Study for Dead Trooper

02 July 2007 by Ilaria Poli. No comments
George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine Landscapes, Conservation, Exhibition

The majority of conservation treatments on paintings in the George Lambert: Gallipoli & Palestine Landscapes exhibition were relatiavely straightforward. There were a few exceptions to this rule, one being Study for Dead Trooper and detail of Turkish trench, Gallipoli (pro Patria), oil on canvas, 1918. A lot of work was required on the painting and its frame. This included: cleaning the surfaces of the painting and its frame, filling and inpainting the frame, cleaning the canvas edges, strip lining the whole work, attaching the canvas to a new stretcher, flattening some areas of the canvas as well as filling and inpainting the paint layer. The frame had a number of specific issues. The task of removing the old layer of gold coating from the frame was more difficult than usual as there were many layers of gesso between the bronze leaf and the top gold coating that had to be removed. There were also problems with previous repairs to the frame that were falling off during the cleaning process. As the repairs to process the frame’s corners progressed much of the old fill broke away, loosening sections that were previously fixed down. Subsequently, many parts of the corner mouldings had to be re-placed into position and sometimes new sections were moulded to size and shape. Inpainting of the filled areas and all the losses on the bronze leaf original base layer also required hours of work. Difficulty arose as there were many small areas, each of varying tones of gold. It was also one of the larger frames to be included in the exhibition so there was a greater surface area to deal with than the others.This oil on canvas painting was originally stretched onto a stretcher but at some point the canvas was laid onto a wood panel. Possibly this was to make it easier to fit into the frame and there are several examples in the collection of this having been done.

Work on the canvas began by firstly carefully removing it from the wood panel support. The canvas was not adhered very well to the panel so removal was reasonably straightforward. The back of the canvas had a great amount of old adhesive around the edges. This adhesive had to be removed to have the cleanest possible surface for further treatment. Once the old adhesive was removed the edges were slightly dampened and flattened with a heated spatula. The flatness allowed easier manipulation for the procedure of adhering polyester strips. Each strip was adhered to the canvas edge with BEVA® 371 film under heat. These polyester strips became extensions of the canvas and allowed for a greater surface area to staple the canvas to the new stretcher bar. The addition of these strips also gave the weakened canvas edges much needed extra strength. Each edge was carefully aligned and stapled onto a new stretcher. The sides of the canvas were protected by thin strips of card for added protection from the frame rebate. The tension in the canvas was then adjusted by the ‘keys’ in the corners of the stretcher. The next task was flattening four bulges in the canvas. These areas were left under a poultice and flattened with weights. Consolidation of two areas of flaking paint was undertaken using an adhesive combined with heat to attach the fragile areas. The final process was glazing, rehousing and putting a protective backing on the painting. A laminated glass was placed into the rebate edges, the painting slotted in and a backing board sat behind the canvas. The backing board was fixed down with several brackets and hangers were nailed into the frame. Laminated, non-reflective glass was used to provide better viewing and strength as the painting will be travelling as part of the exhibition.

Ilaria Poli, Conservator

A Brief Military History of Flanders

27 June 2007 by Craig Tibbitts. 1 Comment
To Flanders Fields, 1917, Ypres

For much of its history Flanders has been a strategically important area during the centuries of conflict in Europe.  Ypres, as a major town of the region and a wealthy economic centre, has often been a focal point of the fighting there.  Flanders’ location has also put it at the crossroads between long-time rivals England and France, and later as part of the Netherlands territories of other great powers, such as Spain and Austria.  Accordingly, this ‘fatal avenue’ (as Charles de Gaulle named it), has so frequently been cursed by the scourge of war that it surely ranks among those regions of the world that throughout history have seen far more than its fair share of destruction, death and misery.

From the Romans to the Franks

By the First Century BC, the region was inhabited by people of mixed Celtic and Germanic origins, predominantly the Morini, the Manapii, and Nervii tribes.  In 58 BC Julius Caesar at the head of a powerful army commenced his conquest of Gaul and by the following year as he pushed north, first encountered these tribes.  The Romans referred to all the tribes of the north collectively as the Belgae, and soon learned they were fearsome opponents; fierce and determined in battle and implacable in their resistance to Roman rule.

