Military History Tours Australia On Tour - Our Other Anzac Day 26 April 2008
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Guests today travelled with their allocated historian for their second day of battlefield touring.
The visits today were to Mont St Quentin, the 2nd Division Memorial, Bellenglise, the 4th Division Memorial, and where the Australian Corps under General Monash finished the War, at Montbrehain. Follow the links for descriptions of the memorials and the battles.
At night guests travelled to Amiens for a private inspection of the Cathedrale Notre Dame (larger than Notre Dame in Paris), and had dinner in French restaurants on the river running through town.
Everyone was tired when we returned to our hotels.
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On the morning of 30 August 1925, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, who had been the supreme commander of all Allied forces in France in 1918, stood and faced a large crowd gathered before a newly completed monument. It stood on the high point of the road, the N17, leading north-westwards out of Péronne towards Bapaume. Foch spoke of what would rank as one of the “finest feats of arms in a time rich in innumerable deeds of heroism”, the capture of Mont St Quentin and Péronne by the Australian Imperial Force between 31 August and 3 September 1918. After saluting, Foch pulled away a large Australian flag from the top of the monument to reveal an infantryman of the AIF in full battle dress powerfully thrusting down with his bayonet into the belly of an eagle which lay on its back on the ground.
Seven years after the end of World War I the meaning of this memorial was clear – here were the men of the AIF defeating the German Imperial Army symbolised by the dying bird of prey. The memorial was blessed by Canon Stacy Waddy, an ex-chaplain with the AIF, the Last Post was sounded, there was a two-minute silence, and the ceremony was brought to a close by the playing, by a French military band, of the “Marseillaise” and “God Save the King”.
Around the base of the memorial were four brass plaques. The one facing west and down the hill back across the Somme River flats declared this monument to be: “To the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the 2nd Australian Division, who fought in France and Belgium in the Great War, 1916, 1917, and 1918”.
Australian artist Miss May Butler-George constructed the plaques facing north and south. Members of the 2nd Division, arranged for her to personally visit the site in February 1919 “in connection with the work of preparing panels for the Divisional Memorial”. It was clear, even then, that the 2nd Division were planning a much more elaborate testimony to their wartime exploits in Europe than any other division of the AIF. The other four had been satisfied with simple obelisks. Miss Butler-George’s bas-relief plaques depict Australian artillery going into action and infantry bombing their way down a trench. She made her designs in a studio in St Kilda Road, Melbourne, using photographs of male models carrying out the actions she wished to depict. The bronzes themselves were cast in Paris.
The digger bayoneting the eagle figure was the work of Australian sculptor Web Gilbert. In 1917, he had joined the AIF as a sculptor in the newly created War Records Section, a unit dedicated to the collecting of archives, photographs, art and other battlefield objects for what Charles Bean hoped would be a great “memorial-museum” in Australia after the war. Gilbert’s model for the 2nd Division Memorial was put on display at a major exhibition in April 1922 in what was then called the “Australian War Museum” housed in the Exhibition Buildings in Melbourne. Charles Bean never liked the piece declaring it “a cheap conception” that bore “no shadow of the spirit of the AIF”. However, the men of the division had, with assistance from the Commonwealth Government, collected the money themselves to pay for their memorial and they commissioned Gilbert to prepare the sculpture. Gilbert died in Australia two days before photographs arrived showing Marshal Foch unveiling his digger triumphant over the German eagle.
But the digger slaying the eagle vanished! The Germans pulled it down and destroyed it in World War II when they once again occupied Mont St Quentin and Péronne. This memorial was notably the only one to receive such treatment; the imagery was obviously offensive to the resurgent German Army. Eventually, in 1971, the sculpture was replaced by a much less aggressive looking figure of a digger in slouch hat with his head cast slightly down as if reflecting on the endless days of battle which he and his mates had endured from 1916 to 1918. It was the fighting advance across the uplands of the Somme from Villers-Bretonneux to Péronne, with the dramatic assault on the heights of Mont St Quentin that led the 2nd Division to choose this as the site for their memorial in France. The Mayor and Council of St Quentin had given the land to Australia for a memorial to the troops that took part in the operations from Villers-Bretonneux to Mont St Quentin in 1918.
The Battle
By the end of August 1918, the last German stronghold was located at Mont St Quentin, which overlooked the Somme River approximately 1.5 kilometres north of Peronne. Mont St Quentin, is only 100 metres high, however in this flat country it was key to the German defence of the Somme River and approaches to the Hindenberg Line. If the Germans were left on this feature they could blow the bridges, and fortify their positions, and hold out until Spring 1919. They needed to be moved before the snows came.
