Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
Arthur Edward Matthews war narrative, 1916-1917
MLMSS 8917 / Box 1 / Item 1
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The Campaign on the Somme – in the Winter of 1916-17
Please return to
Mrs. G.A. Wood
Uplands
Gertrude Ave.
Gordon
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[Duplicate of Page 1]
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The Campaign on the Somme – in the Winter of 1916-1917
Writing here in the comparative quietness of this hut one has time to review things with generous quietness, and one´s moodiest moments seem to have silver mountings when one recalls all one endured last winter. So with the help of a snappy diary and a few impressions that stick, I´ll try to relate as much as I can of our winter on the Somme , from the time we took over after the capture of Flers and Geudecourt, to our victorious smashing up at Bullecourt early in May last.
We had had two months on the then quiet Ypres front after the bad mauling the 1st Anzac Corps had had at Pozieres and Mouquet Farm. Our battalions were up to about two-thirds normal strength, and after about ten days spell in the St. Omer district, which was thirty miles or so back from the line, we entrained early one morning at St. Omer Station, after eight or nine miles night march. We travelled via Calais, Boulogne, Etaples, Abbeville to Longpre where we detrained and marched to billets at a little town nearby, called L´Etoile. It was here that we had our first touch of winter.
Our billets were pretty good as billets go in France. We had plenty of straw, more or less clean, and a roof over our heads and that goes a long way to help one to put up with life generally. I well remember the Sunday before we left that little place, how impressive the Church parade was. It was well known that the 1st., 2nd., 4th., and 5th. Australian Divisions were to attempt the capture of Bapaume before the winter really set in, and our parade that Sunday seemed a very solemn and impressive gathering as our Padre exhorted us to remember all that was before us, and how there would be all too few on the muster parade a week hence.
We left L´Etoile early on the following Tuesday in full battle array with bright yellow patches sewn midway between our shoulders and, I suppose, all sorts of mixed feelings in our minds. We only had 3 miles to march when we came out on the main Amiens-Abbeville road. Here were miles and miles of French motor buses awaiting us,
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and within an hour we were all aboard and away. We had thirty miles to go before we reached the Somme battle area and it was dusk before our brigade touched ground again near a little muddy village called Buire-sur-l´Ancre, which village we came to know very well since that dismal October day.
We found out afterwards that our destination was Fricourt, and it being quite dark by the time we had all our equipment off the busses and we had formed up in column of route, we naturally lost ourselves before we had gone very far. I say "naturally" because columns of unmounted troops are not allowed the use of the roads - or rather they were not at that time, owing to the magnitude of the traffic - and because we generally get lost going into the line after dark and across country. The country at that time was just getting nicely muddy and we were wandering about with full load up for close on five hours before we struck our appointed camping ground on some rising ground near Fricourt, on almost the exact spot where the 4th army "hopped over" on July 1st 1916, and took Mametz Wood and La Boiselle.
We just had a few tarpaulins as covering for us, and being dead beat it wasn't long before we were all fast asleep despite a terrific bombardment towards Beaumont-Hamel.
It had rained all that might, and most of us awoke at dawn to find ourselves almost afloat. After tea and a tiny rasher of "lance-corporal” bacon, we moved off again about 8 o'clock in the morning bound for reserve positions between Mametz Wood and Bazentin-le-Grand. We had to proceed - by the road this time as the country was impassable otherwise - in single file, and the going was terrible owing to the bad condition of the road and the depth of the mud in places. Many went down like under-fed and over-laden horses, and were unable to rise again by their own efforts. I hadn't much time for anyone else's troubles, but it was truly awful watching the struggles and pitiful endeavours of those who were too old or too young for such a game as war. Many a man there is to-day, pitifully struggling across some shell-torn morass, whose patriotism was stronger
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than his body, but, having signed that he could do the job he´s got to stick it until perhaps one day he will collapse crossing a deserted stretch of country in the proximity of the fighting zone, and die a miserable lingering death. After the Huns evacuated Bapaume we found many cases thus. No sign of shot or shell about them, but just dead emaciated specimens of men that the severity of the winter had kept from decomposition, lying in shell-holes or disused trenches, some face downwards in icy-cold water, and others with wildly-despairing eyes staring heavenwards. I wonder if you can picture it all. I often wish I could shut some of the sights away from my eyes. But they persist despite all.
So, after a march that seemed twenty miles, but was in reality but four, we reached our appointed position east of Mametz Wood. It had now been raining steadily for the best part of 2 days and we were absolutely without shelter of any kind. One of those sorely battered dug-outs in Bairnsfather´s cartoons would have been an absolute godsend for our brigadier; so, things being at such a pass for the general, you can guess the forlorn condition of the rank and file. We had one comfort , however, our travelling cookers had managed to reach us without getting bogged and we were thus able to occasionally get hot stew and tea. The first night on that famous muddy slope, which is known to every 1st Brigade boy as the “Mud-hill at Mametz", I spread my waterproof sheet upon about twelve inches of heavy mud and then spread myself upon it with a rain-soaked blanket drawn right over me. It rained all night but I slept fitfully until morning when I crawled out of the mud soaked through. It was on Nov. 1st that I got properly wet through and it wasn´t until Nov. 22nd. when the rain ceased and a cold wintry sun peeped out about midday that I was able to get myself dry again. One would have been dead 3 times over in civilian life, but in war time they don´t encourage you to go sick so you just have to live on, and, whether you grin or not you´ve just got to bear it.
After several miserably wet days and nights on that heap of mud we received orders to move up into forward positions preparatory to
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the big attack which was shortly to come off, provided the weather improved a little. We moved in small parties as far as Delville Wood awaiting further instructions. We dug ourselves niches in the leeward side of an old German trench to get a little shelter from the cutting wind and driving sleet and rain. One would just be comparatively comfortably settled in one of these holes, with his chin on his knees and his feet in water and his overcoat - wet and clammy - pulled well around him, when the whole side of the trench would collapse like an avalanche upon him, and he´d have to worm his way out of filth and wet, and, with savage curses, finish the night by splashing up and down the remains of the water-logged trench in an attempt to induce a little blood to flow to his extremities. Bairnsfather has given us the humours of such a life, but it´s poignantly tragic at times, my dear.
Late one afternoon we moved up to the front line, which consisted mainly of shell-holes connected by shallow trenches, and relieved the 29th Division. There were thousands of dead bodies scattered about in huddled heaps across the rising ground between the villages of Flers and Geudecourt. The troops who had swept down the slope from Delville Wood in the wake of the first real Tank attack must have had terrific casualties. We reached our position in a sunken road about 7 in the evening just in time for a pretty heavy "strafe” from the German batteries forward of Bapaume and we had our first casualties, although we had been under intermittent shell-fire for a week or more. We were on the alert all night owing to the heaviness of the artillery fire, for such a barrage generally precedes an attack. However things quietened down towards morning and we were allowed to rest in relief.
Dawn was just breaking when a runner came along with the news that our Colonel had been mortally wounded by a sniper as he was going his rounds in the half-light of early morning. Five minutes later we saw the bearers emerging from the early morning mist a little to the right of our position. The Colonel had been hit just below the eye and the bullet had passed through his face and was lodged in
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the opposite jaw. I saw him as he passed. He was quite conscious and his face was swollen to twice its normal size. He died 2 days later at a Casualty Clearing Station. He was a young man for the position he held - only just 27 - but he was every inch a soldier and extraordinarily fearless and cool. Perhaps, had he not been so conscientious and determined to do his job he would have been with us yet. There are not many colonels, I can assure you, who pay a personal visit daily to all the posts under their command. The 3rd Australian Battalion is admittedly one of the finest of the sixty odd battalions that form the Australian forces and it owes, to a great extent, its great efficiency both in and out of the line to Lt. Col. C.G. Howell-Price, D.S.O., M.C.
On the evening of the same day that we lost our chief, there occurred one of those regrettable mistakes, or examples perhaps of bad workmanship, of our artillery. They opened up with the intention of blowing in the enemy lines and in 15 minutes had blown in our own futile defences and killed and wounded half our men. I can imagine nothing more heart-rending and tragic than one´s own comrades murdering us through someone´s mistake In observation or calculation. One feels unspeakably mad with rage to hear and feel the missiles of ours falling on us and around us, while runners are going for their lives – and for ours - to the nearest telegraph to tell the fools to cut it out until they find the correct range. In ten minutes that evening, through some officer´s mistake probably, out of a platoon of 35 men we had 8 men killed and 11 wounded. We were only the poor old infantry, so what matters it if we lost a few men while the artillery, 3 or 4 miles back does a little range-finding?