In 57 BC the Belgae tribes led by the Nervii united and attacked Caesar’s legions in the vicinity of the Sambre River, to the south of present day Valenciennes.  The Belgae launched a spirited attack en masse that caught Caesar’s eight legions completely off guard.  After an extremely vicious and bloody battle, the Romans prevailed, but they had come perilously close to being overwhelmed and wiped out.

Roman rule was soon imposed in the region, however in 54 BC the Belgae rose in revolt, this time led by Ambiorix, chieftan of the Eburones, a tribe from further east towards the Rhine.   On this occasion the entire Roman garrison of Aduatuca (a fortified encampment near present day Tongeren), were massacred after being lured from it by a ruse.  Soon, other Belgae tribes including the Nervii and Menapii joined the revolt and it seemed the Romans would lose their hold on northern Gaul.  Julius Caesar however was not easily rattled and before long he led a force into the region and harshly crushed the revolt. Two years later in 52 BC, the Belgae again fought the Romans in the last great, but ultimately doomed uprising of Vercingetorix.  In the long run, Roman military power and their ability to prevent the disparate tribes forming alliances against them, eventually led to the complete conquest and pacification of Gaul.  The Belgae territory then became known as the Roman province of Gallia Belgica.

Following the collapse of the Roman Empire in west in the 5th Century AD the region witnessed a period of invasion from the east by the Huns and the Franks.  The Franks eventually established control over Gaul, most notably under Charlemagne who ruled from 768-814 AD.  In the mid 9th Century, Viking raids became a terrifying feature of life in Flanders.  When the Frankish Empire was divided up in 843, the Scheldt River became the demarcation line between the Western and Eastern Frankish kingdoms. In 862 the Western Frankish king, Charles the Bald’s daughter married Baldwin I and was appointed count of the newly created County of Flanders.

12th and 13th Centuries

During the later medieval period, Flanders’ importance and wealth grew with Ypres especially prosperous due to its production of cloth and increasingly strong economic ties with England.  As a result of its wealth, Flanders and Ypres often became a focal point for the ongoing conflicts over territory and influence between France and England.

Flanders long resisted French hegemony during this period, however Ypres was captured and held at times by successive French kings, notably in 1128 and 1213.  Significantly, the French king Philip II then faced an anti-French alliance of Flanders with King John of England and the Holy Roman Empire.  However Philip defeated this coalition at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214.

This state of affairs became a much more serious contest following Flanders’ renewed alliance with Edward I (Longshanks) of England in 1297, leading to another French invasion.  An English expeditionary force came to Flanders in support, however a major Scottish independence uprising led by William Wallace suddenly flared up not long after Edward’s arrival.  The English king persisted in Flanders for several months, but following an English defeat in Scotland at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, his attention was increasingly turned towards home.  Early in 1298 Edward and his troops returned to England effectively abandoning his allies.  As France imposed its power over Flanders, this latest wave of French oppression inspired even greater resentment and revolt throughout the region, culminating in the massacre of the French inhabitants of Bruges in May 1302.  In response to this outrage, a French army was sent to destroy the rebellion.  On 11 July however the French were comprehensively defeated by a Flemish peasant army including a contingent from Ypres at the Battle of the Golden Spurs near Courtrai (Kortrijk).

The euphoria was short-lived however as France regrouped and defeated the Flemish two years later at the Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle, about 20 km south of Lille.  The resulting treaty provided some measure of Flemish independence at the cost of three of their towns (Lille, Douai and Bethune) ceded to the French.  As the years went by however, Flanders gradually slipped under French domination again.  A major peasant revolt broke out in Flanders in 1323, but eventually Count Louis I of Flanders with the aid of the King of France, finally crushed the uprising at the Battle of Cassel on 23 August 1328.

The Hundred Years War and the Great Papal Schism
The Hundred Years War was fought between France and England, over a period of actually 116 years from 1337 to 1453.  It’s main cause was due to claims by English kings to the French throne.

For most of this war Flanders and Ypres managed to stay relatively neutral and safe, however this all changed as something of a sideshow conflict emerged in 1378.   The election of Pope Urban VI caused the Great Papal Schism, with England siding with Urban, and France with the rival pope (or antipope), Clement VII.  Flanders itself by this time had become a region of divided loyalties along Francophile and Anglophile lines and therefore a flashpoint for this conflict.

