The Battles Before

THE BATTLES BEFORE: Case Studies of Australian Army Leadership After the Vietnam War

David Connery (ed)

Big Sky Publishing, 2016, 124pp

ISBN 9781925520194

This compilation provides a look into the bureaucratic performance of Australian Army leaders from the early 1970s to the 2000s. In his Introduction, David Connery describes the peacetime work of generals as ‘battles’. While this could seem pretentious, it highlights the frequent failure of generals to apply their training for and experience of combat operations to the peacetime ‘battles’ described in the case studies. The appreciation process and Principles of War can be applied to such ‘battles’, and might have obtained more productive results than some recorded here. Indeed, as the book moves forward in time, it demonstrates a greater application of military skills to achieve peacetime objectives.

Connery shows in Chapter 1 that the senior officers of the early 1970s ‘did not accurately identify the key features of their risk environment’. Their first proposals for the future Army, including maintaining nine infantry battalions, were rejected. The development of specialised brigades that followed retained a range of capabilities, but ultimately led the Army down a cul de sac, limiting its ability to rotate forces. The five division objective force, some 250,000 strong, that the Army set as its expansion target was not accepted either in Defence or by government. Resources for such a force were unlikely to become available in foreseeable circumstances.

In Chapter 2, Connery demonstrates that the generals learned from their earlier failure. They persuaded Dibb to compromise on the threat environment, warning time, and levels of conflict, allowing them to obtain their basic objectives for the service. However, one result of winning these points was to retain the specialised brigades, leaving the Army to continue as a core force ‘army of ones’ with its disadvantages. The Army’s most important win from the Dibb Review was control of battlefield helicopters.

Chapter 3, on the East Timor crisis, shows the generals preparing for operations, confident in their training and skills. This was, after all, their true métier, where they could be expected to perform at their best, and mainly did. Officers at all levels took quiet initiatives before formal decisions were made, shortening action times when formal approval to prepare was given.

Bob Breen discusses in Chapter 4 the development of the future Adaptive Army after the period of peak operational activity between 1999 and around 2008. This led to the most significant changes in Army organisation in decades. The specialised brigades and ‘army of ones’ were swept away, command responsibilities for ‘Raise, Train and Maintain’ clarified, and combat support capabilities brought together.

Chapter 5, on making generals, follows the development of the officer education system from the Regular Officer Development Committee through to Project OPERA. Recommendations were not always followed through, however, and some proposals, particularly for career streaming (described by one senior officer as ‘career suicide’), partly fell by the wayside. Even after major changes, one prominent general argued that the ‘ADF is not fully capable of running a modern joint battle or campaign’.

One element notably missing from the discussion on making generals (perhaps it is so obvious that no need was seen to mention it) is self-education. Patton, for example, was a voracious reader of military history. He did not just read, however, he studied, annotating his books, and applying his studies to his duties. If, as stated, many career courses remain ‘significantly undersubscribed’, however, this suggests some lack of interest in personal career development among officers.

Lieutenant General Leahy’s summary section notes that ‘it is often easier to command an army at war than in time of peace’. His assessment of the case studies suggests that the Army experienced peacetime command difficulties in the 1970s and 1980s. East Timor showed the Army reacting well to a crisis, as should be expected, while the Adaptive Army initiative showed how much improvement has occurred in peacetime processes.

This is a valuable collection, which should encourage further consideration of the development of Australia’s military leaders. Regrettably, the Endnotes for the Introduction are missing, while those listed as belonging to the Introduction seem to belong to Chapter 1.

JOHN DONOVAN

A Greater Sum of Sorrow

A GREATER SUM OF SORROW: The Battles of Bullecourt

David Coombes

Big Sky Publishing, 2016, 427pp

ISBN 9781925275650

This volume on the two Battles of Bullecourt, in early 1917, provides a useful companion to Dr David Coombes’ earlier books on Sir Leslie Morshead, Sir JJ Talbot Hobbs and Australian prisoners of war during World War I.

