AUTHORPeter Burness is SeniorCurator of MilitaryHeraldry and Technologyat the Australian WarMemorial.

24 Wartime

Eighty-five years ago, Australian soldiers began a terrible struggle in France.

By Peter Burness

THE BATTLESFOR BULLECOURT

FIRST WORLD WAR 19141918

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Left: A revealingstudy of thesqualid conditionof First World Wartrenches. AnAustralian sleeps ina trench shelter inthe second line oftrenches beforeRiencourt.AWM E00455

Facing page: An Australian 18-pounder in actionduring the fight forBullecourt.AWM E00600

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It is possible that no Australian evervisited the small village of Bullecourt innorthern France before the First WorldWar. Today it is a site of Australian warpilgrimage and a focal point for

commemorative ceremonies on ANZACDay. Each year hundreds of Australiansconverge on the village to join locals inwreath-layings, speeches and toasts thatrecall a long association. Bullecourt enteredAustralian history because of battles foughtthere by the Australian Imperial Force(AIF) in April and May 1917.

Bullecourt is less than 10 kilometres fromthe city of Arras. It is prime agriculturalcountry in an ancient region where longestablished small farming villages sit closetogether. Few of these villages have grownmuch in the past century and some had tobe totally rebuilt after the destruction of thewar. Between the villages lie unfenced richfields of crops that have sustained the locals,and a wider community, for generations.

When the Australians were there in 1917they fought in the fields between thevillages of Bullecourt, Riencourt,

Hendecourt, and Quant. War memorialsrecalling the Australian presence are now tobe seen in Bullecourt village and in theadjoining fields. The most prominent is thebronze sculpture, The digger, by Melbourneartist Peter Corlett, unveiled in 1993.

There are no large war cemeteries in theimmediate vicinity, such as there are at thecentre of most battle sites. This is areflection of the fighting in the area: Thereare cemeteries, but they stand a fewkilometres from the killing fields, which hadremained a no-mans-land throughout thewar. Perhaps the most poignant is QuantRoad Cemetery near Buissy. Almost 1,000graves are known to contain Australians,but for 700 the identity of the actual soldieris unknown.

Quant Road also contains the grave ofSergeant Jack White. The long-delayedburial of this soldier briefly held the mediasinterest in late 1995. White had been killedin the fighting at Bullecourt on 3 May 1917and his body was not recovered, at least notuntil a local uncovered the remains 77 yearslater. He was finally laid to rest with a large

Above: War-damaged Quant,France, in 1918.AWM H09434

Facing page: Asmall section ofbarbed wire infront of theHindenburg Lineat Quant.AWM H09435

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military funeral attended by variousdignitaries, an honour guard, local residents,and his daughter, whom he had seen only asa baby.

For those who survived the fighting atBullecourt, it was an experience of horrorand devastation they could never forget.Their battalions had already endured theterrible 191617 winter, with the opposingarmies facing each other across desolatefields of frozen mud. The Germans had usedthe time to build a great defensive line a fewkilometres behind their front, which theallies called the Hindenburg Line.

Early in 1917, once the weather hadimproved, the Germans staged a fightingwithdrawal to their new line. For the alliedtroops the sudden advance across open fieldsgave them a false hope that victory couldsoon be at hand. Their advance continuedup to the Hindenburg Line.

Belief in an early victory was soon castaside. As a part of a fresh British-FrenchArras Offensive, the Australian 4th Divisionwas ordered to assault the Hindenburg Lineto the right of Bullecourt village in the early

morning of 11 April 1917. The enemydefences consisted of deep trenches, dugoutsand pillboxes, protected by wide belts ofbarbed-wire and cleverly sited machine-guns.A feature of the attack was the provision of adozen tanks to support the leading infantryfrom the 4th and 12th Brigades.

The attack was a disaster. Despite theircrews bravery, the tanks performed poorlyand were soon burning wrecks. Fightingdesperately, the Australian infantrymanaged to gain a brief hold on theGerman line but were driven out by fiercecounter-attacks.

Under heavy artillery shelling, machine-gun fire, mortar and grenade exchanges, andeven hand-to-hand fighting, the Australianssuffered terrible casualties. They were finally

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Bullecourt had again shown the braveryof Australian troops in attack, and addedanother hard-earned battle honour to theAIFs list.

