Mouquet Farm: Second Draft

I still need to change some things, make corrections, fact check, and stuff like that, but hopefully I can get this done soon.



Mouquet Farm: Australian Introduction


The time is 0445 hrs., 26 August, 1916


"My bottle's dry as a dead dingo's donger!"

The Australian 2nd Division is in the frontlines near Mouquet Farm, about five miles north of the River Somme and about one and a half miles east of the Somme's tributary, the River Ancre, in Picardy, France.

The advance from the summit of Pozieres Ridge to Mouquet Farm has lasted for almost three weeks now and has been painfully slow.

The landscape looks like something from the planet Mars: a sea of blown up reddish chesnut colored earth pierced by thousands of red shell craters.

The only signs of human civilization are an overturned abandoned wagon on the horizon, and several piles of white rubble with some beams of wood protruding from them: Mouquet Farm.

When the 2nd Division came over the slope to the frontlines facing Mouquet Farm during the early evening of August 22, just eighty-two hours ago, an intense barrage from the German lines of shrapnel and high-explosive shells immediately descended on the whole area from Mouquet Farm to Pozieres, lasting from 6:00PM until midnight, and Lieutenant W.A. Coward of the 24th Battalion was killed.

The Germans have an advantageous position; Mouquet Farm and their trench lines are on the top of a gentle rising slope, and thus they can see any movement along Poziers Ridge and the Australian frontlines by day.

The German artillery shells fall for hours at a time like a deadly cosmic storm, killing, maiming, and burying the men in your battalion.

Because of the heavy German barrages, communications is severely impaired and telephone lines cannot be maintained.

Instead, foot messengers are used to send messages; it takes them several hours from the frontlines to reach Brigade Headquarters which is a little less than 1,000 yards away from Pozieres Cemetery.

You have heard stories from the men being relieved that our own artillery has killed scores of our own men through friendly fire, and continued to shell our frontlines, even after messengers were sent, because things are not being coordinated properly.

Yesterday, ninety-six men in a single company of the 21st Battalion were killed or wounded during a German barrage.

Just about half the supplies of grenades, small arms ammunition, flares, and water are able to get through to the front. The two days of line rations that you brought with you ran out over a day ago.


On August 16, Field Marshal Douglas Haig, Commander of the BEF, informed General Gough, the Commander of the Reserve Army, that heavy armoured "caterpillar" cars which, for secrecy, had been referred to as "water tanks," would shortly reach France, and that a new major offensive with fresh reinforcements will probably take place in the middle of September.

It is hoped that this planned September offensive with the tanks might at last break through the German front and enable the British to "roll it up".

But before the September offensive can be effectively launched, the Thiepval-Pozieres Ridge must be seized.

General Gough originally defined the purpose of capturing Mouquet Farm as "cutting off Thiepval and getting observation over Coucelette and Grandcourt."

Gough has amplified the order: the object of Anzac operations is to cut off the heavily defended German position at the village of Thiepval and the nearby Schwaben Redoubt from the Germans' resupply depot at Courcelette to the east, and to capture of Thiepval itself by converging attacks by the Anzacs from the north-east and by the newly arrived British II Corps to the south-west.

The date for this assault on Thiepval is set for 28th of August, and will coincide with the British 4th Army's assault on Ginchy and Guillemont to the east.

Objectives:

In preparation for the planned September offensive on Thiepval, Mouquet Farm must be taken; the Anzac line west of Mouquet Farm must be straightened to the Courcellette Road; and the substantial German trench line called the Fabeck Graben just east of the farm must be taken and secured.



In order to reduce the horrendous level of casualties that were sustained on the opening day at the Somme and at Pozieres over a month ago, new tactics have been issued to General Headquarters by Field Marshal Haig.

In order to avoid detection from the German artillery and to lower casualties, lighter forces are to be employed in assaulting enemy positions.

Objectives will be carefully selected, and instead of attacking in overwhelming numbers, sufficient levels of troops will be used to capture and hold them; yet not using forces that are too weak.

Also a "creeping" artillery barrage will be utilized.

The creeping barrage will move ahead of the advancing infantry at a set rate of 50 yards a minute, so that the infantry will be protected by a curtain of fire and will be able to attack the enemy positions as soon as the barrage moves on to the next enemy line.



Zero hour is at 0445 hours.

At 0415 hours, Captain Sale gives the order to climb out of the front-line trench and lay down in proper order in shell craters 25 feet ahead of the trench.

