Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/117/1 - September - December 1918 - Part 3

18.
1/10/18.
were 11 Germans lying in all positions, mostly facing the table,
quite clearly lying exactly as they had fallen when some
disaster killed them. Between the furthest wagon wheel and
the wall was a 12th man lying crumpled up like a dead mouse in
this narrow space. In the first of the two coppers was a 13th
man shaken to bits, with his head below the surface of the
copper and his shoulder-blade showing clearly through the
tattered gray cloth of his coat. The red brickdust and
shattered earth of some explostion was sprinkled all over them,
giving them the appearance that the surfaces of books have
which have lain for months on the shelves of some dusty library.
The fact that this man was in the copper and the others
lying dead in the place, and that two or t hree tins of fat were
lying in the room, had given rise to the story that this was at
last the German Corpse Factory which had been discovered in
actual operation when the Hindenburg tunnel was seized. No
story is too wild for some people to believe it and this had
been related to the war correspondents; and I heard afterwards
that even some senior officers had expressed a belief in it.
Old Tivey told me that at first when he saw the place he
believed it was really a corpse factory, but afterwards, on
consideration, he decided that it was a mere accident - this
was after examining it with an engineer.
It took not 10 seconds after we had got into the room for
us to decide quite positively what had happened. The theory
of a corpse factory was out of court in the first second. But
whether these men had been killed while trying to lay a mine
or were effectively slaughtered by a shell, was for a few
seconds in doubt. One almost immediately noticed the mark of
a shellburst across the floor and the wall - the typical pitting
in two lines as though the shell fragments had been sprayed
from the point of the shellburst in those two directions. The
shell had burst slightly beneath the floor at the right-hand
side just inside the chamber from the staircase. Wooden boards
had been placed over the gap in the floor since, this probably
in order to help the Germans to get out some men wounded in the
distant chamber where the bunks were. On the wall, above the
copper where the body was, one noticed a round hole which at
first sight seemed to be the one throogh through which the
stovepipe had previously been carried. A second glance showed
on the cement the typical boring of a shell, with the groove
made by the rifling on the driving band clearly marked. It
was about a 6" shell, and it had come in from the direction of
Pontruet, had bored clean through three or four feet of masonry
and earth which protected the chamber from the outside air -
made a slightly curved channel exactly as I have seen shells
do at Anzac, and burst on reaching the floor on the opposite
side of the chamber. One man had been thrown into the copper
in a shattered condition by the explosion, and another thrown
behind the wagon wheel - it is possible that they were sitting
on the edge of the copper and the wheel, but it is more likely
they were pitched up against the ceiling first. Anyway, the
dust of the explosion still lay over both of them. The 11 men
lying on the ground were all of a heap, and I could not swear
that there might not have been another. One man's head was
completely blown off; another's skull was cracked like an
eggshell; and the explosion had flung pieces of them on to the
walls. 
The chamber was filled with a most sickly stench, and I
heard one hardened Australian mule driver, who had come up to
see the "Chamber of Horrors", saying that it was too much for him
and that he would have to get out. An American was explaining to
his mates - "Well, I never believed it before, but now I have
seen it I can write home and tell themt hat I have seen it with
my own eyes". Several Australians, who were wandering over
the place with candles, were a good deal more critical. One
[*Australian
an infantryman
I think of 3rd Div*]
young chap said - "If this is the way they do it - one man at
a time - all I can say is that it must be a bloody long job!"
I was very nearly sick before we reached the open air. 

19.
1/10/18.
The place was evidently one which had been used by the
Germans either as a cookhouse or a messroom. The chamber
which had probably been constructed originally for the
raising and lowering of the old wooden portcullis gate, part
of which still remains in a slot at the entrance of the
tunnel, and the wagon wheels are, I imagine, some
antiquated machinery connected with this.
We wandered up the towpath for about 100 yards. Twenty
yards inside the entrance the Germans had built on a bridge
across the water a concrete screen with a square hole for
a machinegun, but this machinegun does not appear to have
been used, for although we found in the chamber inside the
loophole a machine for filling belts and a half-filled
machinegun belt in it, we did not see a single expended
cartridge. Beyond this screen the tunnel is intensely
black. Large black wooden barges are jammed end to end.
