Beaten Down By Blood Page 31
By the end of 1919 the violence and rioting by returned soldiers had died away. Largely because of the conciliatory work of the RSSILA, which claimed over 100,000 members by the end of 1919, a paid repatriation commission had been established, pensions increased, a war gratuity established and preference in employment secured. There was no radicalisation of ex-servicemen and the belief in democracy remained strong. However, there is a strong sense that many men were disappointed on their return to the country whose distinct characteristics they had thought of so nostalgically while in France.
As early as 7 September 1918, Charles Rosenthal had decided on a site for the 2nd Division Memorial on the Western Front.9 Obviously he believed that the achievement at Mont St Quentin had exceeded anything that had been done before and would not be equalled by any subsequent action in which his division would play a part. After the war, the mayor and council of Mont St Quentin gave the land to the Australians and the men of the 2nd Division, with the help of the Commonwealth Government, collected the money and commissioned Charles Web Gilbert to create a statue for the monument. Web Gilbert’s allegorical concept of a digger bayoneting a dying eagle, symbolising the AIF defeating the Imperial German Army, was not enthusiastically received, Charles Bean calling it ‘a cheap conception’ which did not reflect the spirit of the AIF.10 Nonetheless, the statue was cast in bronze, and its supporters saw it fitting well with the legendary status of the battle. May Butler-George created the bas-reliefs on the north and south faces of the memorial and they represented Australian artillery going into action and infantrymen bombing their way along a trench.
The memorial was unveiled by Marshal Foch on 30 August 1925, when he spoke of Mont St Quentin as one of the ‘finest feats of arms in a time rich in innumerable deeds of heroism’.11 The Germans did not see it in quite the same way. In 1940, when the armies of the Third Reich burnt and bombed Péronne, they took exception to the monument, tore down the statue and removed the bas-reliefs. The statue was hacked to pieces and left lying on the ground, to disappear without trace. However, the plaster casts of the reliefs had remained in Melbourne and were re-cast by the Australian War Memorial, to take their place in its sculpture garden, as well as being reinstated on the memorial in France. A new statue of a more reflective digger, unveiled in 1971, focused on a different perspective of the Australian experience.
In February 1919 the first of the townspeople returned to Péronne, their ‘footsteps echoing up the street’ like someone ‘walking through an empty house’. May Butler-George, who was there at the time, recalled in 1920 that the main square was ‘all shattered and there was a ghostly silence among the ruins’. Suddenly a thrush began to sing on a broken beam of an old woman’s house, a symbol of ‘the spirit of Péronne’ and the willingness to ‘be brave even among our ruins’.12 In a town where ‘chaos and ruin presents itself at every turn’, everything had to be rebuilt.13 Its battlements were scarred and its churches destroyed. Only the cobbled streets remained intact, the bricks, masonry and debris which had choked them cleared by the Australians who had made themselves at home in September 1918, giving the streets names such as ‘Dingbat Alley’, ‘Digger Road’ and ‘Roo de Kanga’, the last so named because the men ‘would have to hop along it pretty quick’ to avoid the German shells.14 Across the whole Mont St Quentin-Péronne battlefield there was an ‘eerie silence’, with the ‘fields of wooden crosses’ serving as poignant reminders of the desperate fighting for this ground. It was ‘a Somme Golgotha’, a place of the skull, a land of death.15
The original 2nd Division Memorial at Mont St Quentin. (AWM PO2205.011)
Reconstruction began in 1919, the people housed in Nissen huts while their houses were rebuilt. Gradually the public buildings were made whole again. Today, the Australian flag, among others, flies from the restored remains of the citadel, which adjoins a modern interpretative museum of the Great War — the Historial de la Grande Guerre. On one wall of the Town Hall, facing the Rue St Sauveur, is a small plaque recognising that this street was the ‘Roo de Kanga’, a main artery for the Australian advance through the town in September 1918. The evocative Church of Saint-Jean, its steeple visible for many miles, stands proudly just off the main square. Péronne is once again a beautiful town, surrounded by lakes and parklands and proud of its heritage and history. It has not forgotten the Australians who fought here at the end of August and the beginning of September 1918, although few Australians know Péronne.
This account has been as much about the ordinary men who fought at Mont St Quentin-Péronne as it has about the problems surrounding the battle and its ultimate significance. Without John McDonald, Percy Morris, Daniel Anthon, Joe Maxwell, Percy Smythe, Edgar Towner, James Marshall, Alex Buckley, Alexander O’Connor, Oscar Lawson, Norman Nicolson, Donald Coutts, Louis Noedl, Tom Slaughter, Bert Bishop, Cleve Potter, Ernie Corey and the host of others who play a part in this account, the story would be without meaning and without a human face. These were the men who crept to their jumping-off line in the darkness just before dawn on 31 August, the men who stormed the Mont and Péronne on 1 September, the men caught in the maelstrom of 2 September, the gunners and machine-gunners who tried to support them, the engineers who built those crucial bridges across the Somme and the men who attended to their wounds. A soldier, known simply as ‘M.B.’, captured their essence in a poem he wrote on the ship in which he returned to Australia in 1919:
Stand silent, as the bugle’s fading notes
Wail o’er the waters to the dying sun:
Stand to their memory whose race is run.
