On My Way to the Somme

ON MY WAY TO THE SOMME: New Zealanders and the Bloody Offensive of 1916

Andrew Macdonald

Harper Collins, 2005, 335 pages

Andrew Macdonald has set out to provide ‘a detailed account of the New Zealand Division on the Somme in 1916’.  He has covered the period extensively, but this book may leave the reader feeling tantalized rather than satisfied, as it delivers less than it promises.

The events recounted in this book led to at least 7959 New Zealand casualties (by the author’s count, acknowledging that the figures for wounded are almost certainly understated), including some 2111 dead.  Prior and Wilson (The Somme, UNSW Press, 2005) suggest a total of 9408.  These losses occurred largely over a 23-day period between 11 September and 3 October, and over 900 of the dead fell in a four day period from 15 to 18 September.  Even on Macdonald’s total, the casualties exceeded those of two of the three Australian Divisions that served on the Somme. 

A reader might expect to gain a detailed picture of the battles that led to such losses.  Some feel is, indeed, gained, but for the battle elements it is more of an overview than a detailed discussion of events during close combat.  When describing battles, the author writes largely in the more detached style of Prior and Wilson, rather than the passionate style of Peter Charlton (Australians on the Somme: Pozieres 1916, Methuen Haynes, 1986).  For example, one action that contributed to the award of a VC is described in just three lines.  Macdonald saves his more passionate language for descriptions of the miserable conditions in the trenches between battles. 

Macdonald at times projects post-modern attitudes to war and killing onto a generation to which those attitudes would have been alien.  The calm descriptions, by veterans quoted in the book, of friends killed and wounded, and of the casual killing of enemy prisoners and wounded and retreating enemy soldiers, are more indicative of the attitudes of a generation that accepted both that war had a legitimate place in the world order, and that it involved casualties.  His use of the word ‘conscripted’ for occasions when commanders were issued orders for specific tasks away from the battlefield, such as training reinforcements, also has echoes of late 20th Century attitudes.

The post-modern attitudes show particularly in Macdonald’s frequent claims of declining or poor morale in the New Zealand Division.  These claims are not supported by the soldiers’ own records.  At one point, Macdonald states that the ‘ominous rumble of artillery fire ate away at … morale as [the Division] approached the Somme battlefield’, and that ‘the prospect [of battle] rankled with the veterans of Gallipoli and Armentieres’.  However, in the same context, quotes from veterans describe morale ‘steadily improv[ing]’, and men ‘hoping for the best, determined to do well’, ‘in great heart’ with ‘morale … really high’.

The author seems also to have a limited understanding of a battlefield, where plans rarely survive first contact with the enemy, and outcomes are usually less than perfect.  In one attack, the successful gaining of all four objectives, and the holding of three, together with part of the objective of a neighbouring division, is described as a ‘backdrop of mediocrity’!  By the standards of 1916 (or 1917), this might more fairly be described as a significant achievement!

Macdonald describes well the vacillation, apparently endemic in the British Army of the era, between initial well-organized attacks and hasty, poorly prepared follow-up actions in the days immediately following, followed by continued repetition of the same sequence.  He claims that Haig and Rawlinson were on a steep learning curve, however, while they may have been learning, the actual steepness of the curve seems open to challenge, while they persisted in dropping back down the curve, to retry techniques that had failed earlier!  As Macdonald shows, the New Zealand Division staff was also guilty of such errors.

Nevertheless, despite Haig’s (and Rawlinson’s) slow progress up the learning curve, Macdonald notes their use of tanks for the first time in the New Zealanders’ initial attack, part of the Battle of Flers-Courcelette.  Losses among the tanks reduced their contribution to later attacks involving the New Zealand Division.  On the debit side, Haig’s belief that the Cavalry Corps could break through seems to have been founded more on wishful thinking than the realities of the battlefield.

Australians are generally aware that the death penalty was not enforced in the AIF during the First World War.  They may not, however, be aware that this did not mean that no Australian was executed.  Macdonald refers to Private John Sweeney, an Australian serving in the New Zealand Division, who on 2 October 1916 was shot for desertion, having been condemned on 15 September.  One of his comrades felt that he should have been sent into the line with them, where it was ‘likely enough the Germans would have provided the firing squad’.