The first two of these seemed to be empty, and the pair of
holds seemed to contain nothing but bilgewater and rubbish;
but after this the barges were fitted with bunks and
occasionally a messtable, and they had been used evidently
for the living quarters of the garrison of the Hindenburg
line. Some of our pioneers were sitting around a fire on
the towpath. The place was curiously full of a smell of
rubber solution. I don't know whether it was some
apparatus employed by the Germans to keep the air pure.
We picked up a lantern from the dark interior as being the
best relic of the place for the museum, and as it was
getting late marched back again towards the car outside
Bellicourt. As we passed Brigade H.Q., the 5th Bde. staff
was just coming in.
It was nearly dark when we reached old Body. Murdoch's
car had gone, but Rogers' driver was still there. We
moved up the road. John Monash had told us that morning
that the artillery was going to move up with a view to
pounding the German positions before our next advance. A
short way up the road we began to meet traffic, and suddenly
ran into a block.
It is curious that the last time I met artillery going
across an old battlefield like this exactly the same thing
occurred. The day after we got through Bapaume Gough
suddenly ordered all his heavy artillery on to the roads
without warning Corps, and the result was the most hopeless
block of traffic I have ever seen. Body and I got involved
in it at 6 p.m., and Body reached home some time before
four o'clock next morning. This time nearly the same thing
happened. Luckily the weather was dry or I don’t think this
block would have ever been dissolved. Morning would have
found a hopeless jamb on the wooden road, and if the Germans,
who would have been in full sight of it at three miles
distance, had not blown the road to blazes they would have
been very poor soldiers. In that old block in 1917 we
suddenly entered a wild storm of rain and hail which made
the whole road impassable, and the heavy guns and tractors
blundering through the mud blocked the traffic beyond hope
for many hours. This time it was a four-wheel driven lorry
with a 6" howitzer behind which had managed to get xxxxxxx
its tow partially off the planks on the edge of the road.
Only one wheel of the limber went off the road, but the lorry
after failing to get the limber on again, left the gun half-
way across the fairway. The consequence was that all
traffic had to pass this point in single file. By the time
we reached it the block was only about a dozen vehicles long
in our direction, but it took an hour at least to clear it.
We found that the traffic in the other direction was blocked
all the way across the old battlefield to Hargicourt, but
with the orderliness that is so admirable in the British
transport it had kept to its own side of the road, and we
did not meet a single case of double-banking until we were
nearly in Hargicourt. 

20.
1/10/18.
There about half a dozen wagons had tried to pass some of the
standing traffic and had xxxxxxx met our column, and
a hopeless block followed, which must have lasted two hours.
In the first block on the top of the hill I went forward, and
with about half a dozen other officers helped to work the
traffic through by stages until our respective convoys were
clear. There was no traffic control man from one end of
the road to the other, nor did we meet one until we were clear
of the block in Hargicourt.
In the second block I worked about half a mile ahead
between the jammed teams of double-banked traffic until I came
to the circus at Hargicourt without meeting anyone in direction
of the traffic except a single Australian youngster who was
letting his own ammunition column through along a cross-road
towards the north. There was one man on traffic control duty
at Hargicourt, but he had disappeared 100 yards down the road
to deal with one of the five streams of traffic which converged
there. The one thing that saved the situation was the
orderliness of the drivers themselves. Had half a dozen men
amongst them attempted to work a point for themselves by double-banking,
the traffic would never have got out that night.  As
it was we got through in the wake of a tank - which acts as a
splendid lubricator for traffic - and arrived home about 12.20 a.m
(This night's experiences were naturally written up ∧and ,at the
time, bur one week later. I expected to hear that Rogers' car
had been kept on the road all night, but they must have got
through in our wake. The road was more or less clear before
dawn and the guns got there all right; although Monash, in
describing the advance to Murdoch next day, thought one of the
things which were holding up the battle all over the front at
present was the appalling congestion of the roads. Said Monash -
'It is holding up the Belgians in Flanders; it is holding us up
here; it is holding the British at Cambrai".).
