When the battalion left the trenches on the night of the 24th it began its journey back to the rest area. Stopping at Mametz Camp for a few days, it continued the march through Albert to a wood near Henencourt on March 1. The men showed all the signs of fatigue, for from January 7 till February 25 they had been continually In the front line or working immediately behind it. Winter in all the rigour of that winter of 1916-1917 still prevailed, and life in the huts in Henencourt Wood was dull and uninspiring.
The district around them, however, presented a very pleasant contrast to the scene of their recent labours. They were in the midst of a peaceful, undulating country, that showed none of the havoc and ruin of war. Villages were near at hand and farm-houses were plentiful, where the men made many friends. Moreover, despite the unfavourable weather conditions, there was as much out-door training as possible, which is perhaps the best antidote against the tedium of military life.
By this time the enemy had begun his retirement from that part of the line which the battalion had last occupied. The middle of the month saw him leave Bapaume, and for a time it looked as if there was some chance of a war of movement having begun. So during the period of training at Henencourt, the battalion practised attacks and following-up tactics in conjunction with the other units of the brigade; and again speculation became active among officers and men as to the extent and importance of the operation in which they were next to take part.
Thre [sic] weeks were thus spent at Henencourt before the battalion again marched towards the east. Their first halt was at Fricourt, where they spent four days. From there they moved into dugouts about a mile north-west of the old familiar Flers, at a place called Eaucourt-L'Abbaye. There was as yet no touch of spring or promise of it, rain fell almost constantly, and when the unit had got thus far east it was once more living the old life of discomfort and mud. Working parties were strenuously busy on the many jobs that called for attention on the lines of communication. Moreover a projected operation was much discussed, and hard training for it was the order of the day.
On April 1 the battalion moved about three miles further north to Biefvillers, a village lying somewhat to the left of Bapaume. Still the work went on, training alternating with fatigue work until the men felt that impatience which Australian soldiers always showed during the days immediately preceding a big operation. It was not an impatience that had any of the affectation of the fire-eater about it. Indeed the soldier's impatience at such a time is wholly natural. For previous to an operation almost every hour of his day is taken up in training for it or working for it. He is living In the desert wilderness of the trenches. He has no newspapers, no distractions of any kind. The coming operation occupies his whole mental life, making him gloomy and silently dreading it, or making him a noisy enthusiast for it with a gambler's impatience for the issue.
The war of movement had ceased, indeed it had never begun, for the enemy had made his withdrawal leisurely enough. There had not as yet been adopted the great methods, greatly conceived, that should compel him to continue a war of movement. East of Bapaume ran his great reserve system of defence, which was known as the Hindenburg Line, and there his well-controlled retirement came to an end. As has already been stated, on the night the 48th Battalion left the front line trenches at Gueudecourt, the battalion scouts had come In reporting their inability to find any trace of the enemy in the trenches opposite. The retirement had already begun as the unit wended its way to the rest area. Now the enemy was far east of Gueudecourt, far east of Bapaume. Bullecourt formed one of his new strongholds, and the battalion had come back from the rest area to assist in the assault on tills new line of defence.
After spending a week in the ruined village of Biefvellers, the unit set out for Noreuil on the 8th of the month. The distance was considerable and the march had to be made during dark. It was past 2 o'clock in the morning before the relief was completed, and the men were in the trenches from which the attack on the Hindenburg Line was to be launched. The battalion scouts were busy immediately and under cover of the darkness patrolled the country in front. What they discovered was disconcerting enough, for three ridges of barbed wire each some eight yards in depth stretched before them. When these obstacles had been circumvented, they found 50 yards further on a still more formidable belt of wire entanglements which ran right to the enemy's parapet.
Our artillery was to play no very important part in this operation. In every operation before Bullecourt and since Bullecourt the artillery's role was a conspicuous one. It would begin its allotted task several days before the infantry came on the scene, doing counter-battery work whose success should make all the difference to the infantry afterwards. The artillery was accustomed to cut the barbed wire for the infantry man, to cover him in his advance, to protect him whilst he "dug in" after having gained his objective. But there was to be no great bombardment preceding this advance; there was to be no preliminary counter-battery work. The army commander was General Gough, and it was commonly understood that he was placing full reliance on the tanks which were to take part in the operation. It was considered that if the tanks could make an easy path over the wire entanglements there should be no necessity for the operation to start with an intensive bombardment, and the surprise of the enemy should be all the greater for the absence of any preliminary artillery display.
