PREFACE

FIVE TIMES GREATER THAN GALLIPOLI

‘The story of the glorious and decisive victory of the AIF on the Western Front will re-echo throughout the world and live forever in the history of our homeland.’

MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN MONASH,
AUSTRALIAN ARMY CORPS COMMANDER, 1918

Australia’s centennial commemorations for World War I have provided a long overdue opportunity to switch the nation’s traditional spotlight from Gallipoli to the Western Front. As a military historian, I am hoping to use the 100th anniversary of the Allied victory on the Western Front to draw attention to this important World War I theatre of battle, which has for a century been overshadowed by Gallipoli. It is time, 100 years down the track, for Australians to put aside their preoccupation with the ill-fated Gallipoli disaster and learn more about — and respect — the impressive victory on the Western Front, which was far more successful and significant than Gallipoli for our nation’s history.

It is also time to create a new cultural foundation for Australia. If we switch our focus from the failed Gallipoli campaign, during which thousands of Australians were slaughtered because of incompetent British orders, to the Western Front, where Australians led Australians to phenomenal victories, we will have a better foundation for a national identity. All we need to do this is courage, knowledge, self respect, and pride.

Although the Anzacs fought at Gallipoli for eight months, they were unable to advance much beyond the confines of Anzac Cove. AWM HO3500

Instead of repeating mindlessly, as we have for a century, the mantra ‘Australia was born at Gallipoli’, we should now say thoughtfully, ‘Australia came of age through our soldier’s achievements on the Western Front.’ For that was when our little-known nation leapt onto the world stage, punching well above its weight, and helped turn the tide of WWI. And wouldn’t it be far better for our nation’s identity to be based on success, rather than failure? This is the least we can do to thank the many thousands who died on that bloody, but lesser-known stage — and having interviewed the last handful of surviving veterans, I can tell you, dear reader, this is what they all wanted. ‘Tell Australians to stop glorifying Gallipoli,’ Western Front veteran Ted Smout told me in the late 1990s, ‘and tell them if they want to recognise our achievements in WWI to acknowledge the battles we won on the Western Front.’

Ted Matthews, of Sydney, served as a corporal in the Signals Corps and went on to outlive all other men who landed on the first day at Gallipoli, 25 April 1915. He died, aged 101, in 1997.

This is why I campaigned so hard with the Kevin Rudd Labor government in persuading Rudd’s media adviser, Lachlan Harris, and others to hold the first-ever official Anzac Day dawn service on the Western Front, for the 90th anniversary of the end of WWI in 2008, at the strategic watershed battlefield of Villers-Bretonneux. Fortunately, the event was so successful they agreed to hold Anzac Day dawn services there every year since. The location was chosen because Australians recaptured that village on Anzac Day, 1918 — just 24 hours after the Germans had captured it — thus sending the Germans on the run. This battle would be a turning point for the war.

Where my earlier book Gallipoli Diaries: the Anzacs’ own story, day by day (Scribe Publications, 2014) told the story of courage in the face of defeat, this book tells the story of even greater courage, in far worse battles, and against even greater odds, which enabled a hard-won victory. The two books together tell the stories of the main battles fought by Australians in the two major theatres of World War I — Gallipoli and the Western Front.

The stories here follow the same pattern as Gallipoli Diaries as they are told by soldiers who were actually there in those muddy and bloody trenches on the Western Front. As a result, this book Western Front Diaries: the Anzacs’ own story, battle by battle, like Gallipoli Diaries, presents even more brutally honest eyewitness accounts from soldiers, because those battles were so much more horrendous. Consequently, these eyewitness records confirm how much more important the Western Front theatre was than Gallipoli.

In many ways, the Western Front was about five times greater than Gallipoli. The facts speak for themselves:

Peter Casserly, of Western Australia, outlived all other Australian WWI diggers. He died in 2005, aged 107.

The nation’s worst battle was also fought on the Western Front at Fromelles on 19 July 1916, when nearly 2,000 Australians were killed during that one terrible day in the bloodiest of battles.

As well as fighting for the first time under Australian command, our soldiers were all volunteers, the only all-volunteer army in World War I, which some of the last remaining veterans told the author was something they were very proud of. Along with many readers, I had ancestors who fought on the Western Front — and many of these are pictured in the rear endpapers, showing an extract from the 15 May 1918 Sydney Mail, which featured a three-page spread on the descendants of my ancestor Governor Philip Gidley King, all of whom served in the Great War.

Admittedly, to begin with I was only interested in writing books about Gallipoli, including Gallipoli Diaries, for which I interviewed the last ten Anzacs from that campaign (when they were about 100 years of age). These veterans included Ted Matthews, the world’s last man standing who had landed on that first fateful day on 25 April 1915; and also Alec Campbell, the world’s last man standing from the Gallipoli campaign.

The French minister for war vterans, Jean-Pierre Masseret, awarded the Legion of Honour to four AIF veterans in France during 1998. From L–R, Ted Smout, Howard Pope, Charlie Mance, and Eric Abraham.

However, when these Gallipoli veterans began fading away, I became interested in the Western Front as their passing allowed the spotlight to shine on the remaining Western Front veterans, who for so long had lived under the shadow of Gallipoli. Fortunately, this was just in time for me to interview the last fifty veterans, who spoke of their great difficulties and deeds in France and Flanders — stories which are included in this book. I also met Australia’s very last man standing from the Western Front, Peter Casserly, when The Sydney Morning Herald flew me to Perth to interview this sole survivor from the 250,000 Australian soldiers who fought there. Casserly, who was then 107, still had a good memory, with great recall for detail. He was still in good spirits, even singing risqué trench songs much to the embarrassment of the nurses caring for him, one of whom told him if he didn’t stop she would leave the room. I was the last journalist to interview this remarkable man, whose inspiring spirit stays with me to this day.

