THE OVER-EXPANSION OF THE AIF IN 1916 – EFFECTS AND POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES
THEN, IMPLICATIONS FOR LEADERS NOW
Abstract: In 1916, the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was expanded to five infantry
divisions, together with 13 regiments of light horse and the Australian element
of the Imperial Camel Corps. Further expansion was considered in 1917, and
preliminary steps were taken to raise the 6th Division. This article concludes
that the AIF was expanded beyond Australia’s capacity to maintain it, considers
the scale of forces that Australia could have maintained under various
conditions, and compares the ill effects of the over-expansion with the New
Zealand and Canadian experiences. Finally, it offers some principles for
current leaders.
Introduction
In 1916, the
Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was expanded from eight infantry brigades
(seven of which had fought on the Gallipoli Peninsula) to 15 brigades in five
divisions. Further expansion was considered in 1917, and preliminary steps were
taken to raise the 6th Division, but this was never completed.
This expanded
infantry organisation, together with the 13 regiments of light horse and the Australian
element of the Imperial Camel Corps (ICC),[i]
produced a force beyond the capability of the nation to support. The AIF
struggled with ongoing reinforcement crises for the remainder of the First
World War, while Australian society was torn by the two conscription referenda.
This article
examines the over-expansion of the AIF, considers the scale of forces that
Australia could have maintained under various conditions, and reviews the
implications for the AIF and the nation. It describes briefly the New Zealand
and Canadian experiences, and suggests alternatives that might have been
considered at the time. Finally, it offers some principles for current leaders.
The Expansion Program
In January 1916,
after the evacuation of Gallipoli, the 1st and 2nd Divisions and the 4th
Brigade concentrated in Egypt, joining the 8th Brigade, which arrived too late
for the Gallipoli campaign. Lieutenant General Sir Alexander Godley,
temporarily commanding the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC Corps),
and commander of the AIF while in that position, estimated that after the three
divisions of the ANZAC Corps had been brought up to strength by the
reinforcements available in Egypt, there would be some 40,000 Australian and
New Zealand troops still available. To these could be added another 50,000
troops promised by Australia and some 12,000 reinforcements expected each
month.[ii]
Godley proposed
to form additional divisions from these troops. The 1st and 2nd Divisions would
remain in the ANZAC Corps, with a New Zealand division formed from the original
New Zealand Infantry Brigade, the New Zealand Rifle Brigade that was then
arriving in Egypt, and another brigade formed from reinforcements. Two new
Australian divisions, to which would be added a third new division formed in
Australia from the promised 50,000 men, would be formed into an Australian Army
Corps.[iii]
The Australian government had offered three divisions additional to the 1st and
2nd in November 1915, but the form of the new contingent had not been finalised
by January 1916, when Godley made his proposal.
Godley suggested
that the ANZAC Corps and Australian Army Corps be organised into an army under
its own commander.[iv] The staff
of the new Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF),
General Sir Archibald Murray, suggested instead that an Australian and New
Zealand Training Centre and Base be formed to handle the extra men.[v]
Murray, however, backed the plan for an Australasian army, which might help him
protect Egypt against an invasion from Sinai, and would also provide ‘as large
and efficient a force as possible, available for a strenuous campaign in France’.[vi]
Lieutenant General Sir William Birdwood also favoured the proposal to form an
Australasian army when he returned to Egypt from Gallipoli.
Birdwood
borrowed Brigadier General Brudenell White from Godley to plan the expansion.
However, to the disappointment of Birdwood and many members of his staff and
the wider force, the War Office rejected the proposal to form an Australasian
army, and the two proposed corps were named I and II ANZAC Corps.[vii]
White prepared and published some 50 ‘Circular Memoranda’ that prescribed in
detail the actions to be taken during the expansion.
Four additional
brigades were required to form the 4th and 5th Divisions, which took in the 4th
Brigade (released from the New Zealand and Australian Division by the arrival
of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade and formation of the third New Zealand
brigade), and the 8th Brigade.
The new brigades were formed by splitting the
battalions of the 1st to 4th Brigades, each generating a ‘parent’ and a ‘pup’
battalion in the process. The separate parts were brought up to strength using
reinforcements. Splitting the original battalions was not a popular option, but
Birdwood insisted on it.
The first of White’s
memoranda was dated 12 February 1916, and detailed the process for splitting
the original 16 battalions to form the 45th to 60th Battalions.[viii]
They became the 12th to 15th Brigades, while the 9th to 11th Brigades,
comprised of the 33rd to 44th Battalions, were formed in Australia for the 3rd
Division.
While the
process of splitting did provide a core of experienced personnel in each new
battalion, Bean estimated that ‘nearly three-quarters of the men in both
“veteran” and new battalions were now reinforcements’.[ix]
The training standard of the reinforcements varied. Some had never handled a
rifle before, discipline was lacking, and many did not have a full issue of
clothing. Training was disrupted by requirements to provide personnel to form
machine gun companies and pioneer battalions, and units were unable to get even
six to eight weeks of uninterrupted training before moving to France. The
training deficiencies were clearly demonstrated by the 5th Division at
Fromelles.
Providing sufficient
artillery was difficult, particularly as the Western Front divisional
establishment had 16 batteries, 12 of field guns and four of howitzers.[x]
This was almost twice the nine-battery establishment of the two existing
Australian divisions, which had no howitzer batteries.[xi]
Provision on the Western Front scale for the
1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th Divisions would require almost quadrupling the Australian
artillery available in Egypt, from 18 to 64 batteries.[xii]
With four artillery pieces in each battery, this would give each division 48
field guns and 16 howitzers.[xiii] This
process took no account of the artillery needed for the 3rd Division, nor the
additional medium and heavy artillery and survey units that were vital elements
of operations on the Western Front.
It was decided
initially that the Australian divisions would remain on the lower artillery scale.[xiv]
This decision was reversed at the end of February 1916, when ‘Murray decided
that the Australian and New Zealand artillery must be brought up to the scale
adopted for all “New Army” divisions then proceeding to France’.[xv]
The artillery being raised for the 4th and 5th Divisions was transferred to the
1st and 2nd Divisions to bring them closer to the new establishment. These
divisions, however, had to raise their howitzer batteries from their ammunition
columns.[xvi]
The artillery
for the 4th and 5th Divisions was then raised ab initio.[xvii] As a
result, that of the 5th Division was poorly trained when called on to support
the division at Fromelles in July 1916, with ‘ill consequences’.[xviii]
The training of infantry battalions was further disrupted to provide drafts of
up to 100 men to expand the artillery in each division to 15 batteries (still one
howitzer battery below the full Western Front establishment).[xix]
This provided twelve batteries of field guns and three of howitzers, a total of
60 artillery pieces in each division.
