Somme Spring ♠
On 21 March the Germans unleashed Operation Michael, an offensive with 3 German armies in the Arras – St-Quentin-La Fére sector of the Somme. The British troops between Arras and St Quentin are smothered by storms of gas and artillery shells. Almost immediately the British lose the gains from 1916 -1918 as the Germans capture Pozières, Mouquet Farm, Thiepval and Albert.
On 23 March the 3rd and 4th Divisions are ordered to proceed from Flanders south to Amiens to strengthen the retreating British 5th Army.
On 26 March the 4th Brigade of the 4th Division closes the gap at Hébuterne about 30km north east of Amiens. The 12th and 13th Brigades arrive too late to save Albert and reach villages to its north west.
On 28 March the British 1st Cavalry Division manages to halt the German advance in front Hamel and Villers-Bretonneux, just 16km east of the strategic town of Amiens with its vital road and rail junctions.
On 4 April the Germans attack with 15 Divisions towards Amiens at dawn. The first battle of Villers-Bretonneux commences. The 9th Brigade of the 3rd Division and the British 18th Division, which were holding the northern sector, are eventually driven back to the outskirts of Villers-Bretonneux. Adjacent German attacks capture both Hamel ( north ) and Hangard Wood ( south of Villers-Bretonneux ).
On 5 April a counter attack by the 9th Brigade of the 3rd Division at dawn halts the German advance beyond Villers-Bretonneux. The hard fought action costs 660 casualties but prevents further advances towards Amiens.
The Battle of Dernancourt involved the Australian 12th and 13th Brigades of the 4th Division on the railway embankment and cuttings in Dernancourt, just south of Albert . The under strength Brigades (numbering about 4,000 instead of 8,000) faced 4 German Divisions totalling about 25,000. Situated on the western side of the Ancre River valley, the Australians formed a defensive line at the railway embankment, from which they held back German attacks. This action cost 1,100 casualties.
The 4th Division was then relieved by the 2nd Division arriving from Messines.
By April 8 the 1st Division was just moving into the Amiens area from Messines when they are ordered to re-embark and move north as the Germans had launched a major attack in Flanders. The Messines positions were abandoned and the Germans kept heading west exposing the Channel ports. On 12 April the 1st Division after being redeployed from Amiens reached Hazebrouck to stop the German advance. There were no AGL casualties in this sector for the remainder of the War.
On April 21 the Australians defending Villers-Bretonneux had been relieved by British troops but 3 days later the Germans with tanks and infantry captured the town and positions further west. Thus commenced the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux.
The British troops defending the area mostly fell back before strong German attacks. The majority of them were composed of boys merely 18 and 19 who had yet to fire a shot in the war. Unlike the Australians, they had received no preparation in the “nursery area” and were far from ready for battle. The Germans took over 2,400 prisoners during the engagement.
Part of the counter attack mounted against the Germans was with British tanks which engaged in the first tank versus tank battle in history, with 3 British fighting 3 German tanks.
After some delays the 15th Brigade of the 5th Division counter attacked from the north, while the 13th Brigade of the 4th Division attacked from the south. The attack from the north swept around the town while the southern attack by the 13th Brigade was also successful but could not find the 15th east of the town and had to pull back slightly, leaving a gap, through which ran the rail cutting south of the town. After dawn, the town was cleared by Australians entering from the east and British from the north and west. The capture of Villers-Bretonneux was not considered complete until April 27 when the line was straightened beyond the town.
In early May the 3rd Division advanced the front by a mile and gained the heights to the east of Villers-Bretonneux with 95 casualties. And on 19 May 6th Brigade of 2nd Division attacked Ville-sur-Ancre north of Morlancourt to clear Germans from the town and secure the high ground to the south of the town. All objectives were captured with 418 casualties.
On 27 May the Germans attacked on the Aisne River. In three days they drive to within 80Km of Paris.
On 31 May the Australian General Monash is appointed to command the Australian Corps.
AGL Casualties:
6060 Private John Henry Leveson, 21st Battalion, 19 (the youngest AGL casualty of the War), gasfitters assistant, single, of Rose Bay killed 22 April 1918. Veteran of Bullecourt and Broodseinde.
Hamel ♠
Units of the Australian Corps captured the German front line defences at Morlancourt and Sailly Laurette in June with 400 casualties.
The scene was now set for Monash (a citizen soldier but a professional engineer) to plan a major offensive where all the (bad) lessons of the War had been learned and all use made of advances in technology. The objective was to dislodge the Germans from a position at Hamel north east of Villers-Bretonneux where they overlooked the British lines and to also secure a point from which the Allies could take the initiative.
