Beaten Down By Blood Read online

  Dealing with the crucial role of the artillery is a much more difficult proposition. The fact that the infantry had to fight its way forward over every inch of ground, expending enormous physical effort, enduring some of the worst machine-gun fire and artillery barrages ever experienced and being torn to pieces on the barbed wire would suggest that the artillery had failed to do its job at Mont St Quentin-Péronne. This is a simplistic and unjust assumption which does not consider the nature of the attack, the conditions on the battlefield nor how the artillery performed under the circumstances. However, it is also difficult to agree with John Terraine, who alleges that the ‘breathtaking’ success was due to the guns.12

  The 2nd Division had five brigades of field artillery to support its advance on 31 August and 1 September. Two of these were the divisional units, the 4th and 5th Australian Field Artillery brigades. The other three were attached British units, the 5th and 16th Royal Horse Artillery brigades and the 298th Royal Field Artillery Brigade. On 2 September an additional two brigades were attached from the 3rd Division which had four brigades in support on 31 August, the 3rd (Army), the 7th and 8th Australian Field Artillery brigades and the 14th (Army) Royal Field Artillery Brigade. On the 5th Division’s front, the 12th (Army), the 13th and 14th Australian brigades and the 23rd (Army) Royal Field Artillery Brigade covered the advance on 1 and 2 September.

  At this stage of the war an Australian field artillery brigade comprised four batteries, each of six guns. Three of these batteries fired 18-pounders, the staple artillery weapon of the BEF, with a range of around 6500 yards. The fourth, the howitzer battery, fired 4.5-inch shells to a maximum range of 7000 yards. From 31 August to 2 September the batteries of the 2nd and 5th divisions were firing almost to the limit of their range and, by the morning of 1 September, only two batteries of one brigade, the 4th, were across the river. Had the infantry been able to push to their furthest objectives on 31 August and 1 September, artillery support would have been very thin indeed. As it was, the fire of all available batteries could not be concentrated because of the substantial frontage they had to cover. This led many in the infantry to declare that there was no barrage or that it was weak or spasmodic.

  In addition, the three Australian divisions each had a brigade of Royal Garrison heavy artillery under divisional command. Although their batteries largely comprised six guns firing a 60-pounder shell with a range of 16,000 yards or six howitzers of six inch calibre firing to a maximum range of 9500 yards, there were some heavier howitzers and guns among them. For the Battle of Mont St Quentin-Péronne, the 9th Brigade Royal Garrison Artillery was attached to the 2nd Division, the 51st Brigade to the 3rd Division and the 21st Brigade to the 5th Division. There were five other heavy artillery brigades under corps control which participated intermittently in the fighting. However, not all batteries of these brigades were within range and some that were had reached the limit of their range, so could not be considered to have provided substantial support.

  The artillery commanders of the three Australian divisions — Brigadier Generals Owen Phillips, Harold Grimwade and Alfred Bessell-Brown — were experienced gunners, as were Rosenthal and Hobbs. Paul Stevens believes that the response of the artillery at Mont St Quentin-Péronne was modern and innovative, the commanders doing the best they could in the time they had with what was available, particularly considering that some artillery had also been diverted from the Fourth Army to serve the needs of the First and Third armies to the north.13 With the exception of the 3rd Division front, creeping barrages were not put down — there was insufficient time to arrange these — but rather a timed series of area shoots arranged to fall on selected targets expected to offer resistance to the infantry advance. There was no set timetable; this was an opportunistic battle where decisions had to be made quickly according to the circumstances as they unfolded. But for well-trained troops who could fight forward under their own firepower it was, under the circumstances, a sensible artillery plan that would allow their initiative and mastery of tactics to come to the fore.

