Chapter IV: Turning the Tide

The course of events during June and July pointed to the conclusions, firstly, that the enemy contemplated no further offensive operations in the Somme Valley, and, secondly, that the condition of the whole German Second Army, astride of the Somme, offered every temptation to us to seize the initiative against it.

So far as the Australian Corps was concerned, however, my total frontage, which had been increased (as the result of our exploitation) to over eleven miles, precluded the possibility, with only four Divisions at my disposal, of maintaining, even if I could succeed in initiating, an ambitious offensive. The time was nevertheless ripe for action on a scale far more decisive than had become orthodox in the British Army in the past. Efforts on that method had been confined to a thrust, limited in point both of distance and of time, and followed by a period of inaction; they had often given the enemy ample leisure to recover, and to reorganize his order of battle.

To maintain an offensive, day after day, indefinitely, would require sufficient resources, particularly in infantry, to allow Divisions to be used alternatingly. Only in such a way, by having rested Divisions always available to alternate with tired Divisions, could a continuous pressure be maintained.

I took every opportunity of pressing these views upon the Army Commander, and expressed the readiness of the Australian Corps to undertake and maintain a long sustained offensive, provided that arrangements could be made to shorten my frontage from a three to a two-Division battle front, and to increase my resources, from the present four, to five or even six Divisions. It was further essential that in any advances attempted by us, other Corps must co-operate on both flanks.

It would be bad tactics to drive into the enemy's front a salient with a narrow base, for such a salient would make our situation worse instead of better, affording to the enemy the opportunity of artillery attack upon it from both its flanks as well as from its front. The salient must therefore be broad based in relation to its depth, and the base must ever widen as the head of the salient advances.

This principle implied that a large-scale operation of such a nature must be begun on a whole Army front, and that, even at its inception, at least three Corps must co-operate, to be aided by the entry of additional Corps on the outer flanks as the central depth developed. In other words, it was a project implying a large commitment of resources, and the urgent question was whether the time was yet ripe for taking the risks involved.

The matter, however, now became a subject at least worthy of practical discussion, and, during the days which followed Hamel, the Staffs of both the Corps and Army were kept busy with the investigation of data, maps, and information, while the availability of additional resources in guns, tanks and aeroplanes became the subject of anxious inquiry.

A circumstance which troubled me sorely was the fact that my Corps stood on the flank of the British Army, and that the troops on my right belonged to the French Army. The relations between the Australian troops and the Tirailleurs and Zouaves of the 31st French Corps (General Toulorge) had always been the very friendliest, and the joint "international" posts had been the scenes of hearty fraternization and of the evolution of a strange common vernacular.

This comradeship of "poilu" with "digger" did not, however, lessen the difficulties incidental to the joint conduct of a major Operation of War by two Corps of different nationalities, speaking different languages, with diverse tactical conceptions, and, above all, of substantially divergent temperaments. The French are irresistible in attack as they are dogged in defence, but whether they will attack or defend depends greatly on their temperament of the moment. In this they are totally unlike the British or Australian soldier who will at any time philosophically accept either rôle that may be prescribed for him.

In short, it was not possible to hope for an effective co-ordination of effort, controlled particularly by the minute observance of a time-table, on the part of the Australian and its adjacent French Corps, and I felt quite unprepared to count upon it. It was for this reason that I expressed to the Army Commander the hope that a British Corps might be obtainable to operate on my right flank in any undertaking that should be decided upon. Understanding that the greater part of the Canadian Corps was then unemployed, resting in a back area, I ventured to hope that this Corps might be made available, in the event of a decision that the proposal should be proceeded with.

My hesitation to accept the French as colleagues in such a battle was based not altogether on theoretical or sentimental grounds. The steady progress in mopping up enemy territory to the east of Villers-Bretonneux, which had been made by my south flank Division (the Second) as the aftermath of Hamel, soon produced a contortion of the Allied front line at this point which bade fair to prove just as troublesome to me as had been the great re-entrant opposite Hamel, which that battle had been specially undertaken to eliminate.

No persuasions on my part, or on that of my flank Division, could induce the adjacent French Division to extend any co-operation in these advances or to adopt any measures to flatten out the re-entrant which, growing deeper every day, threatened to expose my right flank. I am convinced that such hesitation was based upon no timidity, but was the result wholly of an entirely different outlook and policy from those which the Australian Corps was doing its best to interpret. But the experience of it made the prospect of punctual co-operation on their part in much more serious undertakings distinctly less encouraging.

The proposed offensive involved, therefore, far-reaching redispositions, comprising a substantial displacement southwards of the inter-Allied boundary, a lengthening by several miles of the whole British Western front, and an entire rearrangement of the respective fronts of the Third and Fourth British Armies. It is not surprising that a decision was deferred, while the project was being critically investigated from every point of view.

