Section 4: The Western Front
Before 1918
The First World War (or Great War) started in August 1914. Not long
afterwards an Australian force seized German New Guinea. In 1915 the
Anzacs fought at Gallipoli. In 1916, the infantry divisions went to
the Western Front, fighting at Fromelles and on the Somme, while mounted
troops stayed in the Middle East and defended Egypt. Back home, the
first conscription referendum was narrowly defeated in 1916 and the
second conscription referendum was defeated in 1917. About 20 000
Australians died on the Western Front and in the Middle East in 1917,
more than any other year of the war. The United States entered the war
in 1917 and the Russian Revolution took Russia out of the war.
90th anniversary of the Western Front Battles of 1918
In 1918, WW I entered its fifth
calendar year. The strength of national pride and of the fighting capacity
of Australia’s forces had been acknowledged in late 1917 with
the formation of the Australian Corps, comprising the 1st,
2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Divisions.
However, casualties made it difficult to keep the Australian divisions
at strength. In May 1918 Lieutenant General John Monash was made the
first Australian commander of the Australian Corps. During 1918 the
Australian Imperial Force (AIF) consolidated their ‘reputation for reliability, competence
and skill’.
On 21 March 1918, Germany, freed in the East by the defeat of Russia,
launched Operation
Michael, an initially successful final offensive on the Western
Front in France aimed at splitting the allied forces in the Amiens area
and driving towards the English Channel. After the German offensive
stalled, the stalemate on the Western Front began to turn in favour
of the allies with their more effective use of combined infantry, artillery,
tanks and aircraft.
Battles
Villers-Bretonneux
The First
(4 April) and second Battles of Villers-Bretonneux were fought in
1918, the second battle taking place on 24 and 25 April and involving
a night-time counter-attack by the 15th Brigade of the AIF
under Harold 'Pompey' Elliott in a desperate attempt to recapture the
town of Villers-Bretonneux. The successful counter-attack by the Australians
during the second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux was described by Brigadier
General Grogan VC as 'perhaps the greatest individual feat of the war'.
The words 'Do not forget Australia'
are on a sign in the playground of the Victoria school in Villers-Bretonneux
that was rebuilt after the war with money raised by donations from Victoria,
Australia. The school plaque carries the following words:
This school building is the gift of the school children of Victoria,
Australia, to the children of Villers-Bretonneux as a proof of their
love and goodwill towards France. Twelve hundred Australian soldiers,
the fathers and brothers of these children, gave their lives in the
heroic recapture of this town from the invader on 24th April 1918,
and are buried near this spot. May the memory of great sacrifices
in a common cause keep France and Australia together forever in bonds
of friendship and mutual esteem.
In ‘“Perhaps
the greatest individual feat of the war”: the battle of Villers-Bretonneux,
1918’, Ross McMullin describes the AIF’s ‘daring
night assault [which] saved the city of Amiens and decisively checked
the German advance’. (Wartime, No. 2, April 1998)
‘ANZAC
Day at Villers-Bretonneux’, by Brad Manera, also describes
the fighting, featuring the actions of two Western Australian soldiers.
(Wartime, No. 22, 2003)
Peter Burness describes the hard fighting in Villers-Bretonneux
on Anzac Day 1918, quoting a sergeant’s description: ‘The
moon sunk behind clouds. There were houses burning in the town throwing
a sinister light on the scene. It was past midnight. Men muttered, ‘it’s
ANZAC Day’. It seemed there was nothing to do but go straight
forward and die hard.’ (Wartime, No. 42, 2008)
In 2008, to commemorate
the 90th anniversary of the battle on Anzac Day 1918,
an Australian-led Dawn Service will be held on Anzac Day at the Australian
National Memorial near Villers-Bretonneux. This is the first official
Australian Dawn Service to be held at the Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.
Hamel
The Allied operation to capture the town of Hamel and the surrounding
area on 4 July 1918 was under the command of Lieutenant General John Monash
whose planning and careful arrangements led to what Monash himself described
as a ‘brilliant success’.
The Australian War Memorial summaries the battle on its ‘1918
Australians in France’ website: ‘Hamel the textbook
victory – 4 July 1918’. Another summary
of the battle of Hamel, in Where Australians fought: the encyclopaedia
of Australia’s battles by Chris Coulthard-Clark, argues that
this ‘model of [a] completely successful all-arms battle …
set new standards of generalship which were emulated subsequently by
other commanders on the Western Front’.
