For Birdie, being a general seemed all about getting in among the men, feeling their presence, cheering them up, and maintaining their morale. Unwittingly, anticipating the nickname that would come to spread in 1916, he told newspaper proprietor Lord Northcliffe: ‘My boys are good diggers. They dig deep and quickly and the trenches are so clean you could eat off them at dinner.’ In turn, the men liked Birdie. Some battalion diaries recorded how he showed interest in them individually, in their home lives and the different parts of Australia they had come from. He was one of the few ‘red-tabbed Johnnies’ that could move among them unpretentiously.55
The trouble was that Birdie’s leadership style appeared to belong to another era. Fostering an offensive spirit among the troops was not as crucial as closely overseeing the infinitely complex logistics of supplying them. Too often, Birdie seemed to neglect critical planning matters, leaving them for White to work through. Birdie, as a corps commander, should have been checking, questioning, overseeing, and improving these plans.56 Two years earlier, when armies were smaller, no one predicted that corps commanders would be controlling such large masses of troops; now that this was a reality, no one was quite sure what they were supposed to do — least of all Birdie.57 In 1914, a corps had been a grouping of divisions, their only permanent units a headquarters and a signal company. By 1916, the so-called corps troops had expanded to include artillery, engineers, intelligence, and administration staff. The corps commander thus became a vital liaison between the army (the headquarters responsible for drawing up directions) and the division (the formation responsible for carrying out the plan of attack).58
Yet Birdie’s most troubling weakness was his lack of perspective. On Gallipoli he visited his men and then returned to headquarters without having received any reliable tactical information. ‘I found that you could never rely on it being at all like the fact,’ complained White.59 Immediately before the Gallipoli evacuation, Birdie’s thoughts were preoccupied with ‘how surprised the Turks would be to find them [Anzac trenches] so clean and in such perfect order’. Pozières was no different — Birdie rambled on to Lord Northcliffe about how clean his boys’ trenches were.60 He told Lord Derby that the taking of Pozières wasn’t ‘such a difficult job’.61 He recounted stories of troops bayoneting 300 Germans in the 23 July attack, which he thought vitally important because ‘it does a lot of good in keeping up the right spirit of the men’.62 Birdie appeared dangerously detached from the corps’ important problems.
The troubling question was, even if Birdie were to choose to devote more time to organising the efforts of his divisions, did he have the brains to do it? On Gallipoli, Birdie’s antics were a touch eccentric. At Pozières, they were becoming downright dangerous. What effect would his shortcomings have on the attack that evening?
While Birdie greeted his ‘boys’, the final preparations for the follow-up assault on the OG lines were completed. This time, the German trenches had been subjected to many days of heavy bombardment. Brigade diaries document the fact that additional stretcher-bearers had been organised to collect the inevitable casualties; mortar crews were ready to fire off the smoke shells to screen the troops’ advance, and soldiers had been instructed — to their great relief — that the despised tin discs which had been attached to their backs could be hidden until they were required for signalling. Importantly, troops knew exactly what was expected of them: ‘Our orders are, even if we are to go through Hell, we must take that position,’ Arthur Clifford recalled.63
The Germans sensed that another attack was imminent. Throughout the day, Allied spotter aeroplanes had directed the British artillery’s fire upon any dugout they saw, and the Germans were too scared to show themselves. ‘Hostile airmen — always 6 to ten above us and only 100 metres up — none of our airmen and no anti-aircraft guns — nothing. It was enough to make one despair,’ wrote a German soldier.64 General Max von Gallwitz, commander of the First and Second German armies, tried to rally his troops for the inevitable, advising them in his order of the day that the enemy was expected to attack in strength during the coming days and that the decisive battle of the war would be fought out on the battlefield of the Somme. He finished by stating that the enemy’s assault ‘must be smashed before the wall of German men’.65
One German soldier who would form part of von Gallwitz’s ‘wall’ watched the telling signs of the impending attack. ‘In front of Pozières we can see the English working,’ he wrote. ‘Between 5 and 7 strongest English artillery fire and trench mortars. Thick clouds of dust make it impossible for our artillery to see the red lights fired by us.’66 Another demoralised German soldier thought there was only one way to escape the looming battle: ‘The best thing that can happen is to get a slight wound.’
