Beaten Down By Blood Read online

  However, by 1 September, the 3rd Australian Division and III Corps had made significant inroads into the German defences on the Bouchavesnes ridge, the 2nd Australian Division had taken Mont St Quentin village and wood and the 5th Australian Division had troops in Péronne. The Fourth Army had begun to unhinge the winter line, irrespective of what happened in the Canadian attack further north.13

  Rawlinson’s actions are important at this stage. He would appear to have supported Monash’s plan from the outset and forcing the line of the Somme in front of the Fourth Army may have been his intention, as anticipated by Monash. As Army commander, he had the authority to order Monash not to attack Mont St Quentin and Péronne and surely would have done so had he believed it would compromise Haig’s major operation. Rawlinson had no desire to see the Australian Corps decimated in an action that promised no tactical gain — it was more than his job was worth at this stage of the war and with the mood prevailing in the British Government and the War Cabinet. Yet he allowed Monash to take the risk, and Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson believe that he acted astutely in giving Monash his head.14 Rawlinson’s attitude may have stemmed from a broader appreciation of the strategic situation all along the front. There is just a hint in his diary that he doubted whether the First and Third armies, against stiff opposition and suffering heavy casualties, could achieve Haig’s hoped-for breakthrough, whereas a successful operation on the Fourth Army’s front could have important ramifications.15 His action reflects the greater independence of army, and indeed corps, commanders in 1918.

  Rawlinson’s diary entry for 28 August stated that the Australians were remaining close to the Germans in the hope of taking prisoners and forcing them over the river ‘so as to win a passage’. On 29 August they had reached the left bank of the Somme all along their front and Rawlinson believed that the enemy would withdraw from Péronne to the Hindenburg Line ‘and quickly too if he is pushed’.16 By the evening of 29 August the army commander had adjusted the corps boundaries between the Australians and III Corps to allow the 3rd Division to capture Cléry and push along the Bouchavesnes ridge. On 30 August Rawlinson called on Rosenthal and Hobbs with Monash to discuss the operation for 31 August. A note in his diary records that the Australians were determined to take both Mont St Quentin and Péronne and ‘if they can do so quickly I shall be delighted’, although he believed it would not be an easy task.17 If his diary is a true reflection of his intention at the time, then Rawlinson was backing Monash all the way.

  The success of the Australians and III Corps on 1 September, prior to the breaking of the Drocourt-Queant position, somewhat changed the thinking at GHQ. Herbert Lawrence, Haig’s Chief of Staff, obviously felt the success was worth following up as a breakthrough might be achieved if the Germans crumbled. He proposed sending a cavalry division, but Haig would not agree, even though he considered that the Fourth Army had achieved ‘a great success’.18 Indeed, for Rawlinson, ‘September 1st may be considered as one of the most momentous days of the operations since August 8th, and without doubt, was a most disastrous one for the enemy.’19 Paul Harris believes that it would have been difficult for the Germans to remain on the line of the Somme at this point, even without the Canadian action further north.20

  On 2 September the Canadians stormed through the Drocourt-Queant Line, subsequently forcing the Germans across the Canal du Nord and causing them also to abandon the Lys salient. All the territory the enemy had gained in the March offensive had been lost. The Canadians had certainly unhinged this section of the German ‘winter line’. Further to the south, on the Somme, British and Australian troops were consolidating the Bouchavesnes ridge, the 7th Australian Brigade had taken possession of the crucial Mont St Quentin ridge and the Australians had taken Péronne in its entirety. The southern hinge had been wrested from the German defensive position. Hundreds of Germans had been killed and hundreds captured and several of their divisions broken in the successful Australian operation alone.

  James Edmonds, the British Official Historian, explained the operation succinctly when he stated that the German retirement to the Hindenburg Line, which commenced on the night of 2/3 September, was a consequence of the breaking of the Drocourt-Queant position by the Canadians and the turning of the Somme line with the capture of Mont St Quentin and Péronne by the Australians.21 All along the line the Germans had suffered a series of body blows — from the British, the Canadians, the New Zealanders, the Australians and the French. In the north, Foch began to plan an offensive in Flanders while, to the south of Péronne, Rawlinson and the First French Army were poised for a crossing of the Somme River, an operation made possible by the capture of Mont St Quentin and Péronne. Rawlinson could also use these two strongpoints as a pivot to form a flank on the high ground east and south of Péronne, allowing the Fourth Army to push towards the high ground at Nurlu.

