SEVENTEEN
Following
Fritz
For the Allies, the battle of Amiens had been an unqualified success. For the Australians in particular, it had again proved their excellence as assault troops and further enhanced their reputation. But for the Germans, it was the beginning of the end. Ludendorff called 8 August 1918 'the black day for the German army'.1
In addition to their losses at Amiens, the Germans also suffered huge losses further south, in the Second Battle of the Marne. A major counter-attack begun on 18 July 1918 by British, American and French forces had by 3 August pushed the Germans back to where they had been before their spring offensive of March and, in the process, the Germans lost nearly 200,000 men in the battle. The full impact of American men and material, long feared by the German High Command, was now biting. The Germans' ability to mount offensive operations on the Western Front was at an end, and even an effective defence along the Hindenburg Line could not be relied upon.
In Russia, the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks had led to civil war, which saw the anti-Bolshevik White Army engage in intense fighting with the Bolshevik Red Army. With growing concern about the instability in Russia, the Americans and the British sent small military contingents there to aid the White Army and assist them in opening up a new Eastern Front against the Germans. After violent socialist-led strikes and subversive activities – including sabotage and murder – of the International Workers of the World, known as the 'Wobblies', President Wilson became fearful of the communist threat in the United States. He broke off diplomatic relations with the Bolshevik government on 15 August in what marked the start of a long period of mistrust between the two huge nations. In the far east of Russia, the Japanese put 70,000 troops ashore and occupied the port of Vladivostok.
A new threat arrived in Europe and on the Western Front in the summer of 1918: Spanish influenza. It had already caused millions of deaths in Asia, particularly in China and India, but now it hit Britain and the Continent. Just as Germany was suffering the impact of the Allied counter-offensive, the flu struck its forces and those of its allies, the Turks and Austro-Hungarians. The flu also hit British, French and Australian troops and had an often lethal effect on the civilian population. The disease was particularly deadly in areas where living conditions were poor, the diet was inadequate and the war had left people homeless and destitute, but even in the United States fatalities were immense. In August 1918, there was an outbreak in Australia, at the army camp at Broadmeadows near Melbourne, and fears quickly grew that the virulent disease, for which there was no cure or vaccine, would rapidly spread.
After the initial success of the offensive of early August 1918, German resistance increased, which slowed and finally halted the Allied advance. Now faced again with taking the Somme battlefields of 1916, the Allies paused to regroup while the Germans re-established themselves behind the vast and seemingly impregnable Hindenburg Line.
After the battle of Amiens, the 45th Battalion had been in rest areas, first near Corbie and then in the reserve line south-east of Harbonnières. The battalion then went to relieve the 3rd Battalion in the frontline near the town of Lihons, where they found themselves in old trenches from the Somme battles of 1916. These formed a dangerous maze and, as the German frontline was only 50 metres away, there was regular contact with the enemy. The Germans threw stick grenades and small egg grenades, while the Australians threw the heavier Mills bombs. Such bomb fights led to high casualty rates for both sides.
After fighting off numerous attempted attacks by the Germans and then on 19 August coming under heavy shelling (which was intended as retaliation against the Canadians to their right), the 45th were relieved by the 48th Battalion and went back into the reserve line near Harbonnières. Here they were put to work salvaging usable material from the rear battlefield areas, laying telephone lines and digging trenches. Waiting to be relieved by French troops after five days, they were subjected to a heavy gas bombardment, which resulted in some casualties. Finally, the battalion was relieved and travelled by bus to a rest area near Amiens, remaining there for nearly a fortnight.
From the outset of the battle of Amiens, the AIF had been in action across an extended front. They pushed east and northeast from Villers-Bretonneux, capturing towns and villages north and south of the Roman road between Péronne and Amiens, and also north to the Somme. Ahead of them was a great bend in the river and the Hindenburg Line, dominated by the heights and Mont St Quentin. Standing out from the surrounding countryside, it looked down upon the town of Péronne and the Somme, making it a valuable observation point and a vital element of the Germans' defence. It was heavily defended by the 2nd Prussian Guards Division, who had specific orders from Ludendorff to hold the strategically important high ground 'to the death'. If the Australians captured Mont St Quentin, the Germans would be forced from the Somme and have to retreat from this part of the Hindenburg Line. In Monash's eyes, the capture of Mont St Quentin was the ultimate test of his AIF.
