General, Sir John Monash, Personal Files Book 19, 7 July - 30 July 1918- Part 7

18/7/18

MARCH	THE VOICE OF THE GUNS	Alford
OVERTURE	POET AND PEASANT	Suppe
WALTZ	NIGHTS OF GLADNESS	Ancliffe
HUMORESQUE	MR THOMAS CAT	Hall
GRAND OPERATIC SELECTION	VERDI'S WORKS	H. Round
CORNET SOLO	WHEN YOU COME HOME	Squires
SOLOIST	GUNR. R COX.
SELECTION	BRIC-A-BRAC	Monckton & Fink
DUET (CORNET & EUPHONIUM)	EXCELSIOR	Balfe
MARCH	MACHINE GUN GUARDS	Le Marechal
	THE MARSEILLAISE
	GOD SAVE THE KING
		C. BRAHAM. Bandmaster

2nd Austr. Division

Please convey to Brigadier-General Wisdom and his troops

the warm congratulations of the Army Commander and myself

upon last night's ably planned and gallantly executed operation

aaa This advance completes and is the culmination of a series of

unbroken successes achieved by the Second Australian Division in

exploiting the fruits of the Hamel victory xxxxxx of which and the whole

Division may well be proud of its work on and since July 4. -

aaa General Monash

ADC 34

18/7/18

18.25 PM

 

19/7/8
"C" Form. (Original.)  Army Form C.2123.
MESSAGES AND SIGNALS. No. of Message
Prefix SM Code  BaP   Words 50
Recd
From  ADC 
By  Prior
Sent, or sent out
At   m.
To
By
Office Stamp. 
₤  s. d.
Charges to collect
Service Instructions. 
Handed in at the  AZB    Office at   2.5p  m.   Received here at  2.30p m.
TO  Aust Corps
*  Senders Number.     Day of Month.   In reply to Number     AAA
G135                                  18
On behalf of the

Division I wish to

thank General Monash for

his kind wire of

congratulations aaa Will

you please convey to

the Army Commander and

General Birdwood the thanks

of the Division for their

messages aaa General

Rosenthall

FROM 2nd Aust Divn

PLACE & TIME 2.10 pm

 

 

Times    July 18/18

Australian newspapers publish a stirring appeal for

recruits from General Monash, commanding the

Australian troops in France.

 

 

Handed to Mr J.T. Meadows Smith 19/7/18

AUSTRALIAN CORPS.

Upon the occasion of the visit to the Australian Corps, at 

the battle front, of the French Government Commission to Australia, -

on the eve of its departure on the long voyage to our home land -,

I am entrusting to M. ALBERT METIN, the Chief of the Commission,

to General PAU, and to the other members, a message of greeting

and remembrance, on behalf of the soldiers of the Corps, to all

our folks at home.

It has been the most stimulating of all our experiences to

contemplate the wonderful fortitude, endurance and resolution of

the French people throughout all the stress of this war. It

has evoked from our men an active sympathy, which has instigated

in all ranks an emulation to assist, in every way in their power,

the frugal French peasantry and villagers, in the districts which

our troops have occupied. For such efforts we have received,

at the hands of the French Authorities, abundant and generous

recognition.

During the past four months, it has also been our privilege

to fight in close contact with the French Army in the defence of

the district of AMIENS, and of the Valley of the SOMME. Our

own men and French Zouaves and Tirailleurs have stood shoulder to

shoulder in the trenches, have worked and have fought side by side.

We have learned to feel an unbounded admiration for these French

troops, and our contact with them has sealed an international

friendship, which can never be dissolved.

We wish our Country and our people no better destiny than that

they may be able to boast a national achievement as great and a

spirit as enduring as that displayed in these momentous times by

the great Democracy of France.

Lieut. General.

Commanding Australian Corps.

19th July, 1918.

 

 

Smart

Australia House

London.

Anticipate being present August third at

official opening by his Majesty aaa General Monash

Australian Corps.

ADC 36

10.35 AM

19/7/18

 

 

Second Australian Division

General Birdwood telegraph begins

Convey heartiest congratulations to all Second

Division concerned. There is no end to your

successes which I trust will continue to the

end. aaa Snds.

A.D.C. 35

10.30 AM

19/7/18

 

AQUATIC COMMITTEE

Lieut R H Lackman

   "       A.W.B. Fawcett

   "       B.J. Shaw

ATHLETIC COMMITTEE

Lieut G.J Huse

   "      J P Minton M.C.

Serg Bryant

PRESIDENT

Lieut. Col. T.P. McSharry C.M.G. D.S.O. M.C.
HON. SECRETARY

Lieut. H. Bartlett Davis

 

Recd - per St. Sgt. Major W. Kingsford

per his letter of 14/4/25

4TH AUSTRALIAN

Infantry Bde

SPORTS

Querrieu Chateau France

20 July 1918.

 

4TH AUSTRALIAN INF. BRIGADE

SPORTS MEETING TO BE HELD AT CHATEAU QUERRIEU.