  Ludendorff, bitterly disappointed, blamed divisions which failed to hold, ‘putting a terrible strain on other gallant troops’.22 He ordered the retirement in front of the British First and Third armies, but then the deplorable situation of his Second Army facing Rawlinson’s troops forced him to withdraw it and the Eighteenth Army on its left to the Hindenburg Line. Other German armies were to follow in their wake. Even here, however, with a considerably shortened front, the Germans could not hold, forcing Ludendorff, on 4 October, just before the Australians fought their last battle, to recommend that Germany seek an armistice on the basis of American President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points. The attacks by the British First, Third and Fourth armies and the solid progress of the French at the end of August and the beginning of September 1918 had considerably shortened the war.

  Monash, in his book Australian Victories, claimed that the capture of Mont St Quentin and Péronne turned the whole line of the Somme and the Canal du Nord and opened a wide gate ‘through which the remainder of the Fourth and Third Armies could pour, so as to roll up the enemy’s line in both directions’.23 He regarded the Australian success as the key element in the German decision to withdraw to the Hindenburg Line. However, this operation, where defences were ‘beaten down by blood’, was not even part of Douglas Haig’s original concept, the ‘state of the military art’ assault by the Canadians the priority of effort. This made Mont St Quentin-Péronne, in Niall Barr’s words, ‘a strangely isolated event’, occurring in something of an ‘operational vacuum’.24

  However, this does not mean that the battle was unnecessary. While Monash overstated its importance, the military significance of Mont St Quentin-Péronne within the context of operations right along the line points to its emergence as one in a series of battles — the Scarpe, Bapaume, Mont St Quentin-Péronne, the French actions to the south — which completely unbalanced the Germans and forced their withdrawal. In its own right the battle was a fine feat of arms, perhaps the AIF’s finest in the war.

  An intelligence report on 2 September declared that the Germans could not build up a reserve of good divisions because of Allied pressure over the last week and ‘so long as this pressure is maintained no attempt on his part to regain the initiative is possible’.25 What had occurred on the fronts of the First, Third and Fourth armies from 26 August to 6 September was the turning of tactical successes into a strategic victory.

  CHAPTER 13:

  TO OUR LAST MAN AND OUR LAST SHILLING

  Just a little footsore

  I think that’s what soldiers actually fight for; they don’t really fight for high faluting ideas. They fight for the mate who’s next to them, they fight for their own pride and they fight for the things that they intuitively have in the back of their mind, that they’re Australian soldiers and they have certain things that they must do and they’ll do it.

  Major General John Cantwell

  Afghanistan, 20101

  The contribution of the capture of Mont St Quentin-Péronne to ending the war in 1918 had a more profound significance for the AIF. With its reinforcements dwindling without prospect of replenishment, subst
antial casualty rates and the extent to which the divisions were being used as ‘shock troops’, men were claiming that, if they continued to be used as they were, there would be ‘no more AIF before long’.2 This assertion deeply worried Prime Minister Billy Hughes, who believed that Australia’s ability to negotiate at any future peace settlement was dependent on its troops making a significant impact in the field. Implicit in this are a number of issues which deserve examination.

  By mid-1917 Australia appeared no longer prepared to wage war ‘to our last man and our last shilling’, as Andrew Fisher had vowed in 1914. The Australian home front was splintered by political bickering, industrial unrest, sectarian antagonism and war weariness, brought into sharp relief by the attempt in 1916 to introduce conscription. Voluntary recruiting was not meeting the demands of the war, but Hughes faced a dilemma: it was unlikely that Parliament would pass an act to compel men to fight, so the ‘back door’ method of appealing to the people in a referendum seemed the only alternative.