Then, suddenly, a new situation arose. On July 15th, the enemy opened a fresh attack against the French in the south. The scale on which he undertook it immediately made it patent to all students of the situation that he was probably employing his whole remaining reserves of fit, rested Divisions; that he meant this to be his decisive blow; and that whether he gained a decision or not, it would be his last effort on the grand scale.

It did not succeed; for just as he had once again reached the line of the Marne and had on July 17th achieved his "furthest south" at Château-Thierry, a beautifully timed counter-stroke by the French and Americans upon the western face of the salient, extending from Soissons to the Marne, resulted on July 18th in the capture by the Allies on that day alone, of 15,000 prisoners and 200 guns.

It was the end of German offensive in the war. Their mobile reserves were exhausted, and they were compelled slowly to recede from the Château-Thierry salient. The appropriate moment, for which Foch and Haig had doubtless been waiting for months, had at last arrived to begin an Allied counter offensive, and it was only a question of deciding at what point along the Franco-British front the effort should be made, and on what date it should open.

Doubtless influenced by the reasons already discussed, the choice fell upon that portion of the front of the Fourth Army which lay south of the Somme; in other words upon the southern portion of the Australian Corps front. The date remained undecided, but the requisite redisposition of Armies and Corps was so extensive that no time was to be lost in making a beginning.

It was on July 21st that General Rawlinson first called together the Corps Commanders who were to be entrusted with this portentous task. The strictest secrecy was enjoined, and never was a secret better kept; with the exception of the Field Marshal and his Army Commanders, none outside of the Fourth Army had any inkling of what was afoot until the actual moment for action had arrived.

Yet an observant enemy agent, if any such there had been in the vicinity, might well have drawn a shrewd conclusion that some mischief was brewing, had he happened along the main street of the prettily-situated village of Flexicourt, on the Somme, on that bright summer afternoon, and had observed in front of a pretentious white mansion, over which floated the black and red flag of an Army Commander, a quite unusual procession of motor-cars, ostentatiously flying the Canadian and Australian flags and the red-and-white pennants of two other Corps Commanders.

There were present at that conference, General Currie, the Canadian, General Butler, of the Third Corps, General Kavanagh, of the Cavalry Corps, and myself, while senior representatives of the Tanks and Air Force also attended. Rawlinson unfolded the outline of the whole Army plan, and details were discussed at great length in the light of the views held by each Corps Commander as to the tasks which he was prepared to undertake with the resources in his hands or promised to him.

The conditions which I had sought in my previous negotiations with the Army Commander were, I found, conceded to me almost to the full extent. My battle front was to be reduced from eleven miles to a little over 7,000 yards. It would, in fact, extend from the Somme, as the northern, to the main Péronne railway, as the southern flank. And--what was equally important, and profoundly welcome--the First Australian Division was shortly to be relieved in Flanders, and would at last join my Corps, thus for the first time in the war bringing all Australian field units in France under one command.

The Canadians were to operate on my right, and further south again the First French Army (Debenay) was to supply a Corps to form a defensive flank for the Canadians. The Third British Corps was to carry out for me a similar function on my northern flank. Thus, four Corps in line were to operate, the two central Corps carrying out the main advance, while the two outer flank Corps would be employed further to broaden the base of the great salient which the operation would create.

The Cavalry Corps would appear in the battle area also, with all preparations made for a rapid exploitation of any success achieved. The utility of the Cavalry in modern war, at any rate in a European theatre, has been the subject of endless controversy. It is one into which I do not propose to enter. There is no doubt that, given suitable ground and an absence of wire entanglements, Cavalry can move rapidly, and undertake important turning or enveloping movements. Yet it has been argued that the rarity of such suitable conditions negatives any justification for superimposing so unwieldy a burden as a large body of Cavalry--on the bare chance that it _might_ be useful--upon already overpopulated areas, billets, watering places and roads.

I may, however, anticipate the event by saying that the First Cavalry Brigade was duly allotted to me, and did its best to prove its utility; but I am bound to say that the results achieved, in what proved to be very unsuitable country beyond the range of the Infantry advance, did not justify the effort expended either by this gallant Brigade or by the other arms and services upon whom the very presence of the Cavalry proved an added burden.

For the full understanding of subsequent developments both during and after the battle it becomes of special importance to consider the proposed rôle of the Third Corps in relation to my left flank. It is to be remembered that the Fourth Army decided that the River Somme was to be the tactical boundary between the two Northern Corps. It was not competent for me to criticize this decision at the time, but I am free now to say that I believed such a boundary to have been unsuitable, and the event speedily proved that it was.

