The battle of Fromelles at the Western Front 92 years ago remains the worst day in Australian history. On 19 July 1916, in a monstrously botched enterprise, no fewer than 5,533 Australians became casualties. This toll is equivalent to the entire Australian casualties in the whole of the Boer, Korean and Vietnam Wars put together. In one night at Fromelles.
Historian Ross McMullin goes on to tell us that it was an example of botched British leadership:
The culprit in chief was a deluded British corps commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Haking. He had a blinkered tactical approach and friends in high places.
In stark contrast was the renowned commander of the 15th Australian Brigade, Brigadier-General “Pompey” Elliott. A brilliant tactician and forthright leader, Elliott had only just arrived in France, but concluded that Haking’s operation would fail. He tried to have it cancelled - unsuccessfully.
The upshot was catastrophe for thousands of Australians.
“Pompey” Elliott and the 15th Australian Brigade along with the 13th Brigade were later took the town of Villers-Bretonneux after the Brits had tried and failed in a very significant victory in the context of the war on the Western Front..
An incident at Fromelles was the subject of the statue Cobbers by sculptor Peter Corlett and erected in Fromelles in 1996.
[Simon] Fraser, a 40-year-old farmer, recalled how against orders he went into no-man’s land between the German and Allied trenches to recover the bodies of the injured. As he dragged one man to safety, another shouted from the mud nearby, “Don’t forget me, cobber!”
Risking his life and a possible court martial, Fraser returned to save the second stricken soldier, whose identity is unknown.
Corlett has now made a replica statue from the same mould, which is to be unveiled today by the Premier of Victoria and the Mayor of Fromelles at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne.
The people of Fromelles remember. We should too.
Did you think I would leave you dying?
The “War to end all wars” - ?
Fromelles was more than just your average British led WWI military disaster - it also involved a monumental cover-up of the incompetence of the high command.
What is even more tragic is that the attack was even more pointless than so many other pointless acts of the war. The attack was merely a diversion for a much larger offensive on the Somme, but the time had passed for it to be of any use.
Thw War Memorial’s page on the battle is worth a read - especially the parts about Brigadier General Elliott - who never got over the slaughter he was forced to commed
Also worth reading on British military disasters are contemporary reports in “The Bulletin” - much more critical than most others, and a better “reality check”.
Excellent call Caroline. Apparently it was Ted Egan, not Rolf wot wrote the song.
Thanks Brian… I mentioned it to my Grade Nine-er, who said they were studying it @ the moment in History, which is gratifying I suppose… Lest We Forget indeed.
Turning the focus of Anzac Day to the horrors of Fromelles would turn the day back to its appropriate focus. All the accounts of Western Front battles I have come across paint the campaigns as unremitting fields of horror.
Lest we forget - what fools were were, and remain.
It predates Rolf Harris and Ted Egan! AFAICT from the internet, it was written around 1900 by two Americans, about the Civil War.