  Had the AIF used tactics in the field such as the Prime Minister now employed on the home front it would have been in grave difficulty. The campaign smacked of insincerity and dishonesty. Anticipating a ‘Yes’ vote, the government ordered a ‘poll’ of all men aged 18 to 44 to ascertain who might willingly enlist and used the Defence Act to call on all single men between the ages of 21 and 35 to go into camp if medically fit — and have their fingerprints taken — supposedly to train for military service in Australia, but in reality for service overseas once the referendum, and hopefully the consequent act of Parliament, was passed. Added to these actions which sparked enormous opposition, the government was accused of lying about the number of men required per month to keep the Australian divisions up to strength, its grossly exaggerated figures causing distress and disillusionment.

  On both sides of the issue, protagonists pushed their claims with vigour. The ‘Yes’ campaign stressed the good name, honour and safety of Australia, that the protection of the British Empire was essential for Australia’s territorial integrity, and how an intolerable burden was being placed on those men who were at the front. Those advocating ‘No’ felt that Australia was remote from the war, had already done her full share, could not compel men to take life and could be fully served by the voluntary system. The issue split the Labor Party and became ‘one of the most acrimonious struggles Australia has ever seen’.3 More importantly, it did untold damage to the voluntary recruiting system as the greater good of Australia, the Empire and the AIF became submerged in the distractions and dissensions it created. The referendum failed, although the vote from the front was narrowly in favour.

  The performance was repeated in 1917. This time there was violence in the streets amounting almost to riots and Hughes was pelted with eggs on a trip to Brisbane. New issues such as Australia’s financial burden were introduced to the debate, which was also characterised by an anti-Hughes, anti-war, pro-peace movement on the ‘No’ side. Again the referendum failed, the ‘No’ majority almost doubled from 1916; again the soldiers narrowly recorded a ‘Yes’ vote, but this may have been decided by officers and NCOs who were in favour of conscription rather than the other ranks.

  For Frank Roberts of the 21st Battalion the issue was clear cut. He deplored the ‘slackers‘; they were not ‘men’. Reinforcements were needed because the men were ‘double worked’ and forced to carry out ‘impossible tasks’, bluffing the Germans to disguise their small numbers, dying ‘because exhaustion undermined them and they couldn’t fight as they fought when fit.’4 Walter Serle of the 60th Battalion was more ambivalent. In a letter to brother Percival in May 1918, he wrote that he could understand why ordinary soldiers would vote ‘No’: the sense of adventure was now difficult to find, enough men had been killed and Australia had done its fair share. He commented that, as ‘crude as they may be these arguments sound well to weary men. High ideals are apt to crash in a war like this.’5 His own attitude to conscription was not clearly stated. What both men have in common, however, is a belief in the Australian soldier. Frank, writing his last letter home in August 1918, said that the men were not downhearted, had not lost any of their fighting qualities and were in fine fighting mood and spirits because of the victories they had secured, while Walter declared that ‘their orders are to stand and to the last if it is absolutely necessary they will stand.’6

  Comments such as these belie the argument recently advanced that the Australian Corps was a spent force by October 1918, Christopher Pugsley even going so far as to declare that Monash, by losing touch with his men, had destroyed the fine instrument given to him to control and that by the end of September it was ‘verging on collapse’.7 Paul Harris believes that the ‘loose, informal discipline’ of the Australians had given way ‘under the extraordinary stress of the August and September fighting’ and that the digger had reached his breaking point.8 In late October when Haig was keen to have the corps back in the line and implied that they were ‘shirking’, he ‘did not realise the shattered condition to which this once-formidable formation had now been reduced.’9

  During periods of intense operational activity, such as the Australians had experienced in August and September, cases of desertion and indiscipline were likely to increase, but the AIF had not disintegrated by the time of the Armistice; if anything it retained the will to fight to the limits of its endurance. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that the Fourth Army commander, Henry Rawlinson, was in any way displeased with the Australian Corps, and he was a man who tended to make his opinions — and his displeasure — well known.10 As Ashley Ekins points out, the evidence for any deterioration in combat effectiveness is non-existent, the breaking of the Beaurevoir Line just before the corps was withdrawn a case in point.11 The AIF could never be accused of collapsing in the field.

