By the middle of 1916, massive German and French armies had been locked in battle on the Western Front for nearly two years. In August 1914, the British had sent a small expeditionary force to assist France. The British regulars were supplemented by Territorial forces in 1915, but it was not until mid-1916 that the armies raised by Kitchener, after the commencement of hostilities, were ready for battle. In early 1916 the Germans had attacked the French forces at Verdun, not just to gain ground but to grind the French into submission by attrition. The French resisted and held their ground at great cost. However, French forces were so heavily committed to defending Verdun that the French-British summer offensive became a British offensive with some French support.
The 1916 summer offensive was preceded by a week long artillery barrage. The original attack date was put back from 29 June until 1 July because of bad weather and misgivings about the success of the artillery. 1 July 1916 was bright and cloudless, perfect conditions for defenders whose positions had in many cases withstood the artillery barrage. At 7.30 am, 120,000 British infantry commenced their attack across no-mans-land. The attack was repulsed with massive casualties. In the greatest tragedy in British military history, 60,000 British soldiers were killed, wounded or missing. The losses on 1 July 1916 have never been forgotten and have eclipsed the remainder of the battle that continued for five months.
The Anzacs, after being withdrawn from Gallipoli, returned to Egypt for rest and retraining. The seven Australian infantry brigades were expanded to twelve and the 4th and 5th Australian Divisions joined the 1st and 2nd Divisions. A fifth Australian division, the 3rd, was formed in Australia and would not see action in 1916. The structure of the AIF after the reorganisation was as follows:
Brigade | Battalion | Battalion | Battalion | Battalion |
1st Division | ||||
1st Brigade | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th |
2nd Brigade | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th |
3rd Brigade | 9th | 10th | 11th | 12th |
2nd Division | ||||
5th Brigade | 17th | 18th | 19th | 20th |
6th Brigade | 21st | 22nd | 23rd | 24th |
7th Brigade | 25th | 26th | 27th | 28th |
3rd Division | ||||
9th Brigade | 33rd | 34th | 35th | 36th |
10th Brigade | 37th | 38th | 39th | 40th |
11th Brigade | 41st | 42nd | 43rd | 44th |
4th Division | ||||
4th Brigade | 13th | 14th | 15th | 16th |
12th Brigade | 45th | 46th | 47th | 48th |
13th Brigade | 49th | 50th | 51st | 52nd |
5th Division | ||||
8th Brigade | 29th | 30th | 31st | 32nd |
14th Brigade | 53rd | 54th | 55th | 56th |
15th Brigade | 57th | 58th | 59th | 60th |
In March 1916, the Australian divisions in Egypt began moving to France and were initially stationed at Armentieres, a quiet sector near the Belgium border. On 7 July, the 1st and 2nd Australian Divisions were ordered to move to the Somme. The Official Australian Historian, C E W Bean, writing after the war, said the fighting on the Somme was the hardest experienced by the Australians in France.
Before the first Australian attack was launched on the Somme, Australians were to suffer severe losses as a direct consequence of the battle. Forces holding the rest of the British line were ordered to pin down the German divisions on their front in order to prevent the enemy reinforcing the Somme. A major feint was planned for Armentieres and was conducted by the 5th Australian Division and the British 61st Division. In the battle of Fromelles, on 19 July, the Australians managed at great cost to seize part of the German trenches but by the night of 20 July the position was so perilous that they were withdrawn. The 5th Australian Division lost 5533 men in less than 24 hours and was unable to be used for offensive action for many months.
The next major British attack on the Somme, on 14 July, achieved some fairly deep gains into the German lines but again failed to achieve a break-through. The Germans still held Pozieres which was strung out along the old Roman highway from Amiens to Bapaume. The village was a an well-defended outpost in front of a German defence works known as the OG Lines, an immensely strong system comprising two parallel trenches which ran along the crest of Pozieres ridge about 500 yards behind the village. The Australians were given the task of taking Pozieres village. The attack was preceded by a thorough bombardment which methodically pounded the village and the OG Lines for several days. The bombardment stripped away the trees that screened the village and the few broken walls that remained became more visible. The final bombardment began at dusk and, occurring before the moon had risen, was visible for 20 miles around. At 12.30 am on Sunday, 23 July, the 1st and 3rd Brigades of the 1st Australian Division attacked. The advance succeeded in reaching the main road through the village. The Germans counter-attacked at dawn but were defeated by machine-gun fire.