Coombes covers the two Bullecourt battles comprehensively. First, however, he discusses the Fifth Army commander, General Gough. It would be fair to say that Coombes does not regard him with great favour. Australians first served under Gough at Pozières, and the unfavourable impression they gained there of his impatience and arrogance was confirmed at Bullecourt. His Chief of Staff, Major General Malcolm was also held in poor regard in the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

The original intention of the first attack was to provide a feint to take some pressure away from the Battle of Arras. Field Marshal Haig, however, expanded the intention to a full attack on the Hindenburg Line, but then backed away from this. Gough decided to persist with the original plan, despite a shortage of artillery and time. Coombes speculates that one reason might have been that success at Bullecourt would strengthen his claim to lead the attack planned around Ypres later in 1917.

Australian leaders also come in for criticism. Lieutenant General Birdwood and Major General White seemed to ignore the evidence of German machine guns covering the area chosen for the attack. Birdwood accepted an argument that roads should “not be further damaged by ‘hurrying up guns and ammunition’”, an unusual proposition in a war where strong artillery support was recognised as an important element in an attack! Coombes considers that Birdwood and White should have argued more vigorously for a ‘proper preliminary artillery barrage’, and ensured that the machine gun positions were neutralised.

The eventual plan for the first attack (after many confusing changes, made right up to the last minute) was for an assault with minimal artillery support, but accompanied by 12 tanks. The troops involved had no opportunity to familiarise themselves with the tanks, which would approach the start line in darkness. The postponement of the attack for a day after the tanks failed to arrive simply warned the Germans to be alert.

Coombes records that during the first attack, Birdwood rejected reports from his subordinates that it had failed, and that artillery support was desperately needed, preferring to believe false reports that Australians were in ‘Hendecourt and Riencourt’. At least 18 requests for artillery support ‘went unanswered’. When the artillery finally intervened, it caused heavy casualties among captured Australians being marched to the rear. The tanks made no significant contribution to the attack.

Like the 5th Division after Fromelles in July 1916, the 4th Division was shattered after First Bullecourt. Paralleling Lieutenant General Haking’s comment after Fromelles that the attack ‘has done both divisions [involved] a great deal of good’, Gough expressed his belief that ‘the Anzac attack had been of great assistance’ even after its complete failure.

Coombes describes planning for the second attack that was not greatly improved over that for the first. Haig and Gough both focussed on wider political and personal ambitions, which they hoped that the attack might help to fulfil. Birdwood succeeded in rejecting the use of tanks, and in improving the artillery plan, but while the final orders issued were ‘clear and comprehensive’, the machine guns near Quéant that had caused heavy casualties during the first attack were not bombarded. Coombes blames this failure and other planning weaknesses largely on the staffs of I ANZAC and the 2nd Division. The second attack was also a costly failure.

While Coombes does not specifically mention it, the major attacks carried out by the AIF during its first year in France and Flanders were all either costly failures (Fromelles and the Bullecourt battles) or tactical victories obtained at excessive cost (Pozières and Mouquet Farm). The AIF’s next major attack (Messines in June 1917) was a success, as were its early attacks during 3rd Ypres, albeit the later parts of that offensive degenerated into a muddy blood bath.

Recent scholarship on World War I has proposed a theory of a ‘learning curve’ in the BEF on the Western Front. There seems much logic behind that theory, but it is also clear from Coombes’ account that there were many slow learners.

Coombes’ book takes much of the gloss off White’s reputation as the eminence grise behind Birdwood (whose weaknesses as a tactician seem to be well accepted). It might be time that White’s full career received a new examination, including his role in the over-expansion of the AIF in 1916 and in post-war planning, to replace Bean’s earlier somewhat hagiographic work.

Regrettably there are some editorial weaknesses. Coombes seems to have some trouble with the (admittedly rather quirky) British infantry battalion nomenclature, particularly for Territorial and new Army units. One notable error is a reference to the Honourable Artillery Company as ‘Honorary’! He also has some difficulty with the accents on French place (such as Pozières and Quéant) and personal (such as Poincaré and d’Espèrey) names. At one point, Major General Walker is named as commander of the 4th Division, rather than Major General Holmes, while Major General Legge’s middle name appears as ‘Walker’, rather than ‘Gordon’. Some German words also are misspelled in places, although correct elsewhere.

