BARDIA: MYTH, REALITY AND THE HEIRS
OF ANZAC
Craig Stockings
UNSW Press, 2009, 481pp
Dr Craig Stockings’ book
examines the capture of Bardia in greater detail than earlier accounts. It is divided into three parts – The
Setting, The Battle, and The Explanation.
The first two parts are more satisfying than the third, which suffers
from definitional looseness and circular arguments.
The Setting
This part provides useful
background to the war in North Africa for those not familiar with events
between the two world wars and in the early stages of the Second. When Dr Stockings covers the raising
and training of the Second AIF, he notes specifically that a significant
proportion of recruits for the 6th Division were motivated by memories of
Australia’s part in the First World War (whether those memories be called the
ANZAC myth, legend, or tradition), memories that gave them a ‘strong sense of
self, pride and spirit’, which probably affected their motivation.
Dr Stockings describes the
embarrassing course of events for the Italian forces during the opening stages
of the desert war. Significant
numbers of Italian soldiers were killed, and many were captured, sometimes
without a shot being fired, as the British 7th Armoured Division set about
gaining physical and psychological dominance. The Italian ground forces showed only a limited grasp of
modern tactics, sometimes using formations more suited to the Napoleonic era
than the twentieth century.
This tactical grasp did not
improve with experience, as demonstrated by the Italian advance to Sidi Barrani
and the abject failure of the invasion of Greece. In the first three and a half months of the desert war,
Italian casualties were some 20 times British casualties. The German Major General von Thoma
noted the poor Italian performance and their logistic problems, and advised
against German participation in the campaign.
Italian performance during
the British/Indian attack on Sidi Barrani remained poor, encouraging a belief
that further advances were possible, without undue risk. Dr Stockings mentions the dysfunction
in the Italian higher command, and that some Italian prisoners ‘seemed pleased
that their part in the fighting was at an end’. He also notes the ‘increasing Italian timidity and
ineffective defensive procedure’ in the Bardia garrison. Even Graziani indicated to his
superiors in Rome that ‘the Italians in North Africa would not cope well with a
second serious defeat’.
The Battle
Readers who concentrate on
this part would find much to confirm whatever version of the ANZAC myth/legend
to which they might adhere. Small
groups of Australian soldiers, platoons, sections, sometimes even one or two
men, often with the support of I tanks or artillery, but sometimes without that
support, captured perimeter posts, artillery batteries, and large numbers of
prisoners. Occasional pockets of
resistance were swiftly overcome; and good progress was made (one company alone
sent back more than 1000 prisoners during the early stages of the attack).
Dr Stockings has particular
concerns, however, about the activities of the 2/6th Battalion, and
specifically the attack on Post 11, where the battalion suffered a sharp
setback. While Post 11 proved too
tough a nut to crack, even in the difficult conditions along the Wadi el
Mautered some successes were achieved, at a cost, with the capture of Posts 7
and 9. Post 11 was almost the last
Italian position in Bardia to surrender, and then only when menaced from all
sides.
Dr Stockings lays the blame
for the losses around Post 11 on Brigadier Savige and the CO of the 2/6th,
Lieutenant Colonel Godfrey, for exceeding their orders. As events unfolded, this seems
justified, however, Dr Stockings records in The Setting that the 2/6th Battalion
‘displayed a particularly aggressive streak’ during training exercises. He notes also that 6th Division
headquarters and Colonel Berryman allocated the ‘individual unit roles, tasks
and timings’ during pre-battle planning, an unusual procedure, while a complete
field regiment was allocated in support of the 2/6th Battalion (albeit the same
field regiment appears later in support of the 2/5th Battalion).
The evidence presented by Dr
Stockings suggests that 6th Division headquarters and Colonel Berryman did
initially intend the 2/6th Battalion to conduct offensive action, but changed
their mind at some stage during the planning process. This action could have been the ‘company raid’ that Savige
opposed during one pre-battle conference.
Having changed their minds,
Major General Mackay and Berryman might have missed an opportunity to make
better use of the 2/6th Battalion’s ‘aggressive streak’. A change by divisional headquarters in
unit task allocations between the 2/5th and 2/6th Battalions might have
produced better results in phase two of the main attack. If such a change had been made, given
the less than aggressive performance of at least one company of the 2/5th
Battalion during phase two, it seems unlikely that Posts 7, 9 and 11 would have
been attacked in force.
