Beaten Down By Blood Page 19

  William Bottomley was a 37-year-old grocer when he enlisted in October 1916. He was one of seven children and single, his mother widowed in 1892. In September 1917 he was taken on strength of the 21st Battalion and promptly wounded at Passchendaele. On 1 September 1918, William Bottomley was part of the 21st’s attack against Mont St Quentin, where he was killed, possibly approaching the old brick wall. His mates buried him 200 yards east of Halle and erected a battalion cross over his grave. He was later removed to Péronne Communal Cemetery Extension. His mother, Mary Jane, wrote humbly of her ‘dear son’. She received his personal effects in good order, ‘for which I thank you’.55

  Also buried at Péronne was Gilbert Tennant, a 34-year-old gardener born in Scotland. He enlisted in March 1917 and was taken on strength of the 57th Battalion in December of that year. Tennant was killed as the 57th attempted to force its way across the Somme south of Péronne on 1 September. He must have worn glasses, for a pair was returned to his wife with his personal effects.

  George Urquhart, a native of Malvern and 21 years old when he enlisted in August 1917, worked for the Victorian Railways as a fitter’s assistant. He committed several minor offences before going to France, where he joined the 24th Battalion on 8 August 1918. Just over three weeks later he was dead, killed in action at Mont St Quentin on 1 September. He has no known grave and his name is inscribed on the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.

  Other Malvern men were also involved in the Battle of Mont St Quentin-Péronne. Douglas Curnick, a tall farm labourer with red hair, left Australia in 1915 when he was 19 and suffered from influenza at Gallipoli and a gunshot wound to the buttock at Fromelles while serving with the 59th Battalion. He maintained a clean record and, in 1919, returned to Australia, only to die in July, a casualty of the influenza epidemic. The war service record of Stanley McIntyre, a former blacksmith serving with the 4th Field Artillery Brigade, indicates that he was involved in supporting the attack on Mont St Quentin and returned to Australia in 1919. Sapper Herbert Bailey, a 44-year-old bricklayer who left an account of his experiences with the 15th Field Company Engineers, returned home in 1919. Likewise, Cyril Fethers, whose brother Erle was killed at Gallipoli and who had three other brothers serving in the AIF, was working as the 6th Brigade intelligence officer from July 1918. Cyril, a bank manager, had applied for a commission in 1916, won the MC in April 1917 as a lieutenant in the 23rd Battalion and was well-connected in Melbourne.

  John Bowe, a married 25-year-old printer, served with the 24th Battalion, suffered dysentery and diarrhoea, was wounded in the buttock at Bullecourt and gassed in March 1918. He was wounded in action at Mont St Quentin on 1 September but remained on duty. Bowe was later to win the MM for his actions at Montbrehain on 5 October, where he used his Lewis gun to cover men of the 24th as they rushed and captured German positions, allowing the advance to continue. His conduct in this operation — the AIF’s last — was described as ‘magnificent’, and he returned to Australia in 1919.56 Albert Berner of the 21st Battalion was not so fortunate. After three years of war in which he was wounded only once, this 24 year old, having survived Mont St Quentin, was killed in action at Montbrehain.

  Anthony Bowes Kelly was one of the wealthiest men in Melbourne, and perhaps in Australia. His companies provided employment for thousands of people and helped to make Australian economic life far more diverse. He was a company director, copper mine owner, land speculator, mining investor, silver, lead and zinc mine owner and a station manager. In 1885 he became a member of BHP’s first board of directors and served for 46 years. He was also a Malvern councillor. In 1901 he bought Moorakyne, a ‘colossal Italianate pile … pedimented, colonnaded in gloomy, meticulously landscaped gardens and behind gates and entrance of ducal grandeur.’ It was ‘at the vice-regal end of Glenferrie Road’, next door to Stonnington.57