The first waves of troops would leave their jumping-off trenches at 9.15 p.m., with subsequent waves advancing 15 minutes later. Gellibrand, frustrated by the communication problems that had plagued him in the first attack, had shifted his headquarters from Sausage Valley up to the Pozières cemetery, which sat on the cusp of the front line. Extra telephone wires were also laid and laddered to aid uninterrupted communication.67
At the allotted time, the Australians, having navigated their way to the jumping-off trenches without major incident, waited quietly in the warm dusk in the minutes before the attack. ‘The men hardly dared look at one other,’ remembered one soldier, ‘the old hands were fighting grimly against the fear, the new hands were struggling against the oppression of an ordeal of which they knew nothing except by hearsay but which they felt was momentous.’68 All knew that the first objective, the German front trench, was about 300 to 400 yards away, and that despite the numerous shell holes they ought to reach it in about six minutes.
At 9.14 p.m., just before the hurricane bombardment opened, three red German flares arced into the sky, bursting into stars. Seconds later, exploding shells illuminated the night: the final three-minute hurricane bombardment had begun. Across a front of about 1300 yards, over 1000 men had started their jog-walk across the dry, pitted battlefield. This time, at twilight, they managed to keep their footing. In spite of their natural instincts to maintain a safe distance from the exploding shells, they hugged the bombardment that edged forward in front of them (this method ensured that the attackers were on their enemy immediately after the barrage passed over their trenches). ‘Onwards we floundered through the soft shell-torn ground,’ remembered Walter Elkington, ‘narrowly escaping a shell-burst alongside, over numerous dead men.’69 The third, fourth, and fifth waves readied themselves for their advance 15 minutes later.
After five long minutes, the first wave of Australians reached OG1. The bombardment seemed to have done its job — very few Germans had time to leave their dugouts and mount their guns, and there was only sporadic machine-gun fire. The 20th Battalion succeeded in capturing its objective. Its third and fourth waves leapfrogged through, capturing the second trench over the ridge, which was nothing more than a wilderness of craters and shredded wire entanglements. ‘We did not find a solitary live German,’ recorded Walter Elkington, ‘although dozens of dead ones were lying about in what was left of the trenches.’ The demoralised Germans withdrew over the ridge, leaving behind many valuable machine guns with the breech blocks removed.
North of the main road, Paton’s three battalions crossed no-man’s-land with little opposition. Gellibrand’s 22nd Battalion, further north, adjacent to the Courcelette track, secured their objective. By 12.15 a.m., the 2nd Division had captured both trenches.
John Treloar, back at I Anzac Corps headquarters, had watched the wild flashes of light coming from the ridge, and wondered whether the division could hold on. ‘The shellfire is terrific and the ground seems to be moving the whole time,’ he recorded in his diary.70
Sheltering in Gellibrand’s dugout, Charles Bean had been anxious about the attack all day. At about midnight, he heard five tremendous explosions from the other side o
f the ridge; objects were thrown hundreds of feet into the air. Bean interpreted this as a good sign, writing: ‘looks as if [the] enemy were blowing up their ammunition’.71
The captured trenches had to be consolidated quickly — the ridge was a significant loss to the Germans, and they would doubtless retaliate. ‘We feverishly set to work deepening our trenches and building up the parapets,’ wrote Elkington.72 The Germans shifted their bombardment to land just behind the trenches to prevent the Australians from reinforcing. Many digging parties, carrying much-needed picks and shovels, failed to make it through. Those who did were ‘bombarded something awful and casualties began to occur in every shell hole’.73 The 22nd Battalion had only brought a few picks and shovels forward, so that troops such as 20-year-old Lance-Corporal William Hatcher, a farmer from the backwater town of Goyura, in western Victoria, had to dig with their entrenching tools. The Lewis-gun and Stokes-mortar crews, desperately needed to shore up the defensive line, were blocked from coming forward. Forward posts along the new front remained unlinked, meaning that pockets of soldiers were only vaguely aware of their neighbours’ position. The Australians’ hold on the OG lines remained tenuous.74
The expected German counterattack came quickly from the southern side of the Courcelette track, at 3.45 a.m. on Tuesday 5 August. It targeted Paton’s weakened 25th Battalion, made up of troops from Queensland. Some Germans forced their way into OG1, and soldiers clubbed and jabbed at each other with rifle butts and shovels. The remaining attackers panicked, bunched together, and were met with machine-gun fire. Two companies were sent forward to support the exhausted Queenslanders, who feared that their newly won positions would be overrun. Some Germans, overwhelmed by machine-gun fire and trench mortars, sunk in to shell holes, while those near OG1 realised they were outnumbered, and surrendered.