Monash devised an attack plan, which was approved by the British High Command, involving the 2nd, 3rd and 5th Australian divisions. At 5 a.m. on 31 August 1918, a heavy artillery barrage descended upon the enemy front and the Australians charged up the hill into ferocious German machine-gun fire. Early in the battle, the Australians took the heights but were driven off. Over the next two days, the summit was savagely fought over, finally falling to the Australians, which opened the way for the capture of Peronne. The Germans abandoned the town and fell back to the Hindenburg Line, as the Allies hoped. Three Victoria Crosses were won by the Australians; and General Rawlinson – the commander of the Fourth British Army, to which the Australians were attached – called the action the 'finest single feat of the war'.2
While the 2nd, 3rd and 5th Divisions were fighting at Mont St Quentin and Péronne, the 1st and 4th divisions were resting in the rear. On 7 September, the battalion moved out by bus with the band playing and over the next two days marched to Stable Wood near Cartigny, southeast of Péronne, and from there towards the new frontline at Poeuilly in preparation for the next attack. The 1st and 4th divisions, which had not taken part in the attack at Mont St Quentin, were to retake the old British line and then advance further to take the outpost line, from which at a later date the Allies could break through the Hindenburg Line. Though the men of the 45th Battalion did not know it, the attack, to take place on 18 September 1918, would be their last action of the war, but sadly ten men would be killed, including four officers, and a further 63 men wounded. By then, the Allied offensive had been going on for six weeks. All along the frontline the Allies had maintained relentless pressure on the Germans, and French and American forces on the southern sector of the front had advanced as far as the forests of the Argonne.
In writing about the August advance in Somme Mud, Edward Lynch provides an interesting insight into the relationship between officers and their men at this time in the war. He evokes the men's anticipation of battle, the suspense and the dark fears and anxieties that lie beneath their outwardly 'calm and casual' exteriors. As each soldier's thoughts turn to his fate, formality and hierarchy, already comparatively loose in the Australian army, are broken down still further. This comes about when Nulla's mate Longun asks his platoon officer, a lieutenant by the name of Fred, about 'this Le Verguier joint'. Lynch states:
Gone is the parade-ground 'Sir'. Men and officers are no longer separated by parade-ground discipline or the gulf of rank. That chasm has been bridged by the bond of mateship. Officers and men are united in a common test that will be carried through. Officers and men will fight and fall side by side in the mateship of men. The differences of rank, creed and calling have been swept aside by that splendid comradeship of men in battle. [p. 288]
The Australian fighting man as portrayed by Lynch is one who can think for himself and be relied upon to do what's right. When their platoon officer tells the men to fall in, as they are about to begin their advance, his 'words come not as a command, but more as a request'. This relationship between officers and their men would have been completely different in the British and certainly the German armies where discipline and blind obedience were rigorously enforced. Nulla goes on to say:
Orders and commands are unnecessary now. Directions and guidance are necessary certainly, but our men will do their job as men. Each man is going into the attack a thinking individual and not merely just a cog in a driven wheel. [p. 288]
On the morning of the attack, the men rose early, had breakfast at 3.30 a.m. and moved off at 4.30 a.m. to their assembly positions. At 'zero hour' of 5.20 a.m., the 45th followed the attacking 48th Battalion at a distance, according to the battalion history, of 'some 600 yards' (550 metres) across a valley to the old British frontline on the next spur. Unlike on previous occasions, the Germans did not counter-attack and most of the Allied casualties were from German shelling. The Germans kept shortening their artillery barrage to try to hit the advancing troops of the 48th Battalion but were always too late and so their shells fell on the 45th. As the 48th fought for the spur, taking numerous casualties, the 45th took shelter from the artillery barrage in a sunken road and in shell craters.
The infantry tactics are well described in Somme Mud, as is the taking of a farmhouse occupied by a dozen or so Germans. By providing heavy covering fire from a line of riflemen, six others charged the farmhouse, at which point the German occupants surrendered. This would have been a standard tactic and, although highly dangerous for those involved, proved very successful in quickly assaulting German strongpoints.
