Battle of Fromelles

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Battle of Fromelles
partof=First World War


caption=Members of the Australian 53rd Battalion on July 19, 1916 before the Battle of Fromelles. Only three of the men pictured survived the battle and all three were wounded.
date=July 19 - July 20, 1916
place=coord|50|36|22.5|N|2|51|16.9|E|type:city|display=inline,title
Fromelles, Nord, France
result=German victory
combatant1=
combatant2=
commander1=
commander2=
strength1= 30,000+
strength2= 10,000-15,000
casualties1= 5,533 Australian dead, wounded, or captured
1,500 British dead or wounded.
casualties2= 1,500 dead or wounded

The Battle of Fromelles, sometimes known as the Action at Fromelles or the Battle of Fleurbaix, occurred in France on July 19-20, 1916, during World War I. It was fought as the Battle of the Somme raged, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) to the south. The Battle of Fromelles is significant as it was the first occasion on which the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) saw action on the Western Front. Because 5,533 Australian soldiers were killed, wounded or taken prisoner in an operation which was a total failure, the Australian War Memorial describes the battle as "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history." [http://www.awm.gov.au/wartime/36/article.asp Ross McMullin, "Disaster at Fromelles" ("Wartime Magazine", Issue 36, 2006)] Access date: April 14, 2007. ] It was a decisive victory for Germany, and the Australian and British losses were sustained without the Allies gaining any ground.

The action, just north of the German-occupied village of Fromelles, 16 km (10 miles) from the city of Lille, was intended partly as a diversion to the larger battle, and also at taking a German salient.

The forces and objectives

The salient, held by the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division, pointed north-west, and was called the "Sugar Loaf" by the Allies, due to its distinctive shape. Being small it provided an advantage to the occupiers, by allowing them to survey and cover the stretches of no man's land on either flank.

The British General Richard Haking's battle plan called for infantry to rush past the first line of German trenches in a surprise attack during broad daylight, following an artillery bombardment, and to advance a total of about 400 metres to a secondary line. The Australian 5th Division, the most inexperienced of the Australian units, would see action a matter of days after arriving in France, on the left flank of the salient. The British 61st Division (also known as the 2nd South Midland Division) would attack the right flank. By the time the attack was ready to be launched, its purpose as a preliminary diversion to the main action at the Somme had passed. However Haking was keen to proceed.

The battle

The infantry went "over the top" at 6pm, after 11 hours of preliminary bombardment. The Australian 8th and 14th Brigades quickly gained their objectives. However, upon reaching the secondary line, they found no trenches and no viable means of defending their gains. The 15th Brigade and the British 184th Brigade were cut to pieces while attempting to cross a narrower section of no man's land, closer to German machine guns. A survivor, W. H. "Jimmy" Downing, later recalled: " [t] he air was thick with bullets, swishing in a flat, crisscrossed lattice of death. Hundreds were mown down in the flicker of an eyelid, like great rows of teeth knocked from a comb." [ [http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/18/1026898889373.html?oneclick=true Ross McMullin, "The forgotten fallen" ("Sydney Morning Herald", July 19, 2002)] ("Sydney Morning Herald", July 19 2002) Access date: April 14, 2007. ]

The unfolding disaster was compounded when the 61st Division asked the 15th Brigade to join a renewed assault at 9pm, but quickly cancelled its attack without informing the Australians. Consequently half of the Australian 58th Battalion made another futile attempt to capture the salient.

The Germans succeeded in driving a wedge between the 14th and 15th Brigades, splitting the Australian forces. Increasingly isolated and out-flanked, the 8th and 14th Brigades were forced to withdraw the following morning. The Germans by this time had set up machine gun enfilades, and the resulting crossfire inflicted devastating casualties on the retreating Australians.

Aftermath

The attack completely failed as a diversion, when its limited nature became obvious to the German defenders. A communiqué released to the press by British GHQ was not favourably received by the Australians. It read: "Yesterday evening, south of Armentières, we carried out some important raids on a front of two miles in which Australian troops took part. About 140 German prisoners were captured."

The battle was responsible for one of the greatest losses of Australian lives in one 24-hour period, surpassed only by later World War I actions like the Battle of Bullecourt. The 5,533 Australian casualties were equivalent to the total Australian losses in the Boer War, Korean War and Vietnam War combined. The 5th Division was effectively incapacitated for many months afterwards. Two battalions were effectively destroyed in the battle and had to be rebuilt: out of 887 personnel from the 60th Battalion, only one officer and 106 other ranks survived; the 32nd Battalion sustained 718 casualties. [ [http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21552492-28737,00.html Mark Day, "Inside the mincing machine" ("The Australian", April 14, 2007)] Access date: April 14, 2007. ] The Australian losses and conduct of the high command also significantly damaged relations between the AIF and the British.