The Australians captured all their objectives except for the OG Lines where the trenches and the area surrounding them were so cratered by shellfire that the troops had difficulty locating their objective. The front trench, OG1, and the support line 100-200 yards to the east, OG2, were in some places untraceable and in others merely a depression among the holes and mounds. However, the area contained deep dug-outs which held German garrisons skilled in the use of grenades and supported by efficient machine-gunners. In a drawn-out struggle, Pte John Leak and Lt A S Blackburn won the Victoria Cross. OG1 was captured and held but OG2 was unable to be found. During daylight on 23 July, the forward troops deepened their new trenches and that night a reinforcing battalion pushed through and secured most of the remainder of the village.
The pressure on the Somme forced the Germans to diminish their attacks on Verdun and was materially wearing down the German Army. The Germans were being strained on the Somme but the British were was not immediately in a position to launch a major offensive. While the British were building up men and supplies in the rear, the Germans were to be kept under pressure by constant local assaults. The Australian task was to take Pozieres ridge. However, Pozieres being a key position, the German staff was determined that it should be regained. Three early attempts failed and at 7 am on 24 July, as soon as the loss of the village was certain, the Australian position was methodically bombarded. The Germans still held parts of two trench systems along the western edge of Pozieres, and the OG Lines east of the village. The Australians were to attack at night so that the Germans would be unable to see the assault forming and therefore unable to concentrate their artillery and machine-guns.
On the night of 24/25 July 1916 the Australian troops marched up for an attack on a crest where most landmarks had been pounded out of recognition. Only one of the two assaulting battalions for the attack against the OG Lines was in position by zero hour and only after a difficult search in confusion and uproar did the battalion find its objective. The Germans counter-attacked and only a portion of the trenches captured were retained after a furious bomb-fight. On the western side of Pozieres, a brilliant advance seized the German trenches and Pozieres cemetery. The German bombardment on 25 July increased in weight in preparation for an attempt to retake Pozieres. The attack was to be launched at 4.30 pm but the fresh German regiment was already worn out from that morning's bomb-fight in the OG Lines, the repeated changes of orders by the German staff and the dreadful approaches under artillery fire. After many reports that the task was hopeless the German order to attack was countermanded. However, the 1st Australian Division after three days' bombardment was also exhausted. The division had lost 5285 officers and men and was relieved by the 2nd Division.
The 2nd Division's attack on Pozieres ridge began at 12.15 am on 29 July. German artillery hindered preparations for the attack and the British artillery did not batter down all of the wire. Preparations were generally poor and except on the extreme left the attack failed with heavy loss. The 2nd Division in its next attack formed up just before dusk on 4 August without being detected by the Germans. The OG lines along the Pozieres crest were firmly seized and the Germans were swept away by the vigour of the attack which had been preceded by a four day bombardment. The 2nd Division was now more exhausted than the 1st had been and had suffered heavier losses than any Australian division was to suffer in one tour in the line although some British divisions suffered heavier losses. In twelve days, the 2nd Division had lost 6848 officers and men with five of its battalions each losing between 600 and 700 men. The relief by the 4th Australian Division took place under intense bombardment.
From Pozieres crest the Australians could at last look over the wide, shallow valley behind the ridge and observe the tree-tops and roofs of Courcelette and the woods in front of Bapaume about five miles distant. The Germans, aware that their convoys, troops and guns could be seen were greatly disturbed by the loss of the Pozieres heights and ordered their immediate recapture. The Australians had gradually pushed a big bulge into the German lines which permitted the enemy artillery to shell them from Thiepval in the rear, as well as from the front and both flanks. A great part the Australian front line was now completely enfiladed by German batteries. The bombardment was so heavy on the night of 6 August that the 4th Division was largely kept in the deep old German dug-outs. The Germans attacked in the dawn of 7 August, passed through the lightly held OG2, overran several of the deep dug-outs in OG1, captured some of the garrison, and moved down the slope towards Pozieres on a 400 yard front. At the critical moment, Lt. Albert Jacka, who had won the Victoria Cross on Gallipoli leapt from a position behind the Germans and charged them. Jacka's platoon, waiting in a deep dug-out, had been surprised by the attack. The enemy had bombed the dug-out and left a sentry over the stairway. Jacka rushed the sentry and with his surviving men attacked the Germans from behind together with other Australians scattered across the slope and on the flanks. The German attack was stopped with most of the captured Australians freed and many Germans captured. The lost ground was retaken and the Germans did not repeat their attempt to retake Pozieres heights.