  The artillery programs bore little resemblance to the detailed plans of the set-piece battles and the gunners, like the infantry, had to alter their mindset for conditions of open warfare — some had been trained in this at Larkhill, the artillery base in Britain — and adapt to the requirements of the quick attack. Hobbs, however, was concerned about the lack of time to prepare the artillery plans for the 5th Division. What was available was ‘necessarily less effective and does not render the close support or covering fire which is so necessary to infantry when attacking an enemy in a prepared position.’ He would have preferred to delay the attack ‘to allow of a more elaborate and detailed artillery programme to be worked out’.14 The 14th Brigade, advancing with very little covering fire, suffered the heaviest casualties, demonstrating that the divisional commander’s concerns were justified, if impossible to implement. Hobbs acknowledged that the artillery was required to provide support at extremely short notice; for example, his batteries received Operation Order 78 at 3.30 am on 1 September for a barrage commencing at 5.30 am and Operation Order 79 at 4.00 am on 2 September for a barrage also at 5.30 am. He congratulated the field and heavy artillery on 2 September, recognising the near-impossibility of the tasks expected of them.

  On 27 August, Archibald Montgomery, Rawlinson’s Chief of Staff, made it clear that open warfare required field guns to be kept well forward to cover the advance of the infantry. Risks should be freely incurred and guns should be fired tactically from direct observation and on the initiative of subordinate commanders.15 This decentralisation of control was a practice readily adopted by the 2nd and 3rd divisions at Mont St Quentin-Péronne, where individual batteries were detached to work closely with specific infantry battalions. However, this also meant that the artillery became an offensive weapons system with tremendous strain on the gunners. For its part, the 5th Division does not appear to have embraced such decentralisation; only one battery, the 54th of the 14th Field Artillery Brigade, was a mobile battery and it did not move forward in support of the infantry until 4.00 pm on 1 September when operations were well advanced and it could not be employed to its full extent.16

  Where the Somme crossings had proven a challenge for the infantry, they were even more so for the gunners, who dragged their guns forward on their limbers, mostly using horse transport. Bridges made passable for infantry had to be reinforced, or others built to take the weight of the guns and this was particularly true for motorised transport which moved the heavy artillery. This was an issue for the 6th Brigade on 31 August as it tried to move in support of the 5th. Its artillery support was scheduled to cross the river at noon, but at 3.30 pm James Robertson claimed that the brigade could not move because it had no artillery support, its artillery being at ‘extreme range from present positions’.17 Rosenthal told him to advance anyway; the artillery would catch up, but it was virtually impossible to move the guns during daylight as they were in full view of German positions on the high ground. Remarkably, considering the congested and dilapidated condition of the roads, a battery of the 68th Royal Garrison Artillery and two of the 9th Royal Garrison Artillery managed to cross the river by 1 September, having moved some considerable distance.18

  When the 14th Brigade attacked on 2 September, Bert Bishop recorded his officer remarking that ‘not a single wheeled vehicle has as yet crossed the river. We have no artillery cover or support at all. I think you know what to expect.’19 Indeed, while available crossings were limited, there was also the additional problem of where to position the guns once they crossed. Until Mont St Quentin was taken, the artillery on the northern bank of the river was very vulnerable and the ground heavily congested with troops. The whole situation provided perfect targets for the German artillery and made the resupply of ammunition extremely tenuous. At 2.00 pm on 3 September the 5th Division batteries were still on the southern bank.

  4th Field Artillery Brigade in action near Clery, 1-2 September 1918. (AWM EO3144)


  The role and effectiveness of the artillery becomes more clearly apparent in a day-by-day study of the battle itself. The operation began on 30 August with the 3rd Division’s push up the Bouchavesnes ridge, a ‘stunt’ the exhausted commanders and men of the 9th and 10th brigades did not even know about until about 10.00 pm on 29 August after Rawlinson ordered the boundary between III Corps and the Australian Corps to be adjusted. The attack by two weak battalions went in at 2.30 am without a barrage, the men also unaware that the 2nd Division would not be able to cross the river to attack at dawn.

  It was midnight before the artillery was ordered forward. At 4.30 am on 30 August, the 25th and 107th batteries of the 7th Field Artillery Brigade moved to a position west of Cléry to support the 37th Battalion’s attack which had begun two hours earlier and was expected by that time to be on its final objective. The batteries of the 8th Field Artillery Brigade moved forward at around the same time in support of the 9th Brigade. Incredibly, the 34th and 37th battalions reached their first objectives without artillery support, relying on their own firepower of Lewis guns, rifles and captured German heavy machine-guns, the element of surprise and the cover of darkness.

