Blunders and Ebullience at Bullecourt
1917
The next major battle for the Australian divisions was at Bullecourt, a village on the Hindenburg Line, 50 kilometres north of Pozières. The Hindenburg Line was the last huge German fortification in France. Heavily festooned with thick wire, it was discernible because of its raw earthworks, which by day were red against the skyline.
The Australian divisions’ substantial losses and fatigue after such intense fighting were not helped by General Gough’s decision to reduce his 5th Army to a minimum in order to strengthen General Edmund Allenby’s lunge at Arras, and the 1st Army’s push further north at Vimy. It left the Australian divisions vulnerable, with an unrealistic, even absurd front of 11 kilometres. Everything was stretched. The forward posts, 250 metres apart, were not protected by wire. They were reduced to lonely listening posts, each one held by a paltry six sentries. Patrols, stationary and awaiting orders, were about 300 metres apart. Platoons were 900 metres apart, and about a kilometre behind the listening posts.
The Germans prised out of British prisoners the fact that Gough had denuded the Bullecourt area of support troops, and reacted by attacking the division with artillery. The aim was to draw off British troops from Arras, but also to inflict the usual damage of creating casualties and destroying the division’s forward guns.
The 4th Division hastened into battle on 11 April 1917 with a plan first to advance 3 kilometres north, taking the village of Hendecourt, 2 kilometres northeast of Bullecourt. This kind of thrust was normally supported now by a prior artillery bombardment of the German trenches. But this time, the 4th attacked without artillery in order to surprise the enemy, augmented by the use of 12 tanks.
These vehicles were fast gaining a poor reputation among the troops, who moved along beside them and at times used them as shields. Their unpopular image with soldiers was only enhanced on the Somme after nine of them broke down and could not reach the German line.
Undaunted, the Australian infantry advanced northwards, with Bullecourt on their left flank, and seized two lines of German trenches. But that was it.
This was the moment when the artillery was supposed to rain down on the German trenches. No shells came. The Germans were encouraged and emboldened. They counter-attacked. Four hours later, the Australians had been driven back to their starting line. They lost more than 3000 men in this futile, costly effort.
Later assessments claimed the problems had been poor planning and execution. On top of that, the enemy had fought hard, using its own artillery with fierce efficiency.
German expertise in using this weapon was maintaining a superiority over the Allies everywhere. The tanks, which had been billed as the Allies’ new strength, had not worked. They were too slow and cumbersome, and they were being penetrated more often than anticipated. Engineers estimated they might be a year off the necessary efficiency to be a force in the war.
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In the third week of April, Savige’s relieving 2nd Division had a touch more fortune than its predecessor. It received adequate ammunition, after the lack of bullets and shells had hindered the other division in its efforts to hold positions. The weather improved, from the snow and sleet of early April to mud and slush and then drier spring conditions, with sun and warm patches. The troops – now calling themselves ‘diggers’, as that seemed to be their lot when they weren’t grappling the enemy – at least had a more refreshing view of green fields as spring replaced a gruesome, long winter. For a surreal few days, buds rather than shells burst in the ground that had not been churned and destroyed by battle.
Gellibrand consulted Savige, who was still his closest intelligence officer, about where 6th Brigade’s headquarters should be and they both agreed on a position precariously close to the front line. Stray artillery fire, which was habitual, could rain on them here, but both men were concerned about being too far back. They needed reports to come in quickly so they could make decisions and send out directives. Both were also mindful of previous battles in which the smoke and dust had allowed vision of up to only 20 or 30 metres.
If they were not close to the action, they might not receive reports at all in the confusion of information coming in and runners’ becoming lost, which was a common problem. Reports from runners, intelligence officers, the wounded, the fatigued and even pilots had to be synthesised and comprehended. The data conflicted more often than not, and there was not always enough time to write things down, so they had to compute in their heads. Savige believed that it was better to have more reports than fewer in order to make decisions, even if they were not always the right decisions.
