ON the night following the assault Monument Wood, the battalion left the front line and went back to Blangy-Tronville, a village about four miles further west. Here the men could enjoy some rest as the enemy was not then shelling the area. It was well within range of the enemy's guns, however, so a position had to be chosen in trenches near at hand to which the troops could retire in case the village was shelled. A miserable wet night was spent in those trenches on the 6th. Intelligence reports had anticipated an attack by the enemy which was understood should be preceded by a bombardment of Blangy-Tronville. All ranks were ordered from the village; but in the trenches to which they resorted several shells fell in the early morning, compelling some of the troops to seek safety in other directions.
The battalion again went forward on the afternoon of the 7th, and took up positions on a line running behind Villers-Bretonneux and through Aubigny. There it spent two quiet days, being held close at hand for any emergency that might arise. In those days the enemy was expected to attack at any time or in any place. The strenuous and persistent manner in which he had hitherto conducted his offensive, seemed to indicate that he was making a last great gamble for superiority. Therefore, although the battalion was not at this time in the front line, vigilance was never relaxed and all ranks "stood to" at 4 o'clock each morning.
General Gellibrand having returned to the brigade, Colonel Leane resumed command of the 48th, and on the evening of the 10th led the battalion into the front line. There also the men had a quiet time from the enemy. Work went on as strenuously as ever, work which consisted mostly in digging, in improving defences and preparing the position to withstand better any future attack.
After four days spent in the front line the men were withdrawn to the supports, where they were engaged on the same kind of work. The weather was then fine, the nights calm and well suited to aeroplane work. So whilst the men lay in support they were several times bombed from the air. Moreover the working parties employed at night in the line suffered a considerable number of casualties from machine-gun fire.
But already there were evident signs that the Germans were slackening in their offensive on the southern front of battle. When they began their great advance on March 31, that advance had swept across the old battlefield of the Somme. Then ensued a period of normal trench warfare, except where strenuous local engagements were forced by the enemy with a view to securing some particular advantage and subsequently resuming the advance. It was felt that his offensive on the Somme had ceased only for the time being, and that he would spare no effort to prepare for the reopening of it.
Away to the north the enemy had delayed his attack until the fine weather dried up the wet and low lying country. There too his advance had been equally successful. The early part of April saw places in the northern sector in the hands of the Germans, that were already made familiar to the 48th Battalion by days of hard fighting around them. Thus Messines was again lost, whose capture had cost so many lives, and Wytschaete and Ploegsteert with its adjoining wood. Hollebeke, near which the battalion had spent several weeks of the preceding winter and on whose defences it had spent much vain work in the snow and frost, was retaken by the enemy; and Passchendaele Ridge where lay so many Australian dead. Crossing the frontier into France the Germans occupied Armenieres and Bailleul and Meteren and Doulieu. The great effort of the enemy seemed, however, to have reached its climax before the end of May in both northern and southern sectors. When therefore the 48th Battalion was relieved from its position in supports on the night of May 21, it had completed a term of duty in which hard work had taken the place of hard fighting. It was indeed strenuous work, and as the men left the trenches they were showing all the signs of the long strain to which they had been subjected almost continuously since they left Meteren to the last week of March.
Rivery, a town lying but a short distance east of Amiens, was the destination of the battalion, and not till 5 o'clock on the following morning did the last company of the unit arrive there. Even at that early hour the regimental band turned out to meet the party, and the men were played to their billets amidst very noisy rejoicings.
The Somme flowed near to the town, and on the day following their relief all ranks had a swim, and the river carried the accumulated dirt of many days in the trenches to the sea. Bright sunny weather marked their stay in Rivery, so swimming was a general pastime. The regimental band had to work overtime, and was in constant demand during the long summer evenings. Then too the "Coo-ees," a concert troupe belonging to the 3rd Australian Division gave a show every night which drew large crowds.
On the first Sunday spent at Rivery, General Birdwood presented decorations to several members of the battalion. This was his last appearance in the unit as commander of the Australian Corps, a command which he relinquished on going to the 5th British Army.
At this time all Australian units were very much reduced in strength, as the result of the heavy fighting in which they had participated. It was therefore found impossible to keep up the supply of reinforcements necessary to maintain four battalions in each brigade. It was decided that henceforth nearly all brigades should have but three battalions, and in the 12th Brigade it fell to the lot of the 47th Battalion to be disbanded. Officers and men of that battalion were accordingly allotted among the other units of the brigade, so good blood from Queensland and Tasmania was now added to the 48th.
At Rivery also Colonel Leane ceased to command the 48th Battalion, his place being taken by Colonel Perry. General Gellibrand was promoted to the command of the 3rd Australian Division and Colonel Leane became brigadier. The unit was still at Rivery at the end of the month, when it received orders to return to the forward area on June 2. The battalion went forward to a place still a considerable distance from the line, as the brigade was being kept in reserve to the division. It left Rivery at 5 o'clock in the morning and arrived at its destination about three hours later. The men dug positions for themselves in the face of a high bank that afforded good shelter from shell-fire. They remained there for a fortnight, being employed in the usual work of troops lying in the reserve area, salvage, cable-laying, digging, training reinforcements.
On the evening of the 16th the unit set out for the front line as soon as it was sufficiently dark to permit of troops moving without observation. Its destination was Sailly-le-Sec. The congestion of traffic on the roads made the journey a tedious one, during which several casualties were sustained from the enemy's shell-fire. Although the battalion remained in the front line for three weeks, its casualties were but 53 of other ranks including 10 men killed. The last day of its term of duty, July 4, was the occasion of a brilliant operation extending from Villers-Bretonneux to the Somme by troops of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Australian Divisions. The 48th Battalion was able to have a good view of the advance from the part of the line it was holding.
This operation showed that a definite change was taking place in the character of the fighting, which was nob longer purely defensive on the part of the Allies. It prepared the way for the great offensive which was to begin in the following month. A week after the Australian advance at Villers-Bretonneux had taken place, the battalion left the forward area. It went back to the district around Allenville, where it spent the remaining two weeks of July in race meetings, sports, and every kind of enjoyment that could be organised in conjunction with the other units of the brigade and of the division.