King - The Western Front diaries : the Anzacs own story, battle by battle

THE WESTERN FRONT DIARIES

Award-winning historian Dr Jonathan King is the author of Gallipoli Diaries: the Anzacs own story, day by day (Scribe, 2014), and has been producing books and films about World War I since 1994. He leads battlefield tours to Gallipoli and the Western Front, and is a regular television and radio commentator, as well as a writer for newspapers. After lecturing at the University of Melbourne for many years, he has written more than 30 books and produced 20 documentaries. He is based in Sydney with his fellow adventurer and wife, Jane. They have four daughters and seven grandchildren.

Scribe Publications
1820 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3056, Australia
2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom

First published by Simon & Schuster (Australia), 2008
This revised edition published by Scribe 2015

Copyright Jonathan King 2008, 2010, 2014

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data

King, Jonathan, 1942- author.

The Western Front Diaries: the Anzacs own story, battle by battle / Jonathan King.

Revised edition.

9781925106695 (paperback)
9781925307061 (e-book)

1. Australia. Army. Australian and New Zealand Army CorpsHistory. 2. SoldiersAustraliaDiaries. 3. SoldiersAustraliaCorrespondence. 4. World War, 1914-1918CampaignsWestern FrontPersonal narratives, Australian. 5. World War, 1914-1918BattlefieldsEurope, Western.

940.4144

scribepublications.com.au
scribepublications.co.uk

To the many who gave their lives not only Australians but those from all sides.

CONTENTS

by Dr Brendan Nelson

Five Times Greater Than Gallipoli

All Too Quiet on the Western Front

PART ONE:

A Seemingly Inexorable Build-up

1914: the first year of war

1915: the second year of war

PART TWO:

Battle for Verdun

The First Anzacs Start Leaving Egypt

First Front-line Experience

First Australian Raid

The Battle of the Somme: historys worst battlefield toll

Fromelles: the worst one-day death toll

Pozires: the worst killing field of all

Pozires: Percy Smythes account

Mouquet Farm: dying in the mud

PART THREE:

January 1917: winter report

Germanys Strategic Retreat

Battle for Lagnicourt

Battle of Arras

America Joins the Fray

Battle of Vimy Ridge

: Bullecourt ( I ) & ( II )

Bullecourt ( I ): abandoned by tanks in No-Mans-Land

Lagnicourt: losing and regaining a village on the same day

Bullecourt ( II ): no thanks to the tanks

: Ypres in Flanders

Messines

( I ) Menin Road

( II ) Polygon Wood

( III ) Broodseinde

( IV ) Poelcapelle

( V ) Passchendaele

Battle of Cambrai

PART FOUR:

The German Spring Offensive

: battles that halted the German offensive

Halting Battle ( I ): Hbuterne village

Halting Battle ( II ): first Dernancourt

Halting Battle ( III ): first battle for Morlancourt

Halting Battle ( IV ): first Villers-Bretonneux

Halting Battle ( V ): second Dernancourt

Halting Battle ( VI ): Hangard Wood

Halting Battle ( VII ): Hazebrouck (aka Battle of the Lys)

Battle of Zeebrugge

: Villers-Bretonneux and beyond the Somme

Turning-point Battle ( I ): second Villers-Bretonneux

Turning-point Battle ( II ): second Morlancourt

Turning-point Battle ( III ): Ville-sur-Ancre

Battle of the Aisne

Battle of Cantigny

Battle of Belleau Wood

Battle of Noyon-Montdidier

Turning-point Battle ( IV ): third Morlancourt

: the long-awaited breakthrough

Hamel

: Amiens, Germanys black day

: post-Amiens mop-ups

Mop-up Battle ( I ): Lihons

Mop-up Battle ( II ): Etinehem

Mop-up Battle ( III ): Proyart

Mop-up Battle ( IV ): Transloy-Loupert system

Mop-up Battle (v): Chuignes

: final victory roll

Victory Roll ( I ) & ( II ): Mont St Quentin and Pronne

Victory Roll ( III ): Hindenburg outpost line (aka Hargicourt)

Battle of Argonne Forest (Meuse River)

Victory Roll ( IV ): St Quentin Canal

Victory Roll ( V ): Montbrehain, the Australians last battle

PART FIVE:

Combatants Killed

Total Wounded

Civilian Deaths

Aprs la Guerre

Farewell to Old France Forever

Returning to Australia

Tragedy and Triumph

Success Stories

APPENDIX

FOREWORD

Charles Bean was Australias official World War I historian. Having landed with the Australian troops at Gallipoli, he stayed with them at the Front through the entire war. It was said of Bean that no one had risked death more often than him. Wounded at the Gallipoli August offensive, he refused evacuation such was his commitment to his role and to the men and nurses whose lives, courage, and sacrifice he so painstakingly documented. At Pozires, France, in 1916, Australia suffered 23,000 casualties in just six weeks. In late July, he recorded this in his diary:

Many a man lying out there at Pozires or in the low scrub at Gallipoli, with his poor, tired senses barely working through the fever of his brain, has thought in his last moments: well well its over; but in Australia they will be proud of this.

We are. We are very proud.

At the very end of the official history, which would take almost a quarter of a century to write and edit, when Bean then sought to summarise it all and what it meant, he wrote:

What these men did, nothing can alter now. The good and the bad, the greatness and the smallness of their story will stand It rises as it will always rise, above the mists of ages, a monument to great-hearted men; and, for their nation, a possession forever.

But it was not only what they did, it is also what they wrote. For the first time, on a scale not since seen, these men and women nurses recorded their observations, described the horror, humour, and heroism around them, and expressed their love for family and friends so far away.

The power is in their story and how they told it, especially from France and Belgium from which 46,000 would not ever return, remaining as silent witnesses to the future they have given us.

Among those, author Dr Jonathan King introduces us to Stan Hastings Marchment of the 5th Divisions 14th Machine Gun Company. He was one of the 5,770 Australian casualties on the Menin Road, Belgium in 1917. His brother, Robert, broke the news of Stans death in a letter home:

No doubt youve heard the sad news Before we went out on the night of the 25th Stan had an idea that something was going to happen to him, and he gave a letter to one of our boys to be posted for him in England I think it was to a girl in Wauchope He did not want it censored He went out cheerful as a man ever could, especially when he had an idea he was going to his doom [After he went over the top], he and three other boys were with their Gun digging a position when suddenly the Germans sent a barrage of fire from their heavy batteries into Glencorse Wood where Stan and his mates were, and got all four of them [Stan] suffered no pain as it was an instantaneous death with him Glencorse Wood turned out a veritable hell for our boys and many other good Australian Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Sweethearts and Brothers