The Australians at Ypres
THE YPRES TIMES
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Colonel Higginson, in moving a vote of thanks to Sir William, said that he was
the rock upon which the school was founded and the sheet-anchor on which it relied
for protection and help in times of difficulty." The gratitude of the Imperial War Graves
Commission to the school's committee of management, he continued, was very deep and
realand he reminded those present that the Commission also was contributing its
share by a financial grant, as well as by the provision of free medical attendance and
periodical examination of the scholars.
The Rev. G. R. Milner seconded the vote of thanks.
Letters of regret for enforced absence were read from the Provost of Eton, the Chap
lain-General to the Forces and the Bishop of Fulham (Anglican Bishop for North and
Central Europe).
H. B.
By C. E. W. Bean.
THE Australian Infantry Divisions were twice in the Ypres Salientfirst in Septem
ber and October of 1916, after the fighting at Pozières in the First Battle of the
Somme, when the 1st Anzac Corps changed places with the Canadian Corps. The
Salient was then unnaturally quiet, the troops on both sides having been withdrawn
thither after taking part in the great struggle farther souththere was consequently
an opportunity, seldom offered at Ypres, for fortification, and two months were spent
in hastily improving the front defences and in establishing new lines farther back so
as to increase the security. Then came the order for the return of the 1st Anzac Corps to
the Somme in order to take part in a new development of that battle.
Just a year later the Australians returned to the Salient for the Third Battle of
Ypres. Only the artillery of their divisions took part in its first stage, which began
on July 1st, and gradually came to an end in the morass caused by the rains of that
month. It was not until the 20th of September, 1917, after three weeks of dry weather,
that the infantry of the 1st Anzac Corps (then comprising the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th
Australian Divisions) took part in the launching of the second phase of the great battle.
Only part of the ridge overlooking the Salient had by then been wrenched from the
Germans. If that ridge is likened to a sickle, with its handle at Messines and its blade
curving from the Menin Road heights through Broodseinde to Passchendaele, the British
had then seized the handle and the junction of handle and blade, but the Germans
still held the blade. The phase which now commenced saw the launching, during a
fortnight's fine weather, of a series of tremendous hammer-strokes by which the Germans
were thrust back about a mile at a time, precisely as planned, until they held only the
northern part of the ridge, from Passchendaele onwards. The 1st Anzac Corps, later
with the 2nd Anzac Corps (New Zealand, 3rd Australian, and two British divisions) on
its left, occupied a more or less central position in each of these strokes, which they
delivered in conjunction with a larger number of British divisions. There was no especial
secrecy about the operationsthe Germans knew well that they were to be attacked,
and that the operation would take place at dawn. They were uncertain only of the precise
British plans as to date and front. The retaliatory fire was consequently heavythe
roads back to the city were perpetually barragedBirr Cross-Road and Hellfire
Corner are names which, in Australia as elsewhere, bring a shudder even to this day
the nearer bivouacs were drenched with mustard gas. But so overwhelming was the
power at that time of the British artillery that no counter-measures which the enemy