The 2nd Division
began its move to France on 13 March 1916, just over a month after White’s
first memorandum; the 1st Division followed on 21 March. The 4th and 5th
Divisions arrived in France in early June, less than four months after their
formation. Except for one regiment that moved to France as the I ANZAC Corps
cavalry, and part of another, which served with a New Zealand mounted rifles
regiment as the II ANZAC Corps cavalry, the light horse remained in Egypt with
the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade.
The 1st, 2nd,
4th and 5th Divisions entered the line in France progressively from April 1916.
The 2nd Division moved forward on 7 April, and was replaced by the 1st Division
in mid-April. Thus, less than two months after White’s first memorandum, the
1st Division, heavily disrupted by the changes, was in action. The 4th Division
moved into the line in late June, and was relieved by the 5th Division on 10
July. By five months after White’s first memorandum, all four divisions had
served in the line. Offensive action began soon after.
The first to
attack was the 5th Division, at Fromelles (19 July 1916), an attack that
generated the largest number of casualties in a 24-hour period in Australian
history. The division’s performance at Fromelles confirmed its poor state of training,
with men throwing grenades without pulling the pin, among other problems.[xx]
The biggest problem, however, was with the combat support troops: there were
gunners who had never fired a shot and trench mortar troops still waiting for
their weapons.
Next to attack was
the 1st Division at Pozières (23 July 1916), where it fought bitterly to push
the Somme offensive forward to the Pozières windmill. The 1st was relieved in
the attack by the 2nd on 27 July, and the 4th Division relieved the 2nd on 5
August. All four divisions had participated in a major attack within six months
after White’s memorandum. By contrast, the 1st Division had landed at ANZAC
more than eight months after it was raised, and the 3rd Division, which began
arriving in Britain in July 1916, did not move into the line in France until 22
November 1916. Its first major attack was at Messines Ridge (7 June 1917), more
than a year after it was formed.
While Bean
praised the 4th Division for its actions at Mouquet Farm, less than seven months
after Godley proposed its formation, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion
that the two new divisions (and, for similar reasons, the 1st and 2nd) were
inadequately trained, and were put into combat sooner than they should have
been. More than 28,000 Australian casualties were incurred at Fromelles, Pozières
and Mouquet Farm between mid-July and early September 1916.[xxi]
Responsibility
for the over-expansion can be spread widely. The British wanted the largest
possible force in Egypt and France.
Birdwood and Godley undoubtedly shared this desire, but their motives might
have been tinged with self-interest. Godley might well have hoped for a corps
command, which he soon received. Birdwood might have hoped to gain command of
the proposed Australasian army, but it did not eventuate, and he had to wait
until May 1918 to take command of the Fifth Army.
The principal
architects of the expansion seem to have been Godley and Birdwood, supported by
Murray; White’s administrative genius made it happen, in a time-frame that was
challenging at the time, and would probably not even be achievable now. The
influence of Australian political and military authorities in Melbourne seems
to have been limited.
Pearce and the
CGS, Colonel Hubert Foster, seemed more concerned about who would command the
new divisions and brigades than the long-term viability of the proposal. Pearce
seems to have been a hands-off minister, who did not involve himself in the
detailed administration of his department.[xxii]
While he thus avoided the excesses of his Canadian counterpart, Sir Sam Hughes,
he missed opportunities to ensure that the AIF was well managed, such as were
taken by the New Zealand Minister for Defence, Sir James Allen.
Neither the
Department of Defence in Australia, nor the Military Board, seemed to inquire
into the expansion actively, nor did they seem to inquire into likely casualty
rates on the Western Front, to enable them to provide guidance to Birdwood and
White. White provided the administrative efficiency necessary to make the expansion
happen. However, he does not seem to have sought advice from Australia on the
feasibility of the promised reinforcement figure of ‘about 12,000 per month’.[xxiii]
White seemed to
overlook the importance of resource availability on other occasions. After the
war, he participated in a committee on the military defence of Australia.[xxiv]
Despite guidance from Pearce that ‘finances were straitened, and therefore any
scheme must be within reason’, this committee proposed a peacetime army of 130,000
predominantly part-time personnel, an unlikely objective in the immediate
aftermath of the First World War.[xxv]
On balance,
Australian political and military leaders (who included Birdwood as the commander
of the AIF, and Godley as acting commander when the expansion proposal was
first mooted) were more at fault than the British. Pearce seemed not to be
involved in detailed planning, and neither Foster nor the Military Board
provided any note of caution to Birdwood and White. They, in turn, apparently
did not seek more information on the recruitment situation in Australia, nor on
the wastage rates being experienced on the Western Front, even as casualties
rose and recruitment declined during 1916.
The New Zealand Approach
The original New
Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) comprised an infantry brigade of four
battalions and a mounted rifle brigade of three regiments, plus an independent
mounted rifles regiment. These units were based on New Zealand’s four regional
military districts, and were linked with units of the New Zealand Territorial
Forces. They were titled the Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago
Battalions or Mounted Rifle Regiments respectively.
The original New
Zealand infantry brigade was doubled in early 1916, also using a technique of
splitting battalions. The new units became the 2nd Auckland (etc) Battalions,
and the original units became the 1st Auckland (etc) Battalions. The new 3rd
New Zealand (Rifle) Brigade, recently arrived from New Zealand, was used to
complete the New Zealand Division.
The New Zealand
reinforcement system, for which conscription was introduced in 1916,[xxvi]
enabled the division to be ‘nearly always kept at full strength’.[xxvii]
Once the expansion of the NZEF was agreed, ‘the Territorial system of
recruiting based on district quotas was adjusted to a national monthly
recruiting target’.[xxviii] On
enlistment, volunteers ‘were enrolled then sent home to await call-up in
batches of 2000 at monthly intervals’ for training and despatch overseas.[xxix]
This provided a regular flow of reinforcements to the NZEF each month.