Today's fighting was as follows:- We attacked with tanks
at 6 a,m, north-west of Joncourt and against Mill Ridge and
Follemprise Farm, reaching these objectives early. Since then
we have worked through the village of Estrees on the Roman Road
to Le Catelet immediately in front of the Beaurevoir line. We 
found that the Germans had rushed up reserves to Joncourt in a
great hurry, the 2nd. Guards Division being called back from a
rest because there were no further reserves. A captured German
officer said that the German artillery was moved back on the
29th September. We hear that the strength of the 1st Battn.
of the 2nd Guards Regt. is 90. North-west of Cabaret Wood
our attack on the Lamp Signal Station met with heavy casualties.
The Beaurevoir and Fonsomme line seems to be strongly held. We 
reached the edge of Bony yesterday afternoon, but last night Bony
was still not clear. Our troops helped to get the village of xxxx
Joncourt. The German line in the north still runs in front of
Gouy, but after today's attack our line south of this point runs
roughly parallel to the Beaurevoir, which is the last line of
the Hindenburg system.
We hear that the Belgians and British have taken 250 guns;
the Canadians are all around Cambrai; and the Americans and
French near Verdun have 22,000 prisoners.
OCTOBER 2ND.
Before going out this morning with the party of visitors
which has just arrived at our new visitors' camp in Biaches, we
went up to Corps to get the news for the cable. Major Hunn tells
us that the strong impression is that the Germans are retiring.
It was noticed yesterday that 80 per cent, of their movement went
east between noon and dusk, and 20 per cent, went west. Guns
were seen going by Beaurevoir. A new prisoner taken from the
rearguard early this morning (apparently in the Le Catelet line
or near Estrees) said the orders were to fight until they were
heavily attacked and then to retire fighting - where he could not
say. Air reports say that the Germans have been seen moving
east of the Beaurevoir line. The Germans have blown up all the
bridges between Vendhulle and Gouy and there is only one left on
the 3rd Corps front. The German divisions now against us have 

21.
2/10/18.
mostly been hurriedly rushed into the line. The 21st Div.
and 2nd Guards Div. were in the Peronne-Mont St. Quentin fight
until a fortnight ago; the 119th Div. was opposed to our
1st and 4th Divisions on September 18th. All these were put
in after the battle on the 29th. Last night all these were
opposite us - the 119th Division right opposite, the 54th,
121st and parts of the much broken-up 185th were also there
The 185th must practically have been wiped out by the number
of prisoners taken from them.
We went up to-day immediately after lunch with the
visiting party. These consisted of Major Beath ("Ian Hay")
who has written the most popular books of the war and has been
for some time in America on propaganda work. He is a tall,
dark, English-looking Scotsman, with a very quiet manner, and
so obviously very shy at being taken around with xx what looked
like a string of Cook's tourists straggling across the battle-
field in felt hats and baggy trousers, picking up souvenirs,
until they gradually became laden like a salvage dray. Sir
Gilbert Parker, who has grown stout of late and less like the
shrewd, sharp-faced business man he used to resemble. He is
curiously matter-of-fact and simple for the man of the world I
took him for. There were two other dry old gentlement -
Bailey, of the Plymouth "Western Morning Herald", and Munro, of
the "Glasgow Evening News". Bailey had been asked over for
three days, and when he found that the trip was cut down to two
he looked very stern and seemed inclined to put in a half-formal
protest, which much amused Bill Dyson.
We took them through Hargicourt, and although it had been
lowering all day and had just begun to rain, we decided to
chance the plank road over to Bellicourt on which we had had
such an unpleasant experience the night before. As the three
cars worked up the hill out of Bellicourt Hargicourt just on to
the beginning of the plank road and the tail of the block, a
H.V. shell whizzed down fair into the road about 100 yards
ahead. There was a stir amongst the traffic, a scattering of
mules and a scramble of men up on the bank as though something
had been hit, and I decided that with this party it would be
unwise to attempt to go on. We backed out just before getting
entangled in the block and just as a second shell whizzed over
and burst where the first had done. The third shell burst
short of the road, but by this time we had turned for the
alternative route to Villeret.
The plank road to Bellicourt was, I think, the "red" road of
the operation orders. From the ruins of Villeret there started
a "black" road which appeared to consist almost entirely of mud
buttressed up as it wound between the shell holes. We left
the car in Villeret, and walked across the valleys to Bellicourt.
On our way we noticed that the traffic was still passing over the
hill along the plank road as if nothing interfered with it,
although we could still see the shells burst beside it. Wilkins
later told us that he thought nothing was killed, although two
shells hit the road fair. The party of civilians found the 5th
Division coming out - the 2nd Division having just gone in. For
some reason the whole way across the old battlefield the civvies
were under a perpetual barrage of chaff from the Diggers.
