METEREN is a small village in the north of France lying far apart from the great highway which runs through the Somme department, and is the main thoroughfare from Bapaume to Albert and to Amiens. Meteren and the Amiens Road are, however, inseparably connected in the minds of men of the 48th Battalion.
It was at Meteren that the battalion settled down to the enjoyment of regular billets at the beginning of March, 1918. "Everything gave good promise of a very pleasant time. Bailleul, a town of considerable size, was but a couple of miles to the east of it. About the same distance away lay Merris, where the battalion was billeted on its first coming to France nearly two years previously, and where old members of the unit had still many friends.
The weather was ideal, football matches were the order of the day and the absorbing topic of conversation. During that time the 48th was beaten at Australian football by the Australian Corps Headquarters, and some pointed remarks were made about people who were never near the firing line having plenty of time for practice. Equanimity was only restored when the 48th beat Corps Headquarters at Association football; but the 48th exponents were a few days later beaten by a team of Belgian soldiers and were henceforth regarded as having brought grave discredit on the unit. The 48th beat the 47th at Australian football, and later on the 45th, but was beaten at Rugby by the 46th, as well as by the 12th Machine Gun Company. Great was the excitement of the debates on these matches and much "shrapnel" money changed hands on the results of them. On Sunday, March 10, after church parade, a long day's sports began at which competition was very keen.
The long evenings had their own particular attractions. The regimental band, something very different from the fife-and-drum band, of the days in Egypt, was a popular factor of entertainment, and the village boasted a cinema-hall where concerts were regularly organised.
During those days military training went on just as vigorously as did the round of games and entertainments. Rifle practice on the ranges was its principal feature. It is not difficult to introduce the element of sport into this form of training, so keen competition between companies and between platoons began to provoke nearly as much interest as did the football matches.
Life was very pleasant during the first half of March, and had reached that stage of happiness at which a battalion usually proceeds to more strenuous things. In fact the 4th Division was just then expected to go forward for another term in the line. But a good holiday was being enjoyed and that anticipation cast no shadow over it.
Timid civilians began indeed to make troubled inquiries about this time of the officers, as to the probability of Meteren being involved in a fresh enemy advance, and as to the advisability of their leaving it whilst they had time to carry off some of their property. For the enemy had dropped messages from aeroplanes a few days previously, warning the civilians to leave Bailleul as he intended shelling it on a certain date. In this case the enemy was as good as his word for Bailleul was shelled at the time mentioned, and on the 21st of the month some shells fell around Meteren. Even that caused little anxiety, however, and next day there was a very merry gathering at the brigade transport-show, where the battalions competed keenly for prizes, and the 48th was much elated with its success.
Meanwhile the rifle range had provoked so much Interest that a divisional competition was projected. The Lewis gunners of the battalion wanted to share in the interest, and a range was allotted to them. On the morning of the 23rd the Lewis gunners went to the range for a long day's practice. They broke off for the midday meal and got back to their quarters just as the companies returned from a route march. Then it was that the battalion received orders to be ready to move at an hour's notice.
When a large force is operating in the field news filters through very slowly to the various units comprising it. Battalions, brigades, even divisions, are slow to get information concerning operations on another part of the front that do not immediately concern them. If their participation in them is required, orders are issued which necessarily involve some information, but usually only as much as is necessary for the performance of the immediate task. Therefore was it that the 48th Battalion had no knowledge of the great events that were just then taking place on the Somme, and knew not that the enemy was undoing during the last two days all the work that bad been done since July 1916. Its members could but guess at the new destination of the battalion so suddenly determined on: but readily presumed it could not lie towards that part of the front from which the enemy threw his few ineffective shells at Meteren, on the very day he began his work of undoing in the Somme.
The Lewis gunners did not return to the range, all parades were cancelled, and all leave was stopped. During the afternoon the bustle of preparation for departure went on, rolls were called frequently, ammunition was inspected and checked. The cinema hall ceased to entertain and was used to store the surplus stuff of the battalion, the officers' kits, and all the holiday gear of a unit's term in the back area. The old Australian flag which the battalion used to carry was placed there, as well as some surplus band instruments. When all preparations had been made it was announced that the battalion should not move until next day.
On the following day the battalion's transport set out towards the south, for in that direction lay the great trouble, and already rumour had spread that Bullecourt was again in the hands of the enemy. The battalion had to make a faster journey, and was to be conveyed by motor lorries. But it was not until Monday morning, the 25th, that it was finally carried away from Meteren. A few men were left behind to guard the stores in the cinema hall, the old Australian flags, the kits and the band instruments. Nothing was heard of those stores again, for not many days afterwards Meteren and its cinema hall were in ruins.
The effective strength of the battalion at this time was 38 officers and 686 of other ranks. The long line of lorries required to accommodate that number was but one of many hurrying with Australian units in the same direction. Definite routes allotted to each column had to be strictly adhered to if congestion was to be avoided. Good and familiar roads could not always be chosen, and in that precipitate journey the by-ways met were many and intricate. It was evening when the battalion arrived at Beaumetz, a village about six miles south-west of Arras.