This system
ensured that on 11 November 1918 the New Zealand Division was 17,434 strong,
backed by 10,000 trained reinforcements in France and Britain and 10,000 more
under training in New Zealand.[xxx] It was then
the strongest division in the British armies on the Western Front.[xxxi]
In contrast, on 31 July 1918, the average strength of the five Australian
infantry divisions was 10,561.[xxxii]
In late 1916,
New Zealand was asked to raise a second division. Sir James Allen, the Minister
for Defence, and Major General Sir Andrew Russell, commander of the New Zealand
Division, resisted this request. The War Office had advised New Zealand in 1909
that annual wastage in a major war could be 65 to 75 percent; when this was
added to first reinforcements of 10 to 15 percent for each unit, Allen realised
that New Zealand might need to replace almost its entire deployed force
annually.[xxxiii]
Allen was
‘determined to eke out the resources that were available’, with the priority
being the maintenance of the NZEF at full strength.[xxxiv]
He would not permit unchecked expansion, unless convinced ‘beforehand that
there were sufficient reserves of manpower in New Zealand to sustain the
increase in strength’.[xxxv]
As a compromise,
the 4th New Zealand Brigade was raised in 1917, with newly raised 3rd
battalions of the four regional infantry units.[xxxvi]
The brigade served in the II ANZAC Corps attack at Gravenstafel in October
1917, alongside the I ANZAC Corps attack on Broodseinde Ridge,[xxxvii]
but was disbanded early in 1918. The personnel were used as reinforcements, and
to form three entrenching battalions as a divisional reserve.[xxxviii]
New Zealand did not need to reduce the number of battalions in a brigade from
four to three, as happened in the British army, and some divisions of the AIF.
The New Zealand
system of successively numbered battalions bearing regional designations might
have made disbandment of the 4th New Zealand Brigade less traumatic than the
disbandment of the individually numbered Australian battalions. However, the
4th New Zealand Brigade’s limited period of front-line service probably also
contributed.
By November 1918
New Zealand had sent almost 101,000 men to the war. This number equated to
replacement of the approximately 20,000 strong NZEF each year.[xxxix]
This total was within the resources of New Zealand’s population of just over
one million. At 19.35 percent of the total white male population, it
significantly exceeded the 13.43 percent recruited in Australia.[xl]
The Canadian Approach
The initial organisation
of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) was chaotic, largely the fault of the
Minister for Militia, Sir Sam Hughes. A plan prepared in 1911 ‘called for
composite units to be drawn from all the regions of Canada’. This was modified
in 1913 to a system based on mobilising existing militia units. Hughes scrapped
both plans, and completely new units were raised, as in the AIF.[xli]
The
CEF was also over-expanded. During the war around 260 Canadian infantry
battalions were raised and sent overseas, but most were used as reinforcement
pools. Four Canadian divisions served on the Western Front. A Canadian 5th
Division was raised and sent to Britain, but successive commanders of the
Canadian Corps declined to move it to the front, using it instead as a depot
division to keep the four deployed divisions up to strength. A Canadian cavalry
brigade (which included one British regiment) also served on the Western Front.
Only one battalion that had served in action was removed from the order of
battle during the war (the 60th, disbanded in early 1917 for lack of
Francophone reinforcements).[xlii]
In early 1918,
the British suggested that a two corps Canadian army of six divisions (each of
nine, rather than 12, battalions) might be formed,[xliii]
but Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Currie, the Canadian Corps commander, refused.
He ‘believed that the gain in real fighting strength would have been minimal
because of the increased number of rear area troops necessary to maintain an
army and … there was still a shortage of trained staff officers’.[xliv]
Currie pointed
out that there would be an increase of an army staff, an extra corps staff, two
divisional staffs, and six brigade staffs, but a gain of only six battalions.[xlv]
He preferred a four division corps with sufficient support troops and
reinforcements. Some of the necessary staffs and battalions could have come
from the 5th Division, the Canadian depot division in Britain, but Currie was
reluctant to accept those. This was probably in part because the son of the
former minister, Garnet Hughes, whose military capacity was unproven, commanded
the 5th Division.
By 1918 the
Canadian Corps was the strongest on the Western Front. Its divisions retained
12 battalions (as did the New Zealand Division), giving them 12,000 infantry at
full strength, compared to 8100 in the reduced British (and Australian)
divisions. They also had additional support troops, secured through Currie’s
insistence that he command a well-supported corps of four divisions rather than
the proposed Canadian army of two corps.
Canadian
divisions each had three engineer battalions, compared to the three companies
in other divisions; they also had a pontoon bridging company, and their machine
gun battalions were three times the strength of their British counterparts.[xlvi]
There was a labour battalion assigned to each division, sparing the frontline
battalions the carrying and digging duties that fell to the AIF’s infantry
battalions.
The use of
artillery was a key element of the Canadian Corps’ success. The Corps’
General Officer Commanding Royal Artillery commanded all the artillery in the
Corps during some phases of operations, while command (including of additional
field artillery and some heavy artillery) was devolved to divisions on other
occasions.[xlvii]
The indirect fire support provided to the Canadian Corps was also on a higher
scale than the general level. The artillery brigade of the disbanded 5th
Division was retained and deployed to France, and an extra corps field
artillery brigade was added. The Canadians also had extra heavy trench mortar
batteries.[xlviii]
A Canadian
officer, Lieutenant Colonel Andrew McNaughton, became the Corps’
Counter-Battery Staff Officer in January 1917, responsible for locating and
either destroying or neutralising the enemy’s batteries.[xlix]
He made the Canadian Corps’ counter-battery work the model for the Western
Front.[l]
The Canadian Corps also had its own flash spotting and sound ranging sections,
which assisted in the location of hostile battery positions.[li]
McNaughton later became commander of the Canadian Corps Heavy Artillery, the
executive arm of the counter-battery staff.
Canada’s
enlistment total was held back by the reluctance of its Francophone population
to enlist. While no accurate figures are available on the total number of
Francophone enlistments, Quebec, with some 27 percent of Canada’s population of
around 7.2 million in 1911, provided 14.2 percent of CEF enlistments, many of
whom undoubtedly came from the Anglophone minority in the province.[lii]
When the flow of
reinforcements became inadequate after the capture of Vimy Ridge in April 1917,
the government decided to impose conscription. After a bitterly fought election
campaign, military compulsion came into force in January 1918.[liii]
By the end of the war, some 47,500 conscripted soldiers had proceeded overseas,
and just over 24,100 had joined units in France.[liv]
By then, the personnel of the disbanded 5th Division had also joined the
reinforcement pool used to maintain the Canadian Corps.