In November 1382 a French army soundly defeated the Ghentois (forces of the town of Ghent who supported Pope Urban) at the Battle of Westrozebeke (Roosebeke), just a few miles to the east of Ypres.  In fact the location of this clash was only a few hundred metres north of Passchendaele on a hill called the Goudberg.  After this battle almost all of Flanders, except for Ghent, again fell under French rule and aligned with them (willingly or not), in support of Clement.

Then in 1383 Pope Urban proclaimed a crusade against Clement.  As part of this crusade, the Bishop of Norwich led an English army across the Channel in mid 1383 where he set about capturing the towns of Flanders, allied with the Ghentois who had unsuccessfully besieged Ypres earlier in the year.  At the behest of the Ghentois, the Bishop’s forces commenced a renewed siege of Ypres in June, deploying a heavy siege gun (named the Canterbury gun), and a trebuchet.  After eight weeks however, Ypres was still holding out and the siege was abandoned upon the approach of a powerful French army.  The English withdrew to the coast at Dunkirk and were soon forced to abandon their crusade altogether.  As in most wars, the civilian inhabitants of Flanders suffered greatly during this time.

Habsburg rule: the Spanish
The following year (1384) the ‘Seventeen Provinces’ that encompassed parts of northern France, Flanders, and modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands, came under the rule of France via the Duke of Burgundy.  A century later in 1482 through royal inheritance, control of these provinces passed from French (Burgundian) rule to that of the Habsburgs, initially the Austrian branch of that royal family, then in 1556 the Spanish branch.  Thereafter Flanders was known as the Spanish Netherlands.

War without end: the 16th and 17th Centuries
Between 1568 and 1697 much of Europe descended into a very complex and confusing period of continual warfare with the usual causes of power, politics, trade and religion all to blame.  The spread of Protestantism in the Spanish Netherlands was particularly troubling to the Catholic Spanish rulers who sought to suppress it at every turn. There were seven major wars during this period, all interconnected and overlapping, including the Dutch Revolt (aka The Eighty Years War), The Thirty Years War, The Franco-Spanish War, The War of Devolution, the Franco-Dutch War, the Anglo-Dutch War and the Nine Years War.  As might be expected, the Spanish Netherlands incorporating Flanders once more became ‘the cockpit of war.’

In 1568 the Dutch rebelled against Spanish rule and war broke out, however the seven northern provinces of the Spanish Netherlands managed to break away from Spain, forming the Dutch Republic.  Fighting continued however and the southern Spanish Netherlands were particularly hard hit.  Ypres was sacked in 1578, and then suffered one of its worst ever sieges, lasting six months at the hands of the Spanish in 1583-1584.  Many thousands of the town’s inhabitants died during this siege.  Then from 1635 to 1659 France and Spain were at war, with the French capturing Ypres on three separate occasions under their ambitious new king, Louis XIV who ascended the throne of France in 1643.  The Dutch Revolt and the Thirty Years War concluded with the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ensured the southern Netherlands provinces would remain under Spanish rule.

France and Spain were however still at war (1635-1659).  For a time, the English were also at war with Spain, thus bringing about an unusual Anglo-French alliance in 1657.  Under the terms of the treaty, Oliver Cromwell despatched a contingent of 6,000 English soldiers to fight alongside the French in Flanders.  In the summer of 1658, the English troops showed their determination in battle, routing the Spanish at the Battle of the Dunes (adjacent to Dunkirk), and then by storming and capturing several towns, including, most notably, Ypres.  The English contingent under the leadership of Sir William Lockhart, became known in British military history as ‘The Immortal 6,000.’

Then in 1667 the French again went to war with Spain and invaded the Spanish Netherlands taking Tournai, Douai and Courtrai in less than a month, then Lille a few weeks later.  The war was concluded the following year with France keeping most of her conquests in the Spanish Netherlands.  During the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678) the French besieged Ypres in the final year of the war and forced its capitulation on 25 March 1678.  In the years following 1678 with Ypres again under French control, famed military engineer Vauban supervised the strengthening and improvement of the town’s fortifications.