The Somme proved to be a training ground for future senior New Zealand officers.  Five New Zealanders who served on the Somme became brigadiers in the Second World War, while Bernard Freyberg, commander of the 2nd New Zealand Division in that war, served on the Somme in the Royal Naval Division.  An artillery subaltern, Keith Park, became an RAF Air Chief Marshal and hero of the Battle of Britain,

Macdonald criticizes regimental histories for subjective praise of their own officers.  Unfortunately, the example he chooses, of a new officer throwing his weight around, is nullified by his admission that the officer concerned was soon ‘sent back to base as undesirable’.  Clearly, standards had to be met to get ahead.  It was not by accepting poor leaders that the New Zealand Division ‘performed with distinction during its tour in the 1916 Somme offensive’ (page 266).  Strangely, however, Macdonald chooses to qualify this assessment on the very next page, calling the Division’s performance ‘as good as could have been expected’, surely a case of damning with faint praise.

The book could have been improved with more careful editing.  For example, reference to the New Zealand Rifle Brigade is at times confusing, it not always being clear whether the reference is to the 3rd Brigade of the New Zealand Division or to the battalions within that Brigade.  The use of the unqualified descriptors ‘1st Battalion’ and ‘2nd Battalion’ for two of those battalions can also cause confusion if any of the 1st or 2nd Battalions of the four regional New Zealand regiments (Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago) happen to be present at the time. 

Within the regional regiments, some explanation of the New Zealand system of regional (named and numbered) companies would have been useful, as several of those companies are specifically mentioned.  Also within those regiments, there is some confusion as to casualties in individual battalions, as Macdonald draws on aggregated totals in regimental histories, rather than the records of specific battalions.  Brigadier General Johnston is variously referred to as ‘Earl’ (in the text) and ‘Francis’ (in his photograph).  His initials are ‘F.E.’; but from other context, it seems that he used the name Earl.

A particularly distracting artifice is the occasional use of present tense for a few pages before reverting to the past tense used through most of the book.  Macdonald also has a propensity to mix his metaphors, at one point describing the New Zealand situation as being ‘in the midst of Dante’s inferno and, worse yet, rain clouds were hanging ominously over the battlefield’.

The author states that he chose a particular editorial style to refer to individuals (at first mention, given and surnames, rank in 1916, and unit; for later mentions, surname alone).  However, this is honoured more in the breach than in the observance.  The future Major General Kippenberger, for example, is more often than not referred to by given and surnames, and usually also rank and unit.  Another annoyance is the omission from maps of places mentioned in the adjacent text.  Maps are needed in a book like this, but they must be comprehensive.

JOHN DONOVAN

The Duke

THE DUKE: A Hero’s Hero at Sandakan

David Matthews

Seaview Press, 2008, 235pp

David Matthews has written a fine tribute to his father, Captain Lionel Matthews, GC, MC.

While a Sea Scoutmaster in Adelaide, Lionel showed early courage when he was involved in an attempted rescue following a boating accident at Henley Beach.  Later, he joined the RANR and trained as a signalman. After moving to Melbourne, Lionel joined the 3rd Division Signals, CMF.  In July 1940 he enlisted in the 8th Division Signals, AIF, and sailed to Malaya in early 1941.  He became known as the Duke because of his physical resemblance to the Duke of Gloucester.

Lionel was awarded the MC for service during the Malayan Campaign, but his true heroism was displayed when he took a leadership role in Sandakan PoW camp.  He contacted the civilian prisoners in their camp on Berhala Island, and local police and administrators.  Under his guidance, radios were constructed, and contact made with Filipino guerrillas. In retrospect, it is unfortunate that the Filipino offer to help release the Sandakan prisoners (presumably to join them) was declined.  This decision was possibly based on concern about likely casualties during an escape. We can now say that any casualties would have been lower than the ultimate fate of those at Sandakan, but those in the camp did not have this foreknowledge.

Lionel Matthews was betrayed to the Japanese, and executed in March 1944.  His GC was awarded posthumously for his gallant work in Sandakan.

JOHN DONOVAN

MORSHEAD

David Coombes

Oxford University Press, 2001

This is a good book, and a worthwhile addition to the Army History series.  It complements and expands usefully on John Moore’s 1976 biography of Sir Leslie, and A.J. Hill’s contribution to David Horner’s 1984 work The Commanders.

The book describes well Morshead’s development from ambitious teacher and junior Army officer to a man content enough with his position as a corps commander to reject Curtin’s 1943 soundings about replacing Blamey as Commander-in-Chief.  His development as a person parallels his development as a soldier.  It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the pedantic disciplinarian of the First World War learned much about managing people in the service of the Orient Line between the wars (probably more than he would have learned had he achieved his ambition to become a regular soldier after the First World War). 

Perhaps it was his experience dealing with personalities ranging from the British managers of the line to militant trade unionists that taught him to temper his earlier hard line approach.  So while the martinet of the First World War still became ‘Ming the Merciless’ of the Second, it was with the tact and maturity to avoid giving unjust or trivial criticism, and Morshead could win the confidence of his subordinate officers and the open admiration of his troops.