JOHN DONOVAN

Britannia's Shield

BRITANNIA’S SHIELD: Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Hutton and Late-Victorian Imperial Defence

Craig Stockings

Cambridge University Press, 2015, 348pp, $59.95

Professor Craig Stockings has cast a bright light on the troubled career of Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Hutton. Like a modern Cassandra, Hutton seemed condemned to produce well thought out, practical, plans to improve Imperial defence (at least as regards Britain and the self-governing colonies) while being unable to ensure their implementation. Even today many of his ideas, particularly about infantry mobility, have resonance.

As Stockings demonstrates, a significant part of the problem was Hutton’s own personality. Hutton’s failures were often for constitutional reasons that he respected in theory, but ignored in practice. His difficult personal relationships with political leaders in the colonies were a significant obstacle to achieving his objectives, while his habit of appealing directly to the press, over the heads of his constitutional masters, was not particularly helpful.

Hutton regularly warned his British colleagues and superiors that the colonies could not be forced to commit themselves to binding peacetime arrangements. He saw that while leaders in the self-governing colonies were willing to seek volunteers in time of crisis, they would not commit themselves at other times, without some control over Imperial policy. However, he then pressed the governments he worked for to move further than they were willing.

Hutton believed that a system of ‘Cooperative Empire Defence’ could be based on an Empire-wide volunteer militia force comprised largely of mounted infantry. This would provide a deployable reserve that could be used wherever the Empire was threatened. Stockings shows that Hutton’s emphasis on mounted infantry developed at Staff College, was confirmed by command of a mounted infantry company in South Africa in 1881, and polished in Egypt and during campaigns against the Mahdists. In 1888, in one of his few clear successes, Hutton established a mounted infantry school at Aldershot.

Stockings shows how Hutton used his time as Commandant of the New South Wales forces to plan a force based on a split between a static Garrison Force and a mobile Field Force. Economic problems, and Hutton’s arrogance towards, and impatience with, the compromises inherent in politics left his plan incomplete. Similar problems ensued during Hutton’s periods in command in Canada, and commanding the new Australian Army after Federation. The period in Canada was particularly difficult, as Hutton attempted to reform a politicised militia.

However, Stockings shows that even though his ‘master plan’ was never implemented in any of the forces he commanded, those forces did benefit from improvements to training and organisation that Hutton was able to put in place. The closest that Hutton came to implementing his dream was as commander of the 1st Mounted Infantry Brigade in South Africa. Stockings’ discussion of this period demonstrates again Hutton’s inability to ‘cooperate to succeed’.

As well as falling out with his colonial political masters, Hutton also antagonised his British superiors. Stockings records that when the ‘Roberts Ring’ replaced the ‘Wolseley Ring’ in the War Office, the writing was on the wall for both Hutton and his ideas. The cavalrymen French and Haig later ensured that mounted infantry did not replace the cavalry. Even the Australian light horse, given the role of mounted infantry by Hutton in 1902, was converted to cavalry regiments from late 1917, albeit some regiments were again converted to motor or machine gun regiments in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

It would take another war before mounted infantry (particularly in the British motor battalions, American armoured infantry battalions, and Germany panzer grenadiers) became fully accepted. Ironically Hutton’s old regiment, the 60th Rifles (King’s Royal Rifle Corps), provided many of the motor battalions.

Hutton was at the centre of the development of Imperial defence policy in the last decade of the 1800s and the first few years of the 1900s. As Stockings demonstrates, however, while Hutton’s theories were known in London, the actual course of events followed a path based on the work of others. Reforms to the British Territorial Army implemented after Hutton’s retirement were based on the work of others, though they resembled his ideal scheme.

That did not stop Hutton from claiming that he could see his ideas in many developments before and during the First World War. Despite his failures, however, Hutton seems to have been the most capable of the men discussed in Jim Wood’s book (Chiefs of the Australian Army, 1901-1914, AMHP, 2006).

While the printing standard is excellent, the editing is somewhat eccentric for a product of Cambridge University Press. The words ‘a’ and ‘the’ seem to have been dropped on random occasions and there are other quirks. Homonyms seem to have been used incorrectly in a couple of places.

JOHN DONOVAN

Australian Soldiers in Asia-Pacific

AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS IN ASIA-PACIFIC IN WORLD WAR II

Lachlan Grant

NewSouth Publishing, 2014, 276pp.

