Battle of Fromelles: Information from Answers.com

Battle of Fromelles

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
Location	50°36′22.5″N 2°51′16.9″E / 50.60625°N 2.854694°E / 50.60625; 2.854694Coordinates: 50°36′22.5″N 2°51′16.9″E / 50.60625°N 2.854694°E / 50.60625; 2.854694 Fromelles, Nord, France
Result	German victory

Belligerents

Australia

United Kingdom

German Empire

Commanders

Richard Haking

Gustav Scanzoni von Lichtenfels

Strength

30,000+

10,000-15,000

Casualties and losses

5,533 Australian dead, wounded, or captured
1,500 British dead or wounded.

1,500 dead or wounded

v • d • e Battle of the Somme

Albert – Bazentin – Fromelles – Pozières – Mouquet Farm – Guillemont – Ginchy – Flers-Courcelette – Morval – Thiepval Ridge – Le Transloy – Ancre Heights – Ancre

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.

Because Fromelles was the first occasion on which the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) saw action on the Western Front and 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."^[1] 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.

1 The forces and objectives
2 The battle
3 Aftermath
4 Mass grave re-discovered in 2008
5 References

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. Most elements of the Australian 8th and 14th Brigades quickly gained their objectives. However, upon reaching the supposed secondary line, they instead found a ditch full of rainwater, which provided few means of defending their gains. The 32nd Battalion (8 Bde), on the extreme eastern flank, suffered high casualties while attacking a German stronghold in the ruins of Ferme Delangre (Delangre Farm). Some elements of the 14th Brigade reached a main road, 400 metres south of the Allied line, before withdrawing to the ditch.

In the west, the Australian 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."^[2]

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.^[1] 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.^[3] 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^[4], which was defending the Sugar Loaf salient. Hitler served on the Aubers-Fromelles sector from March 1915 until September 1916.

Mass grave re-discovered in 2008

The bodies of Allied soldiers killed in the area re-taken by the Germans were buried in mass graves shortly after the battle. They were transported to sites behind German lines and buried in pits. Most of these pits were discovered by official post-war burial campaigns during the 1920s, which resulted in their re-interral in Imperial War Graves Commission (later known as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission; CWGC) cemeteries. The VC Corner Australian Cemetery, one kilometre north of Fromelles, where most of the AIF personnel killed in the battle were buried, is one such cemetery; the only large-scale, entirely Australian cemetery in France.

There was 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 50°36′36.36″N 2°51′17.10″E / 50.6101°N 2.85475°E / 50.6101; 2.85475, in a field at the edge of Bois Faisan ("Pheasant Wood"), on the outskirts of Fromelles. Bodies were transported there by German soldiers on a narrow gauge trench railway on July 22, 1916, before being buried in eight pits measuring approximately 10 metres long, 2.2 metres wide and five metres deep. Englezos believed that these grave pits had not been discovered during the official post-war burial campaigns.

In 2007, a non-invasive geophysical survey, commissioned by the Australian government, was conducted by Glasgow University Archaeological Research Department (GUARD).^[5] ^[6] The survey gave readings consistent with pits containing the remains of hundreds of soldiers. A subsequent metal detector survey led to the discovery of Australian Army artefacts at 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 GUARD began an exploratory dig at the site. The first conclusive evidence of human remains was discovered on May 29. Six burial pits were excavated and human skeletal remains were found in five of them. Only 20% of the area of the pits was exposed, to minimise disturbance of the remains. Numerous small artefacts, such as uniform badges and buttons, were recovered, confirming that the bodies were Australian and British. It was estimated that several hundred soldiers had been buried at the site. First World War historian Peter Barton and military archaeologist Dr Tony Pollard have described the importance of the find and how the excavation work will be done in video footage of excavation.^[7]

It was announced on July 31, 2008 that all human remains would be exhumed from the mass burial pits and re-buried with full military honours in individual plots at a new war cemetery, situated as close as possible to where the soldiers were found. Exhumation and re-interment will be carried out under the auspices of the CWGC.^[8]

In April 2009 it was announced that DNA samples would be taken from the remains to increase the chances of identification.^[9] The original burial location was unsuitable for a permanent cemetery because of regular flooding, and difficulty of access for visitors. The site for the new permanent CWGC cemetery was selected in late 2008 and is located approximately 120 metres from where the bodies were found.^[10]^[11] It will be very similar in appearance to other CWGC war cemeteries in France and will be built to the same standard.

Exhumation of bodies at the Bois Faisan site began in May 2009, and it is expected that it will be completed by July 2010.^[12]

On June 7, 2009, Lambis Englezos was honoured by the Australian government, when he was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), in the General Division.^[13] "His citation read: "For service to the community through research and advocacy roles relating to Australian soldiers of the Great War buried in Fromelles, France".

References

Books

C. E. W. Bean, Official Histories – First World War Volume III – The Australian Imperial Force in France, 1916 (12th edition), Canberra, Australian War Memorial, 1941.

Paul Cobb, Fromelles 1916, Stroud [UK}, Tempus Publishing (ISBN 978-0-7524-4174-0), 2007.

Robin Corfield, Don't forget me cobber: The Battle of Fromelles, Second Edition, The Miegunyah Press / Melbourne University Publishing, 2009. [Described by bestselling historian Les Carlyon as "the definitive account" of the battle.]

Patrick Lindsay, Fromelles: Australia's Darkest Day and the Dramatic Discovery of Our Fallen World War One Diggers (updated ed), Prahran [Australia], Hardie Grant Books, (ISBN 978-1-7406-6684-8) 2008.

Footnotes

^ ^a ^b Ross McMullin, "Disaster at Fromelles" (Wartime Magazine, Issue 36, 2006) Access date: April 14, 2007.
^ Ross McMullin, "The forgotten fallen" (Sydney Morning Herald, July 19, 2002) (Sydney Morning Herald, July 19 2002) Access date: April 14, 2007.
^ Mark Day, "Inside the mincing machine" (The Australian, April 14, 2007) Access date: April 14, 2007.
^ BBC News - Team's mass war grave discovery
^ http://www.guard.arts.gla.ac.uk
^ BBC NEWS | UK | WWI 'grave' revives forgotten battle
^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7428393.stm
^ BBC News. WWI grave troops to be reburied
^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/8008355.stm
^ http://www.cwgc.org/news.asp?newsid=98&menuname=&menu=sub&view=yes&id=13&menuid=0&s_month=&m_name=
^ http://www.cwgc.org/content.asp?menuid=3&submenuid=13&id=36&menuname=Fromelles%20Images&menu=subsub
^ Commonwealth War Graves Commission, 2009, "Remembering Fromelles" Access date: June 14, 2009.
^ WA Today, "War grave detective receives honour" Access date: June 14, 2009.

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	Sydney Earnest Christian
	Alexander Salton
	61st (2nd South Midland) Division

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