It is always, in my opinion, undesirable to select any bold natural or artificial feature--such as a river, ravine, ridge, road or railway--as a boundary. It creates, at once, a divided responsibility, and necessitates between two independent commanders, and at a critical point, a degree of effective co-operation which can rarely be hoped for. It is much better boldly to place a unit, however large or small, _astride_ of such a feature, so that both sides of it may come under the control of one and the same Commander.

This was especially the case in this part of the Somme Valley which is broad, and has an ill-defined central line, tortuous, and with the slopes on either side tactically interdependent; but most of all because, as I have already described, the high plateau on the north completely overlooks the relatively lower flats on the south of the river. The point I am trying to make should be borne in mind, for I believe it has been fully borne out by subsequent events.

The decision standing, however, as it did, it fell to the task of the Third Corps to make an assault (concurrently with that of the Australian Corps south of the river) for the capture of the whole of that reach of the river known as the Chipilly Bend, and of all the high ground on the spur which that bend enfolds. The object was to deprive the enemy of all ground from which he could look down upon my advancing left flank, or from which he could bring rifle or artillery fire to bear upon it.

The Third Corps was to operate on the front of one Division, the 58th, which, pivoting its left upon the Corbie--Bray road, was to advance its right--in sympathy with the advance of the left of the Australian Corps--until it rested upon the river about one mile downstream from Etinehem. It was a movement the success of which was rendered promising by the nature of the ground and the disorganized condition of the enemy between the Ancre and the Somme.

As regards my right flank, this was to rest as stated upon the main railway. The Canadian Corps, of four Divisions, would take over from the French a frontage of about 6,000 yards and deliver a thrust parallel to and south of the railway, in the direction of Caix and Beaucourt, and would aim at the seizure of the important Hill 102, immediately to the west of the latter locality. At no time did any question of the security of my right flank furnish me with any cause for anxiety; the prowess of the Canadian Corps was well known to all Australians, and I knew that, to use his own expressive vernacular, it was General Currie's invariable habit to "deliver the goods."

The comprehensive project thus outlined at the conference of July 21st involved, as a preliminary step, a far-reaching redisposition of very large bodies of troops over a very wide front. With the readjustment of the boundaries between the Third and Fourth British Armies we are not particularly concerned, because this affected a region, north of the Ancre, which lay well outside of the battle area. Nor did the internal readjustment of the northern part of the Fourth Army front present any difficulty, as it meant nothing more than a routine "relief" by the 58th Division of the Fifth Australian Division which was at this juncture holding that part of my Corps sector which lay between the Somme and the Ancre.

But the southern half was a very different matter. The First French Army was to give up to the British a section of about four miles, extending from Villers-Bretonneux to Thennes. This was ultimately to be taken over by the Canadian Corps as a battle front, but that Corps still had two of its Divisions in the line in the neighbourhood of Arras.

Moreover, it was of the utmost importance to conceal from the enemy until the last possible moment any change in our dispositions. This meant concealing them from our own troops also, because the loss by us of a single talkative prisoner would have been sufficient to disclose to the enemy at least the suspicion, if not the certainty, that an attack was in preparation.

After examining the problem and discussing several alternative solutions, it was ultimately decided at this conference that, five or six days before the date fixed for the attack, the French would be relieved in this sector by a Division, not of Canadians, but of Australians; that under cover of and behind this Australian Division, the Canadian Corps would come in from the north, and would proceed to carry out its battle preparations; and finally that the actual appearance of Canadian troops in the front line would not ensue until three days before the battle.

During the preceding two days, the Australian troops would be gradually withdrawn from the sector, leaving only one Brigade in occupation of the line, to be backed up by the incoming Canadians in the unexpected contingency of an attack by the enemy. This last Brigade would quietly melt away, leaving the Canadians in full possession of the field.

It was hoped that, during the days of the temporary Australian occupation of the sector, nothing would happen which might disclose to the enemy that the French had left it; and even if we were to have the misfortune to lose from this sector any Australian prisoners to the enemy, it was further hoped that, if kept in total ignorance of the inflow of Canadians, such prisoners would be unable to make any embarrassing disclosures. The _dénouement_, which will be told later, showed that this judgment of possibilities was a shrewd one, and that such precautions were not taken in vain.

At this period of the war, large numbers of Americans had already arrived in France, but only few of them were yet ready to take their places in the line of battle. The time had not yet arrived, therefore, when, by taking over large sections of the Western front they could help to shorten the French and British frontages. The British front was, therefore, still so extended that the mobile reserve Divisions at the disposal of the Field Marshal were few.

This consideration made the contemplated reliefs and interchanges of Corps and Divisions, and their transference from one part of our front to another a matter of great complexity, and one which required time to execute. Each stage of the process was contingent upon the due completion of a previous stage. It is, moreover, a process which cannot be unduly hastened, without serious discomfort and fatigue to the troops and animals concerned.

