them they scrambled away.
Savige’s brigade was held up by a machine gun that picked off several officers. He was again spared, but it did not give him any feeling, not even one of relief. Nor did he tell anyone about the Bible passage that sustained him. He was beginning to have a cloying sense of guilt for coming through so much action with only a few marks from hot metal on his limbs, leaving with him cuts and abrasions he did not even notice until after the current battle.
An hour later two privates rushed the machine gunner and threw bombs, which silenced the menace that had held up the 6th’s advance. By the end of the day, the Australians had broken through everywhere and controlled most of the German trenches at Pozières.
The Australians dug in and again were left vulnerable to enemy artillery fire. The Germans of course knew the exact locations of the trenches and were able to pinpoint their new targets. Just as Australian officers directed the wounded and prisoners away from the battleground, in came the hideous, now-familiar scream of shells hitting the ‘victorious’ Australians.
By the morning their casualty figures were nearly 7000. They were greeted with news that Gough and Haig were very pleased with their efforts – so pleased, in fact, that they wanted more battle successes, this time at nearby Mouquet Farm.
These demands were too much. Savige and hundreds of others, though exhausted, were willing to go on. But the attrition rate was so high that two more battles like the last one at Pozières would mean the extinction of 2nd Division.
Birdwood informed Gough that the fresh attack would not go on. He was pulling out the remains of 2nd Division and sending in 4th Division in its place.
Historian Charles Bean noted:
. . . the flayed land, shell-hole bordering shell-hole, corpses of young men lying against the trench walls or in shell-holes; some – except for the dust settling on them – appearing to sleep; others torn in half; others rotting, swollen and discoloured . . . the troops of both sides – always in desperate need of sleep – working or fighting by night and living by day in niches scooped in the trench side – dangerous places perilously shaken with the crashing thump of each heavy shell that might all too easily shovel them on top of their occupants. Little stretcher parties of four or five constantly worked over the open – often for want of a Red Cross flag, under a white handkerchief or other rag . . .1
Savige’s friend Captain Gordon Maxfield wrote to his father: ‘We have just come out of a place so terrible that my brain prior to this could not have conjured up anything so frightful . . . Two of my very good friends have been killed, and five or six wounded more or less seriously.’2
He and Savige were leaving Pozières with the rest of 6th Brigade when King George V came past in a Rolls Royce with an entourage. He was in civvies, but recognisable with his trend-setting pointy beard.
The King stopped to speak to Birdwood. ‘How did they do?’ he asked, indicating the troops.
‘They defeated the Germans and took Pozières,’ Birdwood said. ‘They lost many fellows.’
‘I am very sorry to hear that.’
‘They did every mortal thing that was asked of them.’
‘Tell them I cannot express gratitude enough.’
‘They will appreciate that, Your Majesty.’3
George V was by nature introverted and private. He had had to force himself into the prominent role he had now assumed as the empire’s figurehead. He was a simple soul at heart, who lived for two recreations: collecting stamps, and shooting pheasant at his Sandringham estate. But in everything he said to the troops, his manner was sincere. His empire, and indeed his own life, was at stake. If he didn’t win, he feared what Kaiser Wilhelm II might do. The probable options were exile at best and execution at worst.
George V was different from his cousins, the German Kaiser and the Russian Tsar. Whereas they at this point had effective control over their nation’s forces, the King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions did not. He had intrinsic power behind the scenes, but he knew his role was essentially ceremonial. As such, George attempted to fulfil the job of the empire’s supreme morale booster, and he was never far from the front line, taking a keen interest in the fighting troops. They appreciated his presence.
But nothing could erase the pain and hell they had just been through.
Perhaps only the experience of something worse – the battle for Mouquet Farm – could usurp it.