ISBN 9781742231419

As I read this book, my mind continually returned to a simple question. What was Lachlan Grant’s purpose in writing it?

At first, I thought it was another work of that genre in which today’s educated thinkers reflect critically on the attitudes of an earlier generation, often with a smug attitude that they would not hold such crass attitudes. However, as I read the book, this did not prove to be so. Indeed, Grant explicitly acknowledges that the beliefs and language of an earlier generation might not be comfortable for today’s generation.

Grant’s story starts when Australians arrived in Singapore and Malaya, where they rubbed against British racial and class attitudes. Grant portrays the Australians sympathetically, suggesting that they found themselves in a similar position to the Empire’s colonial subjects. He notes, however, that many adopted colonial practices, including siestas and hiring servants for menial tasks. The latter, especially, he sees as suggesting an acceptance (perhaps too ready) of British attitudes. Maybe, but Grant shows that many wealthy Asians used servants too, implying that the relative wealth of the individual was a key factor.

Strangely, given the background of anti-Chinese feeling in Australia dating back to the gold rush days, Australians seemed to get along better with Chinese than with others. However, racism could be a two-way street, with Grant noting that some Chinese girls ‘won’t look at white men’. Views about Indians were mixed. Men who served in Malaya and Singapore, or visited India, were less positive than those who liberated Indian prisoners of war in New Guinea. Finally, Australian prisoners who were taken to Japan found their relationship with Japanese civilians more amicable than they might have expected. Individual behaviour could overcome cultural attitudes.

When the story moves from Asia to Papua New Guinea, Grant sees a different dynamic. There, Australians seemed comfortable with being colonial masters. Indeed, Grant mentions the ambitions of the Curtin government, particularly the Minister for External Affairs (H.V. Evatt) for greater Australian post-war control over nearby regions.

Using letters to the Army’s Educational Service periodical Salt and other sources, Grant argues that some Australians saw the war as being about the ideals of the Atlantic and United Nations charters. Perhaps so, but those documents post-dated the enlistment of many, and cannot have influenced their initial war aims. The evidence used by Grant is somewhat sketchy. A debate in Salt on independence movements in Asia apparently involved letters from only 31 men, from a force numbering over 400,000 at the time, suggesting that while a debate occurred, it was limited.

Grant does not accept that there was a so-called ‘battle for Australia’. He argues instead that the cause for which many Australians fought was the liberation of Asians from colonialism. One wonders how many of the soldiers fighting in 1942, lacking knowledge of Japanese wartime decisions and the benefits of hindsight, did not believe they were fighting a battle for Australia? It seems difficult to support Grant’s suggestion that because ‘defending Australia – either from invasion or … a “battle for Australia” was not of immediate concern within soldier debates’ late in the war, that they were not high among their concerns earlier.

Ultimately, the book seems to conclude that a generation born anywhere between 90 and 150 years ago broadly reflected the attitudes of their era, attitudes that were imparted during their adolescence. Australians (and others in the British Dominions) were inculcated with stories of  ‘symbolic images of empire’ by authors like Kipling, Buchan, Ballantyne and Australia’s Ion Idriess.

As examples, an army pamphlet written by an anthropologist emphasised the ‘attitude of superiority’ that whites must maintain in PNG, while a journalist/war correspondent used ‘natives’ for manual work, and sometimes assaulted them. Another regarded Papuans as ‘not far removed from stone-age savagery’. Grant notes, but does not seem to see the significance of, the attitudes of the editorial staff of Salt. Even these educated elites, supposed ‘left-wingers’, shared attitudes with less educated junior soldiers. Perhaps authors who study the attitudes of earlier periods should, as Grant generally has, approach the task with a modest recognition that their own attitudes might come under critical scrutiny in 50 or 75 years.

As an aside, Grant implies some criticism of those who considered themselves both British and Australian. Nowadays, such attitudes are reflected in the common practice of holding dual nationality, and praised as elements of a multicultural Australia. Perhaps the men of 1940 were Australia’s first multiculturalists, albeit affected by what Grant describes as ‘British race patriotism’?

