SIXTEEN
Leap-frogging
to Victory
The great German offensive of the spring of 1918 comprised a number of separate strategic initiatives. First there was the assault towards Amiens, which had originally been a more ambitious plan to roll up the whole Allied line to Arras to the northeast, but had been downscaled by the German commanders and then brought to a halt by the Australians at Villers-Bretonneux on 25 April. The Germans also launched an offensive in Flanders, Belgium, on 9 April, known as the Battle of the Lys, when they attacked south of Ypres and pushed northwest towards the city, but were stalled and finally halted by stout British defence on 29 April. Next, in May, General Ludendorff pushed southwest on the Chemin des Dames, a road along the ridgeline south of the river Aisne that led towards Paris. With his eye on the capital as the main objective, he advanced 65 kilometres in three days. But then he was met by the newly arrived Americans and strong French defences; again, his offensive ground to a halt and was pushed back.
By July 1918, General Ludendorff 's three major offensives had failed. Though initially he had overrun vast areas of France, he was now virtually back to where he had started in early March. He had failed to capture and retain any significant towns or strategically important ground or infrastructure, such as the railhead at Amiens, and the German army had suffered huge casualties and loss of matériel and stores, which, at this stage of the war could not be easily replaced.
When Hindenburg and Ludendorff had first arrived on the Western Front from the Eastern Front in 1916, they were shocked by the scale of the battles being fought, the immense artillery barrages conducted by both sides and the level of German casualties. Even then they realised they were losing the material war, the ability to match the Allies in artillery and ammunition. The Allies' naval blockade had cut off Germany from desperately important raw materials such as nitrates for explosive production, which were shipped from Chile. Tactically, the Germans were reliant on artillery to protect their frontline troops and shortages of shells became a serious problem the more they had to rely on defensive rather than offensive strategies. Although German scientists did develop a technique for making synthetic nitrates, this took time.
The problems that were facing Germany on the battlefield had their origins years before. Germany did not embrace total war – the commitment and devotion of all of a country's material and human resources to the war effort – to quite the same degree as the Allies. German women were not called into war production in anywhere near the numbers British women were. In fact, as the war drew on, increasing numbers of German men were withdrawn from the army to work in factories. By December 1917, nearly 2.1 million men had been released from the army for service in factories in Germany, and younger and younger men – many mere boys – were called up for military service.
The situation was very different in Britain. Though its material losses had been enormous in the retreat in March, the country was benefiting from America's war contribution, both in manpower and material. The German U-boat campaign had succeeded in sinking ships but had fallen far short of starving the island of food, raw materials and troops. With advances in anti-submarine technology such as depth charges, along with the addition of American destroyers and the use of the convoy system, the German submarine threat was being contained, allowing an influx of supplies from America. British industry had been able to massively increase its production levels since the beginning of the war.
Britain was also re-skilling and re-training the army and learning from the past: the lessons of the Somme and Arras were transforming military planning and tactics and improving their staff work. The army was being provided with new equipment, and weapon systems were being developed in the hope of breaking the stalemate. The new Mark V tanks were showing their value on the battlefield. The reliability of artillery shells was improving after the early years in which a high percentage of the shells being produced were duds. British sound-ranging equipment could now locate, target and destroy German artillery with frightening precision. Artillery could be used effectively in creeping barrages, and machine-gunners standing shoulder to shoulder could rain bullets on German troop concentrations much like the English archers did to the French knights at Agincourt. Advances in British military technology combined with Britain's higher production rate dramatically increased the number of artillery pieces and machine-guns the Allies had at their disposal. Simply put, the Allies could now outgun the Germans.
What Britain understood was that this was a rich man's war. Superior technology and massive amounts of weapons and ammunition – which all came at a high cost – were needed if the war was to be won. The shell for the smallest and most common artillery piece used by the Allies, the 18-pound field gun, cost £4 per shell. This was a huge expenditure considering that towards the end of the war English troops received only three shillings per day. That means it cost nearly four times a British private's weekly wage for one shell for a gun that could fire 25 to 30 shells per minute. It is estimated that over 86 million 18-pound shells were fired during the Great War, which gives an indication of just how rich a nation needed to be.