It is believed that one of the German soldiers involved in the battle was Adolf Hitler, then a 27-year-old corporal and a message runner in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6734553.stm BBC News - Team's mass war grave discovery] ] , which was defending the Sugar Loaf salient. Hitler served on the Aubers-Fromelles sector from March 1915 until September 1916.

Forgotten mass grave at Fromelles

There had been speculation for many years regarding the existence of an unmarked and forgotten mass grave near Fromelles, containing the remains of Allied soldiers killed during the battle and subsequently buried by the Germans.

Research by an Australian amateur historian, Lambis Englezos, identified a site at coord|50|36|36.36|N|2|51|17.10|E|scale:1000|display=inline, in a field on the edge of Bois Faisan ("Pheasant Wood"), just north of Fromelles. In 2007, a non-invasive geophysical survey was conducted. The work by British archaeologists was commissioned by the Australian government. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6735365.stm BBC NEWS | UK | WWI 'grave' revives forgotten battle ] ] The survey gave readings consistent with pits containing the remains of hundreds of soldiers. Additionally, a metal detector survey revealed Australian Army artefacts on the site.

On May 25, 2008, Australian defence personnel minister Warren Snowdon said there was no doubt that bodies of Australian soldiers were buried there. That same day, an archaeological team from the University of Glasgow, contracted by the Australian government, began an exploratory dig at the site. Human remains were discovered on May 29. Six burial pits were excavated. Only 20% of the area of the pits was exposed, to minimise disturbance of the remains. Numerous artefacts were recovered, confirming the presence of both Australian and British bodies. It was estimated that several hundred soldiers "missing in action" had been buried at the site.

Bodies were transported there on a German narrow gauge trench railway on July 22, 1916 and were tipped into eight pits measuring approximately 10 metres long, 2.2 metres wide and five metres deep. The remains were not discovered by official post-war burial campaigns during the 1920s, which resulted in British Empire war dead being interred in Imperial War Graves Commission (later known as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission; CWGC) cemeteries.

On 31 July 2008 it was announced that all human remains will be exhumed from the mass grave and re-buried with full military honours in individual plots at a new war cemetery, located as close as possible to where the soldiers were found. Exhumation and re-interment will be carried out under the auspices of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission [BBC News. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7534949.stm WWI grave troops to be reburied] ] . The owner of the site on which the mass graves were found, Madame de Massiet, had already offered to donate the land to the CWGC if asked to do soFact|date=August 2008.

Footnotes

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7430622.stm "Remains found at WWI 'mass grave'" "BBC", 2 June 2008]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7429747.stm BBC video footage of the Fromelles excavation #1]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7428393.stm BBC video footage of the Fromelles excavation #2]
* [http://www.awm.gov.au/wartime/36/article.asp Ross McMullin, "Disaster at Fromelles", "Wartime Magazine", Issue 36, 2006.] (Published by the Australian War Memorial)
* [http://www.ciaops.com/guides/battle/page1.htm Computer Information Agency, 1996-2004,"CIAOPS World Guides", "WWI Australian Battlefields"]
* [http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/18/1026898889373.html?oneclick=true Ross McMullin, July 19, 2002, "Sydney Morning Herald", "The forgotten fallen".]
* [http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,21184535-29277,00.html?from=public_rss February 7,2007, "The Australian", "New probe of WWI Digger Battlefield"]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6734385.stm "WWI 'mass grave' found in France" "BBC", 8 June 2007]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6735365.stm "WWI 'grave' revives forgotten battle" "BBC", 8 June 2007]
* [http://ninemsn.video.msn.com/v/en-au/v.htm?f=39&g=169749e4-e945-48c6-ac67-ac646127eb2d&p=aunews_au60minutes&t=m163 Video of Fromelles, showing the battlefield]
* [http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22101797-662,00.html Neil Wilson July 20, 2007 Missing Diggers mystery solved]
* [http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23756232-2,00.html?from=public_js Grave Found?]
* [http://uktv.co.uk/history/news/aid/591583 UKTV website {reference only}]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew5lsprUIms Video of VC Corner and Australian Memorial Park, Fromelles. Jason Fielding]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btt6IwS4yuY Video of Pheasant Wood, Fromelles - September 2004. Jason Fielding]
* [http://www.forgingtheanzacs.com Documentary by Dr Alan Young on The Untold Story of the Western Front, Fromelles, the bloodiest day in Australian history"]