The abnormal wet weather had the effect of cancelling our big stunt, and operations resolved themselves into a series of little advances undertaken independently all along the Somme front. Some regiments were successful; others went over and failed to return; others again were badly cut up. The 1st and 3rd Australian Battalions
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"went over" on the night of Nov. 4th. There was a terrific rain-storm at 10 p.m. which lasted about an hour, and at midnight our barrage opened and we struggled on behind it thro´ the thigh-deep mud to the German lines somewhere away in front. No one seemed to know exactly where the Huns were or how far ahead their lines were supposed to be. It was a pitch black night and all one could hear was the roar of artillery and the crackling of machine-guns. There was a perfect constellation of star-shells going up ahead of us, so we guessed it was Fritz "getting the wind up". Men were dropping quite close to us all the time, mostly through the intense machine-gun fire against us, and it was fully an hour before we finally got the German line and found that most of the garrison were casualties. There was no fight shown once we arrived within bombing distance, and all our prisoners except two were wounded.
It appeared that the 1st Battalion on our left had completely failed to capture their objectives, and early morning found us well out in front of the main line practically isolated. Orders came through for us to evacuate our position and leave no live Germans behind. Guessing that there would be some dirty work for somebody killing the wounded prisoners, I and a L´Corporal volunteered to escort the two unwounded prisoners back to Battn. H.Qrs., and we had just got away when we heard the awful screams of the men who were being slaughtered through military necessity.
We lost our way back in the half-light of dawn, and once, almost walked into a German out-post. The strange part about it was that it was one of our prisoners who warned us in Broken English, of our danger. They were both Saxons, fair-moustached, blue-eyed little men about 5 ft. 6 ins. in height, and they were apparently well pleased to be prisoners especially when they arrived at H.Qrs. and were given an extra large nip of rum. We were both utterly done by this time. I remember, as I was having a sip of rum, seeing the corporal practically fall asleep standing up and then collapse in a heap by the entrance to the H.Qrs. dug-out. I myself crawled into a hole by the roadside and must have fallen asleep right away.
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The same evening we were back on our posts, this time in supports about 200 yds. behind our outpost trench. About 9 o´clock Fritz opened upon us with his 5.9 batteries and our own artillery in replying repeated their performance of a couple of days before and, after half an hour´s bombardment by the combined German and British heavy batteries a whole platoon except 6 men had been wiped out. The platoon officer and sergeant must have been struck by the direct hit of a shell for all that we discovered of the two of them next morning was half a leg with a trench boot ripped off. In supports we had a rough, time too. One of our shells got a small ammunition dump and bombs and flares were exploding and flying in all directions. Two of our boys lost their sight completely through two rockets falling on their faces and practically burning their eyes out. I remember seeing one of them rush down the trench in agony with the greater part of his face burned black. He was found next morning behind the lines quite blind and stark mad. It appears that these flare rockets have the property of sticking to anything they strike while they are burning, like those sulphur-headed matches that one used to be able to buy.
That same night about 3 in the morning I was out on patrol with three others when one of them - a particular pal of mine - had a machine-gun bullet almost clean through his head. We managed to get him in to the nearest post but he died within a quarter of an hour of being hit. His death was rather a tragedy, apart from the fact that he and I were attached to each other in a way, for he had only a week before heard from his wife that she had given birth to a baby boy. He was married almost exactly a year previously. I wrote to his wife sympathising with her in her great loss but she never replied; perhaps she took it too badly.
We had been in this forward position now about 5 days and nights and our company had been reduced to about 55 instead of a normal 160. Those that were left, too, looked simply horrible. Worn, haggard, caked from head to foot in mad, and with a week's growth making them
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look still more awful, if that was possible. Many had no puttees and most of us had had much of our clothing torn off our backs on the night of Nov. 3rd. Our relief arrived about 8 in the evening on Nov. 7th and we straggled out into a reserve position about a mile and a half behind the front line. It sounds almost incredible, but it´s true, nevertheless, that so done up were some of the fellows and their feet were so useless, that they took up to 6 hours to drag themselves out that long, long mile and a half.
Caressed by the comparatively easy comfort of the life I´m leading here, it all seems a nightmare now. I think that the awful conditions under which we struggled during those November days dwarfed the slaughter of the artillery to almost nothing in comparison. We have had heavier bombardments since, notably at Bullecourt, but one seemed able to pull through with much less mental strain than one did during those days in the Somme morass.
When one thinks of the awful work done by our artillery during that time one feels a seething rage within one. Is it not enough that we have to be a target for the hideous German missiles without having to witness our own pals, the helpless human forms we lived and worked and fought and laughed with going down beside us in a tangled mass of torn flesh and blood and pulp, struck by a shell fired and trained by a countryman of ours? Of course they were all mistakes, but only just think of us out there that cold, wet November night half afloat in water-logged trenches and our own nine-inch shells falling right into us.
We remained in our reserve position for 10 days and had a comparatively easy time. The weather remained wet and we had intermittent shelling to endure, but compared with the forward position we had so recently left we considered ourselves very well off. A great boon to us was the fact we could get hot tea twice daily and were able to have fires provided we could find our own fuel. The village of Flers was about 600 yards in front of us and most of the houses were built of wood so we had no lack of fuel.
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We had managed to clean ourselves up a little during that time as we could get a wash whenever we wished in one of the innumerable shell holes. We were still without soap or razor so we still presented a rather unkept and wild appearance.
About the 23rd of November we were relieved by the 4th Australian Division and we moved back 55 miles to dug-outs at Trones Wood. There had been terrific battles here in the preceding August, Trones Wood having changed hands nine times before the British finally established themselves there. Even three months later the awful stench of dead humanity pervaded everything and half-decomposed bodies were more plentiful than the torn and shattered trees. We only stayed a night there and moved off about 9 o´clock next morning bound for Buire which was about 9 miles away. There were a bare 250 of us left and I remember watching the remains of the battalion move off down the shell-torn road. I was detained for rear-guard and so had a good opportunity to see them all as they straggled down the road. We looked simply awful as we slowly made our way in single file through the mass of limbers, G.S. Waggons, guns and pack mules. After we had somehow put 5 miles behind us we came to a village called Meaulte, where a brigade of guards were billeted prior to their going into the line. We had got clear of most of the traffic by now and were supposed to be marching in fours. In reality we were so done up and our legs were so stiff and our feet so sore, that we were all over the road, and I remember well what an incongruous spectacle we presented to any looker-on to see our mud-covered, unkempt mob straggling along and the Guards Brigade Quarters guard, all spick and span and brightly polished, turned out by the roadside and, at the order from the sergeant, came down to "present” like one man.
We reached our billets at about 5 o´clock that evening and after we had had a meal and a rest we were re-issued with our packs. Most of us were too tired and fed up to try a real wash with real soap, or a shave, so we just drew clean blankets from the Q.M.´s store and had a real sleep. We most of us had about 3 weeks´ growth of beard
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on our faces and some of us looked real wild and uncivilized. I should have liked to have had a snapshot taken of myself just as I came out of the line, for it would have been a revelation to some people just to see how run down a man can get and how thin and haggard and filthily unkempt he can look after 3 long weeks living amongst shell-holes and mud and dead men and rotting mules and horses.
We had no drills or parades to worry us for 2 whole days, during which time we were issued with new and clean clothing and we began to pick up a little. On the 4th day we moved back 18 miles by motor-bus and were quartered in a little town called Flesselles about 5 miles from the city of Amiens.
It was at Flesselles that I was promoted Lance-Corporal and was put in command of the bombing section of my platoon. We were lucky to get a comfortable little billet quite on our own. It was a hay-loft in some Farm Buildings and just comfortably held 19 men. It seemed to us a palace after our long spell in the mud, and we settled down quite comfortably for we had clean clothes and three heavy blankets a man and a regular night´s sleep.
I should have explained that these little towns in Picardy consist mostly of conglomerations of barns, farm-houses, and cowsheds with an occasional shop or estaminet. Instead of farm-houses and buildings being situated on the farms they are all huddled together in a village, and the teams and labourers go out to their work every day. The effect of having animals and manure-heaps adjacent to the houses of the populace is most insanitary, but the French, many of them, thrive on dirt and filth and vile odours. I´m sure that if Boulogne or Amiens had the semi-tropical climate of Alexandria or Cairo there would be quite as many plagues and fevers infesting those French towns as there is infesting Egypt. Whatever one can say about the Frenchman as regards his good qualities there´s no doubt he has no time for drains, or soap and water, or creosol, or anything that cleanses or disinfects.
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We had been at Flesselles about 4 days when we had a fairly heavy fall of snow. We had already had heavy frosts but this was the first snow of the winter and the first many Australian boys had ever seen. The authorities thought it about time we had our winter gear issued so we all received one of those sheepskin waistcoats and a pair of gauntlet gloves each. These latter were made so big that the majority of the boys used to put them on their feet at night for they had no fingers in them and they made admirable footwarmers.