Coombes could, however, have usefully explored more deeply the antagonisms between Australia’s regular and citizen soldiers, as they are critical elements in both the history of the Australian Army and Morshead’s career.  As Morshead matured, he moved from the uncritical acceptance of the faulty philosophy of war advocated by the British General Staff in the First World War to the challenger (and defender of his AIF troops against the impact) of the unsound tactics often used by regular British generals in North Africa during the Second World War. 

There are many questions about Morshead that could have been studied in such an exploration.  Did Morshead’s experience in business between the wars teach him not to always accept uncritically the views of professionals whose focus could at times be narrow, be they senior shipping executives or soldiers?  Did his practical experience of the logistics of a shipping line teach him sufficient about the reality of limited resources to enable him to resist the blandishments of Vasey when the latter sought to launch an assault on Shaggy Ridge in the Ramu Valley at the same time as demanding operations were under way in the Sattelberg/Wareo area? 

Coombes might have commented on whether the criticisms of citizen soldiers by the regulars were always justified.  For example, was it reasonable of Vasey to describe a man who had commanded the Tobruk Fortress, and led a division successfully at El Alamein, as having ‘not enough knowledge to stand on [his] own feet’?  While Lavarack may have believed that he alone made the decision to hold Tobruk, and did claim to ‘have had cause to override many of Morshead’s unsound orders’ in preparing for the siege (page 112), two things seem certain.  If Tobruk had fallen, it would have been Morshead, not Lavarack, whose name would have been linked to the fall, and if there was any validity in the claim, judging by his performance over the next eight months, Morshead seems to have learned quickly from Lavarack’s criticism of his ‘unsound orders’, (or perhaps they were not that unsound).

The claim that only those able to devote their full attention to soldiering could keep up with changes in tactics and weapons seems somewhat negated by the poor performance of many British regular soldiers in achieving these desiderata.  Whether the Australian regulars, with the limited opportunities available to them in the small inter-war Permanent Force, might be considered not to have had the best opportunities to keep up to date is moot, but Morshead, at least, seems to have done reasonably well once committed to action in North Africa.  Paradoxically, Coombes demonstrates that his comprehension of Japanese tactics for opposing amphibious landings, which had some similarities to Western Front tactics of around 1917, was less sure.  There would also seem to be parallels between the regulars’ claim for automatic precedence and the frequent (and justified) Australian complaints about British refusal to recognize the merits of Dominion generals, as discussed on page 141.

The vexed issue of Blamey’s leadership of the Australian Army and its effect on Morshead could also have been explored more.  Even putting aside his actions in relation to Lavarack and Rowell, on at least one occasion, Blamey seems to have misled the Prime Minister about Morshead’s suitability to fill in as Commander-in-Chief. 

Coombes seems to have accepted some statements too uncritically, such as the claim on page 208 that Blamey had a ‘fixed policy of not barging in on junior commanders in the course of their operations’, which does not sit well with Blamey’s actions in relation to Rowell, Allen and Potts in 1942.  The suggestion that Air Vice Marshal Bostock refused to commit Australian aircraft to close support in Balikpapan because the American Rear Admiral Noble had apparently claimed that the RAAF ‘had no planes fit’ for combat suggests that Bostock was unaware that he had squadrons equipped with Mosquito bombers, surely capable aircraft by the standards of the day.

Morshead’s involvement in the Bennett court of inquiry comes through as a sad finish to his Second World War career.  The Bennett affair was complex, and opinion still remains divided.  However, the involvement of Major General Stantke as a member of the court of inquiry should, even in 1945, have seemed to be a conflict of interest, given that as Adjutant-General from 1940 to 1943 he should presumably bear some responsibility for the sending of untrained reinforcements to Singapore in early 1942.

Another disappointing period must have been Morshead’s participation in the 1957 committee on Defence organization.  It was some 15 years after Morshead’s death that the Defence group of departments was finally unified, while Sir Robert Menzies might have been even more vituperative in his December 1958 letter to the Defence Minister had he realised that it would take almost 40 years before the ‘establishment of common services’ would be widespread.  Whether overlapping and duplication have even yet been eliminated remains moot.

There are several minor editorial and technical errors that annoy.  The lower photograph that faces page 85 has been printed backwards; references to the 40th and 46th Royal Armoured Regiments on page 148 should be to the Royal Tank Regiment; the battle of El Alamein is incorrectly dated in 1943 on page 126, while the spellchecker presumably inserted the references to ‘emery resistance’ on page 202 and ‘knife edge rivers’ on page 203.  There are others.