Lieutenant General John Monash, the Australian Corps Commander, was keen to capture the stronghold with Australian troops. He believed that by taking control of Mont St Quentin, the line of the Somme River would be useless to the Germans as a defensive position and they would be forced to retreat to the Hindenburg Line. To achieve this, it was necessary to capture the “mountain”. Monash proposed that the 2nd, 3rd and 5th Australian Divisions would take part in the attack despite their numbers being heavily depleted during earlier fighting; with no conscription for overseas service in Australia, there were no reinforcements. The 5th Division was to take the Peronne bridges, and a wooded spur east of Peronne, the 2nd Division was to aim for the bridgehead at Halle and then move on to Mont St Quentin and the 3rd Division was to take high ground northeast of Clery and the Bouchavesnes spur. Audaciously, Monash planned that Mont St Quentin would be taken by three battalions in the direct part of the assault.
On 29-30 August the 5th Brigade (comprising the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th Battalions) of the 2nd Division, seized hills that dominated the river crossings and proposed approach route. The the troops were exhausted and, each battalion's strength was down to around 300 men. The 17th Battalion (on the right flank) was to capture the village of Mont St Quentin and the small wood on the summit beyond the road; the 20th Battalion (on the left flank) was ordered to seize the line of the road down the northern slope to the Feuillaucourt Bridge and the 19th Battalion was to guard the right flank by occupying two parallel trenches which ran down the south western slope of Mont St Quentin and overlooked Peronne. The 18th Battalion was assigned the job of close support to the assault battalions.
On the night of 31 August 1918, the Australian troops crossed the Somme and following an artillery barrage that commenced at 05:00, attacked Mont St Quentin from the north west. During the infantry charge, Australian soldiers had to fight uphill across open ground where they were vulnerable to attack from the German held heights above. The 17th Battalion headed up the Brasso Redoubt, and climbed towards Gottleib Trench. They encountered the enemy almost immediately and charged their posts, yelling at the top of their voices. The demoralised Germans, fearing they were being attacked by a superior force, surrendered in large numbers. The 20th Battalion moved up to make a bayonet charge and captured the Gottleib trench. As the Australians reached the summit, large numbers of German soldiers were sent fleeing down the slopes. By 07:00 the troops had occupied the village of Mont St Quentin and the slope and summit of the hill. However, the small size of their forces meant that their hold on the position was tenuous. The reserve element of the 2nd German Guards Division, counterattacked and drove the Australians from the summit to positions just below it.
In the rear, the 19th Battalion crossed the Somme at the Clery bridge, which Australian engineers had saved and repaired despite enemy barrages. On the same morning the 33rd Battalion (9th Brigade) of the 3rd Division attacked the Bouchavesnes spur, a position which allowed the Germans to dominate Mont St Quentin, and were held up by enfilade fire from a machine gun. Private George Cartwright, stood up and moved forward, stopping every few steps to shoot. He killed three of the machine gun team and then rushed ahead and threw a grenade at the post. As it exploded, he charged, captured the gun and eight prisoners. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions. Although the 33rd Battalion only held part of their objective, a concerted effort was made, the spur was secured and the left flank of the troops attacking Mont St Quentin was secured.
On 1 September, the 6th Brigade (21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th Battalions) took the summit on their second attempt. The 14th Brigade of the 5th Division (53rd, 54th, 55th and 56th Battalions) captured the woods north of Peronne and after pressing on during a short-lived German attack, took the main part of Peronne. An attempt to pass the northern side of the town was stopped by heavy fire from the ramparts. On 2 September the 7th Brigade (25th, 26th, 27th and 28th battalions) drove beyond the mount, the 15th Brigade (57th, 58th, 59th and 60th Battalions) seized the remainder of Peronne and the 3rd Division advanced on the northern flank. By the evening of the 3 September, the Australians held Peronne, captured Flamicourt the next day and then advanced three kilometres to the east.
The 3rd Army including the Canadian Corps also thrust towards Cambrai in late August, this gave Ludendorff further cause to retire from the Somme below Peronne. The only German option was to retreat to the Hindenburg Line.