By the middle of 1918, the French army had again become an effective fighting force. Esprit de corps was high and there was a burning sense of shame about the recent loss of French territory in the German spring offensive. French industry, which had been mainly concentrated in areas now behind German lines, had relocated in the south and established production to meet the enormous demands of the French army, especially after the losses at Verdun.
New tactics, increased amounts of equipment and the introduction of a command structure that worked all contributed to the vast Allied initiative, which was further aided by German offensive mistakes and their dwindling war economy. The balance was finally tipping.
In July 1918, preparations were under way for the next phase of the Allies' operations: a great offensive to be launched on 8 August. The Australian troops on the Somme were not idly waiting, though; this was the height of 'peaceful penetration', small-scale trench raids and audacious attacks on the German lines. It had become something of a sport for the Australians and they were never short of volunteers. Lieutenant E. J. Rule, writing after the war, said:
Under cover of a barrage, they were to hop in, grab a few prisoners, kill all others they laid hands on and get out in fifteen minutes.1
The Germans came to fear these raids and one English-speaking prisoner is reported to have said: 'You bloody Australians ... when you are in the line you keep us on pins and needles; we never know when you are coming over.'2
On 6 July, as the Australians settled in to their new frontline at Le Hamel, a sergeant of the 20th Battalion, Walter Ernest Brown, who had just arrived at the line as part of an advance party of his battalion, was told of a German sniper nearby who was causing trouble. He headed off down the trench with the words that he would go see if he could 'have a pot at them himself'.3 He looked out across the open ground and noticed a mound; soon a shot was fired, seemingly from that direction. Taking the initiative upon himself, he set down his rifle and ran towards the mound with two Mills bombs in his hands. Another shot was fired, so he stopped and threw a grenade at the mound, but not far enough – it exploded short of its target. He dropped to the ground and waited until all was quiet, then got up and ran towards the mound once more.
Brown found himself standing above a small, empty kidney-shaped trench with a machine-gun standing on the parados. He jumped down and ran to the entrance of a dugout at the end opposite him. As he reached it, a German emerged and Brown, with a swinging punch to his jaw, sent him flying back down the stair of the dugout. Suddenly, behind him, more Germans emerged from a dugout at the other end of the trench which he had not noticed until now. All he had was one grenade – and if he hurled it in the small trench, he would be in even deeper trouble, as he would have to face the ire of any survivors. So, he threatened them with it instead. Demoralised by the Australian rout two days before, and having been left without food and water and cut off from their own troops, they surrendered. Wielding his last remaining Mills bomb in his hand, he sent all the Germans in the trench – one officer and 12 men – across to the Australian lines.
Initially, Brown was unaware that his bold action was in any way noteworthy, except that the men in his trench growled at him because he had 'drawn the crabs'4 (brought German shellfire upon them) and that his officer had reprimanded him with, 'What the devil have you been doing up there?' But word of his bravery quickly spread and Brown became famous in the AIF. General Monash was so impressed by the way Brown had taken advantage of the dislocation and low morale of the Germans following the Allied attack that he mentioned it in a circular he sent to the troops later that day. He urged officers, in the aftermath of future battles, to 'exploit our successes to the utmost by the incessant harassing of the enemy and the mopping up of small posts'.5 The technique of peaceful penetration, developed and initiated by the men themselves, had attained a degree of official recognition.
Brown, who had already won the Distinguished Service Medal at Passchendaele, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions that day at Le Hamel. He enlisted again in the Second World War and died fighting the Japanese before the fall of Singapore.
The Germans in the frontline were vulnerable. They were poorly fed and perhaps further dispirited by the knowledge that their families back home were hungry too. In some places they were down to eating dead horses lying by the roadside; bands of German brigands were attacking supply trains heading for the front and pillaging stores. Many of the German reinforcements were very young, including some who were serving prison sentences and had been released early to go and fight. One of the German official military histories noted that a draft of men from Brandenburg who had been sent to the German line at Morlancourt, north of Dernancourt, on 29 June were 'extremely unreliable. Absent without leave, desertion, offences such as had never before been known, increased. These people were a cancer for the front.'6
As Allied commanders talked of a new offensive, they were quick to include the colonial divisions, especially the Canadians and the Australians, in their plans. Unlike British troops, they were not exhausted from the retreat in March and April; and they had succeeded as shock troops in previous offensives. The Canadians, in particular, were intact following the 1917 Ypres salient offensives. They had time to rebuild their four divisions and they had ample men in reserve. In the Australian Corps, reinforcements coming from Australia, the hospitals in England and the depots were down to a trickle, so three brigades had been reduced in size from four battalions per brigade to three. Though the Australian troops were stretched thin and battle-weary, they were said by their officers to have good morale – or as Nulla comments in this chapter, 'The men are keen and confident of success ...'