At this point the officer in charge of the motor column protested he could go no further, so the remaining four miles of the journey to Berles-au-Bois were made on foot. Arrived there the battalion found orders awaiting it to patrol the roads and to select battle positions, which were to be manned immediately the alarm was given.
Next day was a day of rumours so conflicting that no one knew what to believe. The men were never in more humorous mood, for the excitement and uncertainty was great. Many protested their willingness to swear that no enemy had broken through at all, but that certain people had "simply got the wind up." Colour was lent to this view of the matter by a report received from a neighbouring corps to the effect that German armoured cars were making towards them. The rollicking diggers rolled out to man the cross-roads, only to find that some French traction-engines were the cause of the alarm.
In the evening orders were received to take up a position about two miles south of Berles-au-Bois, and bivouac there for the night preparatory to moving into the line. About 7 o'clock the unit started for the place, the 45th and 47th Battalions having already gone on ahead. The latter were just then seen to be returning and it transpired that the orders had been cancelled. Some time later fresh orders were issued requiring them to march immediately to Senlis.
Senlis was some 12 miles nearly due south of Berles-au-Bois, and at 10 o'clock at night they set out on their long journey after a rather anxious day. The route lay across the battle front that was ever coming westward, and when or at what point the enemy might be met no man knew. To guard against such uncertainty small patrols marched some 2,000 yards on the left flank of the column, whilst a platoon was detailed to guard the transport which had by this time rejoined them. It was a beautiful clear moonlight night and a big body of men would have presented a good target, whilst the continual rat-tat of the machine-guns left no doubt as to the enemy's proximity.
On through Bienvillers they marched, through Souastre, through Coigneux, through Betrancourt. Once they halted for an hour, and immediately every man in the column was asleep by the roadside. Then on again through Forceville, through Hedauville, and as they approached Senlis in the early morning of the 27th, German shells were passing westward over their heads.
At Senlis they found small parties belonging to various English units, but the men were too tired to fraternise or to be curious for information. They had breakfast, a brief spell, and at 10 a.m. they moved again, going through Henencourt, and on to Millencourt. There in a hollow behind the old cemetery, on the western side of the village, they sought such shelter as was obtainable from the shells that were falling in the area.
It was here that an English staff officer approached the unit to tell a breathless tale: Dernancourt had been taken by the enemy; the Germans now held the railway-line in front of Albert; they were I still advancing; he had been sent to guide the battalion into position immediately. The battalion commander asked him for his authority. He had none in writing; he had seen the brigadier of the 12th Brigade; by the latter he was sent with these instructions. What was the brigadier's name? He had heard it but he really could not remember. And Colonel Leane fixed him with his murderous stare. This completed the demoralisation of the poor fellow. Asked by the colonel in what direction he proposed to guide the unit, in his embarrassment he indicated a direction that confirmed suspicion regarding him though his utter confusion was an easy explanation of the mistake. The circumstances indeed could not be lightly accepted in that uncertain and anxious moment. The colonel refused to follow the instructions; the officer was retained as a spy. The brigadier was communicated with, and the result exonerated the staff-officer. He went away with a very bad impression of Australian respect for the staff.
The battalion immediately moved forward. It was about the middle of the day, the weather was very fine, giving good visibility to the enemy whose observation-balloons could see the advancing troops and soon brought heavy artillery-fire to bear on them. The black "woolly-bear" shrapnel, on which the enemy so much relied for demoralising troops, burst over their heads, whilst our own artillery blazed away behind them. The men were well spread out in artillery formation, however, and with the 47th Battalion on their right, got to their position without any casualties.
This position was some 2,000 yards behind the railway line on the right side of the road. Matters were not so bad as the staff-officer reported. Troops of two Scottish units held the railway embankment on the right side of the road, whilst that on the left side was held by the enemy. English troops had there swung back to a line which they still occupied.
Thoughout [sic] the afternoon the 48th lay in support of this line. The enemy's guns were active, but no casualties were experienced except from a British low-flying plane, whose pilot directed machine-gun fire on the trenches thinking they were occupied by Germans. In this way one man was killed and four wounded, the subsequent explanation being that airmen were instructed to fire on all troops east of a certain point. The instruction involved an enlightening comment on many events of those first trying days.
On that evening one very auspicious change took place. General Rawlinson, in whose army the Australian Divisions were henceforth to achieve an unbroken series of successes, had been hurried back from Versailles. The possibility of continued enemy advance extending even beyond Amiens, required the construction of important reserve defences on a large scale. General Gough and his staff were released for its direction and supervision. This necessitated the appointment of General Rawlinson to the command of the British forces south of the Somme; so the Australian Corps that evening began a new career in the Fourth British Army.
During the night the battalion moved up to the railway embankment on the right of the road, and relieved the Scottish troops who were holding it. The unit had left Meteren only two days previously, but had experienced a weary time before it finally began its task of barring further progress along the Amiens Road.