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Elizabeth Spollard Burgmann Anglican School “Don’T Forget Me, Cobber”: Commemorating the European Debut of the Australian Imperial Force During the First World War

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Elizabeth Spollard Burgmann Anglican School “Don’T Forget Me, Cobber”: Commemorating the European Debut of the Australian Imperial Force During the First World War THE Simpson PRIZE A COMPETITION FOR YEAR 9 AND 10 STUDENTS 2017 Winner Australian Capital Territory Elizabeth Spollard Burgmann Anglican School “Don’t Forget Me, Cobber”: Commemorating the European debut of the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War “In public war memory, Simpson, the man with the donkey, was lionised and Percy Black, crucified on the wire at Bullecourt, was not.” - Historian Les Carlyon, 2006, ‘The Great War’ In June of 2014, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott visited Villers-Bretonneux to unveil a new interpretative centre, aimed towards educating future visitors to the Western Front.1 Declaring his aspiration to eliminate the “historical amnesia” surrounding Australian contributions within First World War, he stated: “In the past we have not given sufficient attention to our role on the Western Front, where Australian forces made a disproportionate contribution to what proved to be, in the end, a great victory”.2 However, whilst Villers- Bretonneux stands markedly commemorated, the initial efforts of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) during 1916 and beyond in the Western Front campaign remain largely overlooked within the context of public memory.3 The early contributions of the AIF in battles such as Fromelles and Pozieres prevail as decisive moments within Australian military history: where a young nation experienced a new scale of warfare, and cemented a national identity as a capable fighting force.4 Furthermore, as a lack of legendary appeal - and focus upon later triumphs - has created a moderately neglectful remembrance culture of the period, the importance of comprehensive public wartime memory has developed as an increasingly crucial matter within our nation’s role as a beacon of history.5 1 ABC News, 2016, Fromelles and Pozieres: 100 years on, viewed 17 October 2016 < http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-19/the-battles-of-fromelles-and-pozieres-100-years-on/7627170 > 2 ibid. 3 Australian Government, 2016, Australians on the Western Front, viewed 13 October 2016 < http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/australians-on-the-western-front > 4 ABC News, 2016, Why must a war define us?, viewed 12 October, 2016 < http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-24/green-why-must-a-war-define-us/58046 > 5 The Australian, 2016, Fromelles: Australia’s forgotten sacrifice on the Western Front, viewed 19 October 2016 < http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/paul-kelly/fromelles-australias-forgotten-sacrifice-on-the-western- front/news-story/4b7dde761da9cd1e267 48a10f3ac8e89 > 2 It is essential to primarily recognise that the Western Front offensive introduced the AIF to a heightened scale of warfare and devastation never before encountered by the young nation.6 Described by official war correspondent Charles Bean as “one of the bravest and most hopeless assaults ever undertaken”7, the Battle of Fromelles was an ill-prepared subsidiary attack by the Australian 5th Division and the British 61st Division on the 19th of July 1916, designed to utilise any subsequent diversional impairments.8 Both divisions lacked experience in European trench warfare: escalating the existing disadvantageous factors, including the increased scale and sophistication of the trench system compared to the Gallipoli campaign, and the German opposition who held superior skill and artillery capability.9 Outnumbered two to one, the troops gained no ground and inflicted 1,800 German casualties, contrasting the 5,533 observed by the Australian 5th Division alone: equal to all the Australian casualties observed in the Boer War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined.10 The debut was a brutal introduction to large-scale combat, described by historical writer Les Carlyon as “The worst 24 hours in Australia’s history… on the most tragic battlefield in Australia’s history”.11 In the following weeks from July to September of 1916, the Australian Divisions launched 19 attacks within the Battle for Pozières, swiftly achieving the strategic point. However, the ensuing German bombardment resulted in the loss of 6,800 lives from the 24,139 Australian casualties by early September - nearing the 8,159 killed in the entire Gallipoli campaign.12 As Australian military historian Peter Pedersen stated: “The Pozières sector was the only one in which the front forged steadily ahead… but the gains made were disproportionate to the unprecedented cost”.13 Whilst the desecrated town of Pozières marked the Australian victory which granted the gains of Thiepval and Mouquet Farm, Australian Brigadier General Charles Brand commented, “Gallipoli