* For more information on the 1678 siege including maps and photos visit Fortifiedplaces.com

Rounding out this miserable century was the Nine Years War (1688-1697).  After defeating the German principalities of the Holy Roman Empire in the early years of this war, the French again turned their attention to Flanders.  In the following years, the French won a major victory at the Battle of Fleurus (1690), took Mons (1691), Namur (1692) and then won another major victory at the Battle of Neerwinden in 1693.  Yet the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 saw the Spanish retain Flanders.

The War of the Spanish Succession
The 18th Century began where the previous had left off, with only a brief respite of four years peace – barely time for the usual belligerents to catch their breath, let alone regroup.  The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) broke out when the Spanish throne went to Louis XIV’s grandson Philip, which France’s enemies could not abide with the resultant expansion of Louis’ power.  Once again Flanders would be an important front in this new war, with the French, Spanish and Bavarians on one side pitted against ‘the Allies’, principally England/Great Britain, The Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic on the other.

In March 1701 at the outbreak of hostilities, the French quickly seized Flanders and held the region all the way up to Antwerp.  The fortress of Ypres was incorporated into a series of defensive lines in the Netherlands and Flanders designed to repel the Allied forces attacking from the north.

The first line however, running from Antwerp to Namur was finally breached in May 1706 with The Duke of Marlborough’s stunning victory at the Battle of Ramillies.  In the subsequent campaign, the French were forced out of much of Flanders that year.  Between then and 1712 the fighting in the region continued to rage on with Ypres fortunately being one of the few fortress towns to escape a siege.  In September 1709 the inhabitants of Ypres must have held their breath as Marlborough moved towards Menin and Ypres with his siege equipment.  This however proved to be a feint, as Marlborough then quickly diverted to nearby Tournai and besieged and captured that fortress town.  As usual, during this long period of sieges, the general population of Flanders suffered considerable misery and hardship.  With an ultimate French defeat, the ensuing treaties saw Flanders pass to the Dutch, who soon made a deal to cede the region to Austrian Habsburg rule in 1715.  The deal included having Dutch troops garrison the ‘barrier fortress’ towns of Flanders as protection against any future French aggression.

War of the Austrian Succession
The next European crisis over inheritance of a throne was the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748).   The new Habsburg ruler Maria Theresa of Austria faced a powerful alliance of Prussia, France, Bavaria and Spain against her, all with territorial gains at her expense in mind.  A loose and scattered alliance of Austria, Britain, Hanover, Saxony, the Dutch, Sardinia and Russia were eventually ranged against them.  In the summer of 1742 a British expeditionary force landed in Flanders to strengthen the barrier fortresses there against any French invasion.  The French under Marshal de Saxe did invade Flanders in 1744 and occupied much of Flanders including Menin, Tournai, Ypres and Brussels.  The French then consolidated their gains winning three major victories against an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian-Austrian force at Fontenoy (1745), Rocoux (1746) and Lauffeld (1747).  Saxe finally captured Maastricht in 1748.  To once again demonstrate the senselessness of these wars, the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle saw France perform its usual concession by returning all it had conquered in Flanders and the Netherlands back to Austria.

Just a few years later in 1756, the Seven Years War broke out which heralded a remarkable shift in traditional European alliances.  This time Britain, Hanover, Hesse, Brunswick and Prussia cooperated against an Austrian, French and Russian alliance.  Fortunately this war, often called the ‘first First World War’ as it spread to several theatres around the world, did not visit Flanders for once.

Napoleonic Wars to present day
The French Revolution of 1789 set off another prolonged period of warfare in Europe lasting over twenty years.  In 1792 the new revolutionary armies of France invaded the Austrian Netherlands and won control of the region through their decisive victory at the Battle of Fleurus in June 1794.  The region remained under French control and out of harm’s way until the final brief climax of the Napoleonic Wars; Bonaparte’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815.  The ensuing treaty saw Flanders and the other southern provinces incorporated into the new United Kingdom of the Netherlands.  In 1830 these southern provinces revolted and broke away from the Dutch to become the newly independent Kingdom of Belgium.

So when the guns fell silent on the field of Waterloo in 1815, few might have guessed that Flanders, this fatal avenue, the cockpit of Europe, would be peaceful for another 99 years.  But as if to make up for this near century of tranquillity, the battles that took place in Flanders during the First World War centring on Ypres in 1914, 1915 and then 1917, would result in an unprecedented level of carnage, death and destruction scarcely possible to imagine.  Flanders is now enjoying only its second lengthy period of peace and security since time immemorial, 89 years and counting.