But in the actual working out of that ill-starred operation in which the 4th Australian Division took part, there was little element of surprise and but little success in any attempt to take the enemy unawares. On the left flank of the 4th Division were English troops, and on the morning of the 10th all were in position for the attack which was to take place at 4.30 a.m. There was heavy snow on the ground where the men lay at the jumping-off position awaiting the hour. The hour came but the tanks were still waited for, and the minutes passed whilst the men shivered with cold in the snow. All the time they saw grow the daylight which should make their position an exposed and dangerous one. There they lay for an hour and at last the order was given to retire to the trenches. And what a retirement was that! Those men got up stiff and cold and cramped, damning the tanks, the stupidity of the higher command that backed the tanks. They returned to their own trenches just as does a crowd disperse after a football match, no pretence at taking cover, no care for an enemy. The digger was thoroughly "fed up," the digger of all ranks, officer and private, and he showed it by his careless contempt for friend and enemy alike. The enemy saw the casual withdrawal, which made him aware that an attack on his trenches had been intended, and was now for some reason abandoned. He immediately began to fire on the retiring soldiers, having them at quite close range; but they had the luck which attends the imprudent and reckless, and got back to their trenches with very few casualties.
The enemy was aware, however, that he had narrowly escaped a formidable surprise attack and he began a heavy bombardment of the area. Major Ben Leane of the 48th Battalion was killed and four of other ranks, whilst 17 of other ranks were wounded. Poor Ben Leane, sergeant on Gallipoli, rouseabout [sic] wtih [sic] the Camel Corps in Egypt, adjutant of the 48th at its formation, major and second-in-command at his death. A man with all the force of character of his truculent brother, but of a disposition gentle as a woman. In his loss the unit had already paid heavy toll to Bullecourt.
On the following morning the attack was again attempted, the same programme being followed out. Again the men were lying in position long before the hour of 4.30 a.m. and again long after that hour they waited in vain for the tanks. The approaching daylight, however, did not delay, so at 5 a.m. the 48th Battalion was forced to begin its advance. From 4.30 a.m. the artillery barrage on that part of the front had rested on the enemy trenches east of Bullecourt, to prevent the fire of the enemy whilst our troops should advance. But just now that protecting fire lifted, the artillery acting according to scheduled programme which presumed the effective co-operation of the tanks with the infantry.
The men were therefore forced to advance over the open ground with little help or protection from either tanks or artillery. In doing so they suffered many casualties. They carried mats to bridge the heavy ridges of wire, which either artillery should have cut or tanks rendered ineffective. The bridging of that wire further reduced their numbers before they finally reached the objective, which they did shortly after 6 o'clock.
The position of the 48th Battalion was now a very precarious one. Every effort was made to get in touch with the troops on the right flank, but without success. The intervening gap was strongly held by the enemy, and constant bombing attacks were necessary to keep him from further inroads. The 46th Battalion had taken the first objective, and now lay in support of the 48th which had passed through it on to the second objective. On the left flank of the 48th there was no sign of the English troops and it was considered then that they could not advance as the tanks had failed them. Thus was the 48th Battalion left with both flanks in the air.
Meanwhile the tanks were in different parts of the field experiencing different adventures. Colonel Leane had established his headquarters in the shelter of a railway embankment, and there an officer in charge of a tank reported for direction of his services. The colonel asked him to go to the assistance of the left flank of his battalion. The officer promptly sent the tank in that direction, but it returned before getting within effective range. On its way back it was struck by the fragments of a shell that landed near it, and although still workable was quickly abandoned by the crew. All the enemy shells falling in the area immediately concentrated on that tank, until it was set ablaze and Colonel Leane's headquarters soon became the unhealthiest part of the field. Another tank crashed into a field orderly-room where field signallers were at work, and the air became blue with the language of the disturbed diggers.