We did very little training at Flesselles as the weather was so bad. We had occasional route-marches, but I dodged most of those, as I was having a couple of teeth stopped by one of the Field Ambulance dentists, and I managed to work my way for 4 days off duty.
After about 10 days, so-called rest, at Flesselles we again moved up, by motor lorries, towards the Ancre front. We were dumped at Buire again and took possession of a camp just behind the village church. We were detailed off 12 to a tent, so when we were all "at home" there was no room for acrobatics or a two-step or anything like that. The winter conditions were well in evidence by now, and although the interior of the tents was dry we lived in a veritable morass. Upon moving up again to the forward area we all thought we were shortly due in the line again but we had three weeks at this camp before we eventually moved up before Bapaume for our Christmas picnic. We were meanwhile employed as a labour unit, some on road-work, others hut-building for winter quarters and others labouring at a near-by heavy gun repairing factory. The N.C.O.s have a very easy time when the battalion is so employed as they act as foremen and gangers which generally means that once the men start the day's work, they stroll away somewhere - generally to drink hot coffee or coffee and rum at the nearest estaminet - until knocking-off time. If we had had better weather and dryer and warmer quarters we should have been quite (comfortable) au fait, but at any rate it was better than being in the line. About Dec. 18th we shifted our camp to Meaulte, a village about a mile south of Albert, and we received about 200 reinforcements here.
Reinforcements generally mean more fight so it was with no surprise that on Dec. 21st we received orders to move up to Mametz Village.
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The afternoon and evening before we trekked I spent in Albert having a look round. We had been billeted in Albert the previous August after we had come out from Pozieres and the town had apparently had a fair bit of bombardment since then, for most of the buildings around the famous church had been levelled to the ground, and one house that I well remember billeting in was now just a mass of brick and stone. You have seen photographs of the Statue of the Virgin and Child leaning over the town square at an angle of 90 degrees. It´s really rather a marvellous sight to stand right underneath the tower and look up at that huge figure gazing face downwards. When I revisited Albert in December it seemed as if the statue were several degrees further from the vertical, and, of course, the local legend says that when the statue falls, the war will end. I happen to know that the statue is now strongly held in position by a network of steel cable placed there by the R.E.s so if we have to wait until the statue falls until we get our discharge, we´ll have to organise an expedition to cut those cables and let the lady go. There´ll be some smash in the square below if that ever happens for the statue weighs about 25 tons and has a drop of 370 ft. Steel hats will be no earthly use to anyone standing underneath.
From Mametz we moved forward to some huts at Bernafay Wood, spent one night there, and then moved right into a sunken road running out of Geudecourt village which served the purpose of a trench and was the British front line. I say "served the purpose of a trench” for judging by our winter experience, a trench is a gash in the ground that will hold plenty of water and mud, give you a bon attack of trench fever if you stay in it long enough, and give you just enough room to duck when the 9.2´s lob. This sunken road answered every bit to this description, and we waded thigh deep through water to our respective posts. I had a marvellous stroke of luck on these outposts that Christmas. I was first of all detailed to take six men and take over a certain No. 6 post. I carried on as ordered and posted two men as look-outs while the remaining four rested or dug themselves comparatively dry niches in the side of the road in which to sit so
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that they could keep their legs out of the water. I also dug a similar hole for myself and had just completed the job when another corporal came wading down the road, in the pale light of the moon, with orders to relieve me as I was wanted at Coy. H.Qrs. to take a party back to the dump for rations. I got this job as I knew the track out in the dark, and the other corporal didn't. I had been back at H.Qrs. about 20 minutes getting instructions for this ration party, when one of the men that I had left behind came along with the news that five minutes after I had gone a large howitzer shell had lobbed right into the post killing the corporal and one man and badly wounding two others. It makes one think all kinds of thoughts when something happens like that. I thought I might have to go back and take over the post again but one of the senior men was given charge as these rations had to be brought up and issued around the posts before dawn, and it was already two o'clock and the journey out and in would in all probability take 5 hours. One's doing pretty well, you know, to go a mile in two hours through knee-deep mud with a load on one´s back.
We had no difficulty in going out, as we only carried rifles and a bandolier with 50 rounds. We had about a mile and a quarter to go to the dump which was situated a little to the west of Flers. The rations and water are brought by packhorse from the rail head at Longueval and dumped at the respective battalion dumps, generally about a mile behind the front line. Each man had about 25 pounds to carry in addition to his rifle and ammunition, and the carry back is a far harder job than some people would imagine, especially if there are casualties, for the whole amount must be delivered somehow even if half the party gets hit. We were lucky to have only one man wounded so, as I was carrying no load myself, I took his burden and we finally reached the H.Qrs. dug-out by 6-0 a.m. all done-up. We saw no daylight that time of the year until eight o'clock, so there was ample time to deliver the supplies round to the men on post. The advantage of being on a job such as carrying party is that one
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gets a complete day's rest in the dug-out, as movement in the day time had to be cut down to a minimum. Those on post are on post all the time we are in the line; although, if the casualties are not too heavy the men work in shifts of three hours on and six off right through the three or four days in the line.
We were relieved at about midnight on Christmas night by another company of our own battalion, and we went back to some tunnels near Flers where we lived for two days a sort of rat´s life. We worked at night and had to keep down below during the day owing to the heavy shelling that came our way if there was any movement shown. We were about 30 to 40 feet below the surface in a long tunnel about 300 feet long by 3 wide and 5 high. The only means of ventilation was the entrance, and with 200 men down there the air was suffocatingly awful. When one did get a chance to get out on top to clear one´s lungs, one spat absolutely black phlegm due to the burning of candles to give a little light to our darkness.
We were all wet through with slimy mud, and there we were huddled together, shivering wet cold masses of humanity trying to snatch a few hours sleep and forgetfulness of our miserably wretched condition. We had forty-eight hours there as a "rest", mark you, and then we went up again to relieve that company that had relieved us a few days previously. It was snowing the night we went in and there was a hard frost in the morning. I was put in charge of two posts this time as we had lost one corporal wounded and another with trench feet since we had last left these positions. We were up there for 3 more days and it snowed and sleeted practically all the time. My posts were the nearest ones to the village and after a miserably cold start off I used to send two men off each post at a time to get a little sleep and shelter in an old tank that was bogged in the sunken road about 300 yards out of Geudecourt. I think they would have all collapsed from exposure if it had not been for the few hours they had daily out of the cold bitter driving wind and sleet.
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We were relieved on the last day of 1916 at about midnight by the 4th. Austn. Battalion, and we were so stiff and cramped and "rheumaticky” about the legs that we hadn´t all reached our reserves, about 2 miles back, by daylight. Many collapsed on the way out and eventually got to hospital; many I suppose collapsed in shell-holes a little off the beaten track and were perhaps drowned in one or other of the miniature lakes that are everywhere scattered over the battle-ground. I know seven out of my company were never heard of again, and there was very little artillery activity that night; so there´ s only one conclusion to draw, and that is, that they perished miserably in that howling waste just behind the British lines.
We slept all day when we finally reached our position - a trench called “Switch Trench" - and while we slept a heavy bombardment of our reserve lines took place, and several of the boys had rude awakenings to find they had got shrapnel wounds through the legs while they slept. We had no killed during the bombardment, but eight in our company, were wounded.
We had very little to do in this reserve trench except keep the trench and dug-outs in repair. This generally meant work every evening as the Huns used to shell us fairly consistently; as our line was a good mark for his artillery as we were situated right on a ridge just forward of Delville Wood. Despite all the discomfiture of Fritz's shelling we had a pretty good time. The weather had improved a lot and our battalion canteen had opened in an old German dug-out, and we each drew forty francs of our pay so we got on pretty well despite the fact that we were still all filthily dirty and unshaven. However cakes of dried mud all over one is an improvement to a coating of wet slush. We had had no rain for 4 whole days and had an occasional peep of the wintry sun. The ground of course was in as bad a condition as ever but we ourselves were comparatively dry and we did not need much comfort in those days to make us feel comparatively pleased with ourselves.
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At this time we had rather a serious outbreak of dysentery and trench fever amongst the troops. The former was probably due to many of the boys drinking shell-hole water. Trench fever was then rather a new military complaint and the medical services at the time hardly knew what to make of it. I´ve never had it myself but I suppose 50 per cent of the troops in France - that is the combatants - have had a, more or less, serious attack. I don´t think there are any reported fatal cases, that is, due to trench fever itself and not to some complications, but of course I am not in a position to know so it´s only surmise on my part.
