Original photo-etched map illustrating the attack on the outer defences of the Hindenburg Line on September 18th 1918 taken from, The Story of the Fourth Army Battles of the Hundred Days written by Major General Sir Archibald Montgomery, an Officer of the final campaign to end WWI.
The map shows the Infantry starting line, all objectives, the Army, Corp and Divisional boundaries and the location of the Main Hindenburg Line.On the 18th September 1918, Allied forces, spearheaded by the Australian Corps and the British Fourth Army, launched a major offensive against the heavily fortified Outpost Line of the Hindenburg Line near Épehy, France. It became known as The Battle of Épehy. The Outpost Line was a 1 mile deep highly fortified system of trenches, machine gun posts and deep wiring located in front of the main Hindenburg Line. The attack was the “critical preliminary attack” designed to break the German defensive system allowing the Allies to move their artillery forward and prepare for the final assault on the main Hindenburg Line.
Led by General John Monash, the 1st and 4th Australian Divisions attacked in the centre, supported by the British 3rd Corp under Gen Rawlinson, to the north and the 4th British Corp under Byng to the south, (totalling 12 Divisions in all). Promised Assistance from the French did not arrive.
The attack was launched at 5.20am in the morning under thick fog, and without a preliminary bombardment to maintain surprise relying instead on an intense instant barrage. The 1st and 4th Australian Division with a total of 6800 men, supported by artillery and a limited number of tanks attacked and successfully breached the defences, and despite tough resistance, at points like The Knoll, Quennemont and Fuillemont Farms, the Allies forced the Germans back roughly 3 miles. By nightfall Australian Forces had captured the entire outpost line along their front and many of the positions that overlooked the Hindenburg Line whilst the British 12th Eastern Division took the village of Épehy.
The battle was a resounding success, with the Allies capturing 11,750 prisoners (over 4200 of them by the Australians) and 100 guns, (76 of these by the Australian force). Casualties for the 1st and 4th Australian Divisions were costly for one days fighting with 1260 casualties, 265 killed and 1057 wounded. The attack shattered the German Defensive system in this sector, marking the end of trench warfare on that part of the Western Front. By the next day the Allied forces were staring directly at the main in depth defence system known as the Beaurevoir Line and the Hindenburg Line proper.
However, during the battle, all but one member of “D” Company of the 1st Australian Battalion refused to take part in an attack to help a neighbouring British unit. The protest was against the battalion being sent back into combat when it had been about to be relieved. On 21 September 119 members of the company were subsequently imprisoned for desertion; this was the AIF’s largest incidence of “Combat Refusal” during the war and formed part of a general weakening in the force’s discipline due to the stresses of prolonged combat. The charges of desertion in the face of the enemy (a crime that could mean execution by firing squad in World War I) were reduced to the lesser crime of being AWOL. All bar one soldier had their charges dropped after the armistice in November.
Épehy was not considered a massive success by some, but did signal an unmistakable message that the Germans morale was low and they were weakening. It encouraged the Allies to take further action with the Battle of St. Quentin Canal, before the Germans could consolidate their positions.
Britain’s Fourth Army under Gen. Sir Henry Rawlinson, was the force that bore much of the brunt of the campaign called the Hundred Days – the great counter attack beginning on August 8th 1918 which finally forced the German command to sue for the Armistice that came into effect on November 11th, ending the Great War in the West. Germany’s commander Gen. Paul von Hindenburg called August 8th the black day of the German army in this war and it was indeed the beginning of the end. The high tide of Ludendorff’s Spring Offensives had been halted just before the vital Cathedral city and road and rail junction of Amiens, and on August 8th, spearheaded by Australian troops and a strong force of tanks, the Allies hit back. New tactics had at last been learned after the futile offensives of 1915, 1916, and 1917, and the Allied troops moved forward under the cover of creeping barrages in small, fast-moving groups tasked to achievable bite and hold operations. When resistance stiffened the attack would be broken off and renewed on another part of the line. By such means the seemingly impregnable Hindenburg Line – which made use of canals and tunnels to form a mighty defence barrier – was rapidly broken and the offensive passed into the open country to the East. The final battles fought by the Fourth Army early in November were near Le Cateau, ironically the site of the battle in 1914 that had begun the war.
In WWI the Western Front was the main theatre of combat, a 700-kilometre line of trenches and fortifications stretching from the Swiss border to the North Sea. Much of the front-line encompassed France and Belgium’s vital industrial regions and, at times parts of Southern Germany. Between 1914 and 1918 this area was the war’s most critical area of fighting defined by the horrors of trench warfare with immense casualty rates, and for most of the war, a ‘brutal stalemate’ between the Allies and Germany.
The Front was characterised by five things:
Trench warfare – where both sides ‘dug in’ creating a vast network of trenches allowing both sides to hold ground leading to a war of attrition
Industrialised warfare – which included tanks, aircraft, advanced artillery and the extensive use of machine guns
Chemical warfare – tear gas, chlorine and mustard gas was used by both sides. The use of these was prohibited in the Geneva Convention in 1925
Disease – with the unsanitary conditions in the trench’s disease carried by rodents and water were rife, contributing to many unnecessary deaths
No Man’s Land – the devastated and dangerous space between the opposing forces, the name of which is indelibly linked with the futility of this War.
Major battles included the Battle of the Marne in 1914 which halted the German’s Schlieffen Plan preventing the early fall of Paris. The Battle of the Verdun in 1916, a ten-month battle designed to bleed France white resulting in over 700,000 casualties. The Battle of the Somme in 1916 which was an Allied offensive known for having 1 million casualties including over 57,000 British casualties on the first day alone. The Third Battle of Ypres and Passchendaele in 1917 famous for horrific mud and heavy losses with limited gains. The German Spring Offensive in 1918 which was Germany’s final attempt at victory before the arrival of American troops which nearly broke Allied lines, and the Hundred Days Offensive in 1918 which was the Allies final offensive that broke German lines and forced the November 11th Armistice.