Such was the history of the tanks in that sector at Bullecourt, farcical but that they were the clumsy cause of so much tragedy. "Had the tanks shown more pluck and initiative I quite believe things would have been different." That was the official report on the operation. Perhaps it is true. But one remembers those unwieldy machines in operations 18 months afterwards, when they were more plentiful, more developed, and when there was no conspicuous lack of pluck or initiative in their crews. And one remembers that they were even then so uncertain and often so ineffective, that the success of no operation was ever left to depend solely on them. At Bullecourt the fault seemed to exist in the criminal lack of foresight that entrusted the success or failure of that operation to an experiment with them.
But incidents of futile heroism were plentiful in the front line trench. Young Watson of the 48th had his brother killed beside him and at the same time fell partially paralysed across the brother's body. There he lay for two hours doing what work he could with his rifle, and then crawled back across the snow only to die two weeks later. The Germans advancing along the network of trenches were time after time bombed back. Bombs and more bombs were called for, and finally the 48th men began using the German bombs which were plentiful in that trench but lately vacated by the enemy. The German bombs are not so effective as ours, and the enemy argued shrewdly that ammunition must be scarce with this small garrison. So the first German bombs that fell among the enemy were a signal to him for a fresh and more hopeful sally, and he came on with a cheer.
Meanwhile the troops in support of the 48th had been forced to retire an hour previously, and their place was promptly taken by the enemy, who now surrounded the men of the 48th on all sides. The latter began, therefore, to fight their way back, until they reached that support line which had been the first objective of the advance, and was again held by the Germans. There they succeeded in driving out the enemy, and for the time being establishing themselves.
The new position, however, on the whole front of attack was untenable, and the Australians saw they could do nothing but fall back to their original position in line with the English troops on their left flank. The Australian brigade on the right of the 48th consequently began to retire. The position of the 48th was being rendered still more desperate by the fact that our artillery were dropping shells very close to their trench, probably In the belief that it was still held by the enemy. An hour later, therefore, the dwindling garrison began to fight back still further, a small party of officers and men covering the retirement. Captain Allan Leane and many others fell whilst so employed, a number were taken prisoner, whilst the remnant regained their original positions and spent the afternoon and night searching no man's land for their wounded comrades.
During the night of April 11 the sadly reduced battalion went back to Bapaume. Its casualty list for the operation made the gigantic total of 14 officers and 421 of other ranks.
None of those engaged in that glorious failure made any attempt to minimise the enormity of the disaster. It was the first time, and, indeed, the only time, that the Australians had lost a great number of prisoners to the enemy, but in this case the loss in prisoners for the Australian division concerned was a very heavy one. At the time there was little doubt In the minds of the soldiers as to the causes of that disaster. The failure of the tanks to carry out their work, and the failure of the British to attack on the left of Bullecourt, were the causes commonly and bluntly stated.
As to the failure of the tanks there was a decided unanimity. The standing stakes and untouched wire entanglements were indisputable witnesses to the fact that they had never got near to the Hindenburg Line. General Robertson, the brigade commander, in his official comment to the battalion, wrote that "the failure of the tanks upset all calculations." General Holmes was then commanding the 4th Australian Division, and, whilst congratulating the brigade "on the success achieved in breaking the formidable Hindenburg Line," bluntly added, "not- withstanding the failure of the tanks from which so much was expected in the direction of preparing the way."
General Holmes touched the truth of the matter, for the great Hindenburg Line had been broken - it had been occupied for several hours. There could be no disputing the success achieved by the units concerned, though, so far as it affected the general issue, the success was but a grasping of Dead Sea fruit.
The army commander, through General Birdwood, "fully appreciated the splendid effort made this morning by the 4th Australian Division, which so nearly achieved a great and most important success." But indeed the 4th Division had actually achieved all that was possible for it. It had penetrated the Hindenburg Line and gained its objective. The holding on to that narrow front, however, unsupported and out-flanked on both sides, as it was, could have no hope of permanency. Even with the help of the British, it would still have been a very narrow front, compared with that on which troops were accustomed to operate in later days, when success became a characteristic of our operations.