  Like the infantry, the artillery was given an impossible task. When the batteries finally reached their positions, the guns were firing within minutes. The 25th Battery worked closely with the 37th Battalion and, according to the war diary of the 7th Field Artillery Brigade, provided excellent support. The war diaries of the 34th and 37th battalions do not mention the artillery at all, perhaps a case of infantry perceptions differing significantly from those of the gunners. However, the guns appear to have broken up a German concentration around Cléry Copse, dispersed counter-attacks, engaged in counter-battery work, fired at opportunity targets, harassed machine-gun positions and fired on machine-guns holding up the advance in the trenches.20 The 9th Brigade war diary reported that there was good liaison between this brigade and the 8th Field Artillery Brigade and observations by forward observation officers were promptly reported.

  A heavy artillery shoot targeting machine-guns in Cléry enabled the Australians to finally capture the village during the morning of 30 August. At 2.00 pm the infantry attacked Cléry Copse with artillery and Stokes mortar preparation, but the Germans held the position too strongly and the attack was unsuccessful. At times the artillery had to suspend its bombardment of the German positions because Australian troops were too close and, at least on one occasion, men were shelled by their own guns. While the 20th Battalion war diary records that the 12th Battery of the 4th Field Artillery Brigade supporting it inflicted serious losses on its opponents in the trench systems around Cléry, assisting in their capture, the 3rd Division artillery was unable to shoot either the 34th or the 37th battalions onto their final objectives, the infantry struggling to gain ground in the difficult, broken terrain and forced to abandon the attempt after suffering heavy casualties.

  With a few notable exceptions, the artillery was unable to effectively support the infantry on 30 August. The men of every unit involved had to fight for every inch of ground; even the 20th Battalion could not reach its assembly position until after dark. This situation perhaps prompted John McDonald’s comment that ‘our artillery has been badly bluffed’, prompting some concern over the attack on Mont St Quentin the next morning.21 Throughout the day the Germans had conducted systematic area shoots against the Australians, paying particular attention to communications with the front line, and firing gas shells. When the 3rd Division batteries moved again in the afternoon, their new positions closer to Cléry were heavily strafed, providing a taste of what was in store for them.

  On 31 August both the 3rd Division’s field and heavy artillery were in better positions to support the infantry advance. The 51st Brigade Royal Garrison Artillery moved to Hem on 30 August enabling it to fire over a far greater range. Field guns in front of both the 9th and 10th Brigade troops fired a creeping barrage but, even though the rate of advance was slow, it quickly ran away from the infantry and was unable to neutralise the defence. The Germans, primarily from the Augusta Regiment, emerged from their dugouts to engage in bitter hand-to-hand fighting with the Australians. In addition, the German retaliation against the batteries was heavy during the barrage; the 25th Battery had two men killed and five wounded, while the 27th had 25 men gassed. Nonetheless, the barrage helped the disorganised 10th Brigade reach the old tangled trench system north-west of Feuillaucourt, which it perhaps mistook for its final objective. German prisoners attested that artillery fire caused them to ‘lie down in their trenches like worms’.22

  Thomas Bridger, a British-born 29-year-old bombardier and former paper maker’s representative from St Kilda in Melbourne recorded the increase in shellfire as his battery, the 27th of the 7th Field Artillery Brigade, moved up, coming across the bodies of two German machine-gunners and a medical corps orderly called Siegfried, ‘who hailed from Berlin’ and was very much alive. At one stage, probably on 30 August, a 6-inch howitzer battery pulled in between Hem and Cléry. The muzzle of one gun was pointed directly at the position occupied by the cook of the 27th Battery and ‘the first round nearly spoiled the dixies of midday tea. An argument followed in which it was decided that the carrying on of the war was of prime importance – although this was not unanimous – so the 6 inch battery did not move, but the cook’s gear had to.’ On 31 August the battery was in ‘a much mutilated part of the old line’ near Cléry, with the 25th Battery some 200 yards in front. According to Bridger, the 25th took a direct hit on a gun, with four men killed. The Germans were firing high explosive shells mixed with gas, from which all batteries suffered severely. The 27th contributed to the barrage on 1 September, firing 1200 rounds.23