was a picnic compared to this”.14 A ruthless awakening into mechanised warfare, the early European efforts of AIF saw the introduction of a new scale of 6 Great War, 2016, The Heritage of the Great War: First World War 1914 – 1918, viewed 16 October 2016 7 ABC, 2016, The Battles of Fromelles and Pozières, viewed 17 October 2016 < http://www.abc.net.au/fromelles-pozieres/campaign-overview/ > 8 Ibid. 9 Anzac Centenary Victorian Government, 2016, Australia’s Contribution to WWI, viewed 11 October 2016 < http://anzaccentenary.vic.gov.au/history/australias-contribution-wwi/ > 10 Ross McMullin, Pompey Elliott, Scribe, Melbourne, 2002, p. 222-23 11 Australian War Memorial, 2016, Wartime Issue 36 - Disaster at Fromelles, viewed 13 October 2016 < https://www.awm.gov.au/wartime/36/article/ > 12 A. G Butler, Official History of the Australian Medical Services in the Great War, Melbourne, 3 Vols, 1930-43, vol II, p.864 < https://www.awm.gov.au/images/collection/pdf/RCDIG1070025--1-.pdf. > 13 The Australian, 2016, Fromelles: Australia’s forgotten sacrifice on the Western Front, viewed 19 October 2016 < http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/paul-kelly/fromelles-australias-forgotten-sacrifice-on-the-western- front/news-story/4b7dde761da9cd1e267 48a10f3ac8e89 > 14 ABC News, 2016, Australian soldiers lost in Battle of Pozieres 'deserve better', viewed 14 October 2016 < http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-21/australian-soldiers-lost-in-battle-of-pozieres-deserve-better/7184498 > Elizabeth Spollard Burgmann Anglican School Simpson Prize 2017 3 devastation: far greater than that of the Gallipoli campaign, the widely-accepted primary exemplar of Australia’s contribution to the First World War. The experiences of the AIF within the Western Front additionally marked a significant turning point regarding the evolution of Australia’s national identity. The man primarily responsible at Fromelles was British Commander Richard Haking, notably disdained amongst the Australian forces as a “butcher of troops”.15 Australian Brigadier-General Harold Edward “Pompey” Elliott was alarmed at Haking’s confidence towards Fromelles, a view also not reciprocated by the Australian troops who, since Gallipoli, had requested to be officered by Australian men. Major Henry Howard examined the prospective battlefield and affirmed Elliott’s views, stating: “It will be a bloody holocaust”.16 However, British Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig was anxious to prevent the Germans from achieving defensive flexibility, and approved the operation.17 Elliott wept upon observing the slaughter inflicted on his men, and blamed Haking, as the British command proceeded to lie about the incident in the operation communique. “The ANZAC men who helped build up my Brigade are dead. I presume there was some plan at the back of the attack but it is difficult to know what it was.” - Brigadier General Elliott (5th Australian Division), 1916, Australian War Memorial18 Initially considered undisciplined, the reputation of the Australian troops as more than men bound by colonial duty soon emerged: steeped in the values of courage, endurance and initiative.19 Here ensued a new hostility between the Australian soldier and the British command, directed at Australia’s lunge for significance as an independent national self. As Lieutenant Cyril Lawrence described in a letter to his mother, “You will never know, you people in Australia, what the boys have done - even the people of England do not know because they call us British troops”.20 Upon these battlefields, a turning point was marked for the entirely voluntary force, developing the legacy initiated by the ANZAC troops on the shores of 15 ABC, 2016, The Battles of Fromelles and Pozières, viewed 17 October 2016 < http://www.abc.net.au/fromelles-pozieres/campaign-overview/ > 16 First World War Online, 2016, First World War Online - Pompey Elliott, viewed 11 October 2016 < http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/elliott.htm > 17 ibid. 18 Australian War Memorial, 2016, 1916: Australians in France, viewed 16 October 2016 < https://www.awm.gov.au/ww1/1916/essay/ > 19 Australian War Memorial, 2016, Tommy: Australian soliders' relations with the British, viewed 19 October 2016 < https://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/1918/soldier/tommy.asp > 20 Carlyon. L, 2006, The Great War, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, pp.56-57. Elizabeth Spollard Burgmann Anglican School Simpson Prize 2017 4 Gallipoli.21 In The Great War, Carlyon describes the troops: “They were good at war… in a way that offended the keepers of the orthodoxies: lots of dash, not much discipline away from the battlefield”.22 The initial operations of the AIF on the Western Front defined the coming-of- age of the young Australian Divisions, securing their identity as adept soldiers.23 Although indeed somewhat overlooked within public remembrance due to sheer devastation and lack of legendary appeal, the initial efforts on the Western Front by the AIF developed
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