Wartime Summer 2024 by Hardie Grant Publishing

IS S U E 1 0 5

OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE AUSTR ALIAN WAR MEMORIAL | ISSUE 105 | SUMMER 2023

S U M M ER 202 3 | FI G HTI N G OTH ER PEO PLE' S WARS

MORE THAN THE WESTERN FRONT

"SENSELESS AND MERCILESS" Extreme violence was the norm after the Russian Civil War.

BRINGING HOME A BRIDE

WAR IN THE MOUNTAINS

Unlikely marriages took place between Australian servicemen and Vietnamese women.

In 1915–18, Italy fought a territorial war in the Alps against its former allies.

$9.95 (INC GST)

WARTIME

MEMORIAL SHOP Explore our new arrivals, best-sellers, an extensive range of military books, commemorative giftware and more

Sluban brick sets – air, land and sea Visit the Memorial Shop and explore our range These building blocks are compatible with Lego

Visit our new online shop and receive 10% off your next order! Use discount code SHOP10 in the checkout This offer excludes Wartime subscriptions and Friends memberships. Discount can be used once only. Offer expires 31 March 2024

Explore our new online shop

shop.awm.gov.au

CONTENTS ISSUE 105, SUMMER 2023

“SENSELESS AND MERCILESS”

Extreme violence was the norm after the Russian Civil War.

WAR IN THE MOUNTAINS

In 1915–18, Italy fought a territorial war in the Alps against its former allies. BY VANDA WILCOX

BY ANTONY BEEVOR

A VC ON ANY OTHER DAY

REMEMBERING THE WAR

Lieutenant Alexander MacNeil’s exploits at Bullecourt placed him among the bravest Australians of the First AIF.

The centenary of the First World War in Britain produced thousands of events and a wide range of responses. BY SPENCER JONES

BY MICHAEL KELLY

LESSONS IN CIVILISATION

Punitive expeditions were one aspect of British Imperial tactics.

“IN ORDER TO RESTORE TRANQUILLITY”

BY THOMAS J. ROGERS

BRINGING HOME A BRIDE

OPERATION BABYLIFT

The declaration of martial law in Bathurst in 1824 is still important 200 years later.

Crews of RAAF Hercules C130s had an unusual mission in their last month in Vietnam.

BY RACHEL CAINES

BY EMILY HYLES

Unlikely marriages took place between Australian servicemen and Vietnamese women during the war. BY ANNA WILKINSON

R EGU LA R FEATU R E S 02 REFLECTIONS 03 MAIL CALL 04 COLLECTION INSIGHTS

Olive King, Serbian Army 06 IN THE PICTURE

The Cyclist Companies

08 B RIEFING

Uniforms of the war 64 F RIENDS OF THE MEMORIAL 67 SPINNING THE REELS

68 BOOK REVIEWS 70 BEHIND THE SCENES

The Memorial’s Development Project 72 LAST POST

Australians in Russia, 1919

WARTIME ISSUE 105 | 01

REFLECTIONS

FROM THE DIRECTOR, MATT ANDERSON PSM

02 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

Group Managing Director Nick Hardie-Grant Managing Director Clare Brundle Publishing Director Christine Dixon Managing Editor Mary Weaver Senior Designers Sue Morony, Geraldine Lanzarone Production Coordinator Shahirah Hambali Advertising Manager Kerri Spillane Printer IVE Group Subscriptions Magshop 136 116 For advertising enquiries please contact Kerri Spillane on kerrispillane@hardiegrant.com or 0419 897 490

WARTIME OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE AUSTR ALIAN WAR MEMORIAL | ISSUE 105 | SUMMER 2023

MORE THAN THE WESTERN FRONT

"SENSELESS AND MERCILESS" Extreme violence was the norm after the Russian Civil War.

00 WT105 Cover Final with ads.indd 1

BRINGING HOME A BRIDE

WAR IN THE MOUNTAINS

Unlikely marriages took place between Australian servicemen and Vietnamese women

In 1915–18, Italy fought a territorial war in the Alps against its former allies.

