Battle at Fromelles Part 1: Australia’s bloodiest day in our military history
Men of the 53rd Battalion just before the attack at Fromelles.
In July 1916, the battle of Fromelles marked Australia's entry onto the Western Front of the Great War in France to fight German forces. Infamous for the terrible loss of life suffered by the men of the all-volunteer Australian Imperial Force.
Battled harden from the Gallipoli campaign, roughly 300,000 Australians served on the Western Front. Where within a single battle that lasted only 24-hours, 5,533 casualties were claimed from the Australian 5th Division.
Signifying the bloodiest day in Australia’s brief military history, with many war academics stating the Australians were used as cannon fodder by the British and their own Australian commanders.
To feint the Germans into keeping their reserve forces at Fromelles to prevent them from reinforcing units fighting on the Somme Offensive.
Previous failed attempts to take Fromelles occurred throughout the Great War before the Anzacs arrival on the Western Front. In May 1916, the British 8th Division launched an attack to seize German positions at what is known as the Ridge.
During the attack, artillery strikes failed to destroy the German defences, resulting in the decimation of 11,000 British soldiers who were wounded or cut down by the enemy. After the battle, it required seven days to bury the dead.
Upon Australia’s arrival on the Western Front, the British commander in charge of the new Fromelles attack, General Richard Haking, was based in Sailly, 187kms away from the front.
Haking believed the Allied fighting force could take the German line in much smaller numbers and reach the enemy’s far-end trench. Although, this belief was misguided.
Tasking Australian 5th Division, commanded by Gallipoli-veteran Lieutenant General Sir James McCay, along with the British 61st Division, who were to make preparations to storm the German line scheduled for July 19th, and seize the far-end trench objective.
Brigadier General Harold "Pompey" Elliott, commander of the Australian 15th Brigade, part of the 5th Division, communicated his misgivings about the approaching battle.
From concerns regarding the battleground being waterlogged and in clear view of the German positions, including the Sugarloaf salient, a series of concrete bunkers fortified with machine guns able to fire forward and to each side at the attacking Allied infantry.
Additionally, it was considered the British 61st Division was under-equipped, and the Australian 5th Division's first experience of combat on the Western Front, did not convince the Brigadier General regarding his superiors plan of attack for his men.
No man's land distance between the two fronts were highly inconsistent, from reports of the line of attack being from 140 to 400 metres wide. This added complications for the soldiers who would go on to traverse the battlefield.
Major Howard, a staff officer from Field Marshal Douglas Haig’s headquarters, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front, visited the Fromelles frontline and was taken by Brigadier General Elliott to an outpost in no man's land that overlooked the main concern for the pending battle, the Sugarloaf salient.
After Elliot pointing out the flaws in planning and what awaits his men, and with Major Howard’s review of the battlefield first-hand, concluded the forthcoming battle’s outcome would be "a bloody holocaust".
Despite the efforts of Elliott and Howard, their pre-emptive assessment, and pleas to stop their superiors flawed plan and strategy of taking the German line from going ahead... the Australian-British attack was still a go.
To be continued in Part 2…
Brigadier General Harold "Pompey" Elliott.
An aerial view of the battlefield over Fromelles.