Der Schwarze Tag”

CHAPTER XIV “DER SCHWARZE TAG” ’rHE Australian infantry winding along their numerous approach tracks, constantly passing black silent masses of waiting tanks and crowded guns, were excited with their own realisation of the facts to which Monash’s message referred- that at last all five divisions of their national army were attacking together, that the Canadian force was attacking beside them, and that this time they were not to be stopped short of the opposing guns-and also of the elating circumstance that, so far, the enemy showed no awareness of the blow about to fall. The infantry brigades started their approach at different hours, mostly between midnight and 1.30 a.m.; the troops of the two divisions that were to launch the first stages of attack (at 4.20) mostly passed through-and reached their jumping-off tapes before-those of the two divisions for the second objective. These then followed and assembled behind them.’ At 3 a.m. when most units of the leading divisions had thus assembled and lain down, but about half of the two rearward ones were still moving up the tracks close behind them,2 the air became dimmed by a morning mist which quickly thickened until at 3.30 it was difficult to see more than twenty yards on either side. “It was getting too foggy to be pleasant,” said Col. Sadler of the 17th Battalion afterwards describing the assembly. Men of Elliott’s 15th Brigade, then toiling up from Bois 1’AbbC to their starting lines by the brickfield in rear of the Australian right, have told how they were becoming anxious as to their direction when lights were suddenly seen in the mist ahead and there was the number of their battalion, 57, glowing above 1 In some places. however, both forces were on the march at once. aThe right brigade (15th of 5th Div.) was then passing north and south of Villers-Bretonneux. the next (8th) was already in position between that town and Vaire Wood. The right bri ade of the 4th Div., the Iath, was arriving at the assembly position; of the let? brigade (4th) the 16th Bn. had marched up earl) in the night; the other battalions had just arrived. 526 3rd-8th Aug., 19181 “DER SCHWARZE TAG” 527 theni-candles in petrol tins with punctured numbers having been set on poles to mark the assembly point^.^ Just then and in that area, near the Villers-Bretonneux- Marcelcave railway, there broke out a German bombardment. Shouting had been heard in rear, apparently associated with the assembly of the tanks, and the troops concluded that the Germans had overheard this and had called for artillery pro- tection. The shelling fell on the right half of the two Australian brigades (7th and 15th) north of the railway and the left battalion (19th) of the 4th Canadian Brigade south of it. The officers quickly pushed their gathering men into trenches or shell-holes. It was often assumed that, by catching the assembly with his barrage, the enemy could shatter a preparing attack ; but, as at Broodseinde and Bullecourt, the men lay quietly suffering the casualties where a shell chanced to catch some waiting group? “They’re having their fun now,” said men of the flank guard,5 “but wait till our barrage starts.” The records of the Canadians make it evident that their reaction was the same. German histories show that this bombardment was really part of the programme of a raid (code name llErnte”-’‘Harvest”) by the 148th I.R. (41st Divn.). Like several other attempts, all unsuccessful, after that of Aug. 3-4, this raid was due to reports of engine-noise and movements about Villers-Bretonneux. “Immediately after (the laying down of the bombardment),” says General Kabisch, “the raiders make their rush, and find-nothing. Not once does the enemy artillery answer. , The 148th could only report that they had found the foremost trenches of the enemy empty.”O The point raided was immediately south of the railway where the last of the 50th Aust. Bn., covering the 2nd Cdn. Divn., was just withdrawing when the shelling began. ‘The broad tapes for guiding up tanks were of considerable advantage to some of the infmtry caught in this mist. ‘The barrage caused only some 20- o casualties amon the Australians. In mending telephone lines brohen by it It. B T. Kell (forth Fremantle. W.A.) signalling officer of the 28th Bn was mortally wounded. ‘This guard (formed, as it hap ened, by what we have nicknamed the “Brewery” company and another company o? the zist Bn ) was attached to the rlght (26th) battalion of the and Div to make sure of the railway cutting and embankment, and of close contact with the and Cdn. DIP. * Drr Schwarxe Tag pp. 110.1. 528 THE A.I.F. IN FRANCE [Sth Aug., 1918 Though severe and maintained, with some diminution, for three-quarters of an hour, the bombardment was unnoticed by the Canadians and French farther south and by the British assembling on the heights north of the Somme. On this last sector, at 3.40 there broke out another bombardment. A number of very distant batteries (noted an observer at Sailly-le- Sec) began to rain small shell on to the British front or support positions ahead of us. From ever so high up these little shells came whining down and then burst with a swish, as if they were shrapnel, or a pat, as if they were gas. This lasted about five minutes and seemed to be certainly a counter-preparation by the Germans against a suspected attack from the British front north of the Somme. German histories state that this bombardment was called down by the commander of the II/265th R.I.R., Capt. Rechtern, on the slope north of the Somme. About 3 a.m. Rechtern passed on a report that “Tommy” in fighting kit was lying out before his battalion’s front. The IZI/z65th on his right also heard troops ahead, and the noise of motor engines. German trench-mortars and heavy machine-guns opened, but the German artillery there, though strong on account of the recent operations, was for the same reason somewhat sparig of ammunition and had orders to cease fire after a short time unless the infantry’s demand was repeated.’ About this time the last covering parties left by the right line-brigade, where the line of assembly lay far behind the front line, withdrew through the force in rear-the main part of the line companies having withdrawn some time before.8 From 3.50 a.m. the old front here for 400-700 yards ahead of the assembled troops lay empty except for the headquarters and medical detachments of two attacking battalions (19th and 20th) of the 5th Brigade which had established themselves there, north of the Roman road in anticipation of the start? By 3.40 the mist was so thick that some observers north of ~ ‘The history of the zo3rd F.A.R. says it fired from 4 IO to 4.20, but the German. records for this battle were largely lost and the time here given. 3.40. is certain BThe 6th Bde had held the 2nd Div’s front, the 10th the 3rd Div.’s. In most of the latter the attacking iroops assembled in the front line and the garrison had been relieved bj them between I and 3 a.m. There thh attacking brigade had taken over the patrolling after nightfall. and at 10.30 p.m. a patrol of the 33rd Bn had met a German atrol in the always difficult sector looking down on Accrichc Wood. A bomb figit followed in which five of the 33rd were wounded. A patrol of the line battalion (38th) went out at once to search the ground but could find no German casualties. 9 As a precaution in case of some German raid. the headquarters runners and oliservers of the 20th Bn. guarded the empty trenches until five minutes before the fall of the barrage, when they withdrew to shelter. The attack orders were buried till zero hour beneath the dugout floor. 8th Aug., 19181 “DER SCHWARZE TAG” 529 the Somme feared it might have prevented the “taking off” of the British aeroplanes that should then be patrolling over- head so that their engines might drown the noise of the droves of tanks then beginning their final move to the front. At 3.50 the same observers detected the distant sound of an engine- either tank or aeroplane; a minute later they recognised it as that of a cruising aeroplane. Other machines maintained their drone over all sectors of the German front to be attacked. Through this buzz the purr of the tank engines, throttled down, was inaudible even to the waiting Australians except a few who were very close. The German bombardment in the railway area had almost died away when at 4.20, slightly preceded by some batteries of the I11 Corps north of the Somme,lo the main 2,000 guns of the Fourth Army, as well as those of Debeney’s First French Army farther south, started almost with a single crash. Nearly every account of the fight, Allied and German, speaks of that astonishing outburst. As at Broodseinde, for the troops who had been waiting under the galling shell-fire near the railway that tremendous orchestra was elating music. In some places the excited troops cheered the sound. Nearly every man lit a cigarette as all along the line the companies of the attacking brigades rose and moved forward.

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