We were finally relieved off the Geudecourt sector on January 5th. at about 6.30 a.m. and we moved back to Bazentin-le-Petit where we arrived between 9 and 10 the same night. We were accommodated in some recently built "Nissen” huts, which were then being introduced into France, and being used as winter quarters for the troops. These huts are semi-cylindrical and are capable of being quickly erected and pulled down due to their being made in sections. They make good dry camps in wintertime and, owing to their shape, are difficult to observe from aeroplanes especially when they are camouflaged.
We entrained next morning at the Ancre railhead at Bazentin siding, and we detrained at Meaulte about 7 miles farther back. From there we marched 5 miles to quite a decent sort of village called Ribemont where we went into billets. Ribemont is considered about the best village in the Albert district for billeting accommodation. Some will give other reasons for preferring it to the surrounding villages such as the beer and champagne is the best there, or, there are more mademoiselles knocking about, or, one can always get a decent “feed” there, and so on. At any rate we stayed about 6 days at Ribemont where we used to do a little drill in the morning and mostly play football or do compulsory athletics in the afternoons. We also received another pay there so, taking things all round, we did fairly well during our week there. The weather was cold but bright and we
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had very little rain or snow. It used to be quite a regular thing for us to have fine weather when we were out of the line, and the worst possible weather from the day we moved up until the day we came out.
On Sunday Jan. 14th we moved from Ribemont to a filthy little village called Bazieux [also spelt Baisieux]. I suppose there was too much mud and too many pigs and consumptive cows and unwashed kids and women in occupation of the village to allow of us billeting there, so we were accommodated in tents on the outskirts of the village. It was at Bazieux that we went in for a lot of “hop-over" training as we called it. There was some fairly open hilly country in the vicinity that had belts of barbed wire stretching right across it, that had originally been erected by the French in the early days of the war. It was here that we used to go over in brigade strength, and got most of our clothes torn off us in getting over or under or through the wire.
The weather at that time was getting extremely cold and we had heavy snow falls followed by hard frosts, and two blankets per man doesn´t keep off many degrees of frost, you know.
On Jan. 22nd, I was detailed as billeting N.C.O. to proceed the Brigade to Becourt - a ruined village forward of Albert and just on the original British front line. When an infantry unit moves there´s generally an N.C.O. representing each company, and an officer representing each battalion, who travel a day or so ahead and take over the billeting area from the Area Commandant or the Town Mayor. They then allot the area amongst the different platoons or sections so that, when the Brigade marches in tired and hungry from a day´s march, there´s the minimum of delay before the units are settled in their new quarters. The billeting party, too, generally ride to the new area per motor, so you see it´s, as a rule, a job worth hanging on to. There's a fair bit of responsibility hanging to the job especially when one has to take over a line of trenches and outposts for one generally has to view the new position in the dark and lead in the company also in the dark, so one must look after one´s
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"bump of location” or there´ll be chaos especially if Fritz suspects there's a relief on, and opens up with his beautiful 5.9´s.
We relieved the Welsh Reg. at Becourt, and stayed there four or five days. During our stay there I hopped into a fairly soft job as Compy. Gas N.C.0. After a course of lectures one is supposed to be an expert in the 'gas' line. Whether one is or not, it's generally a soft job, and one is attached to Coy. H. Qrs. and does not have to worry about with a section. One is really responsible for every man's gas appliances and has to see that they are effective before they go into a shelled area. One is also supposed to be able to tell the difference between chlorine, phosgene and this new prussic acid gas, by one´s sense of smell, but I never did stop to smell them. I generally slip my respirator on quickly and make a guess. I don´t like taking too many chances of being gassed; I'd sooner be bayoneted. Everyone else has their respirator on, so they don't know what gas it is; so when the officer anxiously enquires in a muffled voice from the depths of his mask “Er- what gas do you consider this is – er- Corporal ?" I always unhesitatingly answer “Oh, undoubtedly it's chlorine, Sir4!” for being gas N.C.O. I mustn't show any ignorance of such matters, for did I not attend four half-hour lectures at Brigade H.Qrs. but a month ago ?
We were at Becourt for about 4 days and instead of drills and parades we used to work 6 hours daily unloading freight trains at the railhead which was but a few hundred yards away. The N.C.O's, as is usual, left the men in charge of the R.E.s who were running the line and disappeared until dinner-time. During all this week the unusually cold weather continued and no coal or wood store was safe without an armed guard round it. The men would walk miles to get a little wood or coal to get a little warmth into the huts where we camped. During that cold spell - which lasted nearly a month - we had an average of ten degrees of frost and on two days we had the thermometer as low as 12° F. I know I used to wear a woollen singlet, two army flannel shirts, a cardigan, a sheepskin
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coat, a tunic and an overcoat, and even then I failed to keep myself decently warm. One good point however in favour of the cold, everything became frozen and one could get about without having to wade through inches and sometimes feet of mud. When we got into the line however, the casualties proportionately became a lot heavier than they were during the wet, muddy time we had before Christmas, for nearly every shell that came at us detonated successfully, whereas a heavy layer of mud is responsible for a good proportion of "duds´´ unless the shells are very well made. There were many fellows also, who were wounded through having splinters of ice driven into them after a shell explosion.
On Jan. 26th the brigade moved up to Bazentin-le-Petit early in the morning. I was left behind in charge of nine men who acted as rearguard and followed on later in the day. One was glad to get on the move so that one might get some warmth into one´s feet, and the roads were in splendid condition for marching although they were a little slippery with ice in places. The following day we relieved a battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers forward of Le Sars and a mile to the left of our old sector in front of Flers. The Northumberlands informed us that Fritz was quite tame on this sector and that they hadn´t had a casualty for 4 days. Apparently things had reached the mutual sitting-down-and-looking-at-each-other stage that they had reached earlier in the war, notably when the British troops and the Germans had fraternised in No man´s land Christmas 1914 or 15. The Germans had apparently been in the habit of looking over the top, or going for an early morning stroll along the parapet, which was about 250 yards away, without any interference from the Tommies, and the Tommies had apparently been carrying on much the same without any interference from Fritz. That style of thing didn´t suit our fellows at all and it wasn´t long before our Lewis gunners bagged a few Germans, and then the artillery got going at us and things became pretty lively. I was detailed for the Divisional School at Tirancourt after we had been in 24 hours so I was back at Bazentin by the time things became lively.
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It has since transpired that under cover of this unofficial cessation of hostilities on either side, the Germans were moving back their guns and stores and the greater part of their men, prior to their evacuation of the Bapaume ridge and trench system. It appears that had the English troops stayed on that front for another fortnight and taken things as quietly as apparently they had been doing, the Germans could have suddenly withdrawn to the Hindenburg line with practically no casualties. As it was, our battalion raided close to the Butte de Warlencourt after having been in 4 days, and found that the German line was extremely lightly held and that he only had a few mobile batteries within a mile of the line who were firing full pressure day and night to create the impression that there was still a normal force of artillery. The report of that raid, which wont to G.H.Qrs. probably had a lot to do with the ordering of a general attack on Warlencourt, Thilloy, Le Barque, Le Transloy, Serre, Miraumont, Grandcourt, and numerous other points about 10 days after our raid. The advance was successful all along the line for the very reason that troops and artillery had been withdrawn preparatory to a general withdrawal in March.
During most of these operations I was at Tirancourt. We left Albert on Feb. lst. and travelled the 25 odd miles to the school, which was an old chateau situated on the banks of the Somme about 8 miles from Amiens and 10 from Abbeville. It was a pleasing change for most of us, as we weren´t worked too hard, and had good food and quarters and week-ends to ourselves. It was terribly cold still for drills and parades, but it would have been far far worse in the trenches so we did not find much to grumble at.
There's little worth recording during my four weeks there. We returned to the forward area on March 1st. It was snowing heavily and there was a heavy gale, and the motor our little party were in broke down half-way from anywhere. We finally arrived at Fricourt about 10 o´clock at night and we camped in the reinforcement camp there, proceeding to Bazentin next morning. The battalion was
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at that time half a mile out of Bapaume and, with the snow and the return of mud, were having a pretty rough time. Trench life had finished for them for the time being and the front line was just a string of outposts varying from 50 to 200 yards apart.
The cavalry was moving up by the thousand at the time and everybody seemed to think that we should have them on the run within a few weeks. And so we did, but they only went 10 miles and then we were pulled up with terrific force at the Hindenburg Line, but of that more anon.