In ‘Hamel:
winning a battle’, the authors argue that Monash applied the
principles of war, including ‘sound administration, meticulous
planning, maintenance of morale, [and[ concentration of force …
with flexibility … Monash was an outstanding corps commander,
with the ability to coordinate a wide range of available technology
to form a coherent plan … Hamel reveals his complete mastery of
the set-piece battle.’ (Journal of the Australian War Memorial,
No. 18, April 1991)
The Battle of Hamel, fought on American Independence Day, was the first
significant instance of Australian ‘Diggers’ fighting alongside
their newly-arrived American ‘Doughboy’ allies. The relationship between Australian
and US troops on the Western Front is described in an article by
Dale Blair. (Journal of the Australian War Memorial, No. 35,
December 2001)
In ‘Independence
Day at Hamel’, Mitchell Yockelson describes how the successful
first Australian-American battle alliance happened despite the objections
of the American Expeditionary Force’s commander, General John
Pershing. (Wartime, No. 28, October 2004)
Amiens—the Third Battle of the Somme
The quote in the title of Ross McMullin 's article, 'The
black day of the German army: 8 August 1918', was the German strategist
General Ludendorff's description of the Allied offensive aimed at ending
the enemy threat to the French town of Amiens and its vital railway
network. The battle involved meticulous planning by the Australian commander,
General Monash, and for the first time all five Australian divisions
fought together. (Wartime No. 3, Spring, 1998)
In ‘8
August 1918: the battle won’, Peter Burness quotes from General
Monash’s message to his troops: ‘Because of the completeness
of our plans and dispositions, of the magnitude of the operations, of
the number of troops employed, and the depth to which we intend to over-run
the enemy’s positions, this battle will be one of the most memorable
of the whole war.’ Burness also quotes an Australian captain who
expressed what would have been in the minds of many Australian soldiers
at this stage of the war: ‘Wouldn’t it be delightful if
one could get home and start the new year as a civilian’, a hope
which Burness says, would have been unthinkable six months previously.
(Wartime, No. 33, January 2006)
A
summary of the fighting around Amiens, Lihons, Etinehem and Proyart
between 8 and 12 August 1918, by Chris Coulthard-Clark, demonstrates
that progress on subsequent days was not as spectacular as 8 August,
although the action fought around Chuignes on 23 August 1918 ‘was
a stunning success’.
In ‘The
capture of the Amiens gun’, Robert Nichols outlines the story
of the capture of the large ex-naval gun which the Germans had been
firing at Amiens, and the subsequent controversy over competing claims
to its ownership based on involvement in its capture by the 31st
Australian Infantry Battalion, British and Canadian Cavalry, a British
Sopwith Camel aircraft and the French nation. (Wartime, No. 23,
July 2003)
Mont St Quentin
The summary of the Australian fighting on the heights overlooking Peronne
between 31 August and 2 September 1918 by Chris Coulthard-Clark, describes
the
Mont St Quentin action as a ‘brilliant operation … [which]
to many minds … was the crowning achievement of the AIF, if not
of the entire war’. The Australian War Memorial’s
summary points out that once the Germans were forced out of Peronne
they had to ‘retreat to their last line of defence – the
Hindenburg Line’. The Official History
describes the capture of Mont St Quentin and Peronne as having ‘dealt
a stunning blow to five German divisions’.
Hindenburg Line
On 29 September 1918 Australian and US forces spearheaded the attack
on the German Army’s last and strongest line of defence, the
Hindenburg line. This second attack followed the breaching of the
line by the 1st and 4th Australian Divisions on
18 September. On 3 October 1918 Australian troops broke through the
final defensive system of the Hindenburg
Line. This was followed on 5 October 1918 by the last Australian
Western Front action in which Australian infantry captured Montbrehain
village. Australian divisions were withdrawn from the front in early
October for a period of rest and refitting.
The AIF on the Western Front
The
Western Front entry in The Oxford Companion to Australian Military
History provides a useful summary of the two and a half years the
Australian Imperial Force spent fighting in France and Belgium.
The
fight that changed Australia—an article by military historian
David Horner on Australia's role on the Western Front between 1916 and
1918. (Australian Magazine, 7–8 August 1993)
In 'The
end of the Great War: Australian soldiers and the armistice of November
1918', Ashley Ekins describes the reaction of Australian troops
to the end of the war, and the massive task of demobilisation. (Wartime,
No. 4, Summer 1998)
Australian
Battles on the Western Front during World War 1, a Parliamentary
Library Research Paper (16 August 1993) by David Anderson, includes
maps and short descriptions of the major battles in which Australian
soldiers fought.
The Department of Veterans’ Affairs website, Australians on the Western
Front 1914-18 has links to pages describing the major battles of
each year of the war.
People
'Master
at arms' is a biographical article by Peter Pedersen on General
Sir John Monash who, as commander of the Australian Corps in the last
months of the war, oversaw successful Australian actions at Hamel, Amiens,
Mont St Quentin and Peronne. (Australian Magazine, 7 August 1993)
‘Pompey
Elliott: true leader’, profiles the commander of the AIF’s
15th Brigade on the Western Front. (Wartime No. 19,
2002)
'Front-line
angels' by John Laffin describes the role of nurses in the Australian
Army Nursing Service who worked on the Western Front. (Australian
Magazine, 7 August 1993)
In ‘The
last hours of the Red Baron’, Thomas Faunce examines the role
played by Australian airmen, soldiers and medical officers in the shooting
down of the German flying ace on 21 April 1918. (Wartime, No.
32, October 2005)
End of section 4