  In 1914 his son, 24-year-old Monckton Bowes Kelly, left Moorakyne to go to war. As an old boy of Melbourne Grammar School — where he was a member of the cadet unit — and a graduate in mining engineering from Melbourne University, Monckton, like so many old boys of private schools in Melbourne and Sydney, applied for a commission in the AIF and rose from second lieutenant in 1915 to captain and company commander in 1917. Monckton was an imposing man, solidly built and well over six feet tall. He was wounded at Pozières in August 1916 and his parents became extremely concerned. He was later mentioned in despatches for distinguished and gallant services and devotion to duty in this operation. In September 1918 Kelly was recommended for the MC, but was awarded the prestigious French Croix de Guerre instead. His citation recognised his work at Gallipoli, Pozières and Mouquet Farm and in a number of actions in 1918, including Mont St Quentin, where he was ‘in charge of the supports and personally supervised the receipt of rations and stores from the rear, and directed and dispatched the carrying parties forward’. His services to his battalion, the 21st, were considered invaluable at all times.58 He returned to Australia in April 1919.

  The distinguished post-war doctor and medical researcher Esmond ‘Bill’ Keogh was born in Malvern and enlisted in 1914 at the age of 19. He served with the 3rd Light Horse Field Ambulance before returning to Australia, only to reenlist with the 9th Machine Gun Company of the 3rd Machine Gun Battalion. In 1917 he was awarded the MM for his actions at Passchendaele and the DCM in the fighting for the Hindenburg Line at the end of September 1918. Bill Keogh was involved in the 3rd Division’s attack on the Bouchavesnes ridge, as was Cyril ‘Billy’ Hammond, fighting with the 39th Battalion. On 31 August 1918, Hammond was killed instantly when he was shot through the head with a machine-gun bullet. He was buried near where he fell and a pioneer made a wooden cross which he placed over the grave.

  In 1914 the Malvern home front had mobilised quickly, contributing to the Patriotic Fund established in Melbourne at the outbreak of war. This set the tone for its attitude and contribution, with a high standard of local community effort. The Malvern Red Cross Society was formed and, in a one-day appeal, raised £1350 from small donations. Between September 1915 and February 1916 the community despatched almost 20,000 items to the men overseas and knitting needles clicked throughout the war.59 Malvern was quite a fashionable place in 1914, but extravagances were curbed as the war dragged on. There were too many women in black dresses and the local telegram boy inspired dread every time he appeared.

  Intense pressure was applied to those who failed to enlist, particularly after Gallipoli and the lull in voluntary recruiting. The mother of 20-year-old James Philipson wrote to thank the authorities for keeping her up-to-date with her son’s condition when he was wounded on the Somme in November 1916, adding that ‘I am doing my best to help, trying to get others to enlist.’60 Malvern voted for conscription in both the 1916 and 1917 referenda, but when these failed, some of the heart went out of recruiting. Nonetheless, peace activists were denied publicity and silenced.

  Although Malvern continued to thrive after the war — its population had grown to 32,308 by 1921 — the imprint of that conflict was obvious. Even though land was purchased in 1919 to build war service homes, returned soldiers were grouped together on estates which had problems with drainage, sewerage, water supply, roads and lighting. Houses, mostly built of brick, were small and cramped and men ran into financial trouble with rates, road construction dues, weekly house payments, water rates, monthly bills for gas and electricity and debts on furniture. On a weekly wage of four pounds two shillings, there was not much left over for food and clothing. By 1922, 1600 cases had come before the Malvern Repatriation Local Committee, formed in October 1918. The war had created a new class of disadvantaged Malvern resident — returned soldiers and soldiers’ widows.61

  There were other dimensions to the post-war experience. Over 2000 cases of influenza were treated in Malvern in 1919 — as if repatriation wasn’t sufficient. Close by was the 11th Australian General Hospital at Caulfield which served as a rehabilitation centre for men who suffered permanent or severe injuries
and was full to overflowing with disabled men. George Johnston, author of My Brother Jack, was only seven years old when the war ended, yet he painted a disturbing picture of the hospital which some men never left. The ‘miles of maimed men’ which somehow created ‘a formless shadow of disaster’ and ‘the shapes and the no-shapes that lay hidden beneath the white counterpanes’ were clearly images which haunted him for life.62