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Select bibliography

The conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar

The Crusade of the Bishop of Norwich (1383), according to the Westminster Chronicle, [available online]

The Renaissance at war by Thomas F. Arnold (2001)

Warfare in the Seventeenth Century by John Childs (2001)

The French Wars 1667-1714: the Sun King at war by John Lynn (2002)

Great and glorious days: The Duke of Marlborough’s battles 1704-09 by James Falkner (2003)

‘Marlborough’s sieges’ by C. T. Atkinson, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 13, No. 52, 1934, pp 195-205

‘The “decisive” Battle of Ramillies, 1706: prerequisites for decisiveness in early modern warfare’ by Jamel Ostwald, The Journal of Military History, Vol 64, No 3, July 2000, pp 649-677

The War of the Austrian Succession by Reed S. Browning (1995)

The French Revolutionary Wars by Gregory Fremont-Barnes (2001)

The campaigns of Napoleon by David Chandler (1966)

Ypres: the first battle, 1914 by Ian F. W. Beckett (2004)

In Flanders fields: Passchendaele 1917 by Leon Wolff (1959)

Passchendaele: the untold story / Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson (2003)

A popular history of France from the earliest times [available online] by Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

History of Holland by George Edmundson (1921)

Fatal avenue: a traveller’s history of the battlefields of Northern France and Flanders, 1346-1945 / Richard Holmes (1992)

90th Anniversary of the Battle of Arras

26 June 2007 by Peter Burness. 3 Comments
To Flanders Fields, 1917, Battles, Commemoration

While 11 April 1917 saw the launch of the first action at Bullecourt, on 9 April the larger Arras Offensive commenced.  The Arras Offensive of 1917 is often referred to as the Battle of Arras and is a significant battle honour more identified with the British Army.  This offensive does however also incorporate the smaller ‘battles’ and ‘actions’ of the Scarpe, of Vimy Ridge which the Canadians commemorate, and Bullecourt which Australians identify with.   (See post on battle honours – Bullecourt)

On 9 April 2007, the 90th Anniversary of Arras 1917 was commemorated on the old battlefield itself. During that evening people made a line of torches over twenty kilometres long marking the old front line from Bullecourt through Arras to Vimy. These photos of the occasion were sent to me by my friends Claude and Colette Durand.  They were taken around 8.50pm on 9 April 2007 looking towards Fontaine-les-Croisilles, just a few kilometres north of Bullecourt.

A website to commemorate the 90th Anniversary of Arras was also created http://battlefields1418.50megs.com/arras_2007.htm

Ottoman prisoner of war beadwork

25 June 2007 by Dianne Rutherford. 9 Comments
Exhibitions,Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, Our exhibition, The Light Horse

I normally reside in the Research Centre, working with Mal and Robyn, but for the past five months I have been working in the Memorial’s Military Heraldry and Technology section (MHT). MHT’s collection includes uniforms, medals, souvenirs, trench art, weaponry, vehicles and other interesting items. Some items from the MHT collection have been selected for display in Lawrence exhibition. Of the items selected, my favourites are the beadwork items made by Ottoman Prisoners of War in British POW camps.

Ottoman prisoners made many items whilst in captivity. It kept them occupied and was an avenue for them to earn money to supplement their rations and purchase items they required. Some prisoners even sent them home as gifts for family members or used them to barter with other prisoners. read on

Recent war artists

25 June 2007 by Janda Gooding. No comments
George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine Landscapes, Exhibition

In early 2007 the Australian War Memorial appointed Charles Green and Lyndell Brown as official artists to Iraq and Afghanistan. Charles and Lyndell are based in Melbourne and work collaboratively on the same paintings.  Their experiences as official artists travelling with the Australian Defence Forces bear some similarity to those of George Lambert ninety years ago – having to work quickly and pack up at a moment’s notice when the Forces need to move. They will be in Canberra to talk at the symposium this Friday 29 June about their time in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is also a great interview with them podcast on Radio National as well as a feature on George Lambert as a war artist. Follow this link:

www.abc.net.au/rn/artworks/stories/2007/1959332.htm

The Generals of 1917

22 June 2007 by Craig Tibbitts. No comments
To Flanders Fields, 1917, Generals

The AIF Generals

At the beginning of 1917 the general officers commanding the divisions and brigades of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) were a fairly experienced group, although quite a few were newly promoted or had been recently posted to command a different unit.