By November 1918,
some 458,000 Canadians had been sent overseas or were undergoing training. This
was 13.48 percent of the total white male population of Canada. [lv]
The number of troops Canada deployed overseas assisted in keeping units up to
strength, but problems developed towards the end of the ‘Hundred Days’ from 8
August to 11 November 1918, as numbers in battalions declined and the high
tempo of operations exhausted the infantry. By November, ‘the effectiveness of
the [Canadian] corps’ infantry battalions began to falter’.[lvi]
Limits to Australia’s Military Capacity
Bean records
that almost 332,000 Australians served overseas during the war, from a
population of around 4.7 million.[lvii] This was
13.43 percent of the total white male population, similar to the Canadian
proportion, but significantly below the 19.35 percent recruited in New Zealand.[lviii]
This number was not adequate to maintain in operations a force ultimately
comprising five infantry divisions and a corps cavalry regiment and part of
another on the Western Front, as well as four and two thirds mounted brigades
in the Middle East.
Based on the New Zealand and Canadian
experience, the volunteer personnel actually sent overseas during the war were
sufficient only to maintain three divisions (of 12 infantry battalions) on the
Western Front and the mounted force in the Middle East. Based on the New Zealand
experience with conscription, Australia could have maintained four such infantry
divisions on the Western Front and the mounted force in the Middle East, but
only if conscription had been introduced by the end of 1916.
While
recruitment in Australia was still strong in early 1916, for Birdwood and White
to expand the AIF in Egypt to four divisions without the certainty that conscription
might have provided, and with another division to be formed in Australia, was
an act of faith. Even with conscription, it is unlikely that a force of five
infantry divisions on the Western Front and the mounted force in Palestine could
have been sustained.[lix]
As with the
Canadian experience, the introduction of conscription in 1918, after the second
referendum, would probably have been too late to increase significantly the
flow of reinforcements.
The Effects on the AIF
The reinforcement
estimates that justified the doubling of the AIF soon proved optimistic. While
Godley had expected some 12,000 reinforcements each month, recruitment exceeded
this level on only three occasions between December 1915 and November 1918.
January, February and March 1916 together produced some 56,000 recruits, but
from then until the end of the war, monthly recruiting exceeded 10,000 on only
two occasions, and 5000 on six occasions, all during 1916.[lx]
This decline in the number of new recruits had effects on the manning of the
AIF that were particularly felt during the later months of 1918, when heavy
casualties and fatigue saw battalions dangerously undermanned and exhausted.
By the time the
AIF entered offensive operations on the Western Front in mid-1916, the supply
of reinforcements to maintain its strength was already falling, and units
relied on rest periods away from the line and returning sick and wounded to
re-build. The failure of the two conscription referenda in October 1916 and
December 1917 should have removed any hope that the decline in recruitment
could be reversed, and provided the triggers for the Australian government to
consider the future strength of the AIF, after seeking advice from Birdwood.
Australian authorities, both in Melbourne and
the leaders of the AIF, failed to consider the implications of this decline and
make consequent adjustments to manpower and force structure planning. This left
the fighting elements of the AIF on the Western Front to manage dwindling
reinforcements and a slow decline in numbers of frontline troops.
The provision of
officers was another problematic area for all the Dominion forces, and for the
British themselves. The British staff in Egypt had commented that the
‘Australian Training Dépôt in Egypt has always found the greatest difficulty in
producing officers of any value and non-commissioned officers of any sort at
all’.[lxi]
During the
expansion, officers were sought from better-educated men serving in the ranks,
including in the light horse. Some commanders were so robust in their search as
to cause complaints, such as by Brigadier General Duncan Glasfurd, commanding
the 12th Brigade, that some ‘C.O’s and even Brigade commanders exceeded the
limits of courtesy and common-sense by sending emissaries to [the lines of the
12th Brigade] to offer my officers better positions in other units’.[lxii]
The provision of
officers continued to be a problem in France. By August 1916, a 1st Brigade
report noted that ‘40 new officers have been promoted from the ranks … though
the new men are very good men few are of what used to be known as the officers
type’.[lxiii]
This suggests that, even before the full impact of the Western Front casualty
rate was felt, a wider (and presumably more egalitarian) range of candidates
for commissioning was being tapped, an early pointer to future problems in an
over-expanded force.
Despite all of
these problems, the 6th Division was partly formed in England in 1917 following
a request from the War Office (which in May 1916 had opposed its formation[lxiv]),
but it was never sent to France.[lxv] The 6th
Division was disbanded in September 1917 to provide reinforcements. After the
German offensives of March/April 1918, personnel pressures came to a head, and
battalions could not be kept up to strength. Between 21 March and 8 May 1918,
when it helped stem the German offensives, the AIF suffered more than 15,000
casualties.[lxvi]
Between 8 August and 6 October 1918, its final campaign, the AIF suffered over
21,000 casualties.[lxvii]
Enlistments in
Australia totalled fewer than 29,000 from January 1918 to the end of the war.[lxviii]
Filling the gaps in the ranks therefore depended on the return of sick and
wounded men. If the war had continued into 1919, it seems unlikely that the AIF
could have maintained as many as three divisions in the field, even if the
number of infantry battalions in each brigade had been reduced to three.
During winter
1917-18, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) reduced the number of battalions
in its brigades to three.[lxix] When
later applied to the AIF, this change culminated in the disbandment ‘refusals’
(to use a tactful word) in the later part of the year. The first units were
disbanded between late April and the end of May 1918, when the ‘names and part
of [the] staffs [of the 36th, 47th and 52nd Battalions were] transferred to the
training battalions of their brigades in England’.[lxx]
Their men were transferred to other units of their brigades. The men of the
three battalions accepted this artifice.