These veterans were all disappointed that Gallipoli had taken so much of centre stage that few Australians had heard about their heroic successes and sacrifices in France and Flanders. Those veterans inspired this book. Their stories were so compelling, I decided to collect more stories in order that I could tell the story of the Western Front through the voices of those who were actually there.

Letters from the Western Front were normally censored by the army. Typically, place names, details of battles, and troop movements were blocked out.

In their honour, I visited the Western Front in August 2014 to report on the 100th anniversary commemorations of the outbreak of WWI. I had also led battlefield tours of these haunting fields since 1998 — for the 80th anniversary of the Armistice, I travelled with a Department of Veterans Affairs party, which included four of the last veterans, who were there to receive the coveted French Legion of Honour: Brisbane’s Ted Smout and Eric Abraham, Sydney’s Charlie Mance, and Adelaide’s Howard Pope. I interviewed these remarkable men for an 80th anniversary documentary film Anzac Heroes Return to the Somme, in which they revealed the true horrors of their battles.

VOICES FROM THE TRENCHES

As this book tells the soldiers’ own stories, it is full of fresh, little-known extracts from their diaries and letters. Thus it is written at a popular level and is not an official history nor a scholarly academic account. The book tells the story chronologically and simply: battle by battle, with only brief introductions by the author to the main battles, which are fleshed out by soldiers’ stories where material is available. I have used the voices of soldiers at the Front as extensively as possible — using the letters and diaries provided by descendants of these soldiers who responded to my public appeal for material. People were very generous with their contributions, and the letters and diaries they provided bring the story to life on a personal level.

Readers are lucky to have these extracts, as diaries were officially frowned upon (in case of enemy capture) and discouraged; and, after all, their letters were also censored. Like all diaries, they are full of mistakes — factual, spelling, and grammar mistakes, as well as misunderstandings and exaggerations — so these extracts need to be taken with a grain of salt. On occasion, some of the soldiers did not even know exactly where they were as they moved from village to village and so sometimes gave wrong geographical locations. In most cases, I have left the extracts as they were found, but in others, I have changed them just enough for a modern reader to understand, connecting different quotes with bridging words of my own or with ellipses.

DIFFERENT SIDES OF THE STORY

Apart from the stories of Australian soldiers, I have also included other nationalities, which are sprinkled through the book, including German accounts for balance. The first of these were in Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 classic study of a group of ill-fated German soldiers, All Quiet on the Western Front. During the war, the commander-in-chief of the Australian army, Major-General John Monash, who was of Prussian descent and spoke German fluently, also heard some of these stories first-hand from German prisoners. They helped him to understand and predict the German strategy. If Australian readers feel sorry for the Australians, it may help to know that German soldiers on the other side of No-Man’s-Land were just as miserable — and towards the end of the war much more so. The German soldiers also told Monash that, of all the nationalities they were fighting, they only really feared the best fighters, the Scots and Australians.

Although French, Jacques Charles Clement Mony de Kerloy enlisted as a private and fought with the AIF.

THE DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES

In this account, we meet German soldiers like Schutze Albert Muhmel and his comrade-in-arms from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ivan Batistic (aka Surkic), an 18-year-old impoverished peasant’s son and the youngest of eight children, who enlisted in 1914 from Zrnovo village on the island of Korcula in Croatia. On the Allied side, apart from the many Australian and British soldiers, we also meet a sports-mad New Zealander, Reg Child, busting his neck to play rugby games in between battles; Scotsman William Chambers, and Frenchman Jacques Charles Clement Mony de Kerloy.

Ivan Batistic was born in Croatia and served in the armed forces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Sports-mad New Zealander Reg Childs served in the 2nd Battalion on the Western Front in some of the bloodiest battles. He won the Military Medal at Lesdain in October 1918.

Scotsman William Chambers fought at and survived the Battle of the Somme and later migrated to Australia where he employed Marcel Caux (aka Harold Katte) on his farm.

STRUCTURE

The book is divided into five parts, reflecting the five different years of the war, from 1914 to 1918. Each of the five years of the war showed a seasonal pattern to the fighting, which seemed to start in late January or early February but slowed right down as the winter approached by late November or early December, so each part of this book represents a new year and a new phase of the war. Within each of these years, the story is told battle by battle. I have then grouped sub-battles under headings of major battles in an interpretative way that is easier to understand.

Letters from home kept the AIF soldiers going during their time fighting on the Western Front.

CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE

The story is relevant for today’s conflicts, as once again, in the early 21st century, Australians have been fighting on far-flung shores under a foreign power, and for reasons that do not impact specifically on the Australian homeland — just like in WWI. Sadly, the same sort of mistakes made in World War I by British military leaders commanding Australian forces have also been repeated by American military leaders commanding Australian forces in these new wars, in troubled places like Iraq and Syria.

Yet the Australian government, which committed our forces to these new conflicts, has the same keen propensity for war and seems to have learnt so little from the mistakes of World War I, even though we have now had 100 years to reflect. This might be because our political leaders know so little about what really happened in the greatest of all Australian killing fields — the Western Front.

So, to help us understand the significance of that Western Front campaign, we need now to hear from the soldiers themselves.