Dr Stockings details the
difficulties faced by the 2/5th and 2/7th Battalions attacking with limited
artillery and tank support in phase two.
He also records the impressive results they actually achieved, and the
many prisoners taken, despite difficulties on the start line and the actions
(or inactions) of one apparently reluctant company commander. Despite these results, divisional
headquarters felt that the 17th Brigade was disorganised, and this perception
told against Savige and his men for the rest of the battle. Berryman, in particular, ‘was all too
eager to conclude the worst’.
The second day saw clear
indications of collapse among the defenders, with thousands of Italians
surrendering, but the adverse perceptions of the 17th Brigade’s performance
brought to the battle Brigadier Robertson and his 19th Brigade, supported by
the tanks and concentrated artillery that had not been available to the
17th. Robertson also had the
support of a squadron of the divisional cavalry, an anti-tank battery, half of
the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, and the 2/5th Battalion to secure his start
line and provide flank protection.
Success against a collapsing defence followed swiftly.
Dr Stockings notes
Lieutenant General O’Connor’s complaint to Prime Minister Menzies about
‘undisciplined’ and ‘troublesome’ Australians, but omits Menzies responses,
that he understood ‘the Italians [had] found them very troublesome’, and they
hadn’t ‘spent their lives marching around parade grounds … [but came] to do a
job and get it over’. Dr Stockings
notes that after the battle, the ‘magnitude of victory validated the identity
of 6 Division’, and that the Australians felt themselves ‘worthy of their Anzac
inheritance’. Accolades from many
quarters made the same points.
The Explanation
This part is the least
satisfying in the book, for two principal reasons. First, Dr Stockings does not produce a clear, concise,
definition of the myth he refers to in the title of the book. To the extent that he does define the
ANZAC myth or legend (the terms seem to be used almost interchangeably, with
tradition also used at times), it seems to be about bronzed Australian
infantrymen, giants among men, defeating all enemies at the points of their
shiny bayonets, unsupported and without training, which was not needed because
of their ‘innate combat prowess’.
Second, Dr Stockings seems
unwilling to accept that in a genetically diverse region, ethnicity and
national characteristics are cultural constructs, and not genetically
based. If they were purely
genetic, there would be no such person as an American, and the population of
Alsace-Lorraine would suffer from great genetic confusion after their various
moves between French and German ethnicity! He also seems not to consider the possibility of links
between national culture and the performance of national institutions.
Turning first to the ANZAC
myth, Dr Stockings devotes Chapter 15 to recounting descriptions of the
Australian performance against the Italians, noting the exaggerations in many
accounts. However, some of the
reports quoted were written during the war, and while Dr Stockings does
acknowledge that wartime reportage had other purposes than historical analysis
(among them discouragement of the enemy and encouragement of the home front),
he seems disappointed that a more honest public analysis of events did
not occur at the time. Dr
Stockings specifically rejects O’Connor’s comment that the battle was ‘an
outstanding example of the value of morale as opposed to material’, yet
O’Connor could not be considered a propagandist for the ANZAC legend.
Dr Stockings describes the
‘flip side’ of the ANZAC legend as the ‘image of physically weak, cowardly,
even effeminate Italian soldiers’.
However, by the time of Bardia, both the 6th Division and the war correspondents
whom Dr Stockings criticises would have been well aware of the actual failures
of the Italian ground forces during their advance to Sidi Barrani, their
invasion of Greece, and their defeat at Sidi Barrani. Even Albert Kesselring (hardly a propagandist for the ANZAC
myth) saw the same cultural problems (albeit, like many Germans of the era, he
also saw a racial issue), while Mussolini’s assessment of the Italian
character, based on casualties among Italian generals, was at least as scathing
as any assessments by ANZAC mythologists.
Dr Stockings does not seem
to give full consideration to some of the words he quotes. Barrie Pitt’s book The Crucible of
War, Western Desert 1941, comes in for particular criticism. However, each of the quotes from Pitt
mentioned by Dr Stockings on page 298 was qualified in the original. The description of soldiers of the 6th
Division as ‘big men … it seemed [emphasis added] that those who weren’t
well over six feet tall …’ omitted the introductory phrase ‘to one startled
observer’, while Pitt qualified the description of ‘advancing giants’ with
‘appeared to be’, and the context clearly suggested an optical illusion, caused
by the soldiers being silhouetted against the setting sun. Finally, the quote about Italian
defenders being ‘morally shattered’ was qualified by the word
‘apparently’. In context, the
quotes give a different impression.