The Battle of Mont St Quentin resulted in a strategic, tactical and psychological victory for the Australian Forces and dealt a stunning blow to five German divisions, including the elite 2nd Guards Division, drove the enemy from one of the key positions in France, and took 2,600 prisoners at a cost of slightly over 3,000 casualties. It was fought without tanks and creeping barrages and demonstrated that rapid and flexible manoeuvring could play a decisive part in capturing enemy positions on the Western Front. Australians attacked more than their number of Germans in strong positions and captured more of them than they could safely hold. Twenty percent of the attacking force were listed as casualties proving it had not been a walkover.
Bibliography
Bean, C E W (1983). Anzac to Amiens. Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
Coulthard-Clark, C (1998). Where Australians Fought: The Encyclopedia of Australia's Battles. Allen & Unwin: St Leonards, NSW.
Johnson, J. H. (1997). 1918 The Unexpected Victory. Arms & Armour: London.
Laffin, J (1992). Guide to Australian Battlefields of the Western Front 1916-1918. Kangaroo and Australian War Memorial: Kenthurst, NSW.
Laffin, J (1988). Western Front 1917-1918, The Cost of Victory. Time-Life: North Sydney
Taylor, D (2001). Key Battles of World War 1. Reed Educational: Oxford.
Les Carlyon (2007). The Great War, Pan-McMillian Australia Ltd
Papers re: 2nd Division Memorial, 623/5, AWM 27.
Photos courtesy the AWM, and Colonel Graham Fleeton RFD.
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The 4 Division Memorial located at Les Chaudriès near the village of Bellenglise 25 kms east of Peronne. is the most easterly and most isolated of the five Australian divisional memorials in France and Belgium.
The location of the Memorial in some ways was an odd choice considering how much the Division had achieved and sacrificed at the great battles of Pozieres, Bullecourt, Messines, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Passchendaele, Arras, Ancre, Villers-Bretonneux, Hamel, Amiens, Albert Hindenburg Line and Epehy. Even though the Division was proud of its achievements at Bellenglise it hadn’t spent much time there – certainly not enough to form any strong association with the town – though in 1988 the villagers of Bellenglise thought enough about the Australian’s achievements to unveil a plaque in both English and French at the mairie (town hall) inscribed “We do not forget Australia”.
Early in 1919, well after the end of the war, the various units of the division received an urgent telegram from 4 Division Headquarters requesting that they forward proposals about the siting of a divisional memorial within a week of receipt of the request. They were instructed not to consider Villers-Bretonneux as a possibility. This provoked a stern response from an officer of the 45th Battalion to his commanding officer:
I desire to protest most emphatically upon the arbitrary action of allocating Villers-Bretonneux to any division to the prejudice of the 4th. I feel so strongly on this point that I desire that this protest be sent through the proper channels to the Right Hon. The Prime Minister of Australia, with the request that he may be good enough to have the matter enquired into. I have reason to believe that it is intended to allocate Villers-Bretonneux to a Division to which, either on the ground of special action in that area or its general work in the war, it is not entitled.
Letter, to CO 45th Battalion, 13 March 1919, ‘memorials on battlefields (April 1919)’, 4th Division, 623/9, AWM27
The angry 45 Battalion officer did not say which division he had in mind and he was not to know that Villers-Bretonneux had already been selected as the site of a memorial to the whole Australian Corps. Eventually, on that site was erected the Australian National Memorial and the memorial to the missing of the AIF in France between 1916 and 1918.
The units of the 4th Division canvassed a number of possibilities for the divisional memorial. A site near where the Australian Corps memorial is today on a hill north of Villers-Bretonneux was suggested because of the division’s contribution to the defence of Amiens between March and August 1918. Another suggestion was for somewhere near the town of Albert to commemorate the division’s huge loss in the actions around Pozières and Mouquet Farm in July–August 1916. Pozières itself was suggested as a place where “more bravery and stamina were required by all concerned to hold that ridge than was required in most of the later operations”. Somewhere near Bullecourt was also put forward, as the division had fought desperately there in 1917.
Finally, after what the division’s commanding officer, Major-General Ewen Sinclair-MacLagan, called “two long and wordy meetings”, the 4th Division settled on a height at Les Chaudriès north of the village of Bellenglise which overlooked the St Quentin Canal as this was the site of its last fight of the war and symbolised the Divisions service across all the battlefields of the Western Front.
In September 1918, from Chaudriès the main German defences of the Hindenburg Line were visible and, between 18 and 24 September 1918, it was the scene of “an extremely successful operation”’ and the “culminating point of the 4th Australian Division’s work in the war”.