When, however,
the next battalions were selected for disbandment in late September, the
reaction was stronger. The 19th, 21st, 25th, 37th, 42nd, 54th and 60th
Battalions were selected for disbandment under the same system. One commanding
officer was relieved of his command after an intemperate response; some units
maintained their structure under junior soldiers, others pleaded for one last
chance. Only one battalion gave way, with the 60th responding to a personal
plea from Brigadier General ‘Pompey’ Elliott. Elliott was disgusted when he
learned the next day that the other battalions would be allowed to go intact
into what eventuated as their final battle.[lxxi]
New Zealand
historian Christopher Pugsley has recorded the effect on morale and discipline
in Australian units that were declining in strength.[lxxii]
Combat exhaustion impacted on sickness and discipline rates in grossly
under-strength units, and Elliott recorded that the men ‘did not have the same
spirit at all as the old men we had’.[lxxiii]
The continued decline in battalion strengths eventually contributed to mutinies
by men of the 59th Battalion[lxxiv] and the
1st Battalion[lxxv] in
September 1918.
Another adverse
effect was that the shortage of personnel prevented the formation of units that
could have improved the effectiveness of the Australian Corps in 1918. Unlike
the Canadian Corps, which developed its own counter-bombardment organisation,
the ‘Australian (and New Zealand) artillery missed such an opportunity’.[lxxvi]
A proposal ‘to form a corps topographical company of 170 all ranks with
sections at each division did not proceed’.[lxxvii]
A later suggestion that a topographical battalion be raised ‘was also shelved
for lack of manpower’.[lxxviii] Other
specialist units, such as flash spotting and sound ranging elements, were
apparently not even considered.
The doubling of
the AIF was a great administrative achievement by Birdwood and White, but their
actions did not take into account the difficulties of maintaining the force
they had forged. Australian units provided little of the AIF’s logistic
support, and each additional Australian division required logistic support from
the BEF.
The decision to raise the 6th Division
suggests that the authorities in Australia, Birdwood and White, and the War Office,
had not understood the long-tem implications of the reinforcement problems of
1916, and the failure of the first conscription referendum in October 1916. These
implications finally sank in after the failure of the second conscription
referendum and the heavy casualties at Passchendaele, but decisive action to
resolve the resulting problems was not taken.
Effects in Australia
The two
conscription referenda divided Australian society politically, and their
effects are discernible today. They involved fierce political argument, and
eventually the Labor government of Prime Minister W.M. ‘Billy’ Hughes split
over the issue, forming a pro-conscription Australian Nationalist Party.
This had
long-term political and military implications. The Labor Party was thereafter
an opponent of conscription, particularly for overseas service. While the
government of Prime Minister John Curtin was able to pass the Defence (Citizen Military Forces) Act 1943,
to allow conscripts to serve in limited areas outside Australian territory, the
opposition to conscription during the Vietnam War was an echo of the events of
1916 and 1917.
Possible Alternatives
A range of
possible alternatives existed that might have enabled units to be kept closer
to full strength. One suggestion by the British in late 1916, that Australia
should increase the monthly level of reinforcements to 16,500 and also provide a
special draft of 20,000 men, however, seems to have been quite detached from
reality, even had the conscription referendum passed. The drop off in
enlistments was too severe for this to have been realistic.
By early 1916,
Birdwood, Godley and White should have been aware of the Western Front’s heavy
demand for reinforcements, and the imperative for troops to be well trained before
posting them to battalions about to go into action. The first priority in March
1916 should therefore have been development of the Australian administrative
and training structure recommended by Murray’s staff.[lxxix]
This would have enabled the training of the reinforcements then available in
Egypt to be completed before they joined operational units.
A training and
administrative structure was developed later, in Britain,[lxxx]
but extra training for the reinforcements in Egypt would have prepared them
more adequately for battle than posting partially trained men to units
re-constructing themselves after being split, or building themselves from the cadres
provided by their parent battalions. Once a training and administrative
structure had been established, the many untrained and partially trained
reinforcements in the Middle East should have been placed under its control. It
is unlikely that enough trained reinforcements would then have remained
available to form both the 4th and the 5th Divisions, as well as bring the 1st
and 2nd Divisions and the 4th Brigade back to full strength.
Restrict the AIF to four divisions, raising
one more in Egypt, and one in Australia
An AIF of four
infantry divisions and (ultimately) 15 light horse regiments would have been a
larger commitment on a population basis than the four divisions and two cavalry
regiments that Canada deployed to the Western Front. It would have been a
similar scale of commitment to New Zealand’s single division and four mounted
rifles regiments, which required conscription to be maintained.
Under this option, only the minimum
additional forces to complete a new division based on the 4th and 8th Brigades
would have been raised in Egypt in 1916. This would have been one additional infantry
brigade, possibly based on the 4th Brigade, which had representation from all
states in its battalions. Artillery, engineers, and other supporting arms and
services would also have been required for the new division, and pioneers,
machine gunners and additional artillery for the 1st and 2nd Divisions.
An alternative
to splitting the battalions of the 4th Brigade would have been to convert some
of the light horse to infantry. Canada dismounted six Canadian Mounted Rifles
units, and formed them into four infantry battalions, which retained CMR
titles.[lxxxi]
The British later pursued this path with some success when raising the 74th
(Yeomanry) Division in 1917, amalgamating 18 yeomanry regiments to form 12
infantry battalions.
Under this
alternative, six of the existing 13 light horse regiments could have been
converted into four infantry battalions (retaining light horse titles and emu
plumes). This would also have reduced the demand for light horse
reinforcements. Seven regiments would have remained mounted, sufficient to
provide a corps cavalry regiment for I ANZAC Corps and two mounted brigades to
join the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade in an ANZAC Mounted Division.
Under this
model, the raising of the 3rd Division in Australia could have continued. After
the 3rd Division arrived in Britain, it functioned as a de facto depot division in late 1916, giving up some 2800 personnel
to the other divisions in August, and being warned that a further 5460 might be
taken in mid-October.[lxxxii] In an unsuccessful
attempt to influence the outcome of the first conscription referendum, British
authorities suggested that the 3rd Division might be broken up before it had
seen front line service.[lxxxiii] After
the failure of the first conscription referendum in October 1916, however, the
3rd Division arguably should not have been deployed to the Western Front, but
should either have been broken up, as the British had proposed, or remained in
Britain as a depot division.[lxxxiv]
Once five
infantry divisions were deployed on the Western Front, their maintenance became
an ongoing problem. After Passchendaele, consideration was given to disbanding
the 4th Division, however, it was instead planned to use it as a depot
division.[lxxxv]
This plan lasted for only three weeks before the division was returned to the
line at Péronne.[lxxxvi]
The 4th Division
frequently seemed to miss the opportunity to rest and absorb reinforcements,
moving after Bullecourt to join II ANZAC Corps for Messines, and moving back to
I ANZAC Corps for Passchendaele. Unsurprisingly, two battalions from that
division were selected for disbandment in May 1918 after devastating losses
sustained while helping to halt the German Spring Offensive.