Clearly, not all Australian
soldiers were six feet tall (the reviewer’s father, five feet three inches
tall, served in the western desert with the Second AIF), but equally clearly,
these perceptions had some basis.
Putting Australian authors to one side, if Dr Stockings is unhappy with
the words of British authors like Lieutenant General Tuker, General Jackson and
Field Marshal Carver about large Australians, he might note the words of
another unlikely propagandist for the ANZAC myth. On 1 May 1941, Erwin Rommel observed some men captured at
Tobruk, ‘fifty or sixty Australian prisoners … immensely big and powerful
men’. While fifty or sixty random
prisoners might not be a statistically significant sample, the impression their
appearance made on Rommel is noteworthy.
Dr Stockings rejects the
idea of ‘innate Italian military ineffectiveness’, and refers to the ‘real
objective military factors’ that can explain the Italian defeat. He devotes much of Chapters 16, 17, 19
and 20 to discussing these factors.
However, phrases such as ‘the Italian Army was better equipped in 1915
than it was in 1941’, or descriptions of Italian industry as ‘in a condition of
stubborn and parochial backwardness’ and references to a low standard of
education and the regime’s ‘deficiencies as a coordinator and contractor’
suggest the existence of significant institutional problems.
Dr Stockings also refers to
the ‘systemic weaknesses of the overall Fascist war effort up to 1941’, but
does not conclude from all this the that the ‘real objective military factors’
he describes might have been based on cultural factors in Italian national life
(which were not necessarily genetic in origin, and so not immutable). The failure to distribute the large
stocks of food available in Bardia to troops on the perimeter is a good example
of these weaknesses. Hundreds of
Italian vehicles were captured in Bardia, the distance to the perimeter was not
great, but distribution of the available food did not occur. It should have been easier for the
Bardia garrison to receive some of the stocks of tinned veal and fish found
later inside the perimeter than it was for the British logistic system to bring
Christmas treats forward to the besiegers.
Dr Stockings earlier
commented that Bardia demonstrated that static fortified positions manned by
infantry ‘could be easily surrounded, cut off, and penetrated at will by a
concentrated all arms thrust’. In
Chapter 17, he repeats this assessment, stating that the perimeter at Bardia
was ‘vulnerable to defeat, one post at a time’. Tobruk had a similar perimeter
defence system. There, a different
garrison, ‘inexperienced and lacking equipment’, falling back from a lost
battle, with the help of British tanks and artillery and British and Australian
naval forces, but virtually no air support, was attacked by a well trained,
efficient, enemy with air superiority and effective tanks. The results demonstrated that the fall
of a static position was not inevitable.
Dr Stockings alludes to one
problem at Bardia – the limited construction around the perimeter posts of
additional infantry pits, foxholes or sangars. Where these were prepared (as at Post 11), the defence was
more effective. Such work was
implemented rapidly at Tobruk, and penetration of the perimeter there did not
lead inevitably to collapse of the defence. One could continue with comparisons between the two battles,
but this would only belabour the point.
Dr Stockings makes much of
the technical weaknesses of Italian tanks and artillery. The Matilda was superior to the Italian
medium tanks, but, based on Dr Stockings’ account, some of the Italian
technical weaknesses seem to have been the result of the institutional
weaknesses in Italian society, industry and government he described. The attackers made much use of Bren
carriers, which were hardly superior in firepower to the Italian light tanks, and
had thinner armour, while Italian medium tanks were later taken into service by
the allied forces, and used to at least some effect, as was captured Italian
artillery during the siege of Tobruk.
With the arrival of the Germans, the balance of armoured vehicle quality
was reversed.
Dr Stockings quotes Mackay’s
assessment that ‘Without tanks, it would probably have taken weeks of heavy
fighting … to capture [Bardia]’.
This quote is in accordance with another version of the ANZAC tradition
with which Mackay and his senior officers would have been familiar, but which
is not so centred on the Australian infantryman. This is Monash’s statement that the:
true role of the infantry
was not to expend itself upon heroic physical effort … but on the contrary, to
advance under the maximum possible protection of the maximum possible array of
mechanical resources in the form of guns, machine guns, tanks, mortars and
aeroplanes … to be relieved as far as possible of the obligation to fight their
way forward …
An examination of the battle
of Bardia against this version of the ANZAC legend would have been interesting.
