Mont St Quentin, Second Australian Division Memorial

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Mont St Quentin, Second Australian Division Memorial

Finest feat of arms
The key to the whole enemy position
A man every inch of him

The key to the whole enemy position

From the back of the Second Division Memorial the prospect is westward down the slope over the fields. Here, at dawn on 31 September 1918, were strong German positions around the summit of Mont St Quentin, positions which were the key to defending the town of Peronne to the left. At 5 am shells from British and Australian guns began pounding German trenches on the lower slopes as two under–strength AIF battalions – the 17th and 20th – dashed forward towards Mont St Quentin. Behind them came the men of the 18th and 19th Battalions. To make up for their lack of numbers the soldiers had been urged by their officers to ‘yell like a lot of bushrangers’!

Capture of Mont St Quentin, Fred Leist, [oil on canvas, AWM ART02929]

Mont St Quentin from the south, September 1918. [AWM E03210]

To the Germans the attack came as a complete surprise. Many quickly surrendered and pushed to the rear leaving, in many cases, their machine guns on the ground. One German officer reported that it ‘had all happened like lightning and before we had fired a shot we were taken unawares’. As the Australians reached the bottom of the hill they could see many of the enemy running back over the shoulders of the hill:

The Australians, who had expected heavy fighting, hurried with minds now carefree, half running, trying to catch them and taking occasional shots. As each new group of Germans broke from the trenches ahead the Lewis gunners would throw themselves down for a minute to fire.

Charles Bean, The Australian Imperial Force in France, 1918, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Volume VI, p.813

The 21st Battalion (Victoria) move forward during the attack on Mont St Quentin, France, 1 September 1918. [AWM E03104]

The attackers soon pushed right to the top of Mont St Quentin while others went forward on the flat fields below securing the flanks. It was all a swift and sudden success. Back at Fourth Army Headquarters General Sir Henry Rawlinson was rising for the day:

As I was dressing … Archie [Chief of Staff, Sir Archibald Montgomery] rang me to say the Australians had captured Mont St Quentin. It is indeed a magnificent performance.

General Sir Henry Rawlinson, commander, Fourth British Army, in his advanced headquarters carriage, near Péronne, France, 1918. [AWM E03898]

Captain James Sullivan, 21st Battalion (Victoria), leading his men up the bullet swept road at Mont St Quentin, France, 1 September 1918. Captain Sullivan was killed in the AIF’s last action in France on 5 October 1918 and buried in Bellicourt British Cemetery, Plot VI, Row S, Grave 7. [AWM E03126]

Members of the 24th Battalion (Victoria) in a trench awaiting the lifting of the artillery barrage before the renewed attack at Mont St. Quentin, France, 1 September 1918. [AWM E03138]

Charles Bean later wrote that those in high command would have been even more amazed had they known the full extent of the Australian force that had won the hill – ‘eight very tired companies comprising some 550 rifles, with a handful of machine gunners and four companies of 22 in close support’. Given this small force the situation on Mont St Quentin was actually grim. During the morning of 31 September the Germans began to infiltrate around the thinly held Australian positions and by the afternoon the Australians had pulled back to the bottom of Mont St Quentin.

Next day, 1 September 1918, the AIF resumed its attack and eventually overran Mont St Quentin. One young soldier in the 23rd Battalion who faced the German machine guns that day was Private Robert Comb, a 20–year–old boundary rider from Sea Lake, Victoria. Years later, Robert recalled how his section was being pinned down by a particular machine gun and that in his words – ‘I did my block’. Rather than crawl forward under the enemy bullets, Robert stood up and charged firing his Lewis gun from the hip so allowing his mates to advance safely. In Mont St Quentin Village, Private Comb, single–handed, took out another German machine gun. For his courage that day Private Robert Comb was awarded the Military Medal.

Australian soldiers moving along a communication trench at Mont St Quentin, France, 1 September 1918. [AWM E03139]

In 1993, Robert Comb returned to the memorial on Mt St Quentin as part of an official Australian Government veterans’ mission commemorating the 75th anniversary of those battles fought by the AIF in France and Belgium between 1916 and 1918. Behind the silent statue of the Australian soldier, Robert took himself away from the party and sat down quietly with a beer. Was he perhaps hearing again down the years the rat–a–tat of the machine guns and the crash of the artillery on Mont St Quentin on 1 September 1918?

Success in battle depends on the efficient working of complex operations and manoeuvres, for which all sorts of skills are essential. Fighting in the 23rd Battalion on Mont St Quentin was 21–year–old Private Thomas Delahunty, a butcher of Footscray, Victoria. In the AIF Thomas had learnt the arts of a ‘signaller linesman’ and, despite the heavy machine gun fire all around him, he continually went out and ensured that the essential phone lines between the front commanders and the rear were kept in working order. As the recommendation for his Military Medal said:

… his personal disregard of danger enabled the companies and Headquarters to be kept in close communication during critical periods of the operation. His cheerful spirit and gallant conduct was of a very high order.

Recommendation for Military Medal, Private Thomas Delahunty, 23rd Battalion AIF, internet version at
www.awm.gov.au/cms_images/awm28/2/324/0046.pdf

Mont St Quentin from the north on the N17, Péronne to Bapaume road. [DVA]

Plaque showing battles and battle areas, chosen by the Second Australian Division in about 1919 for placement on the divisional memorial at Mont St Quentin. [DVA]

Finest feat of arms
The key to the whole enemy position
A man every inch of him

Mont St Quentin, Second Australian Division Memorial

The key to the whole enemy position

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