Finally, the reference to Menzies’ statement at Morshead’s funeral that ‘for the young he will be an inspiration’, highlights the importance of the Army History Series.  This did not occur, and Morshead is now largely forgotten.  As a small example of this, no prominent Army facility seems to bear his name.  As Coombes concludes, Morshead confirmed the Australian tradition of the civilian in uniform, and exemplified the true spirit of the citizen soldier.  Too much of that tradition and spirit seems to have been forgotten, probably leading to actions that will be detrimental to Australia’s future military capability.  Perhaps the Army History program can help rectify this collective state of amnesia.

JOHN DONOVAN.

SIR JAMES WHITESIDE McCAY

Christopher Wray

Published by Oxford University Press 2002

This is an interesting addition to the Army History series.  It covers the life of Major General Sir James McCay; at different times schoolmaster, Victorian and Federal parliamentarian, militia officer, Minister for Defence and member of the First AIF.

While Christopher Wray’s research was clearly hampered by the destruction of McCay’s papers just before his death in 1930, there is sufficient in the book to establish McCay’s place in history (and also to show how much Australia has changed in the century since federation).  As an example of the latter, it is hard to imagine now any circumstance in which a Minister for Defence would also be an active member of the ADF reserves – although during the 1980s, one United States Secretary for the Navy was simultaneously a Commander in the naval reserves.

McCay’s major role in the early development of the Australian Army, as a militia officer and as Minister for Defence, is recounted well in the book – indeed, some of the issues of the first decade of the Twentieth Century resonate now, with active debate on the priorities for continental defence (nationalist) versus overseas roles (imperialist) still occurring, as does debate on the priority of maritime versus land defence and the role of citizen (reserve) forces.  As Minister, McCay argued that the armed forces should be responsible to the Australian Parliament through ministers, not to [a foreign] British Government.  If McCay returned now, perhaps he could still contribute to current discussions without needing too much briefing?

McCay’s strengths and his weaknesses become clear from this book.  His strengths were in administration and training.  As an officer in the militia and a member of Parliament, both before and after Federation, his significant contributions to the development of both the Australian nation and its Army stand out.  While, as Wray points out, others did much of the original work on the Army, McCay as Minister ‘played an important role’ in putting their work into effect to provide the structure for a citizen Army responsible to the people through Parliament. 

His strengths as a trainer were demonstrated in the period after he lost command of the 5th Division in late 1916, when McCay became Commandant AIF Depots in Britain.  There, as Wray recounts, McCay worked effectively to produce well-trained and disciplined troops for the Western Front.  In 1918, when the flow of reinforcements from Australia was reduced, he wound back the depots in a timely manner, to move training staff to operational duties and so limit the number of units disbanded before the war ended.

A large part of this book covers McCay’s service in the First AIF.  After being selected as an original brigade commander in the 1st Division, McCay supervised the training of the 2nd Brigade, and led it to Gallipoli on the first ANZAC Day.  The circumstances of the landing, when McCay accepted the need to ignore his orders so as to meet the demands of the actual situation, are covered well.  However, as the book relates, in the two battles with which his name is particularly associated (Krithia and Fromelles), he seemed unable to see as clearly that his orders were impracticable. 

These two battles, and the ‘desert march’ of March 1916, caused many of his troops forever to condemn him as indifferent to their lives and welfare.  Ironically, while his troops considered him too ready to obey orders unquestioningly to their cost, many of his superiors deprecated his tendency to debate orders!  Even more ironically, while in Australia after the Gallipoli campaign, McCay had forecast the difficulties likely to be encountered in attempting to break the trench line in France, but still attempted to do so, using the methods then standard (and generally unsuccessful).

Wray demonstrates that McCay was to a large extent controlled by circumstances in the two battles, being newly arrived at each location, and without the knowledge of the ground and enemy that might have enabled him to challenge the practicability of the tasks.  However, he also shows that some aspects of McCay’s personality, particularly his use of inappropriate language and actions to ‘encourage’ his troops, and his difficulties in working with his peers, probably rendered him unfit for command at high level.  These deficiencies could not be outweighed by his technical knowledge and undoubted personal courage under fire, both testified to by ‘Pompey’ Elliott.

In some ways, McCay seems to have had much in common with those other two ‘difficult’ Australian generals, Gordon Bennett and Horace Robertson.  Like Bennett, McCay had problems working with other commanders.  Like Robertson, his strengths as a trainer of troops and an administrator stand out.  Like both of them, his ambition for higher positions was clear, and potentially dangerous.  In the opinion of this reviewer, it was for the better that the ambitions of all three (McCay for command of the Australian Corps or the administrative command of the AIF, Robertson and Bennett to replace Blamey) were not realised.