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FURTHER READINGC. E. W. Bean, Official historyof the war of 191418, vol. IV:The AIF in France 1917, (StLucia, Qld, 1982)

Chris Coulthard-Clark, Theencyclopaedia of Australiasbattles, (Sydney, 2001)

Jonathan Walker, The bloodtub, (Staplehurst, Kent, 2000)

28 Wartime

FIRST world war 19141918

forced to withdraw, while the British 62ndDivision fighting alongside was also exposedand suffered losses. The Australian divisionlost 3,000 officers and men, killed andwounded, and 1,170 who became prisonersof war. The 4th Brigade suffered most, losing2,339 men from a strength of 3,000!

A survivor from one of the 4th Brigadebattalions later wrote:

A pitifully weak company was all thatremained of the proud, strong unit that hadmarched that way a few days ago. The otherbattalions of the brigade cheered us as wemarched. That night in Bapaume we satthrough a picture-show. It was strange andunreal to watch slapstick comedies with mindsnot yet detuned from battle. A few days laterwe stood on parade while Birdy (GeneralBirdwood) delivered some of his usual. Then

he spoke of our losses. Officers hard-faced,hard-swearing men broke down. From the silentother ranks came a deep feeling of warmth andsympathy, a feeling that endured as long as theflame-racked years, and beyond.

Despite this local repulse, the offensivecontinued and again, on 3 May, theAustralians were made to attack over thesame ground. Now the task was given to the2nd Division. This time the planning wasbetter. Proper artillery support was to beavailable and there would be no tanksoperating with the diggers. The Australiansno longer trusted tanks. (Their faith inthem would not be restored until thesuccessful battle of Hamel in July thefollowing year. By that time, a muchimproved version of the tank was availableand employed in large numbers.)

The fighting over the next days wasfurious, with the Australians getting a gripon the Hindenburg Line and repelling wildcounter-attacks that sometimes includedflame-throwers. The 1st AustralianDivision then took over and went into the

Under heavy artillery shelling, machine-gunfire, mortar and grenades exchanges, andeven hand-to-hand fighting, the Australianssuffered terrible casualties.

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fight. On 7 May British troops capturedpart of the ruins of Bullecourt village; onthe same day the Australian 5th Divisionresting near Albert was told to prepare foraction. The second battle, which wasintended to engage one Australiandivision, had now drawn in three. TheBritish 62nd Division was similarlyreplaced. Finally, the Germans gaveBullecourt away and on 20 May thefighting closed.

The Australian and British troops,fighting under frightful conditions, hadcaptured a small part of the HindenburgLine and held it, but this could not beexploited; there was to be no breakthrough.The offensive closed and the British turnedtheir attention to the fighting in Flanders.The second battle of Bullecourt caused afurther 7,000 Australian casualties, fromwhich the AIF never fully recovered.

The losses meant that plans for a sixthdivision were dropped and they contributedto another unsuccessful attempt at home tointroduce conscription. The tired anddepleted troops moved into rest areas for thelongest break from fighting they had seensince arriving in France.

The battles of Bullecourt continue tointerest historians. Deficiencies in

command, from the senior British level tothe Australian staff officers and operationalcommanders, and even the location of theattack, have been examined. In particular,some believe failure to cover the right flankleft troops dangerously exposed to heavyenfilading fire. Under this fire, the 5thBrigade faltered on the first day of thesecond battle, leaving many of its deadhanging on the wire.

Bullecourt had again shown the braveryof Australian troops in attack, and addedanother hard-earned battle honour to theAIFs list. The opposing soldiers, men of the27th Wrttemberg Division, may well havebeen the toughest fighters the Australiansencountered during the war. Still, the heavylosses, for so little gain, was part of thereason that 1917 was to be remembered as ayear of disasters.

There would be further fighting byBritish divisions around Bullecourt, butthe Australian troops did not come back.Their main areas of future operations wereto be Flanders and the Somme. It isAustralians of later generations who cometo the place today to remember thesacrifice that took place during the terriblestruggle of those fatal weeks of April andMay 1917.

Australian visitorsand French localswalk from thevillage to thememorial park atBullecourt duringthe annualANZAC Dayceremony.Corletts sculpturecan be seen to theright of theflagpoles. (Pho