Leave two divisions in Egypt, to defend the
Suez Canal and later take part in the Sinai/Palestine campaign
If the expansion
to five infantry divisions was seen as politically essential, then leaving part
of the Australian infantry in Egypt might have enabled the flow of voluntary
enlistments to suffice. Divisional establishments, particularly in artillery,
were lower in Egypt than on the Western Front, as were battle casualty rates
once active operations began against the Turks. This alternative would have
eased the reinforcement problem. As the newest and least trained divisions, the
4th and 5th would have been the obvious choices to remain in Egypt, but other
divisions would still have been needed for the Western Front.
In April 1916,
there were four British First-Line Territorial divisions in Egypt (the 42nd,
52nd, 53rd and 54th), all of which had fought in the Dardanelles. Murray
originally placed the Australian divisions last in the order for movement to
France, ‘because they [were] the most backward in training and discipline’.[lxxxvii]
The four Territorial divisions, however, ‘were short of men and, in most cases,
less well staffed or commanded’.[lxxxviii]
That said, all
four had been on full-time service since August 1914, and all had served in
action. They had their divisional artillery, albeit at a lower scale than
required on the Western Front, while the 1st and 2nd Divisions were expanding
their artillery, and the 4th and 5th Divisions were in the process of raising
theirs ab initio. The Territorial
divisions should have been better prepared than the 4th and 5th Divisions, and
two of them could have been substituted for two Australian divisions, which would
man the Suez Canal defences while completing their training.[lxxxix]
The 1st and 2nd
Divisions, with the New Zealand Division, would have gone to the Western Front
as I ANZAC Corps, to fight the main enemy in the main theatre of war. Godley,
as commander of the NZEF, would have had to transfer to France with the New
Zealand Division, removing his immediate opportunity to gain a corps command,
just as Birdwood had to wait for his army command. The 3rd Division would have
joined them late in 1916, as it did in reality.
After Gallipoli,
leaving some Australian infantry alongside the light horse to continue the
fight against the Turks might have been considered appropriate in Australia. Moving
two fewer divisions to France would have reduced transport times from Australia
for their reinforcements, releasing shipping for other purposes.
Indeed, following
a suggestion by the AIF Surgeon General, Neville Howse, VC, Birdwood proposed in
1918 that all of the Australian infantry divisions could be transferred to the
Middle East. Howse believed the climate there was ‘more suitable for
Australians’, and ‘the Australian divisions would be more effective there’.[xc]
The decline in reinforcements from Australia might also have been balanced by a
lower sickness rate. Transport of reinforcements from Australia would have been
faster, releasing shipping for other purposes.[xci]
Bean suggested
that the ‘humiliation of making such a confession of weakness [an inability to
continue fighting on the Western Front because of personnel shortages] would
have been deeply galling to many Australians’.[xcii]
Australia’s allies, however, would have been well aware of the reinforcement problem,
which was also affecting them, so this does not seem a sufficient reason to
reject the proposal. [xciii] The
German offensives of March/April 1918 removed the proposal from consideration
before a decision was made.
A regimental organisation?
A different
approach to organisation might have assisted. Bean expressed regret that the
AIF had been raised as individual battalions, rather than as regiments, which
exacerbated the difficulties of disbanding units.[xciv]
Canada used a similar battalion system, but it was established practice for
most to be broken up for reinforcements as soon as they arrived in Britain. The
smaller deployed Canadian force, both absolutely and relative to population, enabled
its divisions to retain 12 battalions in 1918.
The New Zealand
system of raising regional units named for military districts, and based on its
Territorial Force, seemed more successful than the Australian and Canadian ‘New
Army’ systems. It seemed to make disbandment of the battalions in the 4th New
Zealand Brigade comparatively painless. Even in 1916, however, changing the AIF
to a regimental system might have produced a similar reaction to that in 1918,
as unit titles with which troops identified closely after Gallipoli would have
been changed.
An existing alternative
that might have been employed was the system the British used to raise Second-Line
Territorial Army units. A First-Line Territorial battalion (say the 4th Royal
Blankshires) would provide the cadre for a new unit. The original unit would
renumber as the 1st/4th, and its newly raised Second-Line battalion became the
2nd/4th. Contraction simply involved the two battalions re-combining as the
original 4th Royal Blankshires.
Under such a
system, the original 1st to 16th Battalions would have become the 1st/1st to
the 1st/16th, and the new battalions the 2nd/1st to the 2nd/16th. As with the
British Territorial First and Second-Line battalions, reduction by
recombination might have caused fewer morale and command problems. Use of this
system would have maintained a closer link between ‘parent’ and ‘pup’
battalions, even had contraction not become necessary.
Amalgamation of
battalions could have been used in 1918, as the British did. As an example, the
5th and 6th Royal Welsh Fusiliers produced Second-Line battalions early in the
war.[xcv]
They ended the war amalgamated as a single 5th/6th Battalion.[xcvi]
Indeed, when Gellibrand discussed the disbandment of the 37th Battalion with
its men, one point he elicited was that the ‘amalgamation of two battalions
would be less keenly felt than the extinction … of one of them’.[xcvii]
As an example of
this system, the 60th Battalion, selected for disbandment, could have
amalgamated with another battalion of its brigade (the amalgamated 57th/60th
Battalion served in action during the Second World War). If ‘Pompey’ Elliott
could persuade the men of the 60th to disband, he should have had little trouble
persuading them to amalgamate, and retain some of their unit heritage!
Implications for Today’s Leaders
What lessons can
leaders of the Defence Organisation today learn from the AIF’s experience?
While many can be identified, there would seem to be six principal implications.
First, ministers
must ensure that they understand the full resource (personnel, financial and
materiel) implications of proposals put to them by their military advisers.
This will require them to understand the assumptions behind those proposals,
and if necessary to demand the information necessary to gain that
understanding. Sir James Allen understood the implications of the likely
casualty rate on the Western Front for the NZEF in a way that seemed to escape
Pearce for the AIF.
