Larvatus Prodeo

You boasted a wall of granite strength
Which nothing on earth could take
The skill you learnt in for other years
You defied us blokes to take.

4000 men from the Southern seas
In was but infants yet
They crept grey eye from a sunken road
And through your barb wire swept.

No guns to aid no barrage to long
To sever the wire away
But a headlong charge of a thousand yards
And the Fourth they paved the way.

A line of hell through machine gun fire
Right through a death swept zone
They charge as only Australians can
And the “Tanks” were well at home.

The first line through the second line held
They fought as strong man do
Hindenburg’s line with its vaunted strength
Was smashed by an Anzac Crew.

No bombs to throw no guns to speak
Nothing but lives to sell
The Fourth Brigade like a quivering wave
Fought through the infernal hell.

Officers this way the men come here
The Hun O.C called out
But the men hung back as men will do
They broke and a few got out.

They tell a tale in history
Its large as a scroll of fame
Of a charge they made in Crimea
Balaclava is the name.

But the charge we knew
And the charge we’ve seen
Ne’re from our minds can fade
God speed the day we’ll avenge the boys
Who fell with the Fourth Brigade.

Note: This poem was found in the paybook of Richard Cornish Bate, my grandfather, who fought in France during the Great War. I am not sure who wrote the poem but have found a reference that indicates the poem is also called Bullecourt. Of the 3000 men of the 4th Brigade of the 4th Australian Division involved in the First Battle of Bullecourt, 2339 ended up as casulties.

My grandfather was from the 15th Battalion (Queensland/Tasmania) of the AIF. This was part of the 4th Division of the AIF. On 11th April 1917, my grandfather was shot in the right leg going over the top at Bullecourt. In September 1917 he returned to Australia, settled down in the hills outside Lismore in NSW and raised a family including my mother.