  However, it is interesting to examine what type of fighting force the AIF would have been had the war continued into 1919. Monash saw the men as ‘just a little footsore’, nothing that rest and recuperation — possibly in the south of France or Italy for the winter of 1918/1919, as advocated by Hughes — would not cure. According to Bean, Monash did not regard manpower as the crucial issue, for ‘so long as they have 30 Lewis guns (per battalion) it doesn’t matter very much what else they have’; this of course ignores the fact that only infantry could hold the ground gained, a point made very clear at Mont St Quentin-Péronne. He argued that the corps would be up to full strength again by the spring of 1919 if the men rested for the winter. It is difficult to see how Monash could have taken such an optimistic view.12

  The recruiting figures in Australia for 1918, in the wake of the two failed conscription referenda, were appalling. This was despite an all-out, efficiently organised, nationwide drive to encourage men to enlist. From January to November the average number of enlistments per month was a paltry 2600. Around 5500 men per month were needed to keep the five divisions in the field and more than this would need to enlist to account for those not deemed suitable. To the end, Australia was strict in imposing physical requirements and other criteria on those who volunteered, even though these standards had been relaxed since the early days of the war.

  There remained a large pool of eligible men to draw on; it was estimated in 1917 that 140,000 single men and 280,000 married men aged 18 to 44 had not answered the call. In 1918 the mood created by the referenda was such that whatever momentum remained in Australia to urge Australians forward as a nation to win the war had dissipated, the earlier enthusiasm and unity of purpose diminished, and recruiting no longer had the full support of the Australian people, some elements even actively working against it. The casualty rates for 1917 — 55,000 men in the major battles of Bullecourt, Messines and Passchendaele — acted as a further deterrent to enlistment; paradoxically, this also illustrated just how crucial reinforcements would be for the operations of 1918.

  However, in another paradox in Australia’s attitude to war in 1918, the AIF itself was well-supported and people were general
ly proud of its achievements, particularly in 1918 when its many victories were greeted with enthusiasm and relief. Throughout the war a consistent effort was maintained to supply Britain with raw materials such as steel and lead and primary products — wheat, wool, meat, dairy products — which helped that nation to wage ‘total war’ and to supply the armies at the front. Important unions such as the Australian Workers’ Union, which was mostly involved with rural industries, remained free of disputes throughout the war, largely because of its very close connection with the men at the front, where 30,000 of its members were fighting. The lead smelter works at Port Pirie in South Australia, from which raw material was transported to Britain to make munitions, also remained free of industrial action throughout the war.

  Australian uniforms were designed and made in Australia, the jacket of pure Australian wool. It was this jacket and the slouch hat which gave the soldiers ‘their distinctive appearance’. There was also a ‘battle of the boots’ over whether the Australian or British issue was better — 100,000 pairs of Australian boots were delivered per month to its forces.13 Australians were proud of this self-sufficiency. As well as clothing, harnesses and small arms were also made in Australia. Over 6000 chemists and workers went to Britain to work in munitions factories when it was declared impractical geographically to begin such an industry here, although Australia would have done so had it been required.

  An enormous amount of work was performed by civilians — a large percentage of them women — to support Australian soldiers and this continued throughout the war. In fact, ‘it has been said that the Australian soldier was looked after better than any other man in the field’.14 In each state a number of patriotic funds were established, raising over 12 million pounds during the war. Of particular importance was the Comforts Fund, which supplemented food, clothing and recreational facilities to ‘fit and well’ soldiers and the Australian Red Cross Society, largely organised by the wife of the Governor-General, Lady Helen Munro-Ferguson. The scope of activities of this latter organisation was astounding, ranging from the supply of clothing and comforts to the establishment of the Voluntary Aid Detachment, Wounded and Missing Inquiry Bureau (the work of Vera Deakin, a daughter of former Prime Minister Alfred Deakin) and the Red Cross Advice Bureau which offered free legal advice to soldiers and their dependants. An important part of the work of the Red Cross was to care for the wounded and their families. The society established 2200 branches in Australia, with over 100,000 workers, was administered with voluntary contributions and never lacked funds.