Wray records McCay’s participation in the committee to advise on the organization of Australia’s post-war Army.  Perhaps McCay’s political experience failed him on that occasion, as the recommendations did not meet the Minister’s requirement to ‘[bear] in mind the financial constraints facing the government’.  Although the report became the Army’s ‘most important strategic planning document for the next two decades’, it was never fully implemented (in the post-war climate of war weariness and through the depression years, it was never likely to be implemented).

Finally, the book records that McCay ‘did leave significant legacies … a structure that conformed to his belief in an Australian citizen army owing responsibility to parliament, and through it, the people … the forerunner of the Australian Army General Staff … and the need for a flexible army structure capable of fighting outside Australia’s borders’. 

Yet, as Wray also records, most of these legacies were quickly forgotten after his death.  Now, the citizen element of the Army is treated, in the words of one historian, with ‘callous indifference’.  Emphasis is sometimes placed on the issue of officers’ commissions by the crown as a focus for their loyalty, but a statement by a Minister that the government is the Army’s ‘owner’ (a gauche phrase, but not inconsistent with McCay’s view of parliamentary accountability) as a counter to this implied direct line of responsibility to the crown caused a furore.  And the Army struggles to maintain a battalion group overseas from a strength of over 20,000.  Truly a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country.

JOHN DONOVAN

ON SHAGGY RIDGE

Phillip Bradley

Oxford University Press, 2004

It is possible to argue that this book need not have been written, for the events covered have been fully described in the official history.  However, one must admit that Second World War official histories do not adorn many bookcases these days, and it seems probable that the copies in libraries spend very little time in the hands of borrowers. 

This book, then, joins others in the Army History series (and some published under other aegis, such as Peter Stanley’s book on Tarakan, and Peter Brune’s works on the Papuan Campaign) that provide an important service by bringing Australia’s military history to the general reader.  Such books also serve as at least a partial antidote to the limited academic study of military history in current day Australia. 

To some degree, the book is in the C.E.W. Bean tradition, focussing on the men in the front line, with the activities of senior commanders and staff, and matters of logistics, being little more than that charming theatrical expression ‘noises off’.  This is a strength that helps it to complement rather than duplicate the narrative in the official history.  However, while the focus on the men in the sections and platoons gives a good understanding of the physical difficulties of the Shaggy Ridge battles, perhaps a little more depth might have given a better context to the story.

The focus on the front line, however, does give the author the opportunity to introduce some personalities who are not well known in Australia.  Prominent among these is the American pilot Tommy Roberts, who decided to spend some leave in the front lines while awaiting conversion training in Port Moresby.  His performance with the 2/16th Battalion (surely well above and beyond the call of duty for an airman) earned him a Silver Star.  Ironically, after returning from Shaggy Ridge he died in an air crash just two days after his first conversion flight.

A number of references are make through the book to the difficulties experienced by ‘out of state’ reinforcements in integrating into battalions with their own proud (but sometimes parochial) histories.  The strength that came from the territorial recruitment of combat units has been highlighted often, including recently by Ian Kuring in his history of Australian infantry.  One has to wonder, therefore, why this strength appears to have been ignored by the posting authorities in the latter part of World War II.  Surely the unnecessary tension that this policy caused should have been avoided in time of war?

It is not as if the numbers were minor.  As an example, Bradley notes that some 600 men came from the disbanded 16th Motor Regiment to the 2/16th Battalion.  This effectively converted it from a West Australian unit to a New South Wales one.  Also, while Queenslanders from the 5th Motor Regiment went to the Queensland 2/9th Battalion, other Queenslanders from the 11th Motor Regiment went to the South Australian 2/10th Battalion, which also had a platoon mostly comprising men from Bungendore in New South Wales!

Still, the Adjutant-General’s Branch was responsible for worse errors during the Second World War, such as the despatch of untrained reinforcements to Singapore and the botched formation of the 39th, 49th and 53rd Battalions.  The question remains, however, as to whether these various actions were the result of indifference, indolence, ignorance or incompetence.

The ruthlessness with which the war against Japan was fought is clear from this book.  The reluctance to take prisoners and the casual treatment of dead Japanese soldiers would cause agitation in some quarters if repeated today!  However, in the context of the times, and given the propensity of wounded Japanese soldiers to try to take someone with them if at all possible, the actions are fully understandable.  Different times, different mores.

Bradley suggests that the extensive use of air power to both deploy and support ground troops in the Markham/Ramu Valley campaign heralded the future of warfare.  Perhaps so, certainly it had its reprise in Slim’s campaign in Burma, and later with the development of air mobility in Vietnam.  However, the recent campaigns in the Middle East could be taken as a reminder that circumstances dictate the relevant tactics, and flexibility must remain as a military virtue.