We reached battalion H.Qrs. on Thursday March 1st. It was fully eleven o´clock at night as we were unable to go further forward than High Wood while daylight lasted. We reported at H.Qrs. which was a captured German dug-out in the village of La Barque, and was about 40 feet deep. The outposts were about 300 yards forward of the other side of the village, and it was proposed that we should carry our line forward through Ligny-Thilloy before dawn. Patrols were to be sent out at 1 a.m. and I was unlucky enough to have one of the patrols handed over to me. As we had just come from the rear we were supposed to be fresh, whereas we were in reality just about (slogged) done six miles up from Bazentin through heavy mud - it had been thawing for two days - and had had nothing to eat since our midday meal. However one cannot argue when in the line however one may object to an unfair deal out of it.
Patrols are the riskiest, most nerve-racking and least sought after jobs in the line. No one likes being detailed for the job and so volunteers are generally called for, and some concession by way of an extra 2 hours rest perhaps, is made to them. Generally in patrol work one knows the approximate whereabouts of the opposing trenches, but here nobody seemed to know exactly where Fritz was; and now, after getting clear of our own posts, we had to advance very warily. You have seen Bairnsfather‘s cartoon “The army moves on its stomach" showing three or four scared Tommies crawling on their stomachs while a German Very light flares up above them, and they crawl close to the ground expecting a machine-gun to open up on them any moment. Picture us thus.
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We patrolled for over an hour that night and for 500 yards forward of our positions and found no signs of any Germans - living ones, that is. We found plenty Of dead alright. Perhaps one would be crawling round a shell-hole on one´s hands and knees and one would put one´s hand on to the cold, clammy face of a dead man, and one´s nerves would be at such a tension that one would draw back with a shudder nearly precipitating oneself into 4 or 5 feet of icy cold water within a foot of us.
That morning half an hour before dawn, we went forward and drove the weak German resistance out of the village and dug-in right up against Bapaume. The left flank of our company apparently went too far ahead and they disappeared, and two months later the War Office was informed that they were prisoners of war. If it had not been for the fact that I was on patrol that night and was thereby left behind instead of accompanying the attacking force, I would have been with that left flank and would now be eating my heart out in some prisoners´ compound east of the Rhine.
We were three more days holding this new line before Bapaume before we were relieved by the 2nd. Austn. Division and I was sent out ahead to arrange billets near Mametz Wood. The battalion reached the billeting area on March 7th. after resting a night in a camp near High Wood.
We spent a week at Mametz as reserve brigade to the 2nd. Division, and we had very little to do except stand-by, ready to move at an hour´s notice. The weather was getting quite spring-like and one appreciated the occasional bursts of sunshine after the cold and dreary winter. It seemed as if summer was almost with us, but we found afterwards that we had quite a lot of exceedingly cold, wintry weather yet to endure.
On March 14th. Bapaume was evacuated by the Germans and occupied by the Australians and by nightfall patrols of Light Horse were harassing the German rearguard three or four miles along the Cambrai road, and soon established an outpost line in front of Beaumetz.
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We had apparently been waiting for this climax to the pressure towards Bapaume, for we moved back two days later to Dernancourt, a village about two miles S.W. of Albert. The majority of the battalion had been 9 weeks in the desolated Somme area and hadn´t seen a civilian or a standing house during all that time, so you can guess they were more than pleased to get back even to the questionable civilisation of a French village. We all had a hot bath and a clean change of clothing next day at some military baths nearby, that had been fitted up in a disused flour mill on the banks of the River Ancre.
We commenced a short course of training while we were at Dernancourt and the weather was very bright and favourable all the time.
On the 21st March the calendar informed me that spring had commenced and ”the Clerk of the weather” immediately gave the calendar the lie by providing us with a snowstorm and a bitterly cold north-easter. The next day we shifted our quarters some six miles further back to Ribemont, where we had been billeted early in January. There´s very little to record of our story there except that the weather continued very wintry and wet.
On April 2nd. we moved up again. We left Ribemont at 9.30 a.m. and reached Montauban by 2 p.m. a march of about 12 miles. Montauban was a two days march behind the new line at Beaumetz We (passed) spent the night at Montauban and spent all next day getting across the shell-torn ground until we reached the green fields and unharmed woodlands east of Bapaume. The ruins of Bapaume were still smouldering as we emerged from the mud and filth about a mile south of the town, and (went) proceeded across green fields to a little village called Fremicourt. At Fremicourt we saw evidences of the Germans wanton destruction. Almost every garden in the village had a fruit tree or two and all these, without exception, had been sawn down waist-high. There wasn´t a habitable house or stable in the town but the Church had been left standing and so 180 men were billeted there. One hundred and eighty entered the portals of that little French Church to stretch their weary limbs in a well-earned night´s rest but not one ever came out again.
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They must all lie there to this day for the walls were blown down in the night by an electrically-controlled mine, and that company of men was buried underneath hundreds of tons of masonry. I was about 500 yards away when the explosion occurred at 2 a.m. All our platoon had been unable to get in the way of sleeping accommodation had been an open shed with half the tiles missing, and we had been cursing our luck over night that our company had not been lucky enough to get the church as a billet. We had mentally patted ourselves on the back that morning when we heard full details and recalled how near we ourselves had been to being buried beneath tons and tons of masonry.
After that experience no one was allowed to enter any pretentious building in any of the villages we afterwards entered until that building had been thoroughly examined by an Officer and an N.C.O. of the Engineers. The Town Hall at Bapaume was blown up shortly afterwards by the same means, and I believe two members of the French Parliament who were paying a curiosity visit to the re-captured town, went up with it.
On April 5th we took over from our 5th Division an outpost line about two miles north-west of Havrincourt Wood. During the fortnight that followed we experienced perhaps our most exposed, coldest and roughest time of the whole winter campaign. We had heavy frosts, blizzards, and continued snow, and we had been put into the line equipped for a spring campaign, as one doesn´t expect winter during April.
Our second night in we advanced 1500 yards towards Havrincourt wood with no opposition except for machine-gun patrols which we drove into the main line in front of Hermies and extending across to the Grand Canal du Nord. It snowed all night and we laid out all the night on the rising ground that we had occupied, waiting for the dawn, or oblivion, or a kindly bullet to take one of us out of the miserably cold conditions. We had no trenches or we could have found a little shelter from the biting wind. At daybreak we sent forward patrols to the apex of the rising ground. I had four men with me on the extreme
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right, and we crawled forward to the top of the hill to see what we could see. Down below us was the wood - some eight or nine square miles in extent - and on the edge of the wood the village of Hermies which we were eventually to attack and capture. Away on the horizon one could see the spires and chimney-stacks of Cambrai and a little to the left the smaller town of Marcoing, while the early morning sun shone on the waters of the upper reaches of the Scheldt, where it wound its way across the flats between the two towns. Almost immediately below us was the Grand Canal de [du] Nord, but partly finished, which is destined to link up the Champagne region with Belgium and the Pas de Calais. There was no water in this canal and it appeared to us like a huge newly-dug trench stretching from one horizon to the other.
Things brightened a little during the day and a little hot tea, which a ration party managed to get through to us, cheered us up a great deal. We all however dreaded the night for it meant another 12 hours of inaction lying half-dead with cold on the bare hill-side. Just before dark it recommenced snowing and the wind continued bitterly cold. My platoon was forward of the rest of the company and we crouched low to avoid the full blast of the storm. It was a veritable gale with snow and sleet and rain, and I inwardly shudder when I recall the long, long miserable hours we spent that night. It was truly one of the most miserable nights I have ever spent. We were soaked through to the skin; our teeth were chattering like the muffled sound of machine guns: I had terrible cramp in both calves due to the continued wet and cold; and I had no feeling whatever in my hands or feet, and the skin seemed to have been scraped off my face. It was Easter Sunday night and at 6 a.m. on Easter Monday the British attacked on an extended front. That Easter Monday really started the Spring offensive.