For the attack Monash was given the British 5th Tank Brigade which comprised 60 brand new Mark V tanks and 4 carrier tanks. Monash’s plan included the use of these tanks in close support of the infantry. His plans also called for something new: re-supply from the air. His planning regime was so detailed that every single soldier had an exact briefing of his unit’s objective and had a chance to view a very large scale model of the battlefield.
Ten companies of American troops were attached by platoons to the Australian battalions for experience. US General Pershing tried to prevent this as his rule was that USA troops could only be commanded by Americans. The American troops however wanted to be commanded by Monash. As a tribute to the Americans Monash planned the attack for 4 July.
Monash could only allot 7,500 men to the capture of Hamel and proposed to use 4 brigades, one from each of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Divisions. The aim was to give all Australian divisions experience of fighting with tanks.
The attack commenced without the usual artillery bombardment. The battle lasted about 93 minutes, Monash had planned on 90 minutes. The Australians and Americans lost about 900 men.
There had been no other Allied offensives since the previous autumn. The victory at Hamel provided a much needed spark to the Allies.
AGL Casualties:
4677 Private Benjamin Dixon, 55th Battalion, 32, plumber, married with one child, of Enmore wounded 4 July and died in field hospital 5 July 1918.
Battle of Amiens ♠♠♠
In late July the 1st Division moved south to the Somme to join the Australian Corps.
A major attack was then planned with both French and British forces along the line of the Somme River as it was suitable for tanks and the Germans in the vicinity had been considerably weakened by Australian “peaceful penetration”.
This practice was instigated after the Germans adopted a practice of thinning out their front line (thus avoiding artillery casualties) and having teams in support ready to reinforce the front line if needed. The Australians perfected the practice of nightly raids to surround these outposts, attack them from the rear, occupy the post and thus end up by advancing the front line by dozens of metres. Many times a week. One example of the impact was that after the Battle of Hamel, a second battle was ordered by Field Marshal Haig on 11 July to attack the Villers-Bretonneux Plateau. However, barely had the planning started, when it was realised that the area (a frontage of 4500 yards, to a depth of 1000 yards) had already been captured by 2 Australian brigades through Peaceful Penetration.
The attack on 8 August was called the Battle of Amiens though was well to the east of that town. The plan was to use 430 British tanks which would lead a three stage advance. To achieve maximum surprise there was no preliminary bombardment. It commenced at 4.20am. The 2nd and 3rd Divisions had a front of about 3,600 metres. The 4th and 5th Divisions stood ready to leapfrog them when the Battle commenced.
With no prior bombardment the Germans were taken totally by surprise. By 7.30am the German lines were so thoroughly broken that much of the field artillery had been overrun and captured. While the 2nd and 3rd Divisions dug in to consolidate the ground they had won the 4th and 5th Divisions leapfrogged them and at 8.20am began the second phase of the attack. In this new “open warfare” stage the Australians excelled, capturing Bayonvillers without a fight and by 11am the Australian 59th Battalion had captured Harbonniers. By the end of the day the Allies had punched a hole 20 kilometres wide and 11 kilometres deep in the German lines. The breakthrough had driven them eastwards towards Peronne and Mont St Quentin.
The Allied victory was described as a “Black Day” for the German forces by German commanders. Between 7-14 August, the 5 Australian Divisions suffered a total of 6,491 casualties, which represented 20% of their already depleted strength when entering the battle.
On 11 August General Monash is knighted by King George V at Haig’s HQ, the last British or Empire General to be knighted in the field by a Sovereign.
AGL Casualties:
6088 Lance Corporal William Duncan McDiarmid, 13th Battalion, 26, labourer, married with one adopted child, of Concord wounded 8 August and died in field hospital 10 August 1918. Veteran of Gueudecourt and Le Hamel.
2048 Sergeant George William Taylor DCM MM, 1st Field Company Engineers, 42, bricklayer, widower with
one child, of Annandale wounded 12 August and died in hospital 19 August 1918.
Veteran of Boer War, Gallipoli, Pozieres, Menin Road, and Broodseinde Ridge.
3398 Private Reginald Wallace Macdonald, 45th Battalion, 21, clerk, single, of Parramatta wounded 8 August and died at a General Hospital 27 August 1918. Veteran of Pozieres and Dernancourt.
Mont St Quentin ♠♠
On 24 August the 4th Division was replaced in the Line by a French Division and goes into reserve.
On 29 August the German resistance begins to stiffen around Clery, 3 km north west of Peronne.
On 30 August the 3rd Division commenced attack of the “Battle of Mont St Quentin”. Monash’s objective was to render the line of the Somme River useless to the Germans as a defensive position and hasten their retreat to the Hindenburg Line. To achieve this called for an attack on the key position of the whole line of defence, on a hill called Mont St Quentin.