The war's over", we used to hear, and it even went to remarks
like - "I'd bloody well recruit them". Gilbert Parker was
acutely conscious of having brought an umbrella, and looked
really funny as he walked festooned with fieldglasses and
souvenirs. The three older civilians could not carry it off at
all, and I had to do my best with remarks like - "You know it is
a real change for the men to see these clothes" - "And your hats
are attracting a great deal of attention", W. S. Robinson, the
Western Australian goldfield financier, was a younger man and an
Australian; and had a cheery manner. I noticed that so long as
he went first the chaff was always xxxxxxxxxxxx good-humoured.
They seemed to know at sight that he was an Australian.
We visited the tunnel and went up the line of barges.
Wilkins tells me that these are not continuous. At intervals
there are a few some of which have been sunk and the remainder 

22.
2/10/18.
used as a barracks for the garrison. He also says there are many
entrances of 250 steps into the moorland about 200 yards east of
the canal. We did not go as far as this. The 5th Bde. had
moved in and the lives of our visitors xxxxxx were saved by
begging a cup of water from Martin, who gave them tea. We managed
to reach home by packing Sir Gilbert Parker and old Bailey into
an ammunition cart together with a good-natured QxmS Quartermaster
Sergeant, and these two elderly civilians, stowed into the limber
like bottles in a case, being towed over the mud by a driver on
a pair of wheels, must have been xxxxxxxxxx the funniest
sight that the outgoing division had seen for a long time.
It was raining miserably as we reached the car. We knew there
was a big fight for the next day, when the 2nd Australian Division
with the British troops on the south flank was going to tackle the
Beaurevoir line, and it made one rather miserable to think that men
were going to undertake this job on such a dirty night. Onkll the
way back the G.H.Q. Daimler in which I was travelling broke down.
We had taken a wrong turning in Buire and the car in trying to back
and turn on the muddy road into which we had bumped, broke down in
its differential. The night was very black with a Scotch mist.
The young Englishman who drove the car seemed to me to be a little
helpless. I wandered around in search of a telephone, and some
English engineers in shelters close by took me to their H.Q.
Whilst there the young O.C. saved the situation very generously by
having my three old ladies xxx in to sit around the fire and have
some coffee, after which he sent us bumping home in his boxcar.
Dyson and Wilkins had been laying bets as to how much Gilbert Parker
and the old Plymouth Brother had tipped the Q.M. in the ration cart.
The odds were that it was a shilling between the two, Dyson said.
I know they tipped the boxcar driver better than that!
OCTOBER 3rd.
It was raining last night and it looked as though the troops
this morning would get a miserable start, but it has cleared up and
the weather is as warm and bright as one could wish. The weather
has been extraordinarily favourable to us all this year. As one
youg prisoner said to a man whom Dys on was talking to today up the
line, when the latter pointed to his belt which was embossed -
"Gott mit Uns". 'Not 'Gott mit uns", he said; "Gott gegen uns"
We went to Headquarters in the morning to find out the position.
As usual, reports there were glowing. Aeroplanes had seen our
troops mopping up in the village of Beaurevoir. We were well
through the Beaurevoir line and the British on the right had taken
Ramicourt and were said to be releasing civilians either there or at
Montbrehain beyond. I wrote this up - "At last through the last
system of the Hindenburg line." "Mopping up" is a dry expression
not known to civilians, so I translated it in the wire that the
troops had been reported to have been seen working through the
streets and gardens and clearing out the cellars.
We went straight up to the point from which one guessed we
could see this Beaurevoir line and village. We left the car by the
sugar factory at Estrees, where there were already some 6" guns,
and a little to the back of them the road appeared to have been
recently shelled, with one or two craters in it and dead horses
lying about. Not a shell was falling either in Bellicourt or
Nauroy - the latter village being on the top of the hill beyond
Bellicourt. An astonishing amount of traffic was moving over these
roads considering how newly they had been t aken. We struck straight
on up the road to the hilltop above Estrees. Only an occasional
shell was falling over the crest to our right. There was a line
of our guns, about three or four batteries of them, in the valley
behind the crest on the left behind Follemprise Farm. Murdoch
wanted to go on straight to the Beaurevoir line or beyond, but I
advised him to cut across to a shell hole on the ridge on our left
and have a good look on the landscape and see the position before
we moved. I have always found this to be wise and save trouble.