  To the front of the 33rd Battalion, the artillery support was accurate but thin at zero hour; by 6.00 am, however, there was a ‘welcome increase in fire’. Leslie Morshead felt hampered by a serious lack of liaison with his battery commanders and argued that it was not sufficient to have the artillery liaison officer located at brigade headquarters as communications between battalion and brigade were cut time and time again and, even when they were working, orders had to be signalled by lamp, often coming too late. Nonetheless, the available artillery provided excellent support to his battalion, and he wrote a letter to the 8th Field Artillery Brigade in appreciation of its work. Its ready cooperation assisted the advance on 31 August and helped the battalion to resist counter-attacks and ‘to have our own artillery covering us is all we ask; every single man then knows and feels that everything humanly possible will be done.’ Indeed, Morshead made a gift of a captured 77-mm gun to this unit. The 33rd reached its objective and exploited beyond it, this second phase of the operation conducted without artillery support. Eventually, however, it was forced to come back.24

  The artillery war diaries stress that the batteries performed excellent work both during the advance and afterwards. They worked in close support of the infantry, engaging in observed shooting against German movements and concentrations as reported from observation posts established on the ridge and firing on infantry request as well as on opportunity targets. Counter-attacks against the Australians were dispersed in the morning and, from 12.00 to 12.30 pm, a standing barrage was put down to try to help the 10th Brigade to the main Feuillaucourt–Bouchavesnes road, which the 40th Battalion reached but could not hold. At 3.45 pm the 7th Field Artillery Brigade fired on Germans moving from Allaines to Mont St Quentin in an effort to assist the 5th Brigade. Within the 7th Field there was close liaison between artillery brigade headquarters and infantry brigade headquarters and between batteries and the battalions they were specifically supporting.

  Consequently, the 40th Battalion reported that the artillery was well forward and worked well with the infantry. The 25th and 26th batteries, under the command of Captain David Davies and Major Henry Glover respectively, had some ‘rare sport’ — ‘sniping’ at the Germans and enjoying it immensely.25 Both these men were decorated for their p
art in this battle, Glover winning the MC for his support of the 10th Brigade and the rapid and accurate shooting of his battery. Davies was awarded a bar to his MC for conspicuous ability and devotion to duty. The guns fired continuously on 31 August, despite being strafed incessantly by German artillery fire.

  The 30th Battery, 8th Field Artillery Brigade, was positioned just above Cléry from the night of 30 August. Gunner James Armitage described the village itself as ‘a flattened pile of bricks’, a ‘bad place’ where reinforcements to his battery ‘got a terrible initiation’. As the operation progressed the artillery became densely packed and the area was inundated with gas, including mustard gas. The British battery which Armitage’s 30th relieved reported 80% casualties and ‘it was a rough show we got into’.26 However, from the spurs around Cléry the batteries enjoyed excellent views of the battlefield. For Charles Bean, it was a memorable sight to see the Germans ‘harried from spur to spur and trench to trench by British shells.’27

  Diagram of artillery program for the 5th Brigade, 31 August 1918

  Bean reported ‘a great bombardment’ of Mont St Quentin at 5.00 am on 31 August, with all field guns blazing on Gottlieb Trench and the shells of four brigades of heavies bursting on the summit and targets on the flanks as the infantry went over the top.28 While he recognised that the 2nd Division bombardment occurred in three stages, he almost certainly overstated its intensity. In fact, the field artillery barrage rested in front of Gottlieb Trench for 30 minutes from zero hour, then lifted to targets from Feuillaucourt to Anvil Wood for 30 minutes before lifting again in a sweep around the Mont to provide a protective barrage for the next 30 minutes. In all, a 90-minute program saw the four artillery lanes — a brigade operating in each —fan out to eventually cover a 4000-yard front. One brigade, the 16th Royal Horse Artillery, in an area shoot outside the lanes, was covering the northern ramparts and approaches to Péronne for the whole 90 minutes while, from 5.30 to 6.00 am, only the 5th Royal Horse Artillery was shooting directly on Mont St Quentin itself. The role of the available artillery was to cover not just the objective, but also any other targets that needed to be suppressed. The rate of fire was a fairly casual two rounds per gun and howitzer per minute.