Dale Blair - The Battle of Bellicourt Tunnel: Tommies, Diggers and Doughboys on the Hindenburg Line, 1918

From August to November 1918 the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) under Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig fought a series of victorious battles on the Western Front that contributed mightily to the defeat of the Imperial German Army. It did so as part of a coalition, and the role of French, Belgian and United States forces should not be forgotten. The BEF itself, it is often forgotten, was a coalition force. While troops from the British Isles provided the core, the four divisions of the Canadian Corps, the five division-strong Australian Corps, the New Zealand Division (by 1918 standards the size of a small corps) and the South African Brigade were powerful accretions of strength. Such formations were both part of the BEF and proto-national armies in their own right. Many, probably most, Dominion soldiers had no difficulty in regarding themselves as both Australians (or whatever) and in some sense British. In September 1918 General Sir Henry Rawlinsons British Fourth Army had a further level of coalition complexity with which to cope. The American II Corps was placed under the tutelage of Lieutenant-General Sir John Monashs Australian Corps. Thus the attack on the Bellicourt Tunnel, the subject of Dale Blairs book, was very much an inter-Allied affair.

Dale Blair is a fine historian who has already written, among other things, Dinkum Diggers, a path-breaking study of the Australian Imperial Forces 1st Battalion. Here he employs a similar forensic approach, giving detailed description and incisive analysis of the operations of the Australian and American II Corps in the Hindenburg Line fighting. British readers who have more than a passing knowledge in the Hundred Days will be familiar with the feats of 46th (North Midland) Division a short distance down the canal: 137 (Staffordshire) Brigade succeeded in forcing a crossing and thereby unlocking the German defences. What happened on the flank, in the Australian/American sector, is much less well known, and Dale Blairs achievement is to tell a complicated story in a highly readable fashion.

Dr Blairs judgements are uncompromising. He, fairly, points the finger of blame at Haig, Rawlinson and Monash for expecting too much of the raw American troops, singling out the Australian Corps commander for particular criticism. Up against a tough enemy protected by formidable defences, neither the inexperienced Americans nor the battle-hardened diggers could be expected to prevail easily. A technological quick fix was not the answer: the battle of 29 September was, he judges, correctly, disastrous for the Tank Corps. Overall, the fighting in the Tunnel sector was, he argues persuasively, a draw. At the end, like two boxers, the AustralianAmerican force was gasping for breath and the Germans, badly battered, were back-pedalling to remain on balance. This is a fair conclusion for this stretch of front, but overall the day was calamitous for the German Army, even if the clean breakthrough that Haig had hoped for did not occur. Forced out of the Hindenburg Line, the prognosis for the German Army on the Western Front and hence Imperial Germany itself was bleak indeed.

Dale Blair has written a book that stands as a distinguished contribution to the military history of the First World War. This detailed study of an important battle adds significantly to our understanding of a critical phase in the fighting. No one writing about or teaching the history of the final offensives of 1918 can afford to ignore it.

Gary Sheffield

Professor of War Studies, University of Birmingham