And think, while yet the quiet music floats,
Of the great life departed, and the mirth
Of good companions, and the splendid years,
Red wine, red blood, and noble deeds and tears.
These sink as leaves to the autumnal earth.
And when Time’s journeyings shall leave you grey
At the last end of life, again you’ll stand,
See long-remembered shattered fields of France,
Dream the dead battles of bygone day,
And friends forgotten in an alien land,
Who left Australia wonder and a radiance.16
The 2nd Division Memorial at Mont St Quentin, photo by the author, May 2010.
Most who believe in the value of the Anzac tradition — and assert that Australia’s role in international conflict is a significant part of its history — do not glorify war. Anzac Day is not a ‘celebration’ of war; it is a commemoration, a tribute to those who considered it their duty to serve and to the sacrifices they made. The men of the First AIF — the 1914–1918 men — for the most part believed in the cause for which they were fighting and regarded it as a matter of pride to do the job well. This involved killing the enemy, in sometimes very bloody encounters, but these men were not brutal killers. In fact, what is revealed about them, in accounts such as those from the Battle of Mont St Quentin-Péronne, is their humanity and their respect for human life.
Very few of them ‘enjoyed’ the war, but for most it was the most ‘intense’ experience of their lives and they remembered it in terms of the mateship and the humour as well as the dreadful conditions, the suffering and the death. Throughout their lives it would remain, as Peter Stanley writes, a part of their ‘mental landscape’.17 Paradoxically, they fought ‘the war to end all wars’ so that a lasting peace and a better society could result. These were noble aims, if in fact they proved illusory. The men of Mont St Quentin-Péronne mourned the destruction they saw around them and took careful time to make the crosses with which they marked the graves of the dead.
These were fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers and now great, great-grandfathers — real people, individuals who held the same hope for their world as we do for ours today. Lest we forget.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
UNIT WAR DIARIES – AWM 4
Available online at www.awm.gov.au
General Staff/Headquarters Fourth Army 1/14/10 & 11
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General Staff/Headquarters 2nd Australian Division 1/44/37 & 38
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General Staff/Headquarters 5th Australian Division 1/50/30 & 31
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Royal Artillery, Australian Corps 13/4/16 & 17
Heavy Artillery, Australian Corps 13/7/29 & 30
2nd Australian Division Artillery 13/11/30 & 31
3rd Australian Division Artillery 13/12/28 & 29
5th Australian Division Artillery 13/14/31 & 32
3rd Australian Field Artillery Brigade 13/31/49
4th Australian Field Artillery Brigade 13/32/29 & 30
5th Australian Field Artillery Brigade 13/33/33 & 34
7th Australian Field Artillery Brigade 13/35/22 & 23
8th Australian Field Artillery Brigade 13/36/27 & 28
12th Australian Field Artillery Brigade 13/39/29
13th Australian Field Artillery Brigade 13/40/30 & 31
14th Australian Field Artillery Brigade 13/41/27
5th Australian Light Trench Mortar Battery 13/118/2
7th Australian Light Trench Mortar Battery 13/120/6
15th Australian Light Trench Mortar Battery 13/126/27
5th Field Company Australian Engineers 14/24/29
6th Field Company Australian Engineers 14/25/34
7th Field Company Australian Engineers 14/26/32 & 33
14th Field Company Australian Engineers 14/33/31
15th Field Company Australian Engineers 14/34/29 & 30
2nd Australian Divisional Signal Company 22/12/20 & 21
3rd Australian Divisional Signal Company 22/13/22 & 23
5th Australian Divisional Signal Company 22/15/31 & 33
5th Australian Infantry Brigade 23/5/38 & 39
– 17th Battalion 23/34/37
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6th Australian Infantry Brigade 23/6/36 & 37
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7th Australian Infantry Brigade 23/7/36 & 37
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9th Australian Infantry Brigade 23/9/22
– 33rd Battalion 23/50/22
– 34th Battalion 23/51/22
10th Australian Infantry Brigade 23/10/22
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11th Australian Infantry Brigade 23/11/22
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– 42nd Battalion 23/59/23
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15th Australian Infantry Brigade 23/15/30 & 31
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– 60th Battalion 23/77/32