The Australian and Canadian divisions would form the vanguard of the offensive on 8 August, which would come to be known as the Battle of Amiens, and its success would depend upon them breaking through on a front spanning the area from the river Somme south to Villers-Bretonneux. They would be supported on the flanks by British and French divisions.
In the meantime, the Australian flanks north of the Somme needed securing, so on 30 July, a minor offensive was launched between Morlancourt and Sailly-le-Sec, straddling the Bray– Corbie Road. Attacking just after midnight, the Australian 5th Division surged through the German lines and took many prisoners. Finding only limited resistance, they quickly achieved their objective. In the official history, Bean notes:
The rank and file were mostly young and obviously pleased to be captured, especially when the 'Diggers' after the first bloody fierceness of the assault gave them hot cocoa, biscuits and chocolate at the little YMCA canteen ...7
Lieutenant Colonel McArthur of the 29th Battalion said of his men: 'They fight to kill if the enemy shows any resistance, but are extremely kind to prisoners when captured.'8
Great secrecy shrouded the preparation for the offensive on 8 August. Troops, supplies and equipment were moved at night; stores, ammunition dumps and artillery were carefully camouflaged; and aircraft flew over to check that they remained undiscovered by the enemy. Excuses were circulated for why divisions were being kept out of the line and diversions were put in place to deceive the enemy. When a number of Australian and British troops were captured in the days before the attack there were fears that they would give the enemy vital intelligence or clues, but these concerns were unfounded: the Germans remained in the dark about the impending offensive.
Late in the afternoon of 7 August 1918, Monash delivered a message which was read to his troops. In part it stated:
For the first time in the history of this Corps all five Australian Divisions will tomorrow engage in the largest and most important battle operation ever undertaken by the Corps ... Because of the completeness of our plans and dispositions, of the magnitude of the operations, of the number of troops employed, and of the depth to which we intend to overrun the enemy's positions, this battle will be one of the most memorable of the whole war ... we shall inflict blows upon the enemy which will make him stagger, and will bring the end appreciably nearer. I entertain no sort of doubt that every Australian soldier will worthily rise to so great an occasion ... for the sake of AUSTRALIA, the Empire, and our cause.9
As soon as darkness fell, the Australians, with the Canadians to the south and the British to the north, moved forward to their start lines; the white tapes laid out by intelligence officers to mark where the attacking battalions were to form up. The Australian 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th divisions were to take part on the first day of the offensive, with the 1st Division in reserve. By 3 a.m. on 8 August, nearly all battalions were in position, lying down and ready to move. Half an hour before the attack, the mist, which had settled across the area earlier in the night, was now so thick that it was feared aircraft could not be sent up to cover the noise of the approaching tanks and that the attacking battalions might lose direction and get lost. But fog or no fog, the attack must now go ahead.
Some of the men were guided through the fog to their jump-off point by petrol tins on poles with their battalion number cut out and a candle placed inside. Half an hour before the attack, at 3.50 a.m., north of the Somme came the reassuring sound of a British aircraft. Planes droned all along the German front to be attacked, hiding the noise of the tanks even from the Australians.
At precisely 4.20 a.m., 2,000 guns opened up on the German lines, 'almost with a single crash',10 in Bean's words. Some of the troops had come under German shelling as they waited for the attack to begin and for them, especially, the sound of the Allied artillery was, according to Bean:
... elating music. In some places the excited troops cheered the sound. Nearly every man lit a cigarette as all along the line the companies of the attacking brigades rose and moved forward.11
Advancing steadily, they encountered little resistance from German forward posts which immediately surrendered. The Allied barrage, the threatening advance of the tanks and the waves of infantry reduced pockets of resistance and lines of German prisoners were soon streaming back to the rear. The 17th and 18th battalions passed through the village of Warfusée, clearing Germans from buildings and bombing cellars and dugouts as they drove east along the line of the Amiens road.