A German officer captured in these operations supposedly remarked:
"Your men are so brave and have so much dash that it is impossible to stop them."
Unnamed German officer quoted in ‘memorials on battlefields (April 1919)’, 4th Division, 623/9, AWM27
What had the soldiers of the 4th Division done here at Les Chaudriès and around Bellenglise?
The Battle
When the German Imperial Army withdrew from Péronne in early September 1918 it fell back to positions running north and south of the 4th Division Memorial. These positions were known as the “Hindenburg Outpost Line’” by the British and east of them lay two old British lines which the Germans smashed through during their great offensive of 21 March 1918.
These old British lines were garrisoned by the Germans, making the approach to the Hindenburg Line proper a formidable one. Feeling they had the Germans on the run, however, the British high command approved an assault on the old British lines and, if successful, a quick follow-up attack on the “Hindenburg Outpost Line” itself.
On the night of 17–18 September, men of the Australian 1st and 4th Divisions moved up to a start line east of the villages of Hargicourt in the north and Le Verguier in the south, along a six-and-half-kilometre front. Many of these soldiers had been fighting now for weeks with most Australian battalions at half strength due to the casualties and lack of reinforcements. Nonetheless, according to Charles Bean they were in “bounding spirits” as they advanced once again into battle. By the end of the day the 1st Division to the north had seized all its objectives.
The attack towards the “Hindenburg Outpost Line” trenches sited around the 4th Division Memorial began to the east and south of Le Verguier, a couple of kilometres away. The ground lay over a series of spacious valleys north of the River Omignon and the attack was led by the 48th Battalion in what was to be that unit’s last action of the war. They soon met the well-directed fire of the German machine gunners but quickly moved into the German line and watched a little amazed as many of the enemy soldiers tried to escape.
Padre William Devine, 48th Battalion, described their fate:
"The remainder had run to a hollow on the other side of the rising ground and most of them took up a position along a sunken road there … Their plight was a sorry one … for they were right on our artillery’s protective barrage. More enemy dead were strewn over that small area than the writer of these pages had ever before seen gathered on the same extent of ground. Many of those who came under the heavy fire ran forward with hands upraised in token of surrender and from this place and the adjoining dug-out one hundred and eighty nine prisoners were taken."
William Devine, The Story of a Battalion, Melbourne, 1919, pp.148–149
The 45th Battalion, “advancing in magnificent order”, now drove on through the line taken by the 48th. The battalion fought its way up to the summit of another hilltop capturing German guns and infantry as they moved across the open countryside to the east of where the 4th Division Memorial now stands and having gained their objective, stopped to watch the British artillery bombardment hit the German positions on the “Hindenburg Outpost Line” around the memorial area.
That night the 46th Battalion stormed the “Hindenburg Outpost Line” in the middle of a rainstorm which had forced the German defenders, many of whom were reserve troops rushed forward earlier in the day in anticipation of an Australian attack at dawn on 19 September, to seek shelter from the storm. Hundreds surrendered causing the Australians some problems:
… some of the crowd of prisoners arriving at Couchman’s headquarters [Major Frank Couchman] showed signs of aggression, especially one officer; but a Victorian corporal by keeping them on the move to the rear averted any outbreak. A captured officer remarked to Couchman: “All I can say is you are some bloody soldier”!
Charles Bean, The Australian Imperial Force in France, 1918, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Volume VI, p.926
At this point in the fighting on the right flank of 46 Battalion’s position the newly captured line was vulnerable from the south-west of the 4th Division Memorial and two companies of the 48th Battalion came up to drive the enemy back from a maze of trenches covered by enemy machine guns. Part of the position was captured with the help of Pte James Wood whom Padre Devine of the 48th Battalion christened a “young firebrand” and wrote in his book:
… a lad named Woods [Private James Woods] hoisted himself on the parapet of a neighbouring trench. He was soon the aim of many bullets; but the fortune of war, as remarkable in its friendships as in its spites, dealt kindly with him. Lying on his stomach whilst his comrades below fed him with bombs, he created such havoc in the strong-point that when reinforcements arrived their task was an easy one.
William Devine, The Story of a Battalion, Melbourne, 1919, p.150
Thus, wrote Padre Devine, the 48th Battalion gained its one and only Victoria Cross of the war awarded for an action during its very last engagement, the seizure of the “Hindenburg Outpost Line”.