Some tighter editing might have been appropriate.  As a very simple example, the Studebaker trucks in which men of the 2/33rd Battalion sat on page one had become Chevrolets by page two!  Such minor issues do not, however, detract seriously from the quality of the book.

The Army History program has so far produced books covering the activities if the 7th Division (this volume, as well as indirectly in the biography of Lavarack), the 8th Division (Against the Sun), and the 9th Division (Alamein, Bravery Above Blunder, and indirectly in the biography of Morshead).  Perhaps it is time for something on the 6th Division?

JOHN DONOVAN

KOKODA COMMANDER

Stuart Braga

Oxford University Press, 2004

Since at least the 1930s, an enduring element in the historiography of the Australian Army has been the friction between regular and citizen soldiers.  This book sheds much light on that friction, while rehabilitating the reputation of Major General Arthur ‘Tubby’ Allen, one of Australia’s more notable citizen soldiers.  It is a valuable addition to the work sponsored by the Army History Unit.

Had he lived today, Tubby Allen would be described as a member of the aspirational class.  He came from a humble background, the son of an engine driver for the NSW Government Railways.  After leaving school at 14, to work as a messenger boy for the Postmaster-General’s Department, Allen rose through a combination of native intelligence, energy, personal study and hard work to be a battalion commander in the First AIF at the age of 24, partner in an accounting firm before reaching 40, and finally a major general who had led a division in two difficult campaigns before his 50th birthday.  His health started to fail soon after the end of World War II, and he died relatively young, probably as a result of his war service.

As Stuart Braga shows, while progress in Allen’s Second World War military career came to an early end, at least in part because of the envy and class-consciousness of another officer, he left a notable military record.  When the Second World War broke out, Allen was given command of the 16th Brigade of the 6th Division.  That this division produced many of the leaders of the Second World War Australian Army is a tribute to the quality of those who sacrificed career and family interests to join the Second AIF in the first days and months of the new war.  While the process of expansion involved much winnowing of wheat from chaff, within less than two years Allen had risen to lead the 7th Division in two campaigns.

What Braga’s book also shows, as it recounts the tale of Allen’s service during the Second World War, is that the regular/citizen soldier friction was not as straightforward as it is sometimes depicted.  There was indeed friction between regulars and citizen soldiers.  This friction sometimes had a detrimental effect on operations, as before Bardia, when Stan Savige was excluded, apparently deliberately, from a major pre-attack conference, even though his brigade was to have a complex role in the operation.  As another example, the relationships between Horace Robertson and citizen officers (and, indeed, with many of his regular colleagues) were rarely anything but fraught. 

But there was tension also between citizen soldiers, most notably in this story between Ned Herring on the one side and Allen and Savige, who were perceived by Herring to be his leadership and social inferiors, on the other.  And there was also friction between the regulars (particularly, in this context, between George Vasey and Frank Berryman).  On the other hand, there was not always friction between regular and citizen soldiers.  Allen (at least initially) got on well with Vasey, who even noted that ‘civilian training has some advantages in the army’.

Ironically, given the record of friction between regular and citizen soldiers, Allen’s ultimate nemesis was Herring, citizen soldier and pillar of the Melbourne legal establishment.  Herring resented, among other things, Allen’s promotion to major general ahead of him.  Thomas Blamey, the regular turned militiaman, who shared responsibility for Rowell’s fall with Rowell himself, and who is often criticised for causing Allen’s fall, was willing to employ him again in Papua.  Blamey wanted Allen to alternate in command with Vasey.  Herring, however, refused to have Allen. 

Braga considers that this decision not to provide regular relief for Vasey may have contributed to the later decline in his health.  It also probably led to unnecessary losses during the Papuan beachhead battles, as Vasey became tired.  Herring once famously stated that he preferred ‘Vasey tired to Allen fresh’.  Vasey (tired) launched a number of attacks at Gona and Sanananda that gained little or nothing, but left many casualties.  It is hard to see Allen (fresh) not resisting the push to launch ill-prepared and poorly coordinated attacks.  For the failure to rest Vasey, and its consequences, Herring must take the principal share of blame, although Blamey could have insisted on the change.

One of the few to recognise Allen’s achievements in the Owen Stanley Ranges was Berryman, a regular officer with whom many citizen officers, including Allen, had clashed.  Regardless of his other feelings, Berryman, who had also been Allen’s brigade major in the pre-war militia, recognised Allen’s achievement.  He sent congratulations from his position at Army Headquarters in Melbourne, to a man who had just been relieved of his command for alleged failure to perform, showing both intellectual honesty and bureaucratic courage.