At some points we met with complete success; at other points the attacks were checked and in some cases we had a knock back. The Canadians did well at Vimy; the Australians, without artillery, took another slice of France from the German´s hands, and some North Country
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troops extended the advance between Havrincourt and St. Quentin. We went "over" at about 5.30 a.m. on Easter Monday in 3 waves at an interval of 200 yards between each wave. The chattering, machine-guns greeted us as we breasted the rise, and a fair number fell with wounds in the legs mostly. The Germans were strongly entrenched in front of Hermies and there were dozens of machine-guns playing on us from a front of not more than 1,000 yards. There was a veritable hail of bullets, and I can even now hear the singing of the bullets as they seemed to whiz past my head in thousands. We had 400 yards to go before we could deal with these guns, and meanwhile they were playing havoc with our extended line. I was in the second wave, and it was just light when our first wave - what was left of them - reached the German lines. I saw a deed done that earned the V.C. and another equally deserving, but that the two participants were both killed about 2OO yards in front of my section. There were two machine gins directly in front of us that were making terrific havoc of our second and third waves. They were placed in a very advantageous position and were being excellently worked. There were only 3 men left in the first wave, a lance-corporal, a sergeant, and a subaltern who had just got his star and was previously my platoon sergeant. The lance-corporal rushed one gun and the other two made a charge for the other. To rush a machine gun from fifty yards is certain death although perhaps not one in ten think of that at the moment. The sergeant was hit in the knees at twenty yards and fell. He struggled to his knees and attempted to go forward, but the gun got a direct line on him and he fell with his head riddled with bullets. The officer kept going until he was within ten yards when he dropped a bomb right in the machine-gun emplacement and continued his rush. The bomb killed two of the gunners and wounded a third, but the fourth man continued working his gun and the officer fell right across the machine gun riddled with bullets, and, as he fell, he wounded the remaining gunner with his revolver
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The lance-corporal on the left was also charging a gun directly In front of him that was served by 8 men. From thirty yards he dropped a bomb amongst them, and at twenty yards - just as the bomb burst - he was wounded in the left arm. Undaunted he continued his rush and leapt into the trench and bayoneted in quick succession the remaining three Germans. The other five had been made casualties by the bomb. He was L.Cpl. Kenney of the 2nd. Battalion, A.I.F. and he was the following week awarded the V.C. which he had undoubtedly earned.
Meanwhile we in the second wave were coming on as fast as we knew how, for the faster you move forward under machine gun fire the safer it is for you. There was very little for us to do except take a few prisoners, and clean out the village and dig in on the other side. We had our position consolidated by 8 o'clock, and we started searching the cellars and remains of houses in the village. We had our reward, too, for we found the garrison´s cook-house with 4 cooks therein who shot up their hands as soon as myself and another corporal appeared at the bottom of the stairs, myself armed with a revolver I had picked up off a dead machine-gunner, and the other chap with two Mills´ bombs. We found below there sufficient hot porridge, bacon and coffee for over 200 men and I reckon we should have both got D.S.O.s or C.M.G.s for making the discovery. We didn´t however but we both had a real good breakfast and that was more to us at the time than five rows of decorations.
Our casualties were about 180 in our battalion, but the prisoners we sent back to the collecting cages must have been nearly 300 and half of them wounded, while there was easily 200 Germans dead on our little sector. The balance was easily in our favour as the brigade had captured several strongly defended villages and had bitten into the German defences to a depth of a mile and a half. Later in the day two batteries of eighteen pounders unlimbered 500 yards behind us, they having been sent post-haste from Bapaume to help us to defend the new position against the inevitable counter-attack. We had been all
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this time without artillery and one felt a little safer with a dozen of those handy little shrapnel guns behind us. As It happened the Germans did not counter-attack for 4 days as it afterwards transpired they wished to match the Prussian Guards against the Australians, When they were able to mass the necessary troops and make the attack we had the necessary supports to the rear, and at Lagnicourt the Prussian Guards received the biggest knock-back they have yet experienced in the war. But more of that anon.
We had dug in some 300 yards forward of Hermies and had made a defence line right across the Cambrai railway line. The first night it snowed heavily for some hours and by morning there were 4 or 5 inches on the ground. We had occasional snow showers all through the day and movements of any kind or communication with the rear was rendered impossible owing to the splendid observation the Germans had from Bourlon Wood, and the distinctness with which the dull khaki showed up against the sparkling whiteness of the snow. At night, of course it was almost impossible to patrol forward on account of one's figure standing out black against the snow. We were all on the alert that first night, and, owing to our small numbers, we were unable to work in relief.
As on many other occasions, had the Germans known the thinness of our ranks, our weak defences, lack of sufficient machine-gun support, and the advanced stage of almost overpowering fatigue we were in, he could easily have counter-attacked and successfully driven us back. Barring the hot meal we found so opportunely prepared for us, we had only a little biscuit and beef for nearly 72 hours and no sleep at all during that time.
Despite all our precautions the German battery observers must have found our position for they opened up on us with 5.9s and 8.2s from the direction of Marcoing, and before the day was out our position was practically untenable, and, at nightfall, with the support of two platoons we cautiously advanced about 1,000 yards till we were held up by the bank of the Grand Canal du Nord. There
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was very little opposition to this movement as the main German line was on the eastern side of the Canal. I remember walking along that night like a man in a dream. I´m sure I must have covered half the distance, at a slow walk, dead asleep. I was beyond the power of observing anything and I remember pulling up with a jerk as a machine gun opened up just to the right of us. I had had absolutely no sleep for 3 days and nights, while most of the men had been able to snatch an occasional hour in the mud. Through fairly heavy casualties among the N.C.O.s I had the remains of three sections and had had to man and maintain three separate posts as well as keep up telephonic communication with battalion H.Qrs. in the rear.
UPON taking up our new position each man dug himself sufficient cover from rifle and machine-gun fire and then one in every three observed while the remaining two slept as best they were able. I managed to get 3 hours consecutive sleep that night and I was awakened at 3.30 by the other corporal and felt much refreshed.
That morning - Sunday April 15th - a heavy barrage was put down upon our rear line at 4.30 a.m. and at five o'clock, in the grey light of dawn, we saw the enemy advancing in massed formation to attack. We had practically no artillery and things looked pretty bad, but the fact that we had moved up in the night to a new position rather upset their calculations. The main object of the attack was apparently to drive hack the two divisions on our left as they were a little forward of our division and had thereby left their flank open to attack. At 500 yards we were quite invisible to the advancing troops and we had orders to hold our fire until they reached half that distance – a distance at which the modern rifle means sure death if careful aim is taken. They came, on and on, as of on parade, line upon line of them. They were making a semicircular movement and, as they slowly swung round, they certainly looked a very formidable crowd, and more than one of us “had the wind up that morning when we saw the array of enemy troops before us. At just under the hundred yards we
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opened up on them and our Lewis gun being on our right flank traversed along their ranks and they literally went down like ninepins. They still pressed on however, there were so many of them, but only three or four reached our apology for a trench.
The main attack, however, as we afterwards heard, had been successful, and a break had been made in our line a mile and a half to the north of Lagnicourt and the German storm troops had swarmed through and advanced to a depth of 3 miles capturing several batteries. Meanwhile reinforcements had been hurried up from Bapaume and at 7.30 a.m., when the victory for the Germans seemed complete, the 2nd Australian Division launched a counter-attack and by shear impetuosity, they turned the tide and gradually drove the Germans back across our original line, and eventually entangled thousands of them in their own wire-entanglements. It was broad delight at the time our boys on the left counter-attacked, and we had a splendid view of the fight from our position on some rising ground.
About 8 o'clock we saw slightly wounded Germans making their way back to their own lines and about half an hour later we saw scattered groups of them dropping back. Then they came back in more or less regular lines with our boys in open order following them up at a distance of about 400 yards. One could see both sides occasionally dropping on their knees to fire a shot and then continuing their advance or retreat respectively. When the Germans reached the old Australian line they made a stand for half an hour or so but were driven out by bayonet charge, and finally on to their own wire. During the night had filed through the alleys, that are always left in wire entanglements for the purpose of allowing patrols and reconnoitring parties through the wire, but in the heat and rush of battle they had no time to look for, or find, those alleys, and there were thousands of them trying to force their way through.
The wire here was about 50 yards wide and enormously strong and thickly laced. Within half an hour there were thousands of Germans hung up in this wire. Some had tried to force their way through, and others had tided to crawl under, and others to climb over, but it was practically impassable. The Australians approached
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to within 200 yards and for an hour fired and fired into that shrieking, struggling mass. In the whole of the war, vide "The Daily Telegraph"; there had never been such an opportunity for rifle fire and the Prussian Guards had one of their biggest defeats of the war, not forgetting their bad maulings at Ypres 1915 and at Courcellette in August 1916. There were between three and four thousand dead counted on a two mile front and the wounded must have numbered twice as many. It was the first time that I´d seen grown men brought to such a stage of terror and despair that they shrieked like terrified animals, and it was awful and awe-inspiring to watch.
I don´t know whether Britishers would be reduced to the same awful cringingly, terrified condition in like circumstances, but I had the opportunity, and the honour, to watch an incident earlier in the same battle where a platoon of West Australians were cornered and faced death and met it too.