The Australians now thrust north along the ridge on which the OG trenches continued, while on the left the British kept pace by seizing, one after another, the old communication trenches running between the old German front and second lines. The first step was taken on the night of 8 August and on the night of 10 August, patrols pushed out and established posts in the valley south of the mound of rubble which appeared to be all that remained of Mouquet Farm. On the night of 11 August, after preparations of dreadful difficulty, a formal attack was made, bringing the Australians and the British on their left to a line directly facing the German position running through Mouquet Farm. An attack on the farm itself was planned for 13 August. A quarry near the farm was captured and a company under Capt. Harry Murray seized part of the German Fabeck trench, north-east of the farm. Here Murray and his men were outflanked by the Germans, C E W Bean wrote `this former miner, who was to become known as a most famous fighting leader, fought his way back with his men in one of the most ably conducted actions in Australian experience'. The attempt to drive the salient deeper was continued in attack after attack for another month, but its ultimate achievement was to secure no more than part of the Fabeck trench reached by Murray's company that night. The 4th Division was now relieved after a loss of 4649 men.
The 1st Australian Division, with its battalions brought up to two-thirds strength by reinforcements, was put in again. After another 2650 casualties, the 2nd Division took up the task and tried with larger forces to seize Mouquet Farm, which was by then realised to contain very large and deep dug-outs. The 4th Australian Division was brought back and delivered attacks on the nights of 27 and 28 August. The strategy of slowly pushing a salient behind an enemy salient had come to a halt. At the cost of another 2409 casualties, the 4th Division had driven the salient as far as it ever went. In early September, the Australians moved to a quiet area at Ypres. Between July and September Pozieres ridge was the only sector on the Somme in which the British forces had steadily pushed ahead. The German artillery was free to concentrate as it wished and although the Australians suffered other intense bombardments in France, there was never anything comparable in duration or effect to that suffered on the Somme. In seven weeks, the Australians launched 19 attacks, all except two on narrow fronts. 23,000 Australian officers and men were killed or wounded at Pozieres, a place C E W Bean said was `more densely sown with Australian sacrifice that any other place on earth.'
The fighting on the Somme highlighted the essential problem of the 1914-18 War. Modern technology had brought mass armies to the battlefield and was able to supply and maintain those armies in the field for an indefinite period but the technology to move the armies on the battlefield and to break though the trench lines still awaited development. The horse was still invaluable in moving supplies up to the front lines but was obsolete on the battlefield. On 15 September, the replacement for the horse on the battlefield, the tank was first used by the British. From Pozieres and other points along the line, tanks heaved their monstrous shapes forward among British, Canadian and New Zealand infantry, and succeeded in driving the enemy almost to the bottom of the valley on which the Australians had looked out. Mouquet Farm finally fell on 28 September.
On 9 October the Australians were ordered to return to the Somme but by the time they arrived the autumn rains had turned the fields ploughed up by the massed artillery into a sea of mud. The broken ground was passable in dry weather, but with the rains it became a bog. Preparations had not been made for these conditions and both the trenches and the tracks leading to them became impassable. It took five or six relays of stretcher-bearers, each team, six or eight strong, many hours to get a wounded man from the front line to an ambulance, a few miles back. The roads leading to the front gave way under the heavy traffic. In these conditions, the worst experienced by the First AIF, two attempts were made to carry the line forward. On 5 and 14 November, portion of the attacking troops entered the German trenches which were held for some hours until the impossibility of keeping the partial gains were realised. The mud of the Somme meant that major offensive action would have to wait until the spring
Winter on the Somme was a battle against mud, rain, and frost-bite. Road repairs commenced miles behind the front lines and slowly inched forward until material finally reached the trenches and the dreadful conditions at that front began to slowly improve. Thousands of duckboards were laid to enable supplies and material to be moved forward. In January and February 1917, four weeks of cold weather froze the mud and water and covered the trenches with snow.
The Germans were hard tried but not broken by the Battle of the Somme. The losses on all sides were heavy. For the Germans, it was the beginning of the end. The Chantilly conference in November 1916 had already decided to strike at the Germans from all directions in the spring of 1917. The Germans realising that another offensive was in the offering when the weather improved, played out the last act of the battle when, in March 1917, they withdrew to the Hindenburg. line giving up more territory than they had lost during all of the 1916 fighting.
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