Second, ministers
must involve themselves in the administration of their department. They should
leave technical matters to their military advisers, but supervise carefully,
using the old adage ‘trust, but check’. Sir Sam Hughes interfered in the CEF to
such an extent that Canada eventually had to establish a separate department
overseas to remove the administration of its expeditionary force from him;
Pearce was detached to the extent that an over-expanded force could not be
maintained, while financial scandals plagued his wartime administration.
Third, military
leaders must be confident that the full personnel, financial and materiel
implications of proposals they put forward have been considered, and will be
achievable within the level of resources that could realistically be made
available to the Defence Organisation. They must not allow personal
considerations to influence their actions (Russell and Currie both rejected
proposals that could have led to their promotion)
Fourth, military
leaders must ensure that the appropriate range of supporting arms and services
is provided to deployed forces. If adequate resources are not offered by the
minister/government, they must explain the implications of the shortfall, and
establish the military necessity for
such support to be included, or provide options that are achievable. Canadian
divisions each had three field engineer battalions, rather than the three
companies of other divisions in the British armies in France, and a wider range
of artillery support. Australia disbanded some field artillery brigades when
the Western Front establishment was changed in 1917.[xcviii]
Fifth, morale is
a function of command; commanders at all levels must ensure that their
superiors are aware of matters affecting morale, and take all practicable steps
to resolve those matters.
Finally, while
there are good reasons to maintain units under-strength or at cadre levels in
peacetime, units deployed for operations must have their establishment of
trained personnel and equipment. They must be maintained at or close to those
strengths while on operations, or risk a capability gap that could affect the
overall mission.
Conclusion
Australia was
not well served by its senior political and military leadership during the
First World War. In Australia, Pearce, the Defence Department, and the Military
Board, did not seem to understand what was happening in the AIF overseas. They
seemed to focus more on meeting demands from the War Office and Birdwood,
without questioning how those demands would impact on Australia’s national
interests. When the conscription referenda failed, the political and military
leadership did not re-assess the size of the force that could be supported by
voluntary enlistment, and order adjustments.
The Australian
authorities overseas, principally Birdwood, did not make sound decisions about
the scale of force they could deploy. When it became obvious that the force
they had developed could not be supported, they did not advise the Australian
government to reduce it to a supportable level. The problems of morale and
indiscipline that plagued the AIF, particularly over the last few months of the
war were ultimately their responsibility.
Today’s leaders
must do better.[xcix]
JOHN DONOVAN
[i] The ten Australian
companies of the ICC were later converted to become the 14th and 15th Light
Horse regiments, See H.S. Gullett, The
Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, Vol VII, The AIF in Sinai and Palestine,
University of Queensland Press reprint, St Lucia, 1984, pp. 211, 640
[ii] C.E.W. Bean, The Official History of Australia in the War
of 1914-1918, Vol III, The AIF in
France, 1916, University of Queensland Press reprint, St Lucia, 1982, p. 32
[iii] Bean, Vol III, p. 32
[iv] Bean, Vol III, p. 33
[v] Bean, Vol III, p. 33
[vi] Bean, Vol III, p. 34
[vii] Bean, Vol III, p. 39
[viii] Bean, Vol III, pp. 40, 41
[ix] Bean, Vol III, p. 54
[x] Bean, Vol III, p. 37
[xi] Bean, Vol III, p. 37
[xii] Bean, Vol III, p. 37
[xiii] C.E.W. Bean, The Official History of Australia in the War
of 1914-1918, Vol V, The AIF in
France, December 1917-May 1918, University of Queensland Press reprint, St
Lucia, 1983, p. 681
[xiv] Bean, Vol III, p. 37
[xv] Bean, Vol III, p. 63
[xvi] Bean, Vol III, p. 64
[xvii] Bean, Vol III, p. 64
[xviii] Bean, Vol III, p. 64
[xix] Bean, Vol III, p. 55
[xx] Roger Lee, The Battle of Fromelles, 1916, Big Sky
Publishing, Sydney, 2010, p. 169
[xxi] The Australian government
purchased the Pozières windmill site, and a memorial was built there to the
23,000 AIF casualties suffered around Pozières and Mouquet Farm between late
July and early September 1916, and the other Australian casualties on the Somme
later that year.
[xxii] For more on Pearce’s aptitude and approach to the
Defence portfolio, see John Connor, ANZAC and Empire:
George Foster Pearce and the Foundations of Australian Defence, Cambridge
University Press, Port Melbourne, 2011
[xxiii] Bean, Vol III, p. 32
[xxiv] This group, which also
included Generals Monash, Chauvel, Hobbs, McCay and Legge, produced the Report on the Military Defence of Australia
by a Conference of Senior Officers of the Australian Military Forces, 1920,
AWM1, item 20/7
[xxv] Albert Palazzo, The Australian Army: A History of its
Organisation 1901-2001, Oxford University press, South Melbourne, 2001, pp.
88-92
[xxvi] Christopher Pugsley, The Anzac Experience: New Zealand, Australia
and Empire in the First World War, Reed Publishing, Auckland, 2004, p. 68
[xxvii] Glyn Harper, Dark Journey: Three key New Zealand battles
of the Western Front, HarperCollinsPublishers,
Auckland, 2007, p. 333
[xxviii] Pugsley, The Anzac Experience, p. 66
[xxix] Pugsley, The Anzac Experience, p. 67
[xxx] Pugsley, The Anzac Experience, p. 69
[xxxi] Harper, Dark Journey, p. 151, Pugsley, The Anzac Experience, p. 298
[xxxii] C.E.W. Bean, The Official History of Australia in the War
of 1914-1918, Vol VI, The AIF in
France, May 1918-Armistice, University of Queensland Press reprint, St
Lucia, 1983, p. 484
[xxxiii] Pugsley, The Anzac Experience, p. 56
[xxxiv] Pugsley, The Anzac Experience, p. 68
[xxxv] Pugsley, The Anzac Experience, p. 64
[xxxvi] Pugsley, The Anzac Experience, p. 68
[xxxvii] Harper, Dark Journey, p. 51
[xxxviii] Entrenching battalions were
advanced sections of the divisional base, organised as battalions to undertake
works near the line, and as immediate reinforcements. (Bean, Vol III, p. 177)
[xxxix] Pugsley, The Anzac Experience, p. 69
[xl] Bean, Vol VI, p. 1098
[xli] J.L. Granatstein, Canada’s Army: Waging War and keeping the
Peace, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2002, pp. 55, 56
[xlii] Granatstein, Canada’s Army, p. 128
[xliii] Granatstein, Canada’s Army, p. 129
[xliv] Granatstein, Canada’s Army, p. 130
[xlv] Shane B. Schrieber, Shock Army of the British Empire: The
Canadian Corps in the Last 100 Days of the Great War, Praeger Series in War
Studies, Westport, 1997, pp. 20, 21
[xlvi] Schrieber, Shock Army of the British Empire, p. 24
[xlvii] Schrieber, Shock Army of the British Empire, p. 22
and Appendix
[xlviii] Schrieber, Shock Army of the British Empire, pp.