Of the five divisional commanders, only Walker (1st Division) had been in command of a division for more than one year. Monash had been in charge of 3rd Division for six months but had not yet led them in action, while the other three had only just taken command of their divisions. Nevertheless these men had gained a wealth of experience coming up over the last two years as battalion, then brigade commanders. Just two of the five (Holmes and Monash) were Australian born, the others being British, although Hobbs had migrated to Australia as a young man in 1887.

Of the fifteen brigade commanders, only three had been brigadiers for over 12 months, six had been for 6-12 months, while the remaining six had less than 3 months experience in the job. Again, even these newer brigade commanders possessed a wealth of experience as battalion commanders. Of these fifteen, twelve were Australian born and of the remaining three Britons, Evan Wisdom had migrated to Australia as a young man.

In early 1917 this group of men represented a mixture of experienced leaders and the newest wave of talent in the AIF to be promoted to the general rank. During the course of 1917 they would be tested harder than ever before. One would be killed in action during the year and the remainder would learn much about leadership and modern warfare, and much about themselves, their men and about loss.

Higher British Command during 1917

• Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig
• General Sir Herbert Plumer
• General Sir Hubert Gough

ANZAC formations during 1917

• I ANZAC Corps – Lieutenant General Sir William Birdwood
• II ANZAC Corps – Lieutenant General Sir Alexander Godley
• 1st Australian Division – Major General Harold Walker
• 1st Brigade – Brigadier General W. R. Lesslie
• 2nd Brigade – Brigadier General James Heane
• 3rd Brigade – Brigadier General Henry Gordon Bennett
• 2nd Australian Division – Major General Nevill Smyth, VC
• 5th Brigade – Brigadier General Robert Smith
• 6th Brigade – Brigadier General John Gellibrand Mar 1916 – Aug 1917, then Brigadier General John Paton
• 7th Brigade – Brigadier General Evan Alexander Wisdom
• 2nd Australian Division – Major General Nevill Smyth, VC
• 5th Brigade – Brigadier General Robert Smith
• 6th Brigade – Brigadier General John Gellibrand Mar 1916 – Aug 1917, then Brigadier General John Paton
• 7th Brigade – Brigadier General Evan Alexander Wisdom
• 3rd Australian Division – Major General John Monash
• 9th Brigade – Colonel/Brigadier General Alexander Jobson until August 1917 then Brigadier General Charles Rosenthal
• 10th Brigade – Colonel/Brigadier General Walter McNicoll
• 11th Brigade – Brigadier General James Cannan
• 3rd Australian Division – Major General John Monash
• 9th Brigade – Colonel/Brigadier General Alexander Jobson until August 1917 then Brigadier General Charles Rosenthal
• 10th Brigade – Colonel/Brigadier General Walter McNicoll
• 11th Brigade – Brigadier General James Cannan
• 4th Australian Division – Major General William Holmes until killed at Messines on 2 July 1917, then Major General Ewen Sinclair-MacLagan
• 4th Brigade – Brigadier General Charles Brand
• 12th Brigade – Brigadier General James Robertson
• 13th Brigade – Brigadier General Thomas Glasgow
• 5th Australian Division – Major General Joseph John Talbot Hobbs
• 8th Brigade – Brigadier General Edwin Tivey
• 14th Brigade – Brigadier General C. J. Hobkirk
• 15th Brigade – Brigadier General Harold ‘Pompey’ Elliott
• New Zealand Division – Major General Andrew Russell
• 1st Brigade – Brigadier C. H. J. Brown until killed at Messines in July, then Brigadier C. N. Melvill
• 2nd Brigade – Brigadier William Braithwaite
• 3rd (Rifle) Brigade – Brigadier Fulton, then from July Brigadier Earl Johnston
• 4th Brigade – Brigadier Herbert Hart
• British divisions On two occasions during 1917 British divisions were temporarily assigned to II ANZAC Corps to provide it with additional strength for specific operations.
• 25th Division was attached to II ANZAC Corps for the attack on Messines.
• 49th (West Riding) Division was attached to II ANZAC Corps for the attack on Poelcapelle (Battle of Passchendaele) on 9 October.
• 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division was attached to II ANZAC Corps for the attack on Poelcapelle (Battle of Passchendaele) on 9 October.
• For a breakdown of Australian battalions in each brigade see www.awm.gov.au/units/ww1.asp

