Preface

In reading much of the historiography of the First World War, one could be forgiven on occasion for concluding that it was the Germans who won the war and not the allies, or that the latter prevailed despite themselves. Equally, many accounts of the fighting on the Western Front treat the great offensives of 1916-17, the Somme and Passchendaele especially, as if these represent the sum total of British military achievement in the war, and discussion of the final months of the fighting which culminated in allied victory and the defeat of the German army in the field is often cursory, even perfunctory. In Australia, where there has for long been a matching obsession with the Gallipoli campaign of 1915, the general neglect of 1918 and 'the hundred days' has been equally glaring.

This is unfortunate, for a number of reasons. The fact is that in 1918, with their French ally seriously weakened and their Russian one out of the war altogether, it was the British army which encompassed the final defeat of the Germans. Given the generally high regard in which the German army was held professionally, coupled with the fact that in 1914 Britain's army had been small, ill-prepared and largely geared to colonial service, this was a remarkable accomplishment. It could not have been brought about if the leadership of that army was as murderously incompetent as popular belief would have it. Rather, the victory in 1918 represents a fascinating example of the ways in which military organisations are capable of learning and adapting, while in this case simultaneously faced with the twin stresses of fighting a major war on a number of fronts and of undergoing an enormous expansion in numbers.

For the Dominions, and especially Australia and Canada, 1918 and the victory of the British armies in France represented the culmination of their war efforts, and a victory to which the Australian and Canadian Corps made a particular contribution on the Western Front itself. This deserves to be remembered, and celebrated by the latter-day descendants of the soldiers who filled their ranks. But their success needs to be understood as well. In some important respects the Dominion corps were very different from their British counterparts, but in others they had far more in common than has sometimes been allowed. Nor is it either fair or true to portray the Australians and Canadians as the war winners, at least not by themselves. While it is true that the quality of the Dominion divisions (and here we must include the New Zealanders in the comparison) was much more even and less variable than was the case with British divisions, there were nonetheless excellent British divisions in the field in 1918. Little is to be gained by disparaging the efforts of others, especially when those efforts were, at times, comparable with our own.

The papers in this volume were presented at the Chief of Army's annual history conference on 29 September 1998 in Canberra. They have been supplemented with several others from historians not present on the day, and we thank all those who have contributed in either manner. The conference itself attracted more than 400 registrants, making it certainly the largest military history conference ever held in Australia. In managing this sizeable undertaking, we acknowledge with gratitude the involvement of Roger Lee and his staff in the Army History Unit, especially Mike Casey and Emma Robertson, and the invaluable assistance of Julie Cassell and Bernadette McDermott in the School of History, Australian Defence Force Academy. As with previous volumes of these proceedings; Elizabeth Greenhalgh once again turned typescript into polished camera-ready copy. Our final thanks are to the contributors, who met tight submission deadlines with grace (if not necessarily with ease).

Contents

Contributors: Contributors

Introduction
Lieutenant-General Frank Hickling: Hickling

The Black Day of the German Army: Australians and Canadians at Amiens, August 1918
SF Wise: Wise

Winning the War
Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson: Prior and Wilson

A Resource not to be Squandered: The Canadian Corps on the 1918 Battlefield
Bill Rawling: Rawling

The Indispensible Factor: The Performance of British Troops in 1918
GD Sheffield: Sheffield

The BEF's Generals on 29 September 1918: An Empirical Portrait with Some British and Australian Comparisons
JM Bourne: Bourne

The Australian Staff: The Forgotten Men of the First AIF
Roger Lee: Lee

Feeding Victory: The Logistic Imperative Behind the Hundred Days
Ian M Brown: Brown

Managing the War: The Department of Defence 1914-1919
EM Andrews: Andrews

Defending Australia 1914-1918: The Other Australian Army
Craig Wilcox: Wilcox

The Way Forward: 1918 and the Implications for the Future
Albert Palazzo: Palazzo