Attack at Fromelles

Battle of Fromelles
Part of First World War
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 Fromelles, Nord, France Result German victory
Belligerents
‎Australia United Kingdom	German Empire
Commanders and leaders
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

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. The Battle of Fromelles is significant as it was the first occasion on which the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) saw action on the Western Front. Because 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." 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.

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. The Australian 8th and 14th Brigades quickly gained their objectives. However, upon reaching the secondary line, they found no trenches and no viable means of defending their gains. The 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."

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. 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. 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, which was defending the Sugar Loaf salient. Hitler served on the Aubers-Fromelles sector from March 1915 until September 1916.

Forgotten mass grave at Fromelles

There have been rumours for a number of years regarding the existence of an unmarked mass grave near Fromelles, containing the remains of Allied soldiers killed during the battle and subsequently buried by the Germans. In 2007, a non-invasive geophysical survey was conducted by British archeologists at the request of the Australian government. The survey revealed signs of burial pits, consistent with mass graves for hundreds of soldiers. A metal detector survey at the same site revealed artefacts bearing Australian Army insignia. Archaeologists believe they have located the mass burial site of approximately 400 British and Australian troops.

The grave site is at the edge of "Pheasant Wood" on the outskirts of Fromelles, within sight of the village church. Its location is 50°36′36.36″N 2°51′17.10″E, in a field currently used for agricultural purposes. The bodies were transported there on 22 July 1916 via a narrow-gauge railway line and tipped into a series of eight burial pits measuring approximately 40 feet long, 20 feet wide and 15 feet deep.

Discussions between the French, British and Australian authorities are taking place regarding the future status of the grave site. One option is to pursue a full scale archaeological dig to exhume the remains, in the hope of identifying some of them, though this would be expensive and time consuming. Another option is to determine the precise extent of the site, purchase the land from the landowner, enclose it within a boundary wall and then turn it over to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Steps have been taken to prevent unqualified people from interfering with the site, as this would destroy fragile forensic evidence which could identify individuals.

On 25th May, 2008, Australian Defence Personnel Minister Warren Snowdon said there was no doubt the bodies of 170 missing Australian soldiers who died in the Battle of Fromelles were buried at a World War I site near Fromelles, but there a question remained as to whether they had been exhumed by an allied grave registration team after the war and reburied elsewhere. A total of 15 archeologists and scientists began excavating the Pheasant Wood site on 25th May, 2008. Disarticulated human remains were first discovered 29th May. The Minister is confident that the excavation will determine whether or not Australian remains are still located at the site.

External links

• "Remains found at WWI 'mass grave'" BBC, 2 June 2008
• BBC video footage of the Fromelles excavation #1
• BBC video footage of the Fromelles excavation #2
• Ross McMullin, "Disaster at Fromelles", Wartime Magazine, Issue 36, 2006. (Published by the Australian War Memorial)
• Computer Information Agency, 1996-2004,CIAOPS World Guides, "WWI Australian Battlefields"
• Ross McMullin, July 19, 2002, Sydney Morning Herald, "The forgotten fallen".
• February 7,2007, The Australian, "New probe of WWI Digger Battlefield"
• "WWI 'mass grave' found in France" BBC, 8 June 2007
• "WWI 'grave' revives forgotten battle" BBC, 8 June 2007
• Video of Fromelles, showing the battlefield
• Neil Wilson July 20, 2007 Missing Diggers mystery solved
• Grave Found?
• UKTV website {reference only}
• Video of VC Corner and Australian Memorial Park, Fromelles. Jason Fielding
• Video of Pheasant Wood, Fromelles - September 2004. Jason Fielding
• Documentary by Dr Alan Young on The Untold Story of the Western Front, Fromelles, the bloodiest day in Australian history"