He suggested their HQ be placed behind a railway embankment, which was only a few feet high but at least provided some protection. Just as importantly, Gellibrand could use his binoculars from there to look at the three villages where the action would be most intense. The men were about 250 metres behind the jumping-off tapes. Even when they were reconnoitring the location, shells burst around them. It prompted the eccentric Gellibrand to say with a wry smile, ‘This may not be the place for a village, but it could be a good HQ.’1
The fire was coming in from Bullecourt. Gellibrand ordered his machine gunners and artillery batteries to retaliate in the early hours of 3 May. There was a full moon, which helped the troops assemble. The infantry attack was set for 3.45 a.m., 36 minutes before the first fingers of dawn would creep across the battlefield. The Germans would then be able to see them and would let go a fearsome artillery barrage.
Savige noted that the aim of his 24th Battalion contingent was to rebuild the German trenches once they were snared. With that in mind, each man was carrying two days’ rations and two water bottles. Two sandbags were wrapped about each man’s legs, and another two shoved under his shoulder straps. These were heavy enough, but every soldier also collected extra ammunition and six Mills bombs (hand grenades). Each man carried a load of at least 100 pounds (45 kilograms). Some gathered picks and shovels. Others carried ammunition boxes and flares. Five of them carried wire netting to heave over the uncut German barbed-wire fencing.
In the hour before the attack – known to history as the Second Battle of Bullecourt – most men smoked to calm themselves. Many took precious minutes to read Bible passages, often underlined. ‘It is interesting how we are all moved closer to God when we are under pressure,’ Savige observed; ‘it is the last comfort before battle, the thought that we are shielded by Him; that we will prevail.’2
It also protected the men from thinking about the possibility that they might be killed, or so badly wounded that they would be better off dead. Highly religious types like Savige, cynically referred to by some in the ranks as ‘godbotherers’, refused to think the unthinkable: that there was no higher being guarding them. The more optimistic in the 1st AIF, including Savige, believed that God was on their side. Savige thought that every mishap, negative incident, death or injury was ‘for the greater good’ in defeating the dreaded ‘Hun’, a name that conjured up images of primitive, baby-eating warriors.
In general, most commanders demonised the enemy. It was easier to kill people close to the devil than it was to kill people like yourself. But in reality the enemy was no less religious or god-fearing. Allied propaganda skirted such philosophically awkward questions and kept portraying the enemy as worthy of slaughter. The images of Germans and Turks had to be kept inhumane, ‘different’, even if the Turks in particular were more religious and god-fearing culturally.
John Monash was the thinking digger’s thinking commander. He was a keen amateur psychologist, and a follower of Sigmund Freud. Earlier in the war, Monash used negative propaganda in his circulars to diggers before battle. He discovered that half his force were inspired by it, but the other half declared it ‘bullshit’. Like a good orator who discards a joke that doesn’t work with audiences, he dropped negative references to the enemy’s character.
Monash was raised a Jew, but at 16 years of age in his first year at Melbourne University had decided that there was no god. He ruminated on the question of a supreme being at a time when Darwin’s theory of evolution was popular and causing concern for all religions. Wisely, he kept his atheism to himself and never questioned others in public or in the military.
Savige was a proselytiser of his belief in Jesus Christ, and had been ever since teaching Sunday school. He did not move amongst his men preaching; he knew this would not work, especially with the more hardened Australians. Nevertheless, he would quietly pass on the word of God, if he felt a soldier was open to his doing so.
He did refer to ‘the Hun’ in group chats, correspondence and when addressing his troops, but this was the extent of his vitriol against the enemy. He steered away from negative stereotyping, mainly because he felt it lacked integrity.
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The 24th Battalion put away their Bibles and lined up in front of the railway embankment, about 100 metres from 6th Brigade HQ. The enemy artillery barrage hit home at 3.15 a.m., causing ‘chaos and confusion,’ Savige later recalled, ‘as German shells were bursting among the men, who crowded like sheep in a pen. But they kept their ground. What great fellows they were!’
German flares went up, indicating that the enemy was nervous and expecting something. They turned searchlights over the several hundred metres of no-man’s-land. This and the incoming shells made the Australians more than concerned. Most became eager to fight.
‘Nerves became strained,’ Savige would write. There was relief when the order was given for them to attack.3