A second counterattack came just on daybreak at the northern end of the OG lines, where William Hatcher and the other men of the 22nd and 26th battalions sheltered. About 150 Germans advanced from the valley in front of Courcelette. Snipers positioned 40 yards from OG2 initially prevented the Australians from returning fire, yet gradually Australian riflemen suppressed the fire, and the assault suddenly came to a standstill 200 yards short of OG2. ‘As soon as those dirty Huns found they were in for a bad time they threw down their rifles and put their hands up and we were forced to take the lot prisoner,’ wrote Percy Blythe. ‘And you just ought to see them go back to our lines, they were anxious that the guard could not stay with them.’75
Captain Frank Corney of the 26th Battalion, who was sheltering in the trenches, remembered vividly, as daylight came, Germans popping up from the shell holes just in front of him, holding their hands up and coming in to be taken prisoner. ‘In the distance you could see the German artillery and some infantry scampering for their lives over the hills and out of sight,’ he wrote in a letter home.76
The Australians, in the morning light, surveyed their newly won position. Most had a clear view toward the German-held villages of Le Sars, Courcelette, and Bapaume. It was like seeing the Promised Land: green, open fields and unimpeded views as far as the eye could see; ripe wheat upon the far slopes; and a church spire rising through a clump of trees on a near crest.77
Walter Elkington, who was sheltering in a German communication trench when morning broke, liked what he saw. ‘We had captured the Windmill [100 yards past the OG lines and adjacent to the Bapaume road] and its big dugouts and had the satisfaction of seeing about 300 Germans surrender to men on our immediate left,’ he recounted in his memoirs.78
One surrendering German officer asked his captors, ‘Are you in Courcelette?’ The officer had incorrectly assumed that the Australians had advanced over the ridge and on to the German-held village of Courcelette, about two miles away.79
The German defenders had fallen into utter disarray. Their command structures had been savaged, they had few or no reserves left, the trench line protecting Courcelette was incomplete, and its batteries were dangerously short of ammunition. ‘If the enemy’s attack had continued,’ recorded one German colonel, ‘Courcelette would have been lost.’80 Another thought it incomprehensible that the Australians failed to drive home their advantage: ‘They would have been able to thrust deep into our hinterland without coming up against any considerable resistance, for the troops that had received the alarm were not in position.’ German batteries, in panic, blew up their ammunition.81
The Australians, however, were grappling with their own problems. Their push forward had created an even greater bulge in the line. Shelling and sniper fire came from three directions. The second captured trench, on the reverse side of the ridge, could be seen easily by German artillery-observers stationed around Courcelette, and the first trench by those stationed at Thiepval. White concluded that it was unwise to advance any further because the bombardment made it impossible to supply the men, and ‘it would be an impossible salient to hold’.82
‘If only the three other Australian and some British divisions had been there,’ lamented Jack Gellibrand after reconnoitring the position, ‘they could have undoubtedly got through.’83
Unlike Gellibrand, Walter Elkington’s thoughts were focused on survival rather than heroic advances. ‘As soon as it became light, the German artillery commenced a desultory bombardment of our position,’ he recorded in his memoirs.84 Their heavies systematically worked along the lengths of the front-line trenches. The accuracy of the shelling improved considerably, aided by the morning light, as the troops pinpointed and systematically destroyed key Australian posts on the ridge that were vital for its defence. Artillery observers targeted anything on the ridge that was moving, even a solitary man running to the rear. Blythe recalled the Germans throwing everything at the Australians — whiz-bangs, high explosives, shrapnel, coal boxes, and gas shells — in an effort to blow them clean off the ridge.85