Braga suggests that Allen’s transfer to the command of Northern Territory Force was effectively a form of exile.  However, it is only with hindsight that we can know that there was no longer a ground threat to the Northern Territory in early 1943.  Seen in contemporary terms, this was an important command.  When Allen took command, Northern Territory Force was a potential front line area close to major Japanese concentrations, responsible for a third of the Australian landmass.  Perhaps this was the best that Blamey felt that he could do for Allen, given Herring’s refusal to have him back in command of the 7th Division and Blamey’s apparent reluctance to override Herring?

Several officers emerge from Braga’s book with their reputations changed to greater or lesser degree.  First, Allen receives the credit due to him for the re-capture of Kokoda, and for preparing the plan that was the basis for Vasey’s victory at Oivi-Gorari.  Second, while his military reputation remains high, Vasey’s personal reputation is diminished, first by his initial reaction to Herring’s soundings about taking over in the mountains, ‘I don’t want to get stuck in those hills … better jobs than that about’, and then by his readiness to take the credit for Allen’s efforts.  Vasey himself had personal difficulties with the terrain of the Owen Stanleys, and was later to confront the reality of Japanese defensive capabilities that had confronted Allen. 

Blamey’s limited attempts to shield Allen from pressure caused by the ill-informed views of MacArthur do not counterbalance his preparedness allow the sacrifice of a subordinate rather than stand up to MacArthur when his own personal position was weak.  Many officers at New Guinea Force and Land Headquarters were ignorant of the reality of events in the mountains, such as low recovery rates after airdrops, and the difficult terrain, to say nothing of Japanese stubbornness in defence.  Blamey, as Commander of Allied Land Forces, should have found out the reality.

Finally, Herring’s reputation as a person and as a military officer is diminished, the first by his apparent vindictiveness towards Allen and Savige, and the second by his failure to understand, or indeed even apparently to enquire into, the tactical and logistic problems of operating along the Kokoda Trail.  Braga shows that Herring’s skills on a conventional battlefield did not translate well to the conditions in the mountains and swamps of Papua. 

Braga discusses briefly the March 1942 ‘revolt of the generals’ in which Herring participated.  This was an attempt to have Robertson, still then a brigadier, appointed as Commander-in-Chief.  Given that all three participants were probably aware of Robertson’s ambiguous attitude to the Greek campaign, an attitude that casts doubt on his character, one wonders what they could have been thinking of!  Menzies statement that leadership is ‘cultivated by practical and varied experience of life’ seemingly held as true for Herring, the Melbourne QC, as it did for many of the officers of the small inter-war army, about some of whom Kingsley Norris, then ADMS of the 7th Division commented ‘their general knowledge of the world around us was limited’.

There are a couple of minor issues in the book.  It does not seem relevant, for example, to discuss the establishment of RMC Duntroon in the context of replacing British officers qualified at staff college, as Duntroon did not provide such training.  Australian officers attended the Staff Colleges at Camberley and Quetta for many years to come.  Gough’s first name was Hubert, not Hugh.  I am not sure who were the soldiers called the ‘Australian Division Field Company Royal Engineers’ on page 103; but perhaps they were from 2/1st Field Company Royal Australian Engineers, who supported the 16th Brigade at Bardia.  In Vasey’s letters to his wife, Mackay’s first name is sometimes rendered as Ivan rather that Iven, though it is unclear whether the error is Vasey’s.

It is interesting that both the Army and Air Force had command problems in World War II.  In the Army, these problems stemmed from the appointment of Blamey as both Commander Allied Land Forces and Commander-in-Chief of the Army.  His combined operational and administrative responsibilities both suffered from his excessive workload.  In the Air Force, operational command and administration were divided, but the responsible officers had a personality clash, which prevented them from working together for the good of the war effort and the Service.

Overall, this is a useful and comprehensive book.  Indeed, upon reading on page 43 about Allen’s attack of paraphimosis in early 1918, this reviewer was reminded of the modern expression “that’s more than I needed to know”.

JOHN DONOVAN

The Battle of Fromelles

THE BATTLE OF FROMELLES

Roger Lee

Big Sky Publishing, 2010, 206pp, $19.95

Roger Lee’s book on the Battle of Fromelles can be broadly divided into four parts: an explanation of the context in which the battle was fought, a description of the tactics of 1916 and the planning processes that led to the battle, a description of the battle itself, and an epilogue on the discovery in 2008 of the remains of 250 casualties of the battle, and their subsequent recovery and re-burial.

The section on the context makes many useful points about the other events of 1916, and their impact on relatively smaller battles like Fromelles, points of a kind often overlooked by less informed commentators.  This context includes the heavy casualties around Verdun and in the early stages of the British Somme offensive, and the Russian Brusilov offensive.