At the time of the barrage, Lynch's 45th Battalion were waiting at their assembly point, as they were to take part in the second phase of the attack. Lynch's account echoes Bean's observations:
Thousands of guns roar in an unending bark that seems to shake the very earth to its foundations. Our men are laughing and shouting, glad in the knowledge of how much easier our task will be as the result of this terrific bombardment. [p. 257]
The first phase of the attack was carried out by the 2nd Division to the east of Villers-Bretonneux and the 3rd Division from the east of Le Hamel and extending north to the Somme. Aided by the heavy artillery barrage and tanks, they advanced 2.75 kilometres, or 3,000 yards, to their objective, the 'Green Line'. The fog mixed with the smoke and dust of the barrage, obscuring the ground ahead. The attacking battalions soon fell out of formation, splitting into small groups led by whatever 'officer, NCO, or natural leader'12 presented himself, according to Bean. Some men followed the tanks, but these didn't always lead in the right direction and numbers of tanks had been delayed by the low visibility. The men could not even see their own shells bursting, so the sound of the artillery falling on the German line became an important guide.
Despite the difficult conditions, they advanced steadily and encountered little resistance from German forward posts, though in the south the 2nd Division did meet with some pockets of strong defence until the tanks caught up with them and eliminated the threat. At one point, the Australians came to the aid of the Canadians, who also met some stiff resistance. The task of the 17th and 18th battalions was to go beyond the old Allied frontline to the Green Line beyond Warfusée, clearing Germans from buildings and bombing cellars and dugouts in the village as they drove east along the line of the Amiens road. They made their way through thick fog to the village, while other battalions still behind them on the road advanced along compass bearings, trying to confirm their reference points. In the fog, advancing battalions and tanks inevitably missed some German strongpoints, but the Australian fighters adapted quickly to the conditions. In the words of Captain J. B. Lane of the 18th Battalion, it came down to:
... someone telling any one he met that there were some Germans down in some corner he had passed ... collecting a few men and going round and grabbing the Germans, generally from the rear.13
The Allied barrage, the threatening advance of the tanks and the waves of infantry sent lines of German prisoners streaming back to the rear.
Like the other battalions, the 45th moved up to its allotted start line and at 5.30 a.m. advanced in artillery formation, with platoons in single file and scattered at irregular intervals across the line of their advance, to minimise casualties should they come under enemy shellfire. They crossed their old frontline, passed through what used to be no-man's-land and then what had been the German frontline.
At 8.20 a.m., four hours after the start of the attack, they reached the Green Line, where the troops of the 3rd Division had stopped and were digging in. In the second phase of the offensive, the 4th and 5th divisions were to 'leap-frog' the 2nd and 3rd and advance another 4,500 yards (just over 4 kilometres) to their objective, the 'Red Line'.
The A and B companies led the 45th Battalion's advance; C Company and D Company, to which Lynch (and his narrator, Nulla) belonged, were to follow behind mopping up the enemy, and behind them were the battalion's headquarters company, with pack animals in the rear.
By now, the Germans had grasped the extent of the attack. Though they had lost much of their forward artillery, they were able to lay down a barrage on the attacking formations advancing upon them in the clearing mist, concentrate their firepower and strengthen their defences. The 45th moved forward not only with German shells crashing around them, but also without the cover of the massive artillery barrage that had accompanied the first stage of the operation.
As had happened in the first wave of the attack, as the advancing troops surged forward they missed or bypassed some German strongpoints and the tanks, less effective in the fog and smoke, also missed German positions and lumbered past them. The German machine-guns needed to be put out of action, and in 'Leap-frogging to Victory' we find a classic example of how the Australians carried this out, one gun at a time. A small party of men, in this case Nulla, a handful of nervous new recruits and some seasoned men, would split off from the rest of their platoon and bravely rush the Germans at their post. It was a perilous job, as a young lad new to the fighting soon finds out when he is hit and, as Nulla says, 'pitches forward and I hear the soft sighing cough as the bullet-riddled body of the falling boy strikes the ground'. However, it was crucial to eliminate the machine-guns to avoid stalling the advance and to protect the men following on behind them.
