The Battle of Hamel was an attack by Australian Army and US Army infantry, supported by Tank Corps tanks, against German positions in and around the town of Le Hamel, in northern France, during World War I. The attack was planned and led by Lieutenant General John Monash, commander of the Australian Corps, and took place on 4 July 1918.
Many of the tactics employed, such as the use of combined arms, illustrated the evolution of military tactics, from the massed attacks mounted earlier in the war. The objectives were achieved within 93 minutes, just three minutes longer than Monash's calculated battle time.
To give the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) combat experience, the five Australian infantry brigades involved were augmented by ten companies from US Army battalions. Six of these US infantry companies were withdrawn from the front line before seeing action. Hamel was the first time during the war that elements of the AEF were commanded operationally by non-American officers.
Background
Military situation
In early 1918, as a result of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk the capitulation of Russia, the Germans began concentrating the bulk of their forces on the Western Front. Over the space of four months, up to 48 divisions were moved to the west. Concentrating their efforts on the Somme Valley, the Germans began the Spring Offensive against the British southern flank on 21 March. After pushing the Allies back towards the railhead at Amiens, the German advance in the sector was checked at the First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux in early April. As the German offensive exhausted itself, in June the Allies began to prepare an offensive, conducting small advances which became known as "peaceful penetrations".
After the first use of the technique around Morlancourt during the First Battle of Morlancourt, Second Battle of Morlancourt and the Third Battle of Morlancourt, the commander of the Fourth Army, Lieutenant General Henry Rawlinson, decided that the next attack would come at the village of Le Hamel. The German advance earlier in the year had created a "bulge" in the front line around the village, a salient that exposed Allied troops in the sector to enfilading fire and enabled the Germans to observe Allied rear areas. Capturing the village would help set an "aggressive posture" and relieve pressure in the sector. Lieutenant General John Monash, commander of the Australian Corps, was chosen to plan the attack. Most of the initial planning was done by Brigadier General Anthony Courage, commander of 5th Tank Brigade.
Geography
Located south of the River Somme, about 1.9 mi (3 km) north-east of Villers-Bretonneux on a spur between two hills, Hamel was strategically important to both the Allies and Germans. The high ground offered the Germans good observation of the sector, which they had been using to fire artillery bombardments on Villers-Bretonneux and control of the village was vital if they wished to continue their offensive in the sector, and would enable them to continue to threaten Amiens, 11 mi (17 km) distant. The Allied line was positioned on the reverse slope of a hill 1.5 mi (2.4 km) to the west of the village, and securing the village would enable the Allies to stiffen their defensive line. The village also acted as an obstacle to the proposed eastward advance through the Somme planned for later in the year and its capture would facilitate future offensive operations in the sector.
Prelude
Plans
The Allied victory owed much to detailed planning and to the briefing of all the troops on their objectives. However, the battle was Monash's first as commander of the Australian Corps, and his initial plan was rejected following opposition from his subordinates. The Allies made novel use of a number of tactics, such as parachute drops of medical supplies and rifle ammunition in cases, and resupply by tank rather than by troops carrying supplies forward. The supply tanks and aircraft brought stores quickly to the troops as they advanced. The carrying power of the tanks equated to about 1,200 troops doing the same job. Signals were sent largely by cable and telephone, but new methods of signalling were also trialled, including the use of rockets which were used by some battalion headquarters to pass urgent messages to the rear, although this proved largely ineffective. Other techniques were more effective such as the use of pigeons, Lucas lamps, and for the first time, Wirelesses were used by officers to send messages from captured objectives.
There was advanced co-ordination between infantry, artillery and armour, and the latest, highly manoeuvrable Mark V tank was used after it had been demonstrated to Monash and Rawlinson. Five companies (60 combat and four supply tanks) of the British 5th Tank Brigade were provided for the assault. Although the Australians had worked with a small number of tanks successfully at Villers-Bretonneux, their opinion of the technology was clouded by the experience of them in April and May 1917 at the First Battle of Bullecourt. As such, to ensure co-ordination and overcome the problems the Australians had experienced at Bullecourt, the Australian infantry and tanks trained and lived together prior to the battle. Coloured diagrams were painted on the sides of the tanks, corresponding to the battalions that they would support, so that the infantry knew which tank to follow.
The plan called for a creeping barrage, in which the artillery barrage moves slowly in front of the advancing troops. This protected the troops by keeping the defenders under cover, easing the advance. The British and French artillery had 302 heavy and 326 field artillery for the barrage and counter-battery fire, including regular barrages in the days leading up to the attack. Monash was adamant that the infantry should not be sacrificed in an unprotected advance, hence his care to ensure that they were well covered. Prior to the attack, the artillery spent two weeks conducting "conditioning firing" in the sector, firing gas and smoke shells at the same time every day before dawn, while strict operational security procedures were implemented. In addition, 46 heavy machine-guns were placed in area support, while the number of Lewis Guns was increased to provide organic fire support.