We found a suitable shell hole with the village of Estrées -
red roofs in back gardens and a fine mass of a red brick 

23.
3/10/18.
church arising above them - 400 yards to our right front, and
cemetery of the village about the same distance to our left.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On the crest on our immediate left was Follemprise Farm. There
was a valley below us and beyond it, on the next knuckle of hill
along the edge of the crest, ran the wire of the Beaurevoir line.
Beyond this over a second knuckle ran the treelined Roman Road.
Tp the left of this was what looked like anxxxxxxxxxx abandoned
gun. In the valley on the north of theise knuckleds must have run
the curious ditch knownas the Torrens Canal, which has been
somewhat of an anxiety to our Corps staff. They heard that it
drained a marsh and that it contained about a metre of water
several metres wide. On the slopes on the north of this valley
lay sprawling the red-roofed village of Beaurevoir. Beyond it
was the rolling green open country, with the distant horizon banded
in trees and a church tower amongst them, next to which through
the telescope we could see a German Red Cross flag over a house on
whose roof the red cross was painted in a white circle. To the
left of Beaurevoir was a single red house standing by itself; and
left of this again was the clump of trees suyrrounding Bellevue
Farm. Left of this again, and more distant, was another clump
of trees surrounding the larger farm of Guisaucourt. The farm
buildings of Lormisset were closer to us just where the hill
left cut off the view. We knew that Lormisset, which was in the
Beaurevoir line,had been taken. I noticed that some machine-
gunners were sitting in a shell-hole on this slope along which
we passed. This did not look as thought the whole landscape was
in our possession. They said they had gone forward but struck a
gap where there were no infantry ahead of them, and they thought
there had been something of a mess-up. Thenfrom our shell-hole
we noticed that in the landscape beyond Beaurevoir there were
any quantity of figures moving. It was as full of movement as I
have ever seen a battlefield.
From Premont I saw a motor lorry moving off towards the German
rear. Just beyond the southern end of Beaurevoir, where it ends
in a xxxxxx cemetery under what looks like a row of oliver trees,
there was moving from left to right a body of about 30 or 40 men
in no particular formation, and at first, so far as one could see
through the telescope, without arms. By their heavy hocks and the
gray shade of their uniforms, we took them for Germans, and we
wondered if they could be prisoners as our objective was well
beyond Beaurevoir on the limit of the high ground. The Germans,
however, or some of them, seemed to be carrying what appeared to
be either stretchers or machineguns - two of them bearing what
looked like a stretcher but what I afterwards decided was the
carriage of a heavy machinegun - and others carrying something on
their shoulders. They moved towards the Torrens valley till the
knuckle beyond La Motte Farm hid them. Several times we saw
either this body of men, or another like it, and I was still
perplexed as to what they were until we saw that some of them were
speaking to isolated vehicles of transport which were moving off
in several places towards the German rear - clearly transport
retiring. It followed that this must be German infantry or
machine gunners advancing. Therefore our line was not likely
be in Beaurevoir cemetery - if it had been these Germans would
have been under machinegun fire. Through the country behind
Beaurevoir, every here and there, we could see gun teams moving
apparently with guns; xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and along what looked like
a road towards the southern end of the distant landscape below
Premont we saw a whole line of guns or transport moving away.
There was practically no artillery fire at all on either side,
and it struck one that the German was moving back his guns and
that presently his artillery would descend again. Meanwhile
we could see not a sign of movement of any sort in the town of
Beaurevoir. The Beaurevoir wire and trenches in front of
Estrees were clearly ours because we could see an occasional man
there, and later on the 24th Battn. was moving up in platoons
from behind the gardens of Estrees immediately in front of us. 

24.
