To Villers-Bretonneux

TO VILLERS-BRETONNEUX: Brigadier-General William Glasgow, DSO and 13th Australian Infantry Brigade.

Peter Edgar

Australian Military History Publications, 2006.  284pp.

Peter Edgar sets out to study the ‘Australian soldier of the First World War [and decide how] effective he was, and if he was effective, how … he [became] so’.  He accepts that such a study must consider both the ANZAC legend and the views of the revisionist historians who ‘have debunked that legend’ (or, perhaps more accurately, attempted to do so).  His method is to select one of the 15 Australian infantry brigades that fought in France and Belgium, and follow its experiences while in battle, holding the line, and training.

Edgar chooses the 13th Brigade of the 4th Division, and follows it from its formation in Egypt in 1916 to its best-known battle, Second Villers-Bretonneux, in April 1918.  This Brigade included many Gallipoli veterans, as it was raised by ‘splitting’ the original 3rd Brigade of the 1st Division.  Edgar notes that the Brigade had the same commander, Brigadier-General William Glasgow, from its formation until after Villers-Bretonneux.  When Glasgow left to command the 1st Australian Division, and the 52nd Battalion was disbanded to provide reinforcements for the other three battalions, it was changed substantially.

Edgar starts by noting some of the views of the revisionist historians, and comparing them with the writings of C.E.W. Bean, described as their particular bête noir.  He also quotes some of the revisionist historians’ (generally peevish) comments about Bean, but poses the idea that the ANZAC legend might have existed even without Bean’s writings.  He also mentions some clear fallacies that have become ‘accepted’ in Australia, at least in part as a result of the work of some modern Australian historians.

Edgar’s first attack on the revisionists comes in a discussion of the reasons Australia participated in the First World War.  He notes that, contrary to the suggestion that Australia could have stood aloof, the change in the world order following a German victory would have had severe implications for a nation whose ‘great and powerful friend’ had been defeated, and was also next door to an existing German colony.  In particular, he notes that while the Treaty of Versailles is considered harsh, it was not so in comparison to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, under which newly Communist Russia left the War.  Indeed, the reviewer recalls reading a description of Brest-Litovsk by Lenin, along the lines that it was a treaty which Russia, ‘grinding its teeth, is forced to accept’.  Germany, in Edgar’s view, would have sought to profit from a victory.  Such profit might well have included colonial ambitions in the Pacific, and he suggests that a German victory would have ended our British culture.

Edgar gives some credit, however, to one school of revisionist history, led by John Terraine, which has attempted to rehabilitate the reputation of Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.  It is not necessary to accept fully the views of Terraine and others that Haig has been unfairly criticised, to acknowledge that, whatever his failings, he was probably the best of the available potential commanders.  Edgar provides some background to the problem Haig faced on the Western Front by discussing briefly the difficulties of crossing ground swept by fire.  He illustrates this by brief descriptions of the battles of Waterloo and Gettysburg.

What struck the reviewer from these descriptions, however, was that in each case, and on each side, the strengths present and casualties incurred were broadly similar to those of the Australian forces engaged at Pozières/Mouquet Farm.  However, Waterloo lasted but a day, and Gettysburg three days, while Pozières/Mouquet Farm lasted some seven weeks.  It would appear that, despite the great improvements in firepower that Edgar describes, changes in tactics had reduced battlefield lethality rather more than is sometimes accepted.  The greater overall deadliness of the Western Front appears to have derived from the extended duration of individual engagements, and the ongoing trickle of casualties even when just holding the line.

In this book Edgar makes a strong case that the part of the ANZAC legend that sees Australians as natural soldiers, needing only uniforms and weapons to conquer on the battlefield, is overblown.  While this is hardly a surprising conclusion, that element of the legend might have been encouraged by the limited attention that Bean gave to the AIF’s activities while out of the line, particularly their training.  As Edgar shows, units out of the line trained continuously, to the extent that many men went for extended periods without leave.  Whenever time was available, ranges were established, brigade and divisional schools of instruction commenced, and men were detached for training in specialist skills.

This is a useful balance to the impression that might be left by Bean’s writing (almost certainly not deliberately) that periods out of the line were dominated by rest or fatigue duties.  Edgar also shows, however, that the training provided early in the war, particularly before Gallipoli, might charitably be described as inappropriate.  The increasing skill of the Australian soldiers came with both experience and better, more relevant, training. 

Planning also improved as the war progressed.  The plans for Mouquet Farm (both battles) and Noreiul, in particular, seem unnecessarily complex, while both Mouquet Farm attacks also suffered from being in a series of small-scale, uncoordinated attacks, against each of which the Germans could concentrate their efforts sequentially.  Within the 13th Brigade, understanding of the need for units to coordinate with each other was not well developed at Mouquet Farm, albeit it was improving at Noreuil.  However, the plan there was still unnecessarily complex, involving as it did attacks along different axes and a right wheel during the attack by the 50th Battalion.  Pace John Terraine, both Haig and his troops were still learning at this stage of the war.

By Messines, planning had improved further but the skills of troops and commanders remained insufficiently developed to implement the plans fully.  Poor communications were considered partly to blame, exacerbated by the wounding of two battalion commanders.  Only three months later, at Zonnebeke, more training and better planning and staff work produced for the ‘first time in the brigade’s experience an operation [that] had gone completely in accordance with the plan’.