To try to answer the question posed earlier, I suspect that Grant sought evidence to support a theory that Australian soldiers serving in the Asia-Pacific during World War II were converted to anti-imperialist the cause by their experiences. Perhaps they were, but the evidence is not obvious in this book.

Grant lapses occasionally into anachronisms (using the term ‘whiteness’ in a context that is suggestive of the modern sociological fields of ‘whiteness studies’ and ‘white privilege’, for example). Strangely, claimants to ‘whiteness’ and its power apparently spent much time sunbathing, presumably to reduce their power of ‘whiteness’!

JOHN DONOVAN

The Ottoman Defence at Anzac

THE OTTOMAN DEFENCE AGAINST THE ANZAC LANDING 25 APRIL 1915

Mesut Uyar

Big Sky Publishing, 2015, 181pp

ISBN 978-1-9221322-99-4

Mesut Uyar, a former Turkish officer, but now Associate Professor of Ottoman History at the University of NSW in Canberra, has presented a clear account of the Ottoman defence on 25 April 1915. He has the advantage sometimes not available to English speakers of being able to read original documents, including those in the old Ottoman script, adding depth to the study.

Professor Uyar starts with a review of reforms to the Ottoman army after its defeats in the period 1911-13. He notes that the Ottoman forces had the advantage of experience repelling attacks on the Gallipoli Peninsula, including an attempt by the Italian Navy to enter the Dardanelles in April 1912, and preparations for ground defence during the Balkan Wars. Professor Uyar is more critical than is usual in English language sources of the German General Otto Liman von Sanders, head of the German military mission to assist with the reform program. Interestingly, the major reforms to Ottoman divisional and army corps structure preceded his arrival.

Discussing the Ottoman preparations for defending the Peninsula, Professor Uyar describes the detailed defence plan for the Ariburnu area prepared by Mehmed Şefik, commander of the 27th Regiment, who believed this area was the key to the defence of the northern peninsula. Also, as commander of the corps reserve 19th Division, Mustafa Kemal conducted an exercise to counter a landing between Suvla and Kumtepe on 19 April, and had scheduled a further exercise for 25 April. Together, these should have given the Ottoman forces a major advantage on 25 April.

However, Professor Uyar explains the detrimental effect on the defences around Anzac Cove resulting from intervention by von Sanders just weeks before the landing. When von Sanders overturned Şefik’s plan, he reduced the force allocated to the Gabatepe-Anzac-Suvla region from a regiment to a battalion. Had Şefik’s plan been in place on 25 April, the Anzac landing might have faced a stronger force than the four (large) platoons actually occupying the area between Bolton’s Ridge and the Fisherman’s Hut and inland on Third Ridge.

Instead, von Sanders gave greater emphasis to the Bolay1r area, where a British diversionary force simulated a landing on 25 April, confirming his predilections at a crucial moment. Perhaps Australia and New Zealand have reason to be grateful to von Sanders for actions that made the landing easier than it might have been! The former Ottoman Empire might have had less reason to cheer his use of frontal attacks as he attempted to remove the invaders in the following weeks.

Professor Uyar shows how von Sanders’ obsession with Bolay1r, and the failure of the 9th Division commander Halil Sami to react promptly to the landings, endangered the Ottoman positions at Ariburnu and Helles. Mustafa Kemal’s initiative saved the situation around Anzac, where he sent first the complete 57th Regiment, rather than the single battalion requested by Halil Sami, and later the rest of his division. At Helles, Halil Sami’s command paralysis was also overcome by the initiative of his subordinates. Between them, Şefik, Kemal, and Halil Sami’s subordinates at Helles saved the situation for the Ottomans. While Anzac forward elements reached Third Ridge, they could not hold it. Professor Uyar follows in detail the actions that eventually stabilised the front. From there the campaign proceeded to its inevitable conclusion in December.

Professor Uyar resolves the enduring controversy about the presence of Ottoman machine guns and artillery on 25 April. He confirms that while machine gun positions had been prepared on Ariburnu, on 400 Plateau, and near the Fisherman’s Hut, the initial pre-dawn landing was not opposed by machine guns, which had been kept in reserve. The first four machine guns arrived at Scrubby Knoll on Third Ridge around 0740, and four more arrived at Chunuk Bair around 1000. Four more arrived around 1530.