They passed around the left of the town and up to the
Beaurevoir line. Seeing this movement, or for some other
reason, the Germans put down a heavy barrage, with whizzbangs
on the xxxxxxxxxx h illcrest was the red house mentioned
above, and Bellevue Farm. We saw a party of men mo ving up
the hill near the red house and suddenly begin running for it
They entered it and present ly began to leave it again working
along the road to Beaurevoir. About the same time the guns
in the valley behind us and all the guns in the background
behind us opened a heavy bombardment of Beaurevoir and of the
crest onwchich these men were making, their passage to the
village xx rath er uncom fortable. The bombardment was.
mo stly shrapnel and we noticed that it began on the further
side of Beaurevoir and far beyond La Motte farm and gradually
shortened on to ou r side of the town. The white shrapnel
puffs could beclearly seen against the red house, with an
occasional bu rst of high explosives amongst the bricks.
The Torrens Valley gradually filled with dust. This made
us guess that what we at first took as a bombardment
preliminary to a further attack by us must really be a
barrage laid down agai nst a counter attack by tne Germans,
(I fancy that both the men whom we saw near the red house and
the Germans beyond the cemetery were caught with two of the
three counterattacks which we delivered, according to General
Wisdon's accou nt, during the day.)
Something had clearly gone wrong with the attack. The
f urthest point at which we saw our men was on a certain
winding sunkenroad leading into the southern end of Beaurevoir.
While we were watching this scrap there came over the
hilltop into our shellhole a couple of artillerymen from the
batteries behind the hill. One was a Sergeant Major who had
been with thebattery a long time. "It isn't often we get a
chanceof seeing anything" he said. "They won't let us get up
with the infantry. I reckon we don't have to undergo a
circumstance to what they have to put up with. I reckon
they ough t to be pensioned off, the whole lot of them, if
they get back after this. Ours is a soft job besides theirs"
We t old him he could see Germans and German guns if he liked
through our telescope, and he was as delighted asa child.
"I'll have to be getting back or I'll be pinched as an
absentee like I was before when an aeroplane fell near our
batter y and I went off to see it. I thought it had fallen
abou t 100 yards away, but we walked a hell of a distance
before we came to it, and when I got back I was on the mat
for a deserter. That is what will be happening this time"
he said, laugh ing as he climbed out of the shellhole and
went off.
We hurried back to the 5th Bde H.Q. in the Canal ^cutting
[*The old 8 Bde HQ*]
south of the tunnel. We found Martin just inside the window
with his Staff Captain ringing on the telephone. They were
j ust arranging with the 24th Battn. that it should attack at
6.30 that evening. (in about 20 minutes' time) to get the high
ground beyond Beaurevoir on this side of it above La Motte
farm, so as to improve the position for the night. The 24th
Battn had been lent to the 5th Bde for the purpose. Zero
was to be at 6.30 but the barragewould not comedown for 10
minutes from that time because the 24th Battn had some xxxxxx
distance to go in order to reach it. The barrage would then
go 100 yards in 4 minutes and was not to last longer than
could behelped in order to avoid the waste of precious
ammunition which did not exist in great quantities in the
forward area. It turned out today that the 5th Bde had very
heavy fighting immediately in front of Estrees. The 18 and
19 Battns had to go through and take the Beaurevoir line
followed by the 17 and 20 Battns. who were to go through then
into the cou ntry beyond. However when the 18 and 19th
start ed they found themselves at once held up by a very
s trong point in the Beaurevoir line on the hill immediately
infront of Estrees. They could not get past it in any way,
but the flanks moved on and the left flank was cut off from
then and lost touch. Each brigade had 8 tanks and 8 whippes 

25.
The tanks of the 5th Bde, were knocked out but the strong
point was finally taken. They got 300 prisoners, two
trench mo rtars and several machineguns. However it was too
late for the xxxxxxxxxx objectives either there or on the flanks to be
reached. The left of the 5th Bde, had reached La Motte
Farm and the Torrens stream and the right had swung well
forwards with the British who had advanced apparently
considerably further. As we left Martin the staff of the
cavalry brigade which was in waiting came up to his H.Q.
I believe the cavalry was to have gone through if things had
succeeded, and some say that they did get through downn
n ear Ramicour t and were releasing civilians in Montbrehain
b ut I think this was wron g.
