Fromelles – The Worst 24 Hours in Australia’s History

30 May 2017 Leave a comment

by ninjasavi in Military History, World War 1 Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Recently, My father and I attended a talk on Fromelles hosted by Ross McMullin. The reason I went because I had a great-great uncle that fought and was wounded at Fromelles, who died 99 years ago today. In this post, I will be explaining about Fromelles and why it was such a disaster.

The two main points that I got out of McMullin’s talk were:

  • The Battle of Fromelles was the worst 24 hours in Australian history since European settlement
  • The amount of Australian casualties in Fromelles are equal to the Australian casualties in the Boer war, Vietnam war and Korean wars combined.

Background Information: The battle at the Somme was raging on and the higher ranked British generals wanted to create a diversion so that some pressure would be taken off the British at the Somme. Fromelles was the place that was chosen and the objective was for the 5th Australian Division and 64th British Division to take the higher ground at Aubers Ridge.

The Australians that took part in this offensive were from the 59th and 60th battalions. My great-great uncle was apart of the 60th battalion and was under the divisional leadership of General Pompey Elliot. The battalion leader was Geoff MacCrae and his 2nd in Command was Tom Elliot, both of whom were killed during the offensive. Most of the men in these two battalions were mowed down and many did not survive. My great-great uncle was one of the lucky ones, even though he was wounded, he was able to continue serving until 1918, where he was fatally wounded twice and died of his wounds.

General Pompey Elliot was against the diversion from the start. He had only just arrived at Fromelles but could see that this attack would be costly. General Hacking sent out Howard to meet with Pompey and see how preparations were going. When Howard got to Fromelles, Pompey took him out into No Man’s Land to have a conversation. During this time, General Pompey points out that in the “Do’s and Don’ts of Western Front Offensives’, it says that you should not launch an attack it NML is more than 200 yard, however Fromelles was 400 yards.

Elliot asked Howard what he thought of this offensive and his reply was “I think this will be a bloody holocaust”. However, when Howard went back to Hacking, other influences overruled and the offensive was still to go ahead.

The Battle of Fromelles started at 6:00pm on the 19th July 1916 when waves of Australian and British infantry ‘hopped’ over and charged at the enemy. Each different wave could see what happened to the one before it but they still went to their death, wave after wave. Through 4 waves of men that were spread 5 minutes apart, over 5,500 men became casualties.

After this offensive, the British division informed Pompey that they were planning to attack at 9pm that night and requested reinforcements. Pompey said that half of the 58th division would aid them. When it came the time, the Australians ‘hopped’ over but there was no sign of the British. It turns out that the offensive was cancelled but no one informed the members of the Australian battalion. The members of the 58th battalion, led by Justin Huchinson bravely charged at the enemy and were mowed down as soon as they started running.

Before the discovery of the mass graves at Fromelles, the battle was little known by Australians. Ross McMullin was astounded to find out during his research that such a horrendous battle was not known by Australian’s unless they fought there, or had a family member that fought there. He said during his talk ‘How is it, that in a time where one death is headline news, that the tragedy that is known as Fromelles was so unknown”.

Two years after the battle, Charles Bean revisited Fromelles and wrote about what he saw. He explains, “We found the old No-Man’s-Land simply full of our dead”, he recorded, “the skulls and bones and torn uniforms were lying about everywhere”. These remains were gathered and buried in the newly constructed VC Corner Cemetery, which is the only solely Australian cemetery in the whole of France. It is the only cemetery without headstones, it has a wall that is inscribed with the 1,299 Australian soldiers that died during the battle but have no known grave.

Near this cemetery, there is a statue named ‘Cobbers’ that depicts Simon Frasier, who was one of the recovery workers of the 57th Battalion, carrying a wounded comrade to safety. This monument is a everlasting reminder of the rescue work that occurred after the battle and the spirit of the ANZAC that fought all over the Western Front.

I hope this blog post gives you some more information on the happenings of the Battle of Fromelles and that we never forget the sacrifice of the brave men and women who lost their lives overseas protecting our countries freedom.