22, 23
[xlix] Granatstein, Canada’s Army, p. 108
[l] Granatstein, Canada’s Army, p. 109
[li] Alan H. Smith, Do Unto Others: Counter Bombardment in
Australia’s Military Campaigns, Big Sky Publishing, Newport, 2011, p. 155
[lii] Granatstein, Canada’s Army, p. 75
[liii] Granatstein, Canada’s Army, pp. 126, 127
[liv] Granatstein, Canada’s Army, p. 128
[lv] Bean, Vol VI, p. 1098
[lvi] Granatstein, Canada’s Army, p. 140
[lvii] Bean, Vol VI, p. 1098
[lviii] Bean, Vol VI, p. 1098
[lix] This problem was not
confined to Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Britain raised 76 infantry
divisions during the war, of which 65 served on active fighting fronts; the others remained in Britain, and some of them
were probably never complete. In 1918 several of the deployed divisions were effectively withdrawn
from active service for lack of reinforcements. Other divisions in the Middle
East received a high proportion of Indian infantry battalions, to replace
British battalions that could no longer be maintained. (Martin Middlebrook, Your Country Needs You: Expansion of the
British Army Infantry Divisions 1914-1918, Leo Cooper, Barnsley, 2000)
[lx] Joan Beaumont (ed.), Australian Defence: Sources and Statistics,
Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2001, p. 109
[lxi] Bean, Vol III, p. 33
[lxii] Bean, Vol III, p. 54
[lxiii] Dale Blair, Dinkum Diggers: An Australian Battalion at
War, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2001, p. 56
[lxiv] Bean, Vol V, p. 5, f/n 5
[lxv] Bean, Vol V, pp. 15-17, 544
[lxvi] Bean, Vol V, p. 657
[lxvii] Peter Pedersen, The Anzacs: Gallipoli to the Western Front,
Penguin, Camberwell, 2007, p. 446
[lxviii] Beaumont (ed.), Australian Defence: Sources and Statistics,
p. 109
[lxix] Bean, Vol V, pp. 20, 21
[lxx] Bean, Vol V, p. 658. For the effect
of this disbandment on the men of one of the affected battalions, see Craig
Deayton, Battle Scarred: the 47th
Battalion in the First World War, Big Sky Publishing, Newport, 2011, pp.
261-271.
[lxxi] Bean, Vol VI, pp. 937-940
[lxxii] Pugsley, The Anzac Experience, pp. 256, 257
[lxxiii] Ashley Ekins, The Australians at Passchendaele, in
Peter Liddle (ed.), Passchendaele in
Perspective, The Third Battle of Ypres, Leo Cooper, London, 1997, quoted in
Pugsley, The Anzac Experience, p. 68
[lxxiv] Bean, Vol VI, p. 875
[lxxv] Bean, Vol VI, pp. 933, 934
[lxxvi] Smith, Do Unto Others, p. 6
[lxxvii] Smith, Do Unto Others, p. 23
[lxxviii] Smith, Do Unto Others, p. 23
[lxxix] Bean, Vol III, p. 33
[lxxx] Bean, Vol III, Ch VI
[lxxxi] Granatstein, Canada’s Army, p. 88
[lxxxii] Bean, Vol III, pp. 866, 867
[lxxxiii] Bean, Vol III, p. 866
[lxxxiv] After the 3rd Division had been committed to battle,
any attempt to break it up to reinforce the remainder would have been fraught
with the same problems that were encountered in 1918 when battalions were
disbanded, as would any attempt to break up the 5th Division after it was
crippled at Fromelles. There would also have been difficulties in breaking up
units from the smaller states, like the 40th Battalion from Tasmania and the
43rd from South Australia. The 40th Battalion was the only all-Tasmanian
battalion, even though that state contributed elements to the 12th, 15th, 26th,
47th, and 52nd Battalions. Losing its only ‘full’ battalion could have affected
recruiting in the island state.
[lxxxv] Bean, Vol V, p. 4
[lxxxvi] Bean, Vol V, p. 19
[lxxxvii] Bean, Vol III, p. 62
[lxxxviii] Bean, Vol III, p. 62
[lxxxix] At this time there were
five British divisions (the 10th, 22nd and 26th New Army, and 27th and 28th
Regular, sisters to ‘the incomparable 29th’, serving at Salonika. The 10th had
served at Suvla Bay, the others on the Western Front before being moved to
Salonika. These were all arguably better prepared to move to France in
April/May 1916 than the 4th and 5th Divisions or the Territorial divisions. Two
of the Territorial divisions in Egypt could have been sent to the relatively
quiet Salonika front, releasing the 27th and 28th for France. There were also
several Second-Line Territorial Divisions still in Britain, which had been
formed by mid-1915. The experience of the 61st Division at Fromelles
demonstrates, however, that they were no more ready for active service than the
4th and 5th Divisions. (Middlebrook, Your
Country Needs You)
[xc] Bean, Vol V, pp. 32, 33
[xci] Bean, Vol V, pp. 32, 33
[xcii] Bean, Vol V, p. 32
[xciii] In late 1917, Russell had
hoped that the New Zealand Division might move to Italy with Plumer, but this
did not happen (Pugsley, The Anzac
Experience, p. 281)
[xciv] Bean Vol V, p. 658
[xcv] Middlebrook, Your Country Needs You, p. 112
[xcvi] Ray Westlake, The Territorial Battalions, A Pictorial
History 1859-1985, Spellmount Ltd, Tunbridge Wells, 1986, pp. 120, 121
[xcvii] Bean Vol VI, p. 939
[xcviii] Bean, Vol V, pp. 681, 682
[xcix] I am grateful for advice
received from Roger Lee, Dr Andrew Richardson and Jerry Bishop while drafting
this article.
No comments:
Post a Comment