For Devine this fact lent a particular poignancy to the deaths of those killed in these final actions. The battalion dead were recovered from the battlefield and initially buried at Dean Copse back towards Le Verguier.
Chaplain Devine drew particular attention to a Port Adelaide labourer, Private Nathaniel Lunt, age 33, who had joined the battalion when it was formed in Egypt in early 1916. Lunt was considered one of the characters in the battalion, the “hero of many fights both in the line and out of it”.
Lunt’s personal AIF dossier at the Australian National Archives reveals a number of these incidents undoubtedly earning him the title of ‘larrikin’:
14 March 1916 – appearing unshaven;
24 April 1916 – not parading when ordered to do so;
19 May 1916 – failing to comply with an order;
21 June 1916 – creating disturbance after lights out;
11 July 1916 – using abusive language to an NCO;
19 July 1916 – wilfully damaging Government property.
But “larrikin’ though he may have been, Lunt did his share of the fighting and was badly wounded in the hell for the 48th Battalion in August 1916 that was Pozières. As his record shows, in November 1916 a large piece of metal was surgically removed from this wound.
Lunt lies today in Plot 4, Row B, Grave 2, in the Bellicourt British Cemetery about six kilometres north-east of where he died on 20 September 1918 as the 48th Battalion consolidated its position in the trenches south of the 4th Division Memorial. There is no epitaph on his headstone and perhaps Padre Devine can be allowed to speak for this forgotten “digger” and his two mates, Privates Punch Donovan and Cork Daly, men Devine regarded as “essential to the identity of the 48th”:
Always conspicuous in an attack, but as soon as the climax of that excitement had passed sought fresh interest in the odd jobs that ensued from it. If prisoners were to be taken to the rear, the duty of escort was regarded as theirs by right, and many were the antics with which they performed the task … They received decorations, and none were better deserved, but the same gipsy character which made them so useful to the Battalion as regular and irregular scouts, made promotion impossible.
William Devine, The Story of a Battalion, Melbourne, 1919, p.151
It is fitting to remember that it was men like Private Nathanial Lunt and his mates who made the military achievements of the AIF possible as much as its generals, colonels and sergeants.
Acts of Courage:
Two Australians were awarded the Victoria Cross for their courage in the fighting around Bellenglise on September 18 1918:
Sergeant Maurice Vincent Buckley, DCM, VC (alias Gerald Sexton) 13th Battalion, near Le Vergneur north-east of St Quentin, France. For more detail see Annex A.
Private James Park Woods,VC 48th Battalion, near Le Vergneur, nort-east of St Quentin, France. For more detail see Annex A.
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The Australian attack on 5 October was the last in which Australian troops would participate in the Great War. 2nd Australian Division had been brought forward following the successes of 3 and 5 Divisions in breaking through the two forward defensive lines and the exhausted Australian were taken out of the line to rest.
The 6th Australian Infantry Brigade was chosen to be the last Australian brigade to be employed on operations on the Western Front when, after a delayed handover to II American Corps the brigade fought for and took Montbrehain village. This highly successful attack is considered to be one of the greatest Australian actions of the war.
On the misty morning of 5 October, the assault battalions – 21st and 24th bolstered by Pioneers from 2nd Pioneer Battalion fighting as Infantry – attacked uphill from the little village of Ramicourt across five hundred metres of fire-swept ground. They scrambled through barbed wire entanglements, captured trenches, cleared dugouts and repeatedly assaulted machine gun positions “riding them down in a manner which delighted our men” according the 24 Battalions Diary. By capturing Montbrehain and holding it against determined German counter attacks the much vaunted Hindenburg Line was completely broken. The defence of this sector was then handed over to Americans troops, while the Australians, exhausted and depleted, were withdrawn for a rest.
By this time, most Australian troops had been fighting for six months without a break, 11 out of 60 battalions were disbanded because there were so few men left in them, and 27,000 men had been killed or wounded since the Battle of Amiens. The troops were tired and worn out and war weary.
Captain Francis Fairweather wrote in late September:
"Unless one understands the position it would seem that the Australians are being worked to death as we have been going continuously since 27th March but they are the only troops that would have the initiative for this type of warfare."
Some Australian units continued to support British and US forces until early November, and the Australian Flying Corps (which had remained an independent force, even though small compared with the Royal Air Force) also stayed in action until the war's end.
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Unless otherwise noted battle and battlefield descriptions are prepared jointly by the Military History Tours Historians, as are the photographs.
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