The advancing companies skirted a number of woods, leaving them for the men of C and D companies to mop up and flush any remaining Germans out of the woods and trench systems, including dugouts. By 10.20 a.m., the battalion had reached their objective, the Red Line, and were digging in. As Nulla notes:
Our trench is taking shape under the hundreds of spades flashing in the morning sun, the men working in a lather of perspiration ... Men are coming through from behind. We know these are the crow-eaters [South Australians], the 46th Battalion men who are to 'leap-frog' us here on the Red Line and advance another thousand yards [about 915 metres] to the Blue Line. [p. 270]
In just two hours, the battalion had marched nearly 7 kilometres (about 4 miles), including an advance of over 4 kilometres and had captured 400 prisoners 'and an immense amount of war material',14 according to the battalion history. This included 25 artillery pieces, eight minenwerfers and 18 machine-guns, probably a record for any Allied unit in one attack, especially given the battalion's low rate of casualties: four men killed and 44 wounded. In all, the attack was, in the words of the battalion historian, 'a magnificent success, one of the outstanding features being the splendid co-operation between the tanks and the infantry'.15
That night, the 45th Battalion advanced again to take over the frontline – the Blue Line that was earlier in the day captured by the Australian 46th and 48th battalions. They awaited the usual German counter-attack, but it did not come and the night passed quietly. The battalion, however, did enjoy a hot meal served by the battalion cookhouse which, knowing the importance of hot food to the men after a long and exhausting day, had also kept up with the advance. The following day, 9 August, the battalion remained in the line and Lieutenant C. M. Potts, MC, took a patrol nearly a kilometre ahead of the front to carry out a recce, returning with valuable information about the current disposition of the Germans and their defences.
That same day, a famous incident was playing out north of the river Somme. In the British sector, the advance had not progressed fast enough, exposing the Australian flank to the danger of enfilading fire from across the river. A company of the 2/10th London were seen sheltering half a mile from the village of Chipilly so at 6 p.m., Sergeants Hayes and Andrews were sent across with four men to investigate. They approached the Londoners and asked why the attack was not moving forward.
Their advance was being held up not so much by fire coming from the village but from the ridge and gullies on the other side. The British company's commander, Captain Berrell, advised the Australians not to advance on the village, but the six men spread out and rushed forward. They came under German machine-gun fire from the ridge, but made it safely through. Hayes and Andrews then led their own men and the British troops to advance past the village, attacking numerous German posts from their flanks. Having enabled the British advance to continue, the six Australians returned to their own company on the other side of the river at 10 p.m. With the aid of the Londoners, they had captured about 75 Germans and two machine-guns. The two sergeants were awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and the four privates each received the Military Medal for their brave work.
After the huge gains made on 8 August, over the following days the Allies continued to push their frontline forward, but by smaller increments and at greater cost. By 11 August the battle of Amiens was over and the AIF was digging in along the new line near Proyart. The 45th Battalion moved out of the frontline and went to Sailly-Laurette just to the north of the Somme near Corbie, to swim in the Somme canal and rest for a couple of days before returning to the line south-east of Harbonnières. The war was moving forward too fast now to slow the advance and every available man was needed in the line.
In four days, the Allied advance, spearheaded by the Australians and the Canadians, had moved the frontline forward by up to 10 kilometres in some places. The Australians had captured 8,000 prisoners and over 80 field guns, 40 trench mortars and 350 machine-guns. Surprisingly, there were far fewer casualties on both sides than would normally be expected in such a large offensive. Australian casualties were about 2,000 during the four-day period. Even the number of Germans killed and wounded was low; far greater was the number who surrendered, many without a fight. Short of experienced men and with morale low and an end to the war in sight, very few German regiments could be relied upon to stand and fight. Unlike in previous offensives, the Allies had not only taken the German support and reserve trenches but had also eliminated the German artillery, which in the past had smashed them with counter-bombardments.
The day after the battle ended, on 12 August 1918, 600 men formed a guard of honour along the gravel drive of the impressive Bertangles Chateau, the headquarters of General Monash. Flanked by captured weapons, the men – 100 from each of the five Australian divisions plus 100 from the Royal Garrison Artillery – watched while their corps commander knelt before his king, George V, to be invested with the KCB. Sir John Monash would finish the war as one of the most successful and effective Allied commanders.