This platoon, commanded by 2nd. Lieutenant Pope had left it too late before falling back that morning, and when they did attempt an orderly retreat they found they were faced on three sides by hordes of Prussians. For forty minutes they defended their position with rifles and with the ever blessed Lewis gun when their fire gradually slackened. Only one or two rifles spoke at a time now, and the Lewis gun was silent. We all guessed what had happened; they had run short of ammunition and we were all expecting to see them surrender as they had done their job and the odds were great against them. Judge of our surprise when we saw a dozen men charge down the little hillock they had been holding, right into the 200 Prussians. It must have been several minutes before the over-whelming odds told against them and the little splashes of Khaki were swallowed up in the sea of grey. It was a finely tragic thing to do and we considered ourselves privileged to have been witnesses of such a splendid fight by a handful of our comrades, and then three hours later to witness such shrieking disorder and panic as marked the defeat of 9,000 Prussians at Lagnicourt on Sunday April 15th, 1917. Lt. Pope was posthumously awarded the V.C. and well had he earned it.
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We were expecting to be relieved that same night but owing to our weakened state and the lack of fresh reserve troops we had another 48 hours to spend in our little pot-holes overlooking Cambrai. On the night of the 17th April after a comparatively fine day it began to pour with rain. We had had news earlier in the evening that a relief for us was on the way from the Bapaume area and was expected to arrive about 9 o'clock. About 9 o'clock we were all well soaked through with the pouring rain and our feet were under water. For two hours we waited shivering all over with the wet and the cold night air. About midnight our relief arrived and we handed our position over, and climbed out of the trench and assembled behind a few stumpy trees pending the arrival of our guide who was to take us to Beaumetz, a village about 4 miles back. We set out on our way about 4.30 a.m. and we experienced much the same difficulty in walking as one does after spending about a week in bed. We had been so long camped in a narrow trench with our legs in water that it was with the utmost difficulty that we could get along. We had had practically no sleep for five or six days and it is quite inadequate to say we were worn out. In fact it is hard to find words to express how utterly exhausted, how dead-beat, how numbed and stupefied in mind and body we were. For six days we had worked and watched and defended our position and been heavily shelled, with little sleep, practically no food, and no water except the polluted stuff one finds in shell-holes, and the storm of rain which we finished up with. I suppose the want of sleep was the worst of all. Our work had been heavy - mostly digging in - and sleep inducing, and it had been prolonged for days and nights without an hour´s good satisfying sleep, until the desire for rest became a craving, an all-absorbing, aching desire. To keep awake that night was a torture, and I must have walked many hundred yards quite asleep.
It took us three hours to cover that long, long four miles, and we accommodated ourselves in any old building that afforded us shelter from the rain, and fell off to sleep almost as soon as we had assumed a horizontal position. I was soaked completely through but the
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clinging wet clothes seemed no discomfort to me at the time and I slept for fully six hours, when I woke numbed all over and my whole body trembling in a fit of shivering which lasted fully half an hour.
About midday the Germans commenced to shell the village and we were ordered to remove to a sunken road about half a mile from Beaumetz and, with the material afforded by the ruined houses, built ourselves shelters under the protecting banks of the cutting through which the road ran. We spent 3 days in this position as a reserve battalion and did nothing but sleep and eat and generally recuperate. Sunday, April 22nd. we moved up into the line again for two days, pending the arrival of an English division who were taking over the sector. We had a very easy time and there was a pleasing change in the weather, it having become quite summer-like. We were relieved by the Yorks and Lanc. Regt. on April 24th, and we bivouacked on the woods of Velu Chateau at which we arrived at about ten at night.
The following day we moved back to a village adjoining Bapaume where we were accommodated in tents. We all expected that we would be given a pretty lengthy spell after our strenuous 3 weeks before Cambrai, but, as events turned out, we had our hardest and biggest nut yet to crack, and that was Bullecourt.
On the 11th of April the 4th Aust. Division made an attempt to break the Hindenburg line between Queant and Bullecourt; and although they gained a footing they were unable to hold on owing to insufficient artillery support and through the supply of ammunition and bombs running out. What had been a great victory in its earlier stages was turned into a bad set-back, probably through faulty organization. I can´t recall any reports in the newspapers about it, but then they´re not in the habit of advertising such things if they can get out of it. I believe the Australians had between six and seven thousand casualties that day.
The capture of the section of the Hindenburg line was considered to be of great importance owing to its being the pivot point of the whole system. It is at Bullecourt that the line changes direction
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and, instead of running due North and South runs North-West to South-East in the direction of Cambrai. The attack without artillery having completely failed they went to the other extreme, and probably massed more artillery to barrage that two mile, front than had ever been massed before. The Germans, recognising the importance of that sector, and being fully aware of our preparations gathered their guns behind Bullecourt also. He knew all our plans except he wasn´t sure which morning it was going to happen.
The 2nd Australian Division was detailed for the attack with ourselves - the 1st Brigade - in reserves, ready to be thrown in at any point where there might be signs of weakening.
Punctually at 4 a.m. on May 3rd. our guns opened up with terrific noise, and Fritz, ready for it, opened up too. At 4.15 the first attacking lines pushed out from our front line forward of Lagnicourt and Noreuil. We were “standing to" in a sunken road just near Noreuil with thousands of our own missiles flying over our heads and hundreds of German shells falling around. We were all wishing we could get a move on as inaction under heavy shell-fire is the worst possible thing for the morale of the men.
The roar of the artillery was deafening and just after 5 o´clock the walking wounded began to stream over the rising ground west of Noreuil. They were closely followed by the stretcher cases and by six o´clock there must have been thousands of wounded men passed down to the Casualty Clearing stations. We were still awaiting our call; we were sure that our call was coming as the wounded informed us that the attack was only partially successful and that our 5th Brigade was held up by superior forces on the right flank. At about 10 o´clock calls for ammunition came from various points, and our company was told off for carrying parties. Each man had to carry a box of 1,000 cartridges and the distance was over two miles. I had a party of ten men and only six arrived at the support lines with their load. The other four dropped on the track, one killed, three wounded. We managed to get back to Noreuil without any further
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casualties. The supply of hot tea and a stew was ready for us from our travelling cookers which had moved up from the back area, and we had our first meal for about 24 hours. Support was badly needed on the left flank near Bullecourt village where the 6th Brigade had captured two lines of the Hindenburg system. The Germans were trying their damdest to blow them out but, despite their sadly thinned ranks, they managed to hold on. It was impossible for us to support them as we were unable to go forward whilst daylight held without getting practically wiped out.
Between six and seven in the evening we moved forward - a whole brigade of us, about 3,000 men. We each had about 220 rounds of ammunition, 24 hour´s rations, six bombs and a double issue of rum to keep our courage up - and one´s courage wanted some support that night. We moved across country in echelon formation - that is, sections of ten in single file, at various intervals right across the whole front. The echelon formation is the only possible formation to move in against barrage fire. The German artillery, if anything, was heavier after nightfall than it had been during the day, as they were well aware we had troops in reserve and that we would move them up under cover of night; and instructions were to push forward in an easterly direction until we struck the 6th Brigade in occupation of the Hindenburg lines. Many sections never reached that objective. I arrived there about midnight with seven men - the other three had become casualties on the advance.
It was a pitch black night and one could get no idea of what our position was. I could see that we were in a wide deep trench that had been badly blown about by artillery and that one was unable to go many paces in either direction without walking on dead or wounded men. The wounded could hear one approaching down the trench and many a pitiful cry reached one, imploring one not to walk on them. About 2 o´clock in the morning the men who had been in the advance filed back to supports - what was left of them - and we took over
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the defence of the position they had won. They had really advanced half a mile forward of the Hindenburg line but lack of support had forced them to fall back to the position in which we relieved them. There were many of their wounded still lying out in front of us but one could not approach them owing to the heavy machine-gun fire. We mounted observation points on the parapets and posted bombing sections on either flank and down all the communication trenches and awaited the dawning of day. A big counter-attack was bound to come and about 4 o´clock the artillery fire intensified and lines of infantry were observed out in front of us through the dense smoke of our protecting barrage. It was impossible for them to attack us from the front owing to the deadliness of our artillery fire, but at 6 o´clock they attacked simultaneously on either flank, and after an hour´s hand-to-hand fighting they fell back leaving a fair number of dead, wounded and prisoners.
We had taken over this position without any rations and without any chance of getting any while the Germans kept up their barrage behind our lines. Finding they were unable to drive us out their plan was to surround us with an intense barrage and make communication practically impossible. The men were almost at the starving point and food and water were absolutely essential if we were to hang on successfully. Our company commander was a man who would do all that was possible for his men - without unnecessary risk to himself - but he had a falling for raw spirits, mostly rum. What I am going to tell you will show how many promotions and decorations won in the field are very often won through an individual doing personal services for an officer, and not because he has done meritorious service for the benefit of his platoon, his battalion or his division. The personal element very often counts too much in field promotion and decoration.