As well, Professor Uyar shows that only limited Ottoman artillery was present on 25 April (only 13 operational pieces before 1030, three of which were captured near The Cup around 0700, but later re-captured). Another eight arrived around 1030, a further eight around 1600, and a final eight around sunset, but those were not actually engaged on 25 April.

This book complements that by Brigadier (Rtd) Chris Roberts (The Landing at ANZAC 1915, BSP, 2013). Read together, they provide as good a picture of events on 25 April as is likely to be available at this remove.

JOHN DONOVAN

To Kokoda

TO KOKODA

Nicholas Anderson

Big Sky Publishing, 2014, 236pp, $19.95

ISBN 978-1-9221322-95-6

Australian military history has enjoyed something of a revival in recent years, and no doubt this will continue as the anniversaries associated with the Centenary of the First World War occur. Within that revival, some battles (Fromelles, but mainly around the time of the discovery of the Pheasant Wood burials, most battles on the Western Front, Greece, Crete and Syria, Alamein, the 1943-44 campaigns in New Guinea, and those in 1945 on Borneo and Bougainville) receive only occasional attention. Some others, notably Gallipoli, Tobruk and Kokoda, are regularly the subjects of books.

Nicholas Anderson has produced an informative history of the campaign up until the recapture of Kokoda, with some useful summary judgements on its place in the history of the war against Japan. The style of recent books on Kokoda varies from popular ‘yarns’ to detailed academic studies. This book, like others in the Australian Army Campaign Series, is academically rigorous, but written and published in a highly readable style.

The descriptions of events during the Australian retreat and subsequent advance are well written, enabling the reader to understand events as they occurred. Anderson avoids the temptation to over-analyse events, which led one recent author (Peter Williams, The Kokoda Campaign 1942, Myth and Reality, CUP, 2012) to produce somewhat artificial estimates of the numbers engaged at specific times.

Anderson’s account describes the logistic problems of operating along a tenuous foot track, with air dropped supplies capable of providing only a limited supplement to the work of Papuan carriers. As an illustration of the difficulties of the Kokoda Trail, some wounded from the early part of the Australian advance back across the mountains could not be evacuated until weeks after the battle had moved on. These difficulties did not seem always to be understood by senior officers in Port Moresby, leading to friction between them and the commanders on the Trail.

Anderson’s summary of the significance of the campaign is balanced. Kokoda did not save Australia from invasion, however, as Anderson notes, the information available at the time suggested that a ‘Battle for Australia’ was underway. There might not have been an actual Battle for Australia, but it probably seemed at the time as if there was. That the Japanese had already decided against invasion was recorded in Japanese archives that were not then available to Australia’s intelligence authorities (but some recent historians seem to ignore this reality).

Pre-war strategy held that the Singapore strategy would ensure Australia’s safety. In the event, however, Australia’s security from invasion during the Second World War was ensured by the maritime power of the United States Navy at the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, not by the Royal Navy operating from the Singapore base. After those battles, the Japanese ability to land troops at Port Moresby was minimal. This led to the Kokoda campaign, as the Japanese attempted an overland advance.

As Anderson points out, Guadalcanal was more important than Kokoda (or Milne Bay) because the Japanese made it so. Japanese power could not support both campaigns, particularly if they gave priority to holding Guadalcanal. They did this, easing the pressure on the Australian forces on the Kokoda Trail. Success at Kokoda, however, did keep space between the Japanese and the Australian mainland. The campaign also provided the opportunity for the army to learn jungle-fighting skills, which were valuable well beyond the end of the Second World War.

Anderson deals fairly with the relief of senior officers during the campaign. Brigadier Potts lost his command in part because under pressure he was insufficiently informative in his reports; he might have been reinstated had Lieutenant General Rowell remained in command, but Rowell’s successor Lieutenant General Herring would not accept Potts. The impact of his sacking on the 21st Brigade was exacerbated by poorly worded (to put it tactfully) speeches by Herring and General Blamey to the brigade at Koitaki, implying that the troops had not fought bravely.

