Battle of the Yser
Battle of Hamel
4 July 1918
American and Australian soldiers in Pear Trench, Le Hamel, 4 July 1918. The ruined village of Le Hamel is in the background. [AWM E02844A]
When the German offensive towards Amiens ended in late April 1918, the Allied forces wondered where the Germans would strike next. The Australians were put to guarding the line east of Villers-Bretonneux from where they proceeded to harass the Germans between April and July 1918 by adopting tactics which became known as ‘peaceful penetration’. This involved waylaying enemy patrols, making constant small raids into German lines, capturing ill-defended sections of those lines and generally making the lives of the German soldiers opposite them as stressful as possible. During those months the British and French high command worked on a new offensive to be launched east of Villers-Bretonneux and to be spearheaded, in the area south of the Somme River, by the Canadians and Australians.
As these plans were being developed, the Germans struck again against the French in the south. Within days they had advanced their front more than forty kilometres towards Paris and were back almost to where they had been in 1914, within striking distance of the city. The Allies were uncertain what the precise German aim was as enemy preparations were also under way for another offensive in the Flanders area in the north. In general, it was concluded that rather than having Paris in their sights, the Germans were more intent on drawing in British reserves in order to wear down the British Expeditionary Force. All in all it was still a very anxious time for the British and the French – the battlefield strength of the United States had not yet been brought to bear and the Germans still held the initiative.
It was at this time that the command of the Australian Corps passed to an Australian, Lieutenant General John Monash. The Corps’ first major operation under Monash was the attack on a section of the German line which bulged out in a small salient around the village of Le Hamel, north-east of Villers-Bretonneux. Preparations for the attack were undertaken with the extreme thoroughness and elaborate care that characterised Monash. The Battle of Hamel was fought on 4 July 1918 and is famous as a model for what military men call an ‘all-arms’ battle. Simply put, that meant that in support of the infantry advance to capture ground were a wide array of other arms – tanks, artillery and machine guns – as well as communication units etc. All these contributed to the well-planned attack. Attached to the Australians were a number of Americans and it was not a coincidence that the assault was scheduled for Independence Day, 4 July.
The action at Le Hamel was a brilliant success and all over in about 90 minutes. At some places German machine gun fire did hinder the advance. Private Henry Dalziel, 15th Battalion (Queensland and Tasmania), armed only with a revolver, rushed German machine gunners and captured the post. Lance Corporal Thomas Axford, 16th Battalion (Western Australia), used grenades to eliminate another machine gun post held by 16 Germans. Dalziel and Axford were awarded the Victoria Cross.
The action at Le Hamel also saw the awarding of the first Medal of Honour to a member of the US Army in World War 1. He was Corporal Thomas Pope. His citation states that he ‘rushed a machine gun nest, killed several of the crew with his bayonet, and standing astride his gun, held off the others until reinforcements arrived and captured them.’
A feature of the Le Hamel battle was the performance of the British tanks. Australians soldiers had been highly sceptical of the value of these machines since their disastrous failure at Bullecourt in April 1917. But these new tanks were faster and more manoeuvrable and the Australian infantry worked well with them. One of the tank commanders spoke of how the Australians never felt that the presence of a tank ‘exonerated them from fighting, and [they] took instant advantage of any opportunity created by the tanks’. Carrier tanks, another innovation, brought up supplies behind the advance, a task ordinarily done by hundreds of infantrymen. No. 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, in a further innovation, dropped ammunition to Australian troops by parachute. The Australians suffered 1400 casualties and the inexperienced Americans, who fought well, lost 176. All objectives were taken and more than 1600 Germans were captured. Charles Bean, Australia’s official historian, wrote that:
The main result of Hamel was that Monash’s careful arrangements furnished the model for almost every attack afterwards made by British infantry with tanks during the remainder of that war.
Charles Bean, Anzac to Amiens, Canberra, 1948, p.462
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© 2008 Department of Veterans' Affairs and Board of Studies NSW :: Last update - November 2008