By 6.30 a.m. the 48th had gained their objective, the old British main line, and the 45th passed through to advance to their objective, the 'Red Line', the old British outpost line. This they reached by 9.20 a.m. and after digging in, sent out strong patrols to secure their front. In the stirring words of the official historian Bean:
The forward parties of the 48th, completing their mopping up, were just sending their prisoners back over the spur when the 45th appeared on its summit, advancing in magnificent order.3
In this advance, the Germans generally put up little resistance and surrendered in large numbers. The battalion captured over 300 Germans in three hours. Nulla describes the surrendering Germans, who 'seldom attempt to dispute our progress' and who 'don't show any fight'. To him, they are 'cringing, crawling, cowardly fellows ... Poor broken-spirited beggars, they've had the pluck knocked out of them.' But like those captured at Le Hamel, 'Many of them are just kids; poor, frightened, skinny little codgers of fifteen to seventeen ... Clad in men's uniforms that flap over their under-nourished young bodies' [p. 294]. Little wonder they surrendered so readily and quickly chose a safer way out of the vast war they had little understanding of and no power or influence to change.
Nulla confides that he and the other men 'despise' a group of Germans who have just given up a concrete machine-gun emplacement, as they 'surrendered an almost impregnable position without firing a shot'. Such observations are echoed in the official histories of the war. Bean says this of the commander of the 16th Battalion, whose job was to clear the village of Le Verguier:
If the German had had the fighting spirit of a louse, one battalion on the whole brigade front would have made it impossible to go forward; but he never fought an inch so far as we were concerned.4
Germans are running from the barrage, so he is 'continually dropping on one knee and firing, or just standing and blazing away at those running men'. Private Lynch possibly appears in a well-known photograph doing just this, at Ascension Farm. There are a number of photographs published in a booklet in the early 1920s of Lynch's D Company. They are believed to have been taken by Hubert Wilkins, one of Australia's official war photographers, who shot them over a half-hour period on the day of the battle.
Lynch had a copy of this booklet, which his family has kept. On a number of the photographs, someone – we assume Lynch – has drawn an 'x' above a man, presumably indicating that this is him. The negatives of these photographs are in the Australian War Memorial's collection, along with a detailed description, but none mentions Lynch. In one photo, nine men spread out in a line are advancing across a slight slope. Each man in the line has been named by the Australian War Memorial except for the last two men on the far right. In Lynch's personal collection, however, the man on the far right has been marked with an 'x'. Though we will never know, this is probably Private Lynch, as the man looks slightly shorter than the rest, even allowing for the sloping ground.
Another well-known photograph shows members of the company kneeling with rifles raised, sniping at retreating Germans. Again, someone, most probably Edward Lynch, has drawn an 'x' above a rifleman on the far left who is squatting and sniping, suggesting that this is him.
The 45th Battalion had reached the Red Line by 9.20 a.m. and begun digging in on the slope above Ascension Valley. Later in the day, in the final phase of the attack, the 46th Battalion carried the advance forward across the next valley and up to the crest of the hill, playing their part in taking the overall objective: the Hindenburg Outpost Line. The 45th Battalion remained in the old British outpost line, now the reserve, for three days, digging in and consolidating their position until they were relieved and returned to the rear. This time in the line was another great success for the 4th Division. They had entered the attack with only 3,000 men, but captured 2,500 Germans and killed and wounded hundreds more. In contrast, they suffered about 500 casualties. The 45th Battalion accounted for the capture of over 300 German prisoners, five artillery pieces and 15 machine-guns.
The most important outcome of the attack was that the Hindenburg Outpost Line had now been captured and the way was open for the major attack, two weeks hence, on the formidable St Quentin Canal, the last remaining obstacle on the march towards Germany. By late September 1918, the Allies had virtually recovered all the ground lost in Operation Michael, the Germans' offensive in March, but there was both political and military pressure to continue the advance. Major offensives were planned on all fronts: the French and Americans were to attack near Reims, the British from Arras to the St Quentin Canal; and the Belgian, British and French armies north of Armentières to the English Channel. The end of the war was now just a matter of time.