20TH JULY 1918

AQUATIC PROGRAMME

COMMENCE 10 AM -

EVENT	NO. 1	Brigade Group Swimming
		Championship 100 yds
"	2	Officers Championship 75 yds
"	3	Greasy Pole Competition
"	4	Neat Diving Competition
"	5	100 Yds Breast Stroke Race
"	6	Pillow Fight
"	7	50 yds. Swimming Championship
"	8	Brigade Group Relay Race 200 yds
"	9	All Clothes Race 50 yds.
"	10	Band Quick Step

ATHLETIC PROGRAMME

COMMENCE 1.30 P.M.

EVENT	NO 1	Brigade Group Championship
"	2	Hurdle Race 120 yds
"	3	Anzac Championship 75 Yards (For those who landed on Gallipoli before 1st May 1915.
"	4	Brigade Group Championship 440 yds
"	5	Most Humorous Costume
"	6	Siamese Race 50 Yards
"	7	High Jump
"	8	Flag Race officer Sergt & 4 men 75 yds
"	9	Brigade Group Championship 1 Mile
"	10	Tug-of-war (Teams)
"	11	Obstacle Race
"	12	Incinerator Kate Race 100 Yds for officers only.
"	13	Officers 100 Yds Race
"	14	1 Mile Walking Race

GOC

Recd 20/7/18

Visit of French Prime Minister to the

Australian Troops. on July 10/18

It will interest members of the AUSTRALIAN Corps to know how it was that the Prime Minister of

France came up to visit us the other day and what he said.

When the Supreme Council of the Allies was sitting at Versailles the other day, and the Prime Ministers

of France, Italy and England were present around the table, and all the Prime Ministers of the Dominions,

it so happened that there came in, while they were deliberating there, the news of the battle of Hamel, and

of the success that the Australian Troops had gained. All those present asked the Secretary to telegraph at

once their congratulations to the Australians. But when it came to M. Clemenceau, the venerable Prime

Minister of France, after starting to instruct the Secretary to telegraph his congratulations also, he said:

"No, I will go and tell them myself."

M. Clemenceau is 78 years of age. Every Sunday he drives to some division of the French Army, goes

to see them close up to the line, travelling hundreds of miles through the country in spite of his age. This

Sunday he determined to come to an Australian Division. As the 4th Australian Division had been directing

the operations at Hamel, he came to that. After chatting and laughing with the Officers and men who could

be got together at short notice at Headquarters - as much at home amongst them as if he were a boy again

- he said he would like to say a word or two to them on behalf of the French people. A number of the men

were gathered onto a rough semicircle, and the little Premier, "The Tiger," as he he is known by the French,

standing in front of them simply, without any attempt to flatter or over-do his praise of them, made them in

English the following speech :-

"Gentlemen," he said, "I hope you will be kind enough to excuse my faulty

English. I know only a little, but I find it very useful at this moment, this English,

because it enables me to tell you what all the French people think of you. When the

Australians came to France we expected a great deal of you. First, because we had

heard of what you had done in war in Gallipoli; secondly, because we had heard a great

deal of what you had accomplished in peace in your own country. The French people

expected that when you came to France to fight in this great struggle, which, after all, is

the same for the French, the English, the Australians and all those who have fought

this great war out in the cause of freedom, which is the same for all, they expected a

good deal of you; and I should not like to say that they have been surprised that you

have fulfilled that expectation. They admired most the fact that you were capable of

doing what they expected of you. The more they expected of you, the more they held it

in admiration.

"Hamel - after all, that is not such a very great battle; but I am ready to hold

that in a comparatively small battle the man, the fighting man, who goes in to give all

he has - his home, his hopes, his life itself - in a small battle his qualities show in all the

brighter light, the action of each individual man having more influence in the final result.

In a very big action it is not possible to notice so well the qualities of particular men.

Well, in this battle the Germans saw that they had before them men who came from far

away to attest that wherever free people lived, in England, in France, in Australia, New

Zealand, Canada, and all free countries, these were not ready to give way to the Boche

who has acted with such barbarity - who wounded and killed not only men in battle, but

women and old men and little children - who ruined and destroyed our country, our

houses, our fruit trees, even our gardens. 

"We have all been fighting beside each other here. It is such a wonderful thing

that this should happen in history on these old fields of battle which you have read of in

books, hearing of wars which you had not seen and the consequences of which you had

never expected to see. It is a wonderful thing that you should be fighting beside us on

these old battlefields of history. Still, it has come true. The work of our fathers, which

we wanted to leave unharmed to our children, they tried to rob us of. They tried to

take from us all that was dearest in modern society. But the free nations of the world

said that the Boche should not do this so long as they were there to come and prevent it.

Men were the same in England, in France, in Italy, and all the countries which are

proud of being the home of a free people. And that is what you did. And that is what

made us greet you when you came. We knew that you would fight a real fight. But

we did not know that from the very beginning you would astonish the whole continent.

"I have come here just for the very purpose of seeing the Australians. I am

going back to-morrow to see my countrymen and tell them: 'I have seen the Australians.

I have looked in their eyes. I know that these men who have fought great battles beside

us in the cause of freedom will fight alongside us again until the cause of freedom for

which we are battling is safe for us and our children.'"

The Australians who had been listening to this fine speech from the Grand Old Man of France, gave

three tremendous cheers for France, which affected him greatly. He then called for three cheers for

Australia, and left to go back to Paris.

 

A.I.F. P.S. 670-7-18.