We wen t on to the 7th Bde. which was in a concrete
dugout justn north of the main road into Bellicourt. Some
English officers were there and LLoyd of the 12th Field
Artillery who was pretty ill, sitting with his head in his
hands ou tsi de the dugout. We found old Wisdom just
explaining the position to the brigadier of the 7th British
Bde. (who said he had met me at one time in Egypt) of the
25th British division which was to relieve the 7th Bde.
tonight. I understand that when the 6th Bde. has done
another attack the 2nd Division will follow all the others
out into a back area, and the whole Corps except the artillery
will be relieved. Murdoch says that Hughes and Monash had
talked over the relief of the Corps and Monash had promised
Hughes to get then all out by October 15th. This will be a
week earlier than that. Murdoch says that Monash made sone
mention of getting in the 4th Division again, but that has
of course been given up.
Wisdom was quite ready to tell us the situation, busy as
he was. Wisdom says their task was practically to make goo
the red xxxxx lin e of September 29th. The troops on their
left, however, were very late bu t afterwards got to Prospect
Hill. Fou r tanks failed to start of those that were with
the 7th Bde. They were old Mark V tanks. Four went on.
The battalions were to attack in the following order - The
25th were to take the Beaurevoir on the left of the 5th Bde
and the right of the British, and to stay there. The 26th
were to pass through them to the final objetive on the left
front of Beaurevoir village; the 27th were to pass through
andform a proteetive flank on theleft of the 25th Battn and
beyond, and the 28th were to extend this up to the left of
the 26th. This was in case the Tommies did not get through,
and they performed it almost to the letter. However when
the 26 th reached a position on the left flank of Beaurevoir
they were quite out of touch with the 5th Bde. andcould not
see them at all. There seemed to be none of our people in
Beaurevoir although several sources informed the 7th Bde. that
the 5th Bde. were through the village. A tank actually got
into Gui sacourt farm away to the north. As the 5th Bde.
were nowhere to be seen, the 26th Bn. formed back along the
sunken road to the south-east (south-west?). The first
counterattack came about xxxxx 9.30 in the morning straight
against the Bellevue farm flank. The 26th Battn were weak
and had to give their flank and came back in the end to the
drain which runs across the meadow in a S.E. direction
(broken blue line on map). There Germans got into Bellevue
Farm, and our people moved back after seeing that the Tommies
who they thought were on Prospect Hill were in the drain on
their left. (I believe the To mmies had posts north of
Prospect Hill also). The 5th Bde. was at this time in the
Torrens Canal S.W. of Beaurevoir; the 7th Bde. are now just
west of Bellevue farm. The found out that the Tommies had
posts north o f Prospect Hill despite German counterattacks
so the 28th Bn. pushed out posts up the Beaurevoir line or
near it on the eastern end of the hill. An officer with a
patrol of th e 28th Bn. went right round the Tommies' posts
on that hill and picked up a Tommy sergeant, brought him right
around the circumference of the hill to our line in the drain
then up to our post forward and so back to xxxxxxx his own,
so that he sho uld know exactly where we were.
 

25 a   26/45
During the afternoon there were three or four counter-
attacks. O ne eame from the direction of Guisecourt Farm
[*? Oct. Wednesday*]
and one from Beaurevoir. The barrage coming down cut off
the men in Bellev ue farm and they were said to have retreated
from it. (I think it was one of these counterattacks that
we saw near the red house, the Germans being driven back).
Our total advance was abou t 3000 yards, though at xxxx one
time we were nearly 1500 yards further. It was tough
fighting, especially on the part of the 26th Battn. The
7th Bde. got apparently about 500 prisoners and took two
77's near Bellevue far and probabyl these had to be abandoned
later. There were other guns possibly firing down the main
road i n fron t o f Estrees which were sealt with by machine
gun fire. The British were supposed to have taken Le
xxxxxxx Catelet and Gouy, but this was very uncertain, and
I believe a counterattack from the north reached the edge of
Gouy. It is doubtful whether the British are holding now
more than the edge of the village. Wisdom told us that at
one tine the position of the 26th Bn. near Beaurevoir was
very xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx touchy. They did not know who was
on their flank when they refused it. The next thing they
knew was that they were being attacked by Germans from
Beaurevoir village in a position which was well behind their
right flank where they had expected the 5th Bde. to be.
Wilkins, who was up the line today as usual, told us
[*?*] that he saw a German attack coming over the top of Prospect
Hill towards the British in the drain. The attack came
somewhere down the hill, but when next he looked the Germans
were going back over the hilltop again.. This makes
difficult to understand Wisdom's statement that the British
had posts on the northern side of Prospect Hill. Just
before this attack Wilkins saw our patrol of four men cone
over the hillto pand down towards the drain.