At Dernancourt and Second Villers-Bretonneux the benefits of training and experience became clear.  Although some men broke and fled at Dernancourt, admittedly only after several hours’ resistance, the loss of a key officer and being enfiladed, others promptly covered the gap.  By Villers-Bretonneux, the Brigade was so well trained and its staff work so skilful that, in a little over twelve hours, it moved some eight miles (around 13 kilometres) on foot to deploy on the battlefield, the Brigade staff reconnoitred the ground and coordinated the plan with both ‘Pompey’ Elliott’s neighbouring 15th Brigade and the 8th British Division, and orders were issued for the attack.

Commanders, too developed with greater experience.  Glasgow had accepted without demur poor plans given to him in earlier battles.  By Villers-Bretonneux, he was willing to challenge senior officers and demand changes where he considered them necessary.  Others also developed in both skill and confidence.  At Villers-Bretonneux, two battalion commanders rejected an order to move forward in daylight, suggesting that the task be undertaken after dark.  Glasgow accepted this, demonstrating that his own development was not just one-dimensional. 

Later, after the events described in this book, the Brigade’s battalion commanders ‘varied’ a plan personally drawn up by Monash.  They still succeeded in the task, but in their own way, not by following orders blindly.  ‘Pompey’ Elliott believed that the experienced Australian soldiers of 1918 would simply not have attempted some of the tasks that were ordered in the early part of the war, but would have sought other means to achieve their objective.  Surely this must be a true test of their ultimate professionalism?

Edgar’s descriptions of the seven battles in which the 13th Brigade participated up to Villers-Bretonneux are detailed, and generally easy to follow.  However, some of the maps are unclear and can be difficult to use, as they have very light printing, while they are not always contiguous to the relevant text.  There are some inconsistencies between map and text, such using as the English name Abbey Wood on a map, and the French Bois L’Abbé in the text.  He also occasionally describes the actions of different units sequentially.  Where the action extends over more than one day, it is not always clear when the ‘clock is set back’.

The scale of operations in the First World War can seem daunting to the modern reader.  Edgar points out that Second Villers-Bretonneux was a small-scale action, involving only two divisions from some 60 in the British Expeditionary Force (and a greater number in the other allied armies).  However, in three days, the four battalions of the 13th Brigade, which was only one of the two Australian brigades involved, suffered 201 fatalities.  This is about 40 percent of the Australian deaths in the decade long commitment to Vietnam that peaked at three battalions.  Officers led from the front, two-thirds of those in the attack being killed or wounded.

There are occasional inconsistencies in the text.  Before Gallipoli Major Beevor is described as being ‘of an athletic appearance’.  After Gallipoli, the now Lieutenant-Colonel Beevor has become ‘a portly gentleman’.  While the witnesses were different, this change in stature seems remarkable!  There is also a contradiction between at least one young officer being recorded as joining the AIF early, and a comment about others that their enlistment was delayed because regulations prevented officers under 25 from enlisting. 

What, then, of Edgar’s self-imposed task to assess the Australian soldier in the First World War?  He concludes, and offers reasonable supporting evidence, that the ANZAC legend would still have developed even without Bean’s writing, because it is based on reality, not mythology.  This is a point that some of the revisionist historians seem to have missed.  Bean did not create the ANZAC legend from nothing; he recorded what happened.  The battlefield successes were real, and such successes were not achieved against the German Army of that era without courage and skill.  The troops trained hard and learned eagerly.  They understood, even if some modern critics do not, the real crisis that Australia faced.  That said, not all Australian soldiers were perfect, and Bean was inclined to gloss over that issue.  Edgar records an incident at Noreuil where an officer calling his platoon forward believed that one member shot and wounded him.  Others fled the battlefield, including as late as Dernancourt.

Edgar concludes that the Australians were not necessarily natural soldiers.  Training, good organization, skilful leaders and battlefield experience were all essential parts of their success.  Some 70 percent of the 13th Brigade’s existence was spent training, and only about 30 percent in battle or holding the front line.  The Brigade started with first-class fighting material, and both it and they developed with time.  By the time of Dernancourt and Second Villers-Bretonneux, the full flowering of the Australian soldier’s skills was on display.  Edgar’s assessment of the Australian soldier in the First World War supports Bean’s, but is more rounded, acknowledging that performances and individuals did not always meet the desired standard.

Edgar claims, probably with justification, that later in the war neither of the Mouquet farm battles would have been fought as they actually were, on narrow fronts and with limited artillery support.  While Glasgow had the moral courage to abandon an attack at Gallipoli that had the potential to be another Nek, his skills (and, perhaps, confidence) early in the Western Front battles were not sufficient for him to do the same there.  By 1918, however, he would tell a British Major-General that if ‘God Almighty … gave the order, we couldn’t do it in daylight’.

Who, then, had the best of the contest between Bean/Edgar and the revisionist historians?  In this reviewer’s opinion, Bean and Edgar are the clear winners.  They have been helped because some of the revisionist historians attempted to achieve the impossible, to destroy completely rather than simply qualify the ANZAC legend.  There, the revisionists came up against the inconvenient truth that the exploits did occur, and broadly as Bean described them.  Many of the revisionists also seem to have an ‘attitude problem’, apparently believing that, to misquote Manning Clark, one of those mentioned by Edgar, ‘Dear, kind Charlie Bean could not understand that the role of an historian is to denigrate anything that might support the Australian culture that existed before the 1970s!’  Peter Edgar returns the ANZAC legend to its factual roots.

JOHN DONOVAN