Dr Stockings’ argument
becomes circular when he discusses Italian command and leadership in Chapter
19. He accepts that these were
faulty, but states that these faults had little to do with ‘ethnicity, culture,
or national character’. However,
much of the chapter consists of discussion of a range of culturally based
reasons for these failings, including the lack of prestige for military service
in Italy at that time, inappropriate conceptual frameworks, backward looking
philosophies, conservative, narrow-minded and conventional attitudes, an
institutionalised tradition of avoiding responsibility, and doctrinal
shortcomings. In addition, Italian
officers were ‘deliberately distant and aloof from those they commanded’.
Cultural factors such as the
‘functional shortcomings of the military bureaucracy’, and ‘the mindset of the
Italian officer corps’ seem also to be the cause of at least some of the
deficiencies in Italian training identified by Dr Stockings, with training
continuing ‘on a peacetime basis’ even after the declaration of war. The Australians, on the other hand
were, he states, ‘more than well prepared’, suggesting that the ANZAC myth of
‘innate combat prowess’ did not limit their leaders’ commitment to hard
training.
As Dr Stockings points out,
Italian failure seemed inevitable.
However, he ignores the possibility that the cultural problems he
describes were the basis of the ‘real objective military factors’ that caused
the defeat. Strangely, while he
accepts that ‘many aspects of the Anzac myth … are culturally based [and] built
on Australian social mores’, the
Italian problems, at least in Dr Stockings’ estimation, were not culturally
based.
Dr Stockings also glosses
over the problems of the Australian Army.
Referring to the initial training of the 6th Division in The Setting, he
mentions the ‘conspicuous lack of
officers and non-commissioned officers’, and the availability of but ‘one Lewis
gun and a few rifles … for each platoon’. Other authors have recorded the limitations of the Australian
Army’s training between the wars.
In The Battle, Dr Stockings reviewed briefly the ‘regular/militia’ differences
in the 6th Division, and concluded that while some of the complaints from Savige,
for example, were ‘based more on emotion than on objectivity’, the regulars did
‘promote their own interests’.
Even with these internal problems, the 6th Division developed in a way
that the Italian Army did not.
In his conclusion, Dr
Stockings states that had the 6th Division ‘met an Italian formation in the
field with more than a year of hard training behind it, the result might not
have fitted so neatly within the Anzac paradigm’. Indeed, but the Italian forces had been at war at various
times since 1936, in Ethiopia, Spain and France, and had not managed to develop
such formations, whereas the 6th Division was raised from scratch in fifteen
months. Based on Dr Stockings’ own
work, the reason that such an Italian formation was not available would seem to
be at least partly based on cultural failings in the Italian society of that
era.
Summary
Dr Stockings asks why
‘tradition has demanded that Anzac mythology be a substitute for history?’ A good question, and there is
undoubtedly room to review the ANZAC myth/legend/tradition, in whichever
version it might be told. Even
Charles Bean, after all, recognised the ‘good and the bad, the greatness and
the smallness’ in the ANZAC story.
However, review is not the same as denial, and the ANZAC tradition was
based on actual events. Many
Australian histories do cover allied efforts; many do not denigrate Australia’s
adversaries with ethnic jibes.
What is needed is careful assessment of all the available evidence,
without preconceptions (in either direction).
There are some editorial
quirks in the book. The style of
unit designations used by the UNSW Press (6 Division rather than the 6th
Division, 2/6 Battalion rather than the 2/6th Battalion, for example), and the
inconsistent use of definite articles before unit designations, affect the flow
of the narrative. Some
designations are inconsistent (the 104th Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery
appears variously as 104 Field Regiment, 104 Field Regiment, RHA and 104 RHA). It does not become clear for some
pages, and then only in passing, that the 1st Battalion, Royal Northumberland
Fusiliers, is a machine gun unit.
Endnote 67 to Chapter 19 gives several Australian unit titles
incorrectly. A few words seem to
have been dropped during the production process, and Dr Stockings sometimes
uses convoluted sentence structures, which almost need careful parsing to be
understood.
JOHN DONOVAN
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