A matter mentioned both by Wisdom and Wilkins was that
one of the tanks of the 7th Bde, if not two, was sent around
to help the 5th Bde. The tank machine gunners were worn
out, so two Australians volunteered to take their places.
The tank took up the route from Estrees and was at once
knocked out by a shell. Both the tank drivers were killed,
but the Egzlish officer inside and the two Australians got
off unharmed.
We heardnext day two stories worth remembering for the
history. One of the officers of the 18th Battn. and a
couple of men were grabbed and captured by the Germans during
I think, this attack. On their way to the German line they
shook themselves free from their captors, the officer getting
away minus the seat of his pants, and back to the Australian
lines. The same thing happened to a sergeant of the 17th
Battn. who got a very long distance xxxxx forward at Mont
St.Quentin. He had no arms, but he simply planted one on
the cheek or chin of the German who was in charge of him,
scattered the guard, and got back to his battalion. 

1. 46
9 Oct. Wednesday.
I had a letter from old Jock to say that he had been
offered leave in Australia (6/12 as he put it) and that he
had decided to accept it. I also heard that Billy Hughes
was coming over with the last party of visitors - bringing
them himself - in a few days' time. So I decided to finish
dictating my diary to Crawford and cross at once to England
and see Jock and return with Hughes.
At Boulogne on the boat I had a wire from Aust. Corps
that Billy was crossing the next day and wanted to see me.
However, as one never knows what happens when a man is warned
for Australia, I decided to cross at once and see Jock. I
was also anxious to get a holiday which I had arranged from
Oct. 15 in the south of France.
I cannot think (writing this on Oct. 15) who it was that
met me in Boulogne and crossed with me - some oneof our
officers; and that growing lack of memory is one of the
reasons that has driven me to think that a complete holiday
would be a good thing. Our troops have come out of the line.
After the last stupid, wicked fight at Montbrehain, where
Mahoney of the 24th and other grand men fell for no reason
except to increase the reputation of a division and of a
General (one would not grudge them if the fight had xxxx had
the results which could have been won from it had the front
been wider).... After that stupid, wicked, wasteful little
[*This was not fair to Rosenthal - apparently he hadn't conceived ? attack. Monash undertook probably at ? request. 29 July 1941*]
success, when the 18th Bn went in in support 100 men strong
in all, our old Australians were withdrawn.
On the 8th, when I went up to see the American divisions
in order to obtain, if possible, their account of the fighting
for the Bellecourt tunnel, I found the 30th American Division
at the Quarries at Templeux Guerard - engaged, that day, in a
breakthrough from the positions which we had xxxxxx reached
at Montbrehain. Our field artillery was supporting them
(only the 1st Divl. artillery and, I think, the 3rd (Army)
Bde. A.F.A. having come out for a rest. They had had
wonderfully good reports earlier in the morning (and I think
they are apt to jump at these rather incautiously at present),
and these had been whittled down a lot later. They had as a
matter of fact got their green line (the red line was still
far ahead) and the tanks were just going out to Premont,
which in the first flush had been reported taken. The
British cavalry were at Vaux le Pretre, ready to break through
it was a real clean breakthrough (so some of our Australians
who were attached told us), but they were held up by the
British division (I think the 6th) on their right - which
itself was held up by the French north of St Quentin, who had
not got ahead so far as expected.
The old General - Lewis - was very shy of giving me any
copies of official papers of theirs but he was ready to give
me anything unofficial. He asked me in to lunch. After
lunch an Australian youngster, Major Wall of the 6th Field
Ambulance, passed me - he had been up helping at their
advanced dressing station, as their own senior medical officer
there had been killed the night before. Wall took a Ford car
this morning right up to Montbrehain. He arranged their
medical evacuations for them - they had no idea of classifying
cases, he said - not even of introducing the simplest form
of classification by putting stretchers with serious cases
in one place, light cases in another, and so on. They were
very willing to learn but were like children in their
simplicity. Their officers at the dressing station had not
been medical officers to a battalion as ours have, and knew
very little of the needs of the units. While he was up there
they completely missed their rations for one day - the
division omitted to get up its rations that day. When the
stretcherbearers asked Wall about it he could only say that
the Divisional general and headquarters were in exactly