2nd Machine Gun Battalion 24/2/6 & 7
5th Machine Gun Battalion 24/5/6 & 7
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6th Machine Gun Company 24/11/30
7th Machine Gun Company 24/12/28
14th Machine Gun Company 24/19/27
25th Machine Gun Company 24/25/ 12 & 13
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10th Australian Field Ambulance 26/53/24 & 25
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AWM 8
Available online at www.awm.gov.au
Unit Embarkation Nominal Rolls 1914–1918 War
AWM 25
519/22: Report on Operations of 2nd Australian Division from midnight 26/27th August 1918 to midnight 4/5th September 1918 including the forcing of the passage of the Somme and capture of Mont St Quentin
OPERATIONS FILES – AWM 26
468/5: Final Offensive, General Headquarters, BEF, 27 Aug – 5 Sept 1918
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473/1: Final Offensive, Fourth Army Headquarters, General Staff, Part 1, 27 Aug – 5 Sept 1918
473/2: Final Offensive, Fourth Army Headquarters, General Staff, Part 2, 27 Aug – 5 Sept 1918
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489/1: Final Offensive, Australian Corps, General Staff, 27 Aug – 5 Sept 1918
492/6: Final Offensive, Australian Corps, Intelligence, 27 Aug – 5 Sept 1918
AWM 28
Available online at www.awm.gov.au
Recommendation Files for Honours and Awards AIF 1914–1918 War
C.E.W. BEAN – AWM 38
Many now available online at www.awm.gov.au
Diaries, 3DRL 606 Items 116 and 117
‘Mont St Quentin-Péronne, August 27, 1918- September 6’, 3DRL 1722 Item 35, extract
Folders, 3DRL 606 Items 198, 257, 266, 274, 274b, 276, 277, 280a, 280b, 281
Newspaper Articles, 3DRL 8039, Item 43
Notebooks, 3DRL606/189/2; 3DRL606/224/1; 3DRL606/227/2; 3DRL 606/226/2;
3DRL606/228/2; 3DRL606/241/2
Papers, 1917-1939, 3DRL 8042 Items 111f and h
AWM 133
Available online at www.awm.gov.au
Nominal Roll of AIF members who left Australia for service abroad
WAR SERVICE RECORDS
National Archives of Australia
Available online at www.naa.gov.au
B2455 First AIF personal dossiers, 1914–1920 — for most individual soldiers mentioned
FIELD WORK
Mont St Quentin-Péronne Battlefield, the Somme, France, May 2010
UNPUBLISHED PERSONAL RECORDS
Australian War Memorial (AWM)
Australian War Memorial (AWM)
Armitage, James Ramsay, Diary, PR00420
Bailey, Herbert Austin, Diary, PR 90/018
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Buckley, Alexander Henry, Papers 1915–1918, PR91/082
Coutts, Donald Dunbar, A First World War Diary: November 1916–February 1920, PR83/155
Elliott, Harold Edward (‘Pompey’), Papers, 2DRL/0513, Diary August 1918–April 1919, Series 1/6
Gellibrand, John, Papers, 3DRL/1473 Items 50; 58 (Series 2: Correspondence); 38 and 67 (Series 3: Military Records)
Guard, W.H.G., Notes on Cléry and Mont St Quentin 29th–31st August 1918, 2DRL/0879
Hall, Arthur Charles, Papers 1916–1943, Correspondence with Charles Bean, 1941, PR87/085
Hawkins, William Lawes, Manuscript, 1962, ‘The King’s Horses and Other Stories’, MSS 1374
Hobbs, J.J. Talbot, Diary, May–November, 1918, PR 82/153 Item 4 and Papers, 3DRL/2600 1/4, 1/10 and 3/3
Horniman, Lance, Letters, 1DRL/0357
Monash, John, Papers, 3DRL/2316, Series 4/1, 5/1, 7/4, 3DRL/2316.004, Series 8 Folder 4 - Map
Nicolson, Norman, Diary, Wychaete to Demobilisation, 3DRL/2715 Part VII
Skinner, Charlie, Transcript of Interview describing actions for which Skinner was awarded the MM at Mont St Quentin, PR 84/020
Stewart, James Campbell, Papers and Diary, 3DRL/1459
Williams, Albert J
., Typescript – ‘A Soldier Looks Back’ c. 1935, MSS 1337
Mitchell Library, Sydney (ML)
Bartlett, L.V., Diaries 1915–1919, MSS 959 Item 2, 1 Jan 1918–31 Dec 1918 – CY 4872
Brewer, Francis Joseph Campbell, Papers 1917–1919, MSS 1536/2 1536/3, 1536/4 – CY4066
Brewer, Hector, Diary, 4 Aug –11 Nov 1918, MSS 1300 Item 6 – CY 2463
Marshall, James, Papers 22 Feb 1916–20 July 1919, ‘My Story of the Big War’, MSS 1164 Item 4
– CY 4932; M Ser.4 000/1 MSS 1164 Map; PXA 381 Vols. 5 & 6
Potter, Cleve, Diary, 17 Aug 1918–16 Jan 1919, MSS 2944 Item 2 – CY 4929
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Hawkins, William Lawes, Diary and Papers 1916–1968, MSB 477
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Other
Lawson, Jan and Des, Personal Information regarding Oscar Lawson, in correspondence with the author, 2009.
Smythe, Percy Ellesmere, Diary, copy held by the author and used with permission of Bettye Smythe and Margaret Clarke.
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UNPUBLISHED FAMILY HISTORIES
Holland, John, Sons of Field and Flock: Transplanted – not Transported. The Hollands of South East Norfolk and Eastern Australia 1771-1992, copy held by the author.