Battle honours – Bullecourt

21 June 2007 by Craig Tibbitts. No comments
To Flanders Fields, 1917, Bullecourt

While reading about the Australians at Bullecourt in 1917, it struck me as odd that there is only one official battle honour for what seemed to be two distinctly separate battles, albeit in the same location. Furthermore, the official battle honour only refers to the second battle that occurred in May, and seemingly ignores the first battle that took place on 11 April. To satisfy my curiosity, I looked in to the matter further, with assistance from colleagues at the Australian War Memorial and from the Australian Army History Unit.

The definition of a battle honour according to the British Ministry of Defence is,

‘… an official acknowledgement rewarded to military units for their achievements in specific wars or operations of a military campaign. Granted only through the British monarch’s Royal Authority, the rewarding of battle honours is a military tradition practised not only in Britain but also in Commonwealth countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc. Battle honours are usually presented in the form of a name of a country, a region or a city where the regiment’s distinguished act took place together with the year when it occurred.’

Bullecourt: the wider perspective
If something of a hierarchy of military terms were used to make sense and order for campaigns and battles etc, what’s called the ‘Battle of Arras’ that took place in April-May 1917 should really be considered more an ‘offensive’ rather than a battle. If we look at Wars being the overarching term, we then move down from larger to smaller events with Campaigns, Offensives, Battles and then Actions. In many cases the smaller events can be considered subsets of the larger ones.

The Arras Offensive was coordinated with the ill-fated French ‘Nivelle Offensive’ that was to occur further south in the Champagne region. The plan was for the Arras Offensive to open on 9 April, drawing German forces to it, and away from the French sector thereby weakening the Germans in Champagne. The French offensive, set to kick-off one week later on 16 April was anticipated to be a decisive blow, with the two offensive thrusts joining up after major breakthroughs.

The ‘hierarchy’ of battles and actions in the Arras Offensive may be seen as follows:

• Arras Offensive 9 April – 16 May

• First Battle of the Scarpe (9 – 14 April)
  • Action at Bullecourt (11 April)
  • Action at Lagnicourt (15 April)

• Battle of Vimy Ridge (9 – 12 April)

• Second Battle of the Scarpe (23-24 April)
  • Action at La Coulotte (23 April)

• Battle of Arleux (28-29 April)

• Third Battle of the Scarpe (3-4 May)

• Battle of Bullecourt (3-17 May)

• Action at Roeux (13 – 14 May)

So, what does this mean for the two attacks at Bullecourt concerning Australian troops?

Australian Military Order (AMO) 336 of 1 August 1923 reproduced the tabulated list of engagements identified by the Battles Nomenclature Committee (British). Under the Allied Offensives 1917, the first attack on Bullecourt (11 April) is listed merely as an ‘action’ within the overarching Arras Offensive. The second attack at Bullecourt (3-17 May) is however listed as a proper ‘battle’ in its own right. So it would appear that it is just this second attack in May that the battle honour ‘Bullecourt’ refers to.

Further, AMO 300 of 26 July 1924 indicates that battle honours of the same name fought in the same year would be grouped into one honour. This meant that even if the attacks in both April and May were considered two distinct proper ‘battles’, the resulting battle honour would have been simply ‘Bullecourt’, covering both. But it is clear this did not happen as the attack of 11 April is specifically designated an action and not a battle. So case closed? Not quite.

Australian Army Order 112 of 9 March 1927 lists the units of the AIF and their approved battle honours. Four divisions of the AIF, the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th were all granted ‘Bullecourt’. When operations at Bullecourt opened, I Anzac Corps comprised these same four divisions. But how and when were they each deployed and engaged at Bullecourt?

Only the 4th Australian Division participated directly in the ill-fated assault upon Bullecourt on 11 April, a single-day affair ending in their repulse. Just two days later, this division was pulled out of the line to recover from its grievous losses. The 2nd, 1st, and 5th Divisions (in that order), then participated in the second attack between 3 – 17 May. Midway through this second attack, the 4th Division was transferred to II Anzac Corps in Flanders and was thus no longer even in the Bullecourt area.