Rowell allowed his personal dislike of Blamey to overcome his discipline, and was sacked; even lieutenant generals cannot persistently be insubordinate! Major General Allen was replaced in large part because of his poor relationship with Blamey and Herring. His successor, Major General Vasey arrived just as the Japanese withdrew from Eora Creek, leaving the way to Kokoda open. Vasey then gained the credit for Allen’s work.

Anderson sees the experiences of the individual soldiers along the Kokoda Trail as the most significant legacy of the campaign. It is invidious to select any one soldier to exemplify those who fought on the Kokoda Trail, but Sergeant Bede Tongs of the 3rd (Militia) Battalion stands out.

On 17 October 1942, the 3rd Battalion was preparing to attack strong Japanese positions at Templeton’s Crossing. Tongs identified a Japanese machine gun post as a potential obstacle to the attack. He crawled forward alone and threw a hand grenade into the post, destroying it. Tongs then ran ‘like a Stawell Gift runner’ back to his platoon, where the company commander ordered him to ‘Get that attack going Sergeant Tongs’ He then led his platoon forward in their successful attack. Thousands of such young Australians combined to win the campaign.

JOHN DONOVAN

Deployment of British Infantry Divisions, First World War

FORMATION AND DEPLOYMENT OF BRITISH INFANTRY DIVISIONS, FIRST WORLD WAR

While preparing the article on a separate page (see page list on right) on the Over-Expansion of the AIF in 1916, I needed to get a benchmark on the necessary timetable for deployment of a division. I used the formation and deployment of British infantry divisions for that purpose.

I looked at the British New Army, First-Line and Second-Line Territorial divisions, using Martin Middlebrook (Your Country Needs You, Pen and Sword, 2000) as the base source. He has some anomalies, and the dates of formation for some divisions are not clear, however, he has enough detail to give an indication of time taken from formation to deployment. For the five Australian divisions, I used Bean, though he also has some vagueness on the dates of formation.

When counting the time before a division went into action, I ignored the month when it was raised, then counted months either until it sailed to France for British divisions that went directly there, or until it went into action for Australian divisions, and those British divisions that went via Egypt to the Dardanelles. For the Australian divisions, I ignored the time lost on sea voyages, and any consequent disruption to training.

On that basis, the average time to get the first 18 New Army divisions into action was around 10.5 months. The quickest was seven months for the 12th, followed by eight for the 9th and 14th. Five more had ten months before going into action, the other ten took either eleven or twelve months.

Formation dates in Middlebrook for some of the last twelve New Army divisions are a bit vague, as several changed titles in April 1915. However, the lowest numbered of this group formed as the 37th in 'late 1914', becoming the 30th in April 1915, while the 36th (Ulster) Division formed in October 1914, and the 37th around September 1914, so it is probably reasonable to interpolate that those numbered in between (the 31st to 35th) also formed around September/October 1914. The 38th (Welsh) Division (Lloyd George's Army) also had a number change in April 1915, but its original date of formation is unclear. The 39th to 41st have firm dates of August and September 1915, when they were formed mostly from existing battalions.

Taking (conservatively) November 1914 as the dates for the 31st to 35th, and sticking (again conservatively) to April 1915 for the 38th, the average time to get into action for these twelve divisions was also 10.5 months, with the lowest eight and the highest 13 months. Most had eleven or twelve months before moving overseas. As an aside, Ray Westlake (Kitchener's Army, Spellmount, 1989) gives dates of December 1914 for the 33rd, September 1914 for the 36th, March 1915 for the 37th (which seems a bit late for deployment in July, certainly compared to the other divisions), and December 1914 for the 38th, but these do not change the argument significantly.

Ignoring the two sent to India in late 1914 to relieve regular garrisons there, the First-Line Territorial divisions had an average of ten months before being committed, with a minimum of six months (the 46th) and a maximum of 18 months (the 56th); the 55th also had an extended preparation, of 17 months. Both the 55th and 56th, however, had been stripped of their original infantry battalions in late 1914/early 1915, and had to re-gather their infantry component, delaying their deployment. These two push the average up noticeably, as without them the average for First-Line Territorial divisions was 8.5 months. Eight of the twelve that served in action as divisions were deployed within nine months.