The communication trenches were also targeted. ‘Being high up on the ridge of Pozières Heights, we could look down and see our chaps coming along the communication trench, and see the enemy shells bursting along it, sending up great clouds of dust, smoke and stones,’ noted Arthur Clifford.86
In turn, the artillery supporting the Australians failed to inflict any damage upon the Germans withdrawing toward Courcelette. ‘Barely a shot was fired,’ complained Lieutenant Arnold Brown, a sheep farmer from West Perth. ‘We had to sit and suffer the sight of the enemy gun teams limbering up and drawing their field guns to safety, later to again rain shells on us.’87
The 2nd Division had paid a terrible price to redeem its reputation. Of those lucky enough to survive the first attack, few came out unscathed in the second. Ernest Norgard, Frank Corney, and Edgar Morrow, all seriously wounded, were evacuated to Britain. Lewis Marshall lay unconscious in a German field hospital.88
Percy Blythe, also seriously injured, had almost been blown off the ridge by an exploding shell. His personnel dossier indicates that he was evacuated with gaping wounds to his face and leg. As he lay in the 13th Stationary Hospital, his thoughts would likely have turned to his young wife, Mary. He must have felt comforted that she would be well provided for if he died — he had filled out his last will and testament before sailing for France, bequeathing everything to her.
As it turned out, Percy recovered, was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal, and later survived another serious wound. Yet, like many men, his luck eventually ran out. He died a few months before the war’s end.
William Hatcher, also injured, was evacuated to the 3rd Casualty Clearing Station in Puchevillers. He had a gaping wound to his stomach, and Sister Aitken maintained a vigil by his bedside. In the small hours of the morning, William asked her to write a short letter to his parents, Thomas and Eliza, back in Victoria. Sister Aitken finished the letter the next afternoon. It explained that William had been admitted into the hospital on 6 August, severely wounded in the abdomen, and although everything possible was done
to save him, his condition gradually worsened until he passed away. ‘My heart ached for you so far away from your loved one,’ she wrote. ‘Rest assured we did what we could for him. He had a nice comfortable bed and every attention from us all. We did our best but the issue was in God’s hands.’89
The Base Records Office mailed a bland letter to Hatcher’s parents a few weeks later. The clerk handling it must have been overworked; the paper was positioned off-centre and he smudged William’s name as he typed it into the allocated space. ‘I regret to advise you that No. 739 Private W.L. Hatcher, 22nd Battalion, has been reported wounded,’ read the letter, ‘the nature of which is not yet known here. It is not stated as being serious and in the absence of further reports it is to be assumed that all wounded [sic] are progressing satisfactorily.’ Hatcher’s parents received official word from the officer in charge of the Base Records Office on 17 January 1917 that William had died — almost six months after they had received Sister Aitken’s letter.90
Although Alec Raws survived the battle and suffered no physical wound, his mind seemed damaged beyond repair. ‘We are lousy, stinking, ragged, unshaven and sleepless,’ he wrote in a letter to a friend, upon coming out of the line. ‘My tunic is rotten with other men’s blood, and partly splattered with a dead man’s brains. It is horrible, but why should you people at home not know? Several of my friends are raving mad.’91
Gough and Haig saw things differently to Raws. Gough congratulated the division for inflicting a severe defeat on the enemy and securing the most valuable ground, while Haig considered their gain ‘a fine piece of work’.92 The unrelenting Gough immediately ordered another attack that evening toward Mouquet Farm.
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