So interestingly, though we have established that the battle honour ‘Bullecourt’ was supposedly just for the May attack, and we know that only three Australian divisions participated in this, all four of the divisions actually claimed and were granted the Bullecourt battle honour.

Therefore, even though 4th Division only took part in the 11 April ‘action’ and not the May ‘battle’, and were thus not technically entitled to the battle honour, they were indeed granted it. And rightly so. In light of their outstanding achievement in breaking into and tenaciously holding part of the Hindenburg Line almost completely unsupported, and suffering crippling losses, it would have been absurd to deny this fine division the battle honour of ‘Bullecourt’ on a mere nomenclature technicality.

Read more on battle honours

UK Ministry of Defence (battle honours)

Australian Army History Unit (battle honours)

Special thanks to Bill Houston of the Army History Unit for his assistance with this matter.

Dardanelles in detail

20 June 2007 by John Lafferty. 1 Comment
Battlefield Tours,Personal Stories, After the trip, Canakkale, Zoomify

In the image box below is a very large image of the Dardanelles as seen from the Dardanos Battery gun emplacesments. It covers the view from Helles to Canakkale. Use your mouse to drag the view from left to right. The tools at the bottom of the image can also be used to zoom in and out to see the full detail of this image.

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Note – You can not zoom back fully and see the entire image but the navigation box in the top left coner will show you where along the image you are.

Sergeant Yells and his work with Lawrence

18 June 2007 by Robyn Van-Dyk. 3 Comments
Exhibitions,Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, Less than six degrees of separation, The Light Horse

In September 1914 Charles Reginald Yells, a 24 year old labourer from Kapunda, South Australia enlisted with the AIF. Joining the 9th Light Horse Regiment, he trained at Broadmeadows in Victoria before embarking on the HMAT Karroo for Egypt in February 1915. In July 1915, he was promoted to Temporary Sergeant to teach at the Imperial School of Instruction at Zeitoun, Egypt. He worked as an instructor at the school until assigned for “special duty” to the Red Sea Ports on 10 August 1917.

The special duty assigned to Yells was to instruct Lawrence and his Arab squads in the use of the Lewis gun. Throughout 1916 and 1917 Lawrence and his Arabs regularly mined the Hejaz railway as a means of diverting Turkish resources and disrupting their lines of communication. Lawrence had acquired Lewis guns and trench mortars to secure the trains and provide cover during their attacks. Yells was assigned to instruct on the use of Lewis guns and a British Servicemen, Lance Corporal Walter Herbert Brooke of the 25th Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers was to instruct on the use of trench mortars. In Seven Pillars Lawrence wrote:

Their names may have been Yells and Brooke, but became Lewis and Stokes after their jealously-loved tools.

read on

Two distinguished Light Horse officers named Donald Cameron

18 June 2007 by Robyn Van-Dyk. 2 Comments
Exhibitions,Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, The Light Horse

Among the literature and sources of the Palestine campaign appear two prominent and highly decorated Light Horse officers by the name of Donald Cameron: Lieutenant Colonel Sir Donald Charles Cameron of the 5th Light Horse Regiment and Lieutenant Colonel Donald Cameron of the 12th Light Horse Regiment.

Hailing from rural backgrounds, the two men had similar military career paths. They were both veterans of the Boer War. Donald Charles Cameron saw service in the South African War with the Queensland Imperial Bushmen and Donald Cameron served with the 1st Australian Horse.

The men enlisted early in the First World War and fought at Gallipoli where Donald Charles was wounded. Serving in the Middle East, both were promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1917. In October 1917 they led their units in the battle of Beersheba. Donald Cameron of the 12th led his unit in the charge and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order “For the conspicuously able and determined manner in which he directed the attack by his Regiment . . . on the defences of Beersheba”. He earned a Bar to his Distinguished Service Order on 30 September 1918, when at Kaukab he attacked the enemy’s cavalry driving them in “disorder towards Damascus”. Donald Charles Cameron was awarded a Distinguished Service Order at Gaza on 26 March 1917 where he led his Squadron in a bayonet charge against enemy held trenches. Donald Charles is also well known as the commanding officer at Ziza where he arranged for the surrender and protection of retreating Turks on 29 September 1918. read on