Australian Corps leadership
Charles Bean, the official Australian war historian, noted that Monash was more effective the higher he rose within the Army, where he had greater capacity to use his skill for meticulous planning and organisation, and to exploit technology and tactics. Bean had been no great admirer of Monash in his early career, in part due to a general prejudice against Monash's Prussian-Jewish background, but more particularly because Monash did not fit Bean's concept of the quintessential Australian character that Bean was mythologising in his monumental work Australia in the War of 1914–1918. (Bean and Monash, having seen the very worst excesses of Allied military doctrines and the waste of life on the Western Front, were determined that the role of the commander was to look after the troops under their command.) Bean wrote in his diary of Monash "We do not want Australia represented by men mainly because of their ability, natural and inborn in Jews, to push themselves". He conspired with prominent journalist Keith Murdoch to undermine Monash and remove him from the command of the Australian Corps. They misled Prime Minister Billy Hughes into believing that senior officers of the Corps were opposed to Monash. Hughes arrived at the front two days before the battle of Hamel, prepared to replace Monash. He consulted senior officers and heard their praise of their commander, and Monash also showed his superb power of planning for the battle, Hughes changed his mind and kept Monash.
Assaulting forces
Estimating the German strength around Hamel as being around 5,600 (2,790 in the front line, with 2,860 in reserve), Monash chose the 4th Australian Division (Major General Ewen Sinclair-Maclagan) to provide the bulk of the assaulting force. Consisting of three under-strength brigades, the 4th, 12th and 13th – it was reinforced by the 6th from the 2nd Australian Division and the 11th from the 3rd Australian Division. To avoid depleting the 4th Australian Division too much, only the 4th Brigade would take part in the assault, along with the two reinforcing brigades, while a fourth brigade, the 15th, from the 5th Australian Division, was assigned a diversionary role to north of the River Somme, launching a "feint" against Ville-sur-Ancre. Conceived as an opportunity to employ a combined arms approach, the 5th Tank Brigade (Brigadier General Anthony Courage) equipped with the new Mark V tank, was assigned to support the attack, along with large quantities of aircraft and artillery.
Rawlinson suggested to Monash in late June 1918 that American involvement in a set-piece attack alongside the Australians would give the US troops experience and strengthen the Australian battalions, which had been weakened by casualties and falling recruitment, by an additional company each. On 29 June, Major General George Bell (US 33rd Division) selected two companies, each of 250 men, from the 131st and 132nd Infantry Regiments of the 65th Brigade. Monash had been promised ten American companies, and on 30 June the remaining companies of the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 131st Infantry Regiment were sent. Each American platoon was attached to an Australian company. The 41st Battalion had lost 'A' Company to gas attack recently at Villers-Bretonneux, so Americans were embedded as 'X' Company into the battalion. A difficulty in integrating the 60-man American platoons into the 100-strong Australian companies was overcome by reducing the size of each American platoon by one-fifth and sending the removed troops, which numbered 50 officers and men, back to battalion reinforcement camps. The commitment of these companies represented the first time in history that US Army troops would fight under a foreign commander.
The Australian prime minister, Billy Hughes, addressed the troops on 2 July, two days before the attack was due. The next morning, General John J. Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Force in France, learnt of the plan and ordered the withdrawal of six American companies. While a few Americans, such as those attached to the 42nd Battalion, disobeyed the order, the majority, although disappointed, moved back to the rear. This meant that battalions had to rearrange their attack formations and caused a serious reduction in the size of the Allied force. The 11th Brigade was now attacking with 2,200 men instead of 3,000. There was a further last-minute call for the removal of all American troops from the attack, but Monash, who had chosen 4 July as the date of the attack out of "deference" to the US troops, protested to Rawlinson and received support from Field Marshal Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force. In total, the Allied assault force was about 7,000 men.
German 2nd Army
The German forces around Hamel consisted of the 13th Division and the 43rd Reserve Division of the 2nd Army (General Georg von der Marwitz). The 13th Division consisted of the 13th, 15th and 55th Infantry Regiments, while the 43rd Reserve Division was made up of three reserve infantry regiments: the 201st, 202nd and 203rd. The 13th Division had only recently moved into position to the south of Hamel, having been rested for a month, while the 43rd Reserve Division had taken up position in Hamel to its north two weeks previously. Its 202nd Infantry Regiment held Hamel, while the 201st and 203rd were positioned on its right, stretching the line to the north. In the 13th Division sector, the 55th Infantry Regiment held Pear Trench and part of Vaire Wood, the 13th Infantry Regiment held the remainder of Vaire Wood and part of the line to its south, while the 15th Infantry Regiment was further south around the Roman Road. Within Hamel, the 202nd occupied the line with two battalions forward, and one in depth, while further south the 13th Division defensive scheme saw one battalion forward in each regimental area, with another in support followed by a third in reserve.