These events were of a scale that explains why Fromelles might not have received much attention in broader histories of the First World War.  Coverage by the Australian official history, however, seems broadly appropriate.  The single day of battle at Fromelles, with its 5533 casualties, is covered in 120 pages in Bean’s Volume III, compared to 430 pages for the seven weeks and around 23,000 casualties at Pozières and Mouquet Farm. Fromelles has also been the subject in Australia of several recent popular histories.

This section also provides a useful reminder of the possible consequences of a German peace (possibilities often ignored by critics of Australian participation in the First World War).  While the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk might not have imposed a Carthaginian peace on Russia, it was at least as onerous as the Treaty of Versailles, sometimes considered a root cause for the Second World War.  It is often forgotten that what was then Australian territory (Papua) was bordered by a German colony (New Guinea).  A peace imposed by Germany on the British Empire and its dominions could well have had territorial effects on Australia.

The chapter on the planning for Fromelles is probably the least satisfactory part of the book. Lee explains clearly the problems with military technology (particularly limited communications and developing artillery tactics and technology) that were endemic in 1916.  These contributed to the failure of many attacks, including Fromelles.  He also makes some good points about the strategic reasoning and operational background to the attack, and mounts a vigorous defence of the British high command.  As he notes, it is the duty of a general to win wars, and that duty includes preparing and implementing attack plans. Aubers Ridge, on which Fromelles stands, was a strategically important objective.

Lee explains that the plan for Fromelles was not hastily cobbled together for the attack, contrary to some mythology.  Rather, it was based on preliminary planning that Sir Richard Haking, commanding the British XI Corps that controlled the battle, had already conducted as part of his normal command responsibilities.

Lee acknowledges later in the book that there was a major fault with the plan, in that the dominating German strongpoint called the Sugarloaf was on the boundary between the British 61st Division and the Australian 5th Division, rather than being made the responsibility of one division. While such a fault might have been understandable (although not acceptable) in a plan that had been hastily put together, it should not have remained in a more developed plan.  The failure to capture the Sugarloaf led directly to the heavy losses in the Australian 15th Brigade, leaving the 14th and 8th Brigades isolated in those parts of the German lines they had entered.

This acknowledgement of a major planning failure weakens Lee’s defence of the high command and the planning process, as does his comment about the many other ‘poorly prepared and inadequately supported’ attacks that took place in early July 1916.  Fromelles comes to appear as nearer to an unsatisfactory norm, rather than an exception, as Lee’s defence of the high command might wish to suggest.

Ultimately, and perhaps inadvertently, Lee’s defence of the high command comes across more as damning with faint praise than as a convincing defence of the command process. A better assessment of Haking’s part in Fromelles might be that he did not even reach the standard that Churchill ascribed to Haig:

He might be, he surely was, unequal to the prodigious scale of events; but no one else was discerned as his equal or better.

The description of the actual battle is a model of clarity (leaving aside a minor problem with some of the maps, mentioned later).  It makes plain the difficulties experienced by the 2/1st Bucks and the 59th Australian Battalion when attacking the Sugarloaf along converging lines, with inadequate communications further slowed by the extended chain of command.  The attempt to coordinate a second attack on the Sugarloaf collapsed under the strain of communications inadequacy.

After the failure to take or neutralise the Sugarloaf, the outcome of Fromelles moved on to its (by then inevitable) tragic conclusion.  The German counterattacks are clearly described, as is the fighting withdrawal of those elements of the 14th and 8th Brigades that had entered parts of the German defences.

The epilogue describing the discovery and recovery of the bodies of 250 casualties of Fromelles provides a sombre end to the book.  While this process was essential once the bodies had been found, the effort needed to resolve the fate of a small percentage of the very many Australian soldiers still missing in France and Flanders demonstrates the wisdom of a ban on speculative searches.  It also shows the thoughtfulness of the original British concept of an Unknown Soldier, later extended from Britain to other nations, including Australia.  Those seeking closure can perhaps find consolation in the thought that the ‘unknown’ might, indeed, be their missing relative.

Unfortunately, there are some problems with the publication standard.  While the maps produced specifically for the book are clear, and assist greatly with understanding the description of the battle, many of those copied from the Kriegsarchiv are so small when printed as to be almost unreadable.  Also, some of the maps describing the course of the battle include reference numbers, not all of which are explained in the accompanying text. There is some difference between the text on French divisional organisation and the figure explaining it, with ‘regiments’ used in the text when ‘brigades’ was probably intended.

Overall, however, this is a very useful description of the Battle of Fromelles, set in its wider context.

JOHN DONOVAN