Troops destined for battle must be kept in the highest physical condition. This means good feeding, comfortable housing, and adequate rest. A couple of weary days and sleepless nights spent in crowded railway trains, with cold food and little exercise, are sufficient to play havoc with the fighting trim of even a crack battalion. So, the daily stages of the journey must be short, and comfortable billets must be in readiness for each night's halt. The day's supplies must arrive punctually and at the right railhead, to ensure hot, well-cooked meals.

With the very limited number of serviceable railway lines which remained available behind the British front--and with the congestion of traffic resulting from the daily transportation of many thousands of tons of artillery ammunition and other war stores--it was not surprising that as the result of the deliberations of the conference it was resolved to advise the Commander-in-Chief that it would take not less than five days to rearrange our order of battle on the lines decided upon, and another five days, after Corps and Divisions had taken over their battle fronts, to enable them to complete their preparations.

Thus, the Fourth Army could be ready at ten days' notice, and the conference broke up, pledged to secrecy and complete inaction, until formal approval had been given to the proposals and a date fixed for their realization.

The remainder of July passed with no very startling occurrences. In the south the German withdrawal from the Soissons salient and the Marne continued steadily, with the French and Americans on their heels; but it was a methodical retreat, which would bring about a substantial shortening of the German line, and so release Divisions to rest and refit, which might conceivably become available for a fresh assault elsewhere.

But there was still no sign of any such design upon that always tender spot, the Allied junction at Villers-Bretonneux. On the contrary, my second Division still continued to make free with the enemy's advanced patrols, and in a very brilliant little infantry operation by the 7th Brigade captured the "Mound," a long spoilbank beside the railway at a point about a mile east of the town, which dominated the landscape in every direction. The ardour of his troops was only enhanced when they heard that General Rosenthal himself, while reconnoitring from the Mound, had been sniped at and had received a nasty wound in the arm.

The enemy attempted nothing in the way of infantry retaliation. But whenever he had been thoroughly angered, he treated my front to a liberal drenching of mustard gas, fired by his artillery. His supplies of mustard gas shell seemed inexhaustible, and he would frequently expend as many as 10,000 of them in a single night upon the half-ruined town of Villers-Bretonneux or on the Bois l'Abbé and other woods which he suspected were sheltering my reserve infantry.

These gas attacks were annoying and troublesome, in the extreme. During the actual bombardments, troops wore their gas masks as a matter of course, but doffed them when the characteristic smell of the gas had disappeared. But it was warm weather, and as the sun rose, the poisonous liquid, which had spattered the ground over immense areas, would volatilize, and rise in sufficient volume still to attack all whose business took them to and fro across this ground. In this way hundreds of our men became incapacitated; although there were a few serious cases, most of the men would be fit to rejoin in two or three weeks. But this form of attack, and the constant dread of it, made life in the forward areas anything but endurable.

I was beset by quite another trepidation also. Prisoners captured during the German withdrawal from the Marne, which was then in progress, told tales of contemplated withdrawals on other fronts, and some even asserted that a withdrawal opposite my own front was being talked of. Judged by subsequent events, it is more than probable that these stories were stimulated by the many articles which were at that time appearing in the German newspapers from the pens of press strategists, who, in order to allay public anxiety, were representing these withdrawals as deliberate, and as a masterpiece of strategy, compelling the Allies to a costly pursuit over difficult and worthless ground.

Opposite Albert, signs that such a withdrawal was actually in progress also began to appear, although it subsequently transpired that, in its early stages, this procedure was merely prompted by a purely local consideration, namely, the desire of the enemy to improve his tactical position by abandoning the outposts, which he had been maintaining in the valley of the Ancre, and transferring them to the higher and better ground on the east of that river.

It was only natural that those of us who knew of the impending attack, and of the immense effort which its preparation would involve, felt nervous lest the enemy might forestall us by withdrawing his whole line to some methodically prepared position of defence in the rear, just as he had done once before in 1917 on so large a scale in the Bapaume region. It would probably have been a sound measure of military policy, but it would assuredly, at that juncture, have had as disastrous an effect upon the _moral_ of the German people as his enforced withdrawal, which was soon to begin, actually produced not long after.

The order to prepare the attack, and fixing the date of it for August 8th, came in the closing days of July, and at once all was bustle and excitement in the Australian Corps. Commanders, Staff Officers, and Intelligence Service, the Artillery, the Corps Flying Squadron, the map and photography sections spent busy days in reconnaissance, and toilsome nights in office work. The vast extent of the detailed work involved, particularly upon the administrative services, can only be appreciated by a study of the plan for the battle, which it fell to my lot, as Corps Commander, first to formulate, and then to expound to a series of conferences which were held at Bertangles on July 30th, and on August 2nd and 4th.

It is, therefore, perhaps appropriate that I should now attempt to repeat, in non-technical language, an exposition of the outlines of that plan.