  George Johnston’s father, John Johnston, who was living in Malvern when war broke out, served with the 5th Field Company Engineers and, according to his war service record, fought at Mont St Quentin. A tramways employee, he became disillusioned on his return to Australia, finding limited opportunities rather than a land ‘fit for heroes’. He was constantly faced with ‘those shattered former comrades-inarms who would have been a constant and sinister reminder of the price of glory. And glory itself had curdled in the tram sheds.’ Johnston also wrote, cynically, that ‘usually it was the man who had dodged the war who was now the boss. Returned Diggers were always coming to the door in those days selling shoe-laces and matches.’63 Some found jobs improving roads and bridges or developing gardens and recreational areas, but many of the soldiers from Malvern came back to a very different world.

  Like so many other places around Australia, Malvern set about constructing its memorials in the 1920s. The Malvern war memorial in Central Park commemorated most of the 184 men who died, while Malvern Grammar School, the Tradesman’s Club and various churches also created their own honour boards. By far the most striking memorial, however, was that placed in the foyer of the City Hall and unveiled in 1931. This beautiful marble statue of a woman holding a child and a bareheaded soldier, both looking with bowed heads at a book of honour, not only depicted the sacrifice of the soldier, but of those who waited at home, a rare insight into the depth of suffering caused by the war. Its creators hoped that future generations would understand something of ‘the soul of the people of this country’.64

  Malvern, at the time of the First World War an outer suburb of Australia’s second largest city, was a very different place to Gulargambone, yet the response to war in both places was very much the same, the suffering just as acute and the impact just as severe. For the war was a great leveller: it did not discriminate between rich and poor, country and city. The battalion, which became the soldier’s surrogate ‘home’, comprised men from all walks of life and its officers had to be men in every sense of the word, irrespective of background or wealth. Charles Bean’s belief that the Australian bush created the perfect conditions for the AIF soldier was not entirely accurate. This was only one side of the coin and the boys from the cities — as those from Malvern would attest — stamped their own imprint on the force. Some of these men fought at Mont St Quentin-Péronne, some were decorated, some were wounded and some were killed. But they all belong to its story and, like their country counterparts, they displayed those same traits that characterised the Australian digger.

  CHAPTER 8:

  A ROUGH SHOW WE GOT INTO

  To have our own artillery covering us is all we ask

  Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson argue that the effective use of an all-arms ‘weapons system’ on the Western Front in 1918 was an important factor in the Allied victory. Interlocking roles were assigned to tanks, aeroplanes, various forms of communication, artillery, infantry and even cavalry working together in synchronisation to achieve the maximum effect. A whole battle could be jeopardised if these elements did not work together, particularly the vital weapons systems of the infantry —working with its own firepower — and the artillery.1 Monash likened it to

  … a score for an orchestral composition, where the various arms and units are the instruments, and the tasks they perform are their respective musical phrases. Every individual unit must make its entry precisely at the proper moment, and play its phrase in the general harmony. The whole programme is controlled by an exact time-table, to which every infantryman, every heavy or light gun, every mortar or machine gun, every tank and aeroplane must respond with punctuality; otherwise there will be discords which will impair the success of the operation, and increase the cost of it.2

  The key to success in battle was firepower, which could counteract the diminishing manpower available to the Allies in 1918 and ensure that ‘lack of numbers did not constitute a bar to success’. While this included weapons such as rifle grenades, Lewis guns, and Vickers machine-guns, all available in increasing numbers, artillery was ‘the paramount form of fire power’ and the most important agent in enabling the infantry to move forward. In addition, so sophisticated had artillery methods become that ‘by their very nature’ they ‘would make good any deficiencies on the part of the commanders’.3