As you lie in the shell crater, waiting for the artillery to open up, you think about the letter you found in the shirt pocket of one your friends who was killed by the German artillery.

It said "Dear Mother, sisters, brothers, and Auntie Lill.

As we are about to go into work that must be done, I want to ask you, if anything should happen to me, not to worry. You must think of all the mothers that lost ones as dear to them. One thing you can say-- that you lost one doing his little bit for a good cause.

I know you shall feel it if anything does happen to me, but I am willing and prepared to give my life for the cause."

Your friend's blood was on the letter.


In the summer of 1916, Mouquet Farm would reap a harvest not of wheat, but of thousands of human corpses. The total casualties incurred in attempting to take the farm from 7 August to 12 September cannot have been much short of 20,000 men, and the fallen included Britons, Canadians, Tasmanians, but the bulk of the men lost were from Australia (including a few men of mixed Aborginal ancestry).

The Australian Imperial Force's casualties (including Tasmanians and the men of mixed Aboriginal background) numbered 15,400 out of the 20,000 men killed or wounded.




Australian Imperial Force, 2nd Division, 6th Bde. (Victoria): 21st, 23rd, and 24th Battalions.

The day after Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, the Prime Minister of Australia, Joseph Cook, declared war on Germany too, stating "When the Empire is at war, so also is Australia."

Australian federal elections were held on September 5, 1914, and the succeeding Australian Labour government of Prime Minister Andrew Fisher continued to support the war; Fisher, during the 1914 election campaign, pledged that Australia would "stand beside the mother country to help and defend her to the last man and the last shilling."

An initial expeditionary force of 20,000 men (two-thirds Australian and one-third New Zealanders) was offered the same day Australia declared war to serve at any destination desired by the British Home Government; on August 6th, 1914, London cabled its acceptance of the force and asked for it to be sent as soon as possible.

Thus the Australian Imperial Force, a new military army, better known to the world by its acronym as a corps with the New Zealand forces, ANZACs, was born.

Recruitment offices opened on August 10, 1914, and men from all over Australia and from all walks of life rushed to them to sign up. By the end of 1914, 52,561 volunteers had been accepted.



The 21st, 23rd, and 24th Battalions of the Australian Imperial Force ("A.I.F.") were raised as part of the 6th Brigade at Broadmeadows Camp in the state of Victoria between February and May, 1915.

These recruits were from all over Victoria. The average age of these men was 29, and their later enlistment would seem to indicate a more considered decision to enlist that set them apart from those men who enlisted during the great enthusiasm of late 1914.

These three Battalions sailed from the city of Melbourne between March and early May, and arrived in Egypt in June 1915; there they trained during the months of July and August.

In late August, the 21st, 23rd, and 24th Battalions were sent to Gallipoli, landing at Anzac Cove on September 7, 1915.

While stationed at Gallipoli for 16 weeks, both the 23rd and 24th Battalions manned at various times one of the most trying parts of the ANZAC frontline: Lone Pine.

The fighting at Lone Pine was so dangerous and exhausting that battalions were relieved every day.

The 21st Battalion had a relatively quiet time at Gallipoli.

After evacuation from Gallipoli in December, 1915, the three Battalions arrived in the Armetieres sector of northern France in March, 1916.

In mid-July 1916, with the British offensive on the Somme dragging on, I ANZAC Corps was sent to join the British Reserve Army of Lieutenant-General Hubert (de la Poer) Gough who used the ANZAC forces to drive a wedge between the heavily fortified and defended German position at the small village of Thiepval and the German supply and reinforcement base at the town of Courcelette nearby a few miles to the east. Thus cut off and encircled by the I ANZAC Corps, the fortified positions of Thiepval and the Schwaben Redoubt would surely fall into Allied hands.

The Australian 1st Division attacked Pozieres on July 23, 1916. Due to heavy casualties, Australian 1st Division was relieved by the 2nd Division on July 27.

The 2nd Division attacked on July 29 and again on August 4th, capturing the German OG 2 trench line and part of the crest of Pozieres Ridge.

The Germans retaliated with a heavy, sustained artillery bombardment of the Ridge.

After 12 days on the frontline, the 2nd Division was relieved by the Australian 4th Division on the 6th of August, 1916.

The 2nd Division had sustained a total of 6,846 casualties at Pozieres.

After a brief 15 day rest, during which the Division was built up to two-thirds strength, the 2nd Division again relieved the 1st Division to continue the drive northwest to encircle Thiepval, at the Australian frontline just about 300 yards south of Mouquet Farm.


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