The Second-Line Territorial divisions also have some anomalies. They were apparently brought into existence in late 1914, to control new recruits and the Second-Line battalions formed with non-deployable personnel from the First-Line divisions, but they were given numbers only in August 1915 (except for the 45th, also sent to India in late 1914, and numbered early in the First-Line series). I have counted August 1915 as their formation dates as divisions, 'writing off' the earlier period as draft finding duties only.

Those Second-Line divisions that went into action took an average of just over 16 months to prepare. The only two to deploy early were the 60th and 61st, after ten and nine months (in June and May 1916 respectively). The performance of the 61st at Fromelles in July might have discouraged early deployment of the others, as no other Second-Line Territorial division was deployed in less than 18 months. The 66th took 20 months. Five never left Britain, the number of one of these (the 63rd) being re-allocated to the Royal Naval Division after the original 63rd was broken up in July 1916 to provide reinforcements.

Turning to the Australian divisions, I think it is reasonable to equate them to New Army divisions, as they were formed ab initio. While the 4th and 5th have some similarities to the Second-Line Territorial divisions, being formed from cadres (albeit the cadres had some experienced personnel, unlike the Second-Line Territorial divisions), their supporting arms and services, particularly their artillery, were raised ab initio, so I think the New Army comparison remains broadly valid.

The 1st Division had about eight months from its formation to the Gallipoli landing. The 2nd was formed in Egypt in June/July 1915, but its brigades were formed in Australia around February/March, giving its component brigades about six months preparation before they moved to Gallipoli. The 3rd Division was formed in Australia in about February 1916, and went into the line in France that November, nine months later. All three lost some effective training time during their sea transits to Egypt/Britain.

The 4th and 5th Divisions had the shortest preparation periods, four and five months respectively. The average for the Australian divisions was six months, well below the 10.5 months average for the British New Army divisions, and even the 8.5 months for the First-Line Territorial divisions. Indeed, only the 1st and 3rd Divisions received more than the seven months for the fastest deploying New Army division.

Even accepting that the training time available to divisions, and their leadership, varied, these figures suggest that the 4th and 5th Divisions needed extra time before being sent into the line, and particularly into major offensive action. Leadership might have helped with the gap, but the 5th had McCay, who doesn't seem to have been one of the best and brightest. The 4th was luckier, getting H.V. Cox, formerly of the 29th Indian Brigade, and it could be argued that this explains some of the difference in the two divisions' performance in their first actions.

What does this mean? For the British, the delays in forming the last three New Army divisions (in August/September 1915), and the problems experienced deploying the Second-Line Territorial divisions, suggest that Britain probably could not maintain in action more than about 55 divisions on the twelve infantry battalion establishment. Either the Fifth New Army (the 36th to 41st Divisions) or the Second-Line Territorial divisions were 'a bridge too far'. Given that the Fifth New Army was deployable more quickly than the Second-Line divisions, and included the 36th (Ulster) and 38th (Welsh) Divisions, each of which had a strong political support base, I am inclined to consider that the Fifth New Army should (or certainly would) have proceeded.

All of the Second-Line Territorial divisions should probably have remained as draft finding organisations and/or static garrison formations (as some did), perhaps retaining their territorial designations rather than receiving numbers, to emphasise their restricted role.  That said, there were a couple of 'dodgy' divisions among the final twelve New Army divisions. Both the 35th and 40th 'Bantam' divisions needed drastic change to become effective formations.

Britain could have followed the French and Germans to divisions of nine battalions, to gain the flexibility provided by more, but smaller, divisions. If implemented in early 1917, this change would have allowed the extra battalions to be used to raise additional divisions, as the French and Germans did. Whether they could have been maintained during 1918 might, however, be questionable. When the change to a nine battalion organisation was made in 1918, it was under pressure to reduce personnel, not to raise new formations.

For Australia, while the twelve battalion establishment was in place, the 5th Division should not have been formed, and the 3rd should not have been committed to the Western Front after the failure of the first conscription referendum. By the end of 1916, the trend in recruitment without conscription was clear. It might have been possible to maintain four divisions on a nine battalion establishment with voluntary recruitment, but it is unlikely that five divisions could have been maintained at full strength without conscription, even on the lower establishment.

JOHN DONOVAN