  In 1918 the artillery could take advantage of new techniques such as sound ranging, flash spotting and aerial photography. This last depended on air superiority which, by now, the Allies enjoyed. The position of enemy guns could be located prior to a battle and transposed on the latest maps. Sophisticated adjustments could be made so that guns could be ranged precisely onto German guns without ranging shots, thus reintroducing the element of surprise to the battle. In the creeping barrage — first used in 1916 — the shells moved forward in stages at a fixed rate and could be ‘hugged’ by the infantry, its aim not to destroy the German trenches or kill the men manning them but to neutralise them, allowing the infantry to attack the enemy before he could man his weapons. Simultaneous counter-battery bombardment by heavy artillery could destroy his guns or at least make it impossible to man them. By 1918 the number of guns and shells required for these tasks could be calculated. Artillery could be used to cut wire, facilitating the infantry’s advance.

  Monash believed that the days when the infantry should have to fight its way forward, expending ‘heroic physical effort’, withering away ‘under merciless machine gun fire’, impaling itself on ‘hostile bayonets’ or tearing ‘itself to pieces in hostile entanglements’ were long gone. Modern infantry should advance ‘under the maximum possible protection of the maximum possible array of mechanical resources’. It was a fundamental principle to employ the entire resources of the corps in artillery, tanks and aircraft to support the infantry in battle. Monash ‘never permitted any exception to be made’ to this rule.4

  Pompey Elliott, usually an admirer of Monash, felt that he departed from his sound principles of attack at Mont St Quentin-Péronne, allowing the German defences to be ‘beaten down by blood’ rather than mechanical resources. Consequently, it was an awful ‘stunt’ which left the men haggard and drawn, too tired in some instances even to go for their food.5 Norman Nicolson described them as ‘thin and ragged and dirty and lousy, with beards’ and marvelled how they could keep going.6 They may have been proud of their achievement, but it came at a price and Monash’s policy of pushing the men to the limits of their endurance was not without risk.

  At Mont St Quentin-Péronne Monash could not apply the ‘winning formula’ he had employed so successfully at Hamel, Amiens and Chuignes. Mont St Quentin-Péronne was a series of quick attacks rather than a set-piece battle and the same principles did not apply. As Paul Harris points out, different combinations of arms were needed at different times and ‘to think in terms of a constant application of a set formula would be to underestimate the dynamism and complexity of the campaign.’ In mobile warfare, creeping barrages were used less frequently. Instead, hurricane bombardments or standing barrages were employed against particular strongpoints and infantry firepower became much more important.7 Chris Roberts adds that ‘mobile warfare required a different application of the combined arms team using the systems that could be employed or which were available.’8

  Given the forces available to him, Monash had three alternatives: ‘to do nothing and attempt nothing’ and await the outcome of events elsewhere; to meticulously plan a set-piece battle that would take several valuable days; or to attack ‘without delay’ in a quick assault before the Germans had adequate time to develop their defences. For M
onash, the first option was ‘the worst of bad generalship’, while the second would give the Germans far too much time but would allow his own artillery to be brought forward. The third option involved risks which nonetheless the corps commander considered were worth taking because any strengthening of the positions would make them much more difficult to take at a far higher cost. There is no evidence that Monash even considered either of the first two options.9

  There were no tanks available for this attack — this was the first and only time that Monash planned an operation without them. On 25 August each division in the Australian Corps had an allotment of ten tanks with six in corps reserve. This was cancelled on 26 August when any tanks allocated to the Fourth Army were sent to support a major operation by the First and Third armies further north.10 When Monash wrote that the tanks were unavailable because of repairs, renewals and the training of fresh crews, he was only presenting part of the picture.11 In any case, it is doubtful that tanks would have been much use to the infantry in the terrain of the Mont St Quentin-Péronne battlefield where their manoeuvrability would have been limited.