About 9 o´clock that Morning the captain called me into his dug-out and told me that I was to take six men and, however heavy the
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barrage might be, I was to make my way back to Noreuil and get some rations and water and – he practically hinted that this was the most important of all - I was to taka his water-bottle and return with it full of rum. I didn´t like the job; it seemed like certain death for most of us, for looking back it seemed as if a belt of country about half a mile wide was being absolutely churned up by the German heavies, and up above varying from 20 to 100 feet above the ground, hundreds of high explosive shrapnel shells were bursting. The whole presented a marvellous awe-inspiring sight and we seven ordinary soldier boys had to get through it – somehow.
We started and struck the edge of the barrage after going about 400 yards. We went through it at the double and two fell before we got through. We never saw those two men again and no word came through from any dressing station so they must have been killed. We reached Noreuil after a struggle and reported to our Battalion stores there, but were told that we would not be allowed to return to the line until dark and were told to report back at 6 o'clock in the evening. We found an unoccupied dug-out and a few spare blankets and we had a much-wanted sleep after begging a drink of hot tea from the dressing-station which was close by. About one o´clock I awoke and crawled out to see if I could get something to eat and drink as I was practically starving. I managed to get some bread and meat and a little more tea, and I sat by the side of the road and watched the wounded streaming in. I had never before had the opportunity of witnessing all that goes on at a big dressing-station during a big stunt. It was not a day ago, nor a week, but months ago it happened, but everything there is indelibly printed on my memory, and I can dispassionately retrospect that grim harvest time of murderous war.
There were hundreds of stretcher cases lying all down the road awaiting attention, and such specimens of battered humanity many of them were! There were groans and cries and delirious maunderings,
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poignant with agony and wasted, futile heroism. Some died as they waited, waited as the doctors and orderlies went for their lives, hour after hour. It seemed strangely unfamiliar to me out there with the whistle of shells overhead from our close-by batteries mingling with the song of a lark as it mounted to the sky.
One certainly gets very sick of the strong meat of war at times
and I felt very much that way that spring morning, as I thought of all these men who sacrificed so much of their lives, - and, in many cases, their lives - and live and sleep amidst the filth and wanton destruction of modern warfare, that others may live and sleep how and where they please. The want of sleep was so uppermost in my desires at that time that my mind kept thinking and thinking of the beauty and cosiness of a real bed; and I must have dozed off in the roadway there thinking I was back to the comforts of civil life once again, for when I stirred myself and glanced at my watch it was close upon 6 o´clock.
Just as it was getting dusk - about 7 o´clock - our transport limbers arrived with a load of rations and some petrol cans full of hot tea. Myself and the four remaining men along with our Coy. Q.M.S. loaded ourselves with as much as we were able to carry and - not forgetting the water-bottle of rum which I had obtained from the dressing station - started for the line. The barrage had eased off a lot and we managed to get right through with only one casualty. The rations were more than acceptable to the men and the captain almost wept when I handed over the bottle of rum. Habitual drinkers do get that way, that, after being deprived of drink - especially spirits - for any length of time, nothing gives them greater joy than at last to get a supply of their favourite drink. I was thereupon promised promotion on the field to temporary sergeant for, as the official report said, "obtaining and bringing up rations for the whole company under a destructive barrage and after having lost half the party through casualties". Really, the captain was so pleased at getting a nip of rum when his heart was in his boots, that I got the benefit of his enlivened spirits.
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Our ranks had been depleted somewhat during the ten hours or so that I had been away and the line was somewhat thinly held. The heavy pounding we had gone through was beginning to tell upon our numbers, and had Fritz only known he could have driven us out that night. Towards morning his artillery increased in volume and as heavy barrages generally precede attack it was thought advisable to reinforce our front line, and so two platoons - about 70 men - of the 11th. West Australian Battalion were sent up to give us a hand. The Germans did attack but on the flanks and not directly in front of us, but were driven out after gaining a temporary hold on the trench.
Things quietened up a deal during the day, and as night fell we made an attempt to get some of the wounded in who had been lying out in front of us for the preceding two days. From the front of the sector of trench which I commanded we picked up 9 men. It had been hot summery weather for several days and these men´s wounds were in a terrible state. There was a sergeant who had been hit in several places and had been unable to keep his wounds covered. The flies had got at some gashes In his right thigh and the raw flesh was simply alive with minute white maggots. We patched these men up as well as we were able with shell dressings and left them in the bottom of the trench until we were able to get some stretcher bearers sent up - ours having all become casualties except one. A trench full of wounded men under heavy shell fire is rather a nuisance, especially when there´s a constant stream of men passing up and down the trench on their way to and from various defence posts. A party of men will perhaps come round a traverse in a hurry and before they know where they are they have trodden on one of these poor fellows lying in the trench, and a pathetic voice will call out, "Oh, don´t tread on me, mate!” It was fully three days after these men had been wounded before we were able to get them back to the main dressing station, and for them to get even elementary medical attention, so it´s no wonder that so many wounded men lose limbs through their wounds becoming septic or gangrenous.
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On Sunday, 6th May, the Germans made their biggest counter-attack. The troops employed, as we afterwards found out from the prisoners, were a Bavarian division and the Prussian Guards Reserve Division. A terrific barrage fell on our lines at 3 a.m. and within half an hour most of our trench was blown in and our numbers reduced by half. On the extreme right things were even worse for a whole company of another battalion had been wiped out and it was here that the Germans succeeded in entering our lines when they attacked in dense waves at 4 o'clock* Things looked very bad for us at about 7 o'clock as the Scottish Division on our left had been driven beck from Bullecourt village and the right switch of the Hindenburg line toward Queant was again in German hands, and we, in the centre, were penned in between two outflanking forces of the enemy. Our telephone wires had all been destroyed by enemy fire and had it not been for a new signal instrument, generally known as the underground wireless - I don't know the technical name - we should have been unable to communicate to the rear that our position would soon be untenable if reinforcements were not soon on the scene.
Personally that morning I did not think I would get out alive and that was the general opinion of the few men left with me. We could not retire without orders and, if we did, it was impossible to get over the top without being instantly mown down by machine-gun fire. We were unable to move any distance to the right or to the left as both flanks were In German hands so, all we could do, was to "stand to” until a shell finished us or the advancing Germans got us. Judge of our surprise and of the good effect on our flagging spirits when, at 8 o'clock, we saw the ridge behind us alive with men advancing in quick time in echelon formation. They were about a mile away when we first sighted them through the haze of the artillery smoke , and within half an hour the first of them were amongst us. The two reserve battalions of our brigade
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had been sent up and they had arrived only just in time. Counter-attacks on either flanks were immediately organised and launched and by 11 o'clock we had won back all that we had lost and a little more besides, and half a battalion had linked up with the Scots and helped them in a counter-attack which eventually gave them the possession of Bullecourt.
We were relieved that evening by the 2nd. Australian Battn. and the remains of our company filed out. There was still a little light left as we filed across the shell-torn country, and never have I seen so many dead men lying around as were to be found on those few acres between Queant and Bullecourt. I don´t know what the casualties were during those five or six days, but I do know that two whole divisions were practically put out of action in taking and holding that insignificant two miles of the Hindenburg line.
We only went back two miles that night and a farther three the following night. We remained in reserve awhile and then went back to Bapaume. Bullecourt practically finished our winter campaign and finished our division as far as anything big was concerned, for the greater part of the summer, as it wasn´t until September that we were up to sufficient numbers to take part in another stunt.
This is rather a scrappy narrative but I´ve been unable to put in more than odd half-hours scribbling it. When I commenced, my idea was to fill in hours that hung rather heavily on my hands, but I was back again with the battalion before I´d written many pages. A deal of it has been written in billets near Boulogne, some of it in the front line trenches, most of it in scrappy moments in reserve dug-outs, and I´m just completing it in a half-shattered German pill-box on the summit of Messines ridge, not far from Wyschaete village. The door faces the German lines and I'm sitting in the entrance to get some light on the job. From this point of eminence one can just see the smoke stacks of Lille in the far distance
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and, down below us, on a wide marshy plain one can see the houses and steeples of Comines, Menin and Wervicq, and one wonders whether we shall be billeted there when next we come this way. Perhaps they´ll want us and a few divisions of Scots to have a go at taking those towns´ they generally put the Kilts and Slouch Hats into those kind of jobs.
Well, I think that´s all. I hope this will make up for the times when my letters have been few and far between, although it´s all about blood, and mud and fight and things like that.
Note. This is just an extended diary of our campaign on the Somme and the Ancre during the 1916-17 winter. I commenced writing it to keep me out of mischief and I suppose it has, to a certain extent.
Written by Sergeant A.E. Matthews
3rd. Battalion, A.I.F.
[Transcribed by owners and edited by Judy Gimbert for the State Library of New South Wales]