Monash knew that his troops were under strength and badly in need of rest, but by now he considered them “invincible”. He was also worried that somehow the Germans could withstand attacks until the winter weather set in and thus the War drag on till 1919. Without conscription the Australian units were seriously understrength even after some Battalions were disbanded. The politicians were also demanding that 1914 enlistments be repatriated home, thus depriving Monash of his most experienced troops.
The attack was on the key positions in the German line, a dominating hill known as Mont St Quentin, 1.5km from Peronne. The hill was less than 100 metres high but heavily guarded especially along the northern and westerly approaches. The 5th Division objectives were the Peronne Bridges and Peronne, while the 2nd Division’s was the bridgehead at Halle then Mont St Quentin and finally the 3rd Division was to capture the high ground north east of Clery, then Bouchavesnes spur. Facing the Australian Divisions at Mont St Quentin was the 2nd Prussian Guards, an elite German formation, who had orders to hold the hill “to the death”.
The barrage commenced at 5am but much of the Australian’s fighting reputation preceeded them with the enemy taking panic. The 5th Brigade of the 2nd Division opened the attack, comprising only 70 officers and 1,250 other ranks it was less than one third of its normal strength. The 2nd Division battalions to assault Mont St Quentin were the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th all from NSW. The 17th battalion started along the Clery-Peronne road as the Germans retreated to more defensible ground. Within a short time they had captured, with only 550 men and 220 in support, what British generals considered “impregnable”. However, the 5th Brigade could not hold all of its gains and part of the 2nd Prussian Guards Division drove back scattered troops from the summit of Mont St Quentin.
On the left of the attack by the 2nd Division, the 3rd Division attacking Bouchavesnes Spur had not successfully captured its objectives, this meant that earlier gains were threatened by German flanking moves. Monash ordered that “Casualties no longer matter” and “We must get Bouchavesnes Spur”. The Spur was taken and the Mont St Quentin assault was protected.
On 1 September the 6th Australian Brigade, passing through the 5th Brigade seized in a second attempt the summit of Mont St Quentin while the 14th Brigade (5th Division) captured woods north of Peronne and took the main part of the town. The following day (2 September) the 7th Brigade (2nd Division) drove beyond the Mont and the Australian 15th Brigade (5th Division) seized the rest of Peronne.
The result was that three weakened Australian Divisions were able to defeat five German Divisions. The action saw its fair share of heroics, with eight VC’s awarded, and losses, with 20% of attacking forces becoming casualties. The battle was a true infantry victory achieved without the use of tanks or creeping artillery barrage.
Losses were 2nd Division 1,370, 3rd Division 587, 5th Division, 1,070.
AGL Casualties:
624 Private Leonard James Carmody, 33rd Battalion, 28, clerk, single, of Kogarah, killed 30 August 1918. No known grave. Veteran of Amiens.
4822A Private Launcelot Hickson Brown, 18th Battalion, 28, gas employee, married with two children, of Enfield wounded 30 August and died at a field hospital 2 September 1918. Veteran of Pozieres and Dernancourt.
On 18 September Le Verguier was captured by the Australians. The 1st Division attacked with 2,854 infantry and the 4th Division with 3,048. This represented about one sixth of their original strengths. Both the 1st and 4th Australian Divisions are withdrawn from the Line, they are not to see action in the war again.
Later in September the Australian Corps pushed into Aisne sector and was victorious at Epehy, Bellicourt, Navroy, Gillemont Farm, Joncourt, Estrées.
26 September the Australian attacks on villages of Bellicourt and Bony commence. The fighting lasted a week after which the 1st and 5th Divisions are withdrawn from the Line, they are not to see action in the war again.
5 October the 2nd Division captureed Montbrehain, a position beyond the Hindenburg Line.
This was the last action that the Australians were to undertake in the war. They were now rested having been in continuous action since March 27, 1918.
Early November – Australians were marching towards front to re-join battle lines.
11 November, 1918 – At 11am the War ends.
Pre and Post Armistice ♠♠
AGL Casualties:
18223 Driver John Fitzmaurice Clyde, 2nd Field Company Engineers, 40, clerk, single, of Cremorne admitted sick with asthma to Hospital 17 November and died 25 November 1918. Veteran of Amiens.
29329 Gunner Leslie Alfred Orchard, 4th Field Artillery Brigade, 27, ferry master, married with one child, of Rozelle while on leave in UK was admitted sick with influenza to Hospital on 6 December and died 12 December 1918 (the final AGL casualty). Veteran of Bullecourt, Passchendaele, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Hamel, Amiens, Mont St Quentin, and Montbrehain.
Breakfast Point War Memorial 