$9.95 INC GST

S U M M ER 202 3 | FI G HTI N G OTH ER PEO PLE' S WARS

ONLINE

Wartime is published for the Australian War Memorial by Hardie Grant Media Level 7, 45 Jones Street, Ultimo, NSW 2007 (02) 9857 3700 www.hardiegrant.com.au

IS S U E 1 0 5

THE MEMORIAL

Supervising Editor Karl James Editor Andrew McDonald Manager Michael Kelly Memorial Editorial Staff Lachlan Grant, Craig Tibbitts, Duncan Beard, Meghan Adams, Rachel Caines Editorial Contributions The Editor, Wartime Australian War Memorial GPO Box 345, Canberra ACT 2601 E: wartime@awm.gov.au Image sales (02) 6243 4542 General enquiries (02) 6243 4211

WARTIME

We are now closer to the opening of the Memorial’s new Southern Entrance and the Research Centre in late 2024 than when we sought permissions through the Public Works Committee, the Environment Department and the National Capital Authority in 2020. The amount of activity taking place within the Memorial precinct is without precedent. I am extremely proud both of the Integrated Project Management Team, stood up by the Memorial to run the Development Project, and the Memorial staff who have swung in behind the Project while also doing their ‘day job’ of keeping the Memorial open to the public. The Memorial’s remarkable staff have continued to maintain the National Collection, provide necessary corporate services, and run all our public-facing commemorative, educational and gallery-related activities. We also have three travelling exhibitions on the road. Action! Film and War follows Australians armed

with cameras who have recorded history and borne witness to conflict. It is open at the State Library of New South Wales until 28 April 2024. Ink in the Lines is the story of military tattoos, exploring why members and veterans of the Australian Defence Forces get inked; it’s open at the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, until 11 February 2024. Art in Conflict showcases contemporary art from our National Collection at The Riddoch, Mount Gambier, South Australia from 2 February to 1 April 2024. Designs are taking shape for the Afghanistan, Iraq, Middle East and Peacekeeping Galleries, and the engineering for the large technology objects displayed in the Glazed Link/ Atrium. We are currently preparing the stories and the 2,866 objects that will go into Anzac Hall, in addition to 115 multimedia items. This level of activity is extraordinary. Simultaneously, we have excavated the equivalent of 50 Olympic swimming pools (or 9,500 truck and trailer loads); are installing the largest closed-loop geothermal heat exchange system in the southern hemisphere – all while safely welcoming more than 980,000 visitors to the Memorial and its exhibitions. Sadly, we have also had to turn some visitors away during the busy holiday periods, and I apologise sincerely. We are bound by emergency evacuation regulations, and with the loss during construction of some fire doors, there is a limit to the number of visitors in the galleries at one time. Please plan to visit, as the First and Second World War Galleries, Korea, Malaya, Borneo, Confrontation and Vietnam remain open to the public, along with the Commemorative Area and the Daily Last Post Ceremony. Please book ahead.

29/11/2023 12:00 pm

Cover: Italian soldiers at Forcella del Montozzo, Tonale Pass. AWM HO4391

The most comprehensive collection of Australian military history is available on the Australian War Memorial’s website: www.awm.gov.au. It contains 200,000 photographs, more than 103,000 names of Australia’s war dead, details of 8,000 private records, items available at the Memorial shop and much more.

MAIL CALL

The Editor, Wartime Australian War Memorial GPO Box 345 Canberra ACT 2601 E: wartime@awm.gov.au

WRITE TO

WARTIME

YOUR LETTERS

The War Within IS SU E 1 03

OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE AUSTR ALIAN WAR MEMORIAL | ISSUE 103 | WINTER 2023

1943

A CRUCIAL YEAR

MIKE FOGARTY

A story that will keep for as long as there is history.

MISSING IN ACTION An ace fighter pilot vanished while defending Darwin against the town’s 53rd Japanese air raid.

THE NEW GUINEA OFFENSIVES

Correction

$9.95 INC GST

THE BURMATHAILAND RAILWAY

Australian forces played a key role in major battles.

00 WT103 Cover.indd 1

IAN SPRING

HMAS Voyager was abandoned in 1942, beached at Timor. I met her commanding officer, decades later, in a state hospital. All gave some in war; this decorated officer was continuing to suffer all, released only on his death. It is a reminder that wars are not ended at the conference table. The war within continues.

WARTIME

WI NTER 2023 | 1 9 43: A C RU CIAL Y E AR

Thank you for issue 103, another great edition of Wartime, always a great read. The story about Squadron Leader Raymond Thorold-Smith says his Spitfire was located somewhere in Darwin Harbour. What happened to the identification plates and guns etc that were eventually recovered? Was the airframe ever recovered? You reviewed The ABC of Royal Australian Navy Corvettes, a free download. Can you please supply the download information?

WARTIME

TWO QUESTIONS

In issue 104, we left out the caption for this photo.

19/6/2023 1:19 pm

Editor: Our story relates the loss of the pilot; the Darwin Aviation Museum would be the place to ask for details about his aircraft. For the corvettes, go to www.navy.gov.au and search “ABC of RAN corvettes”.

High Jumpers?

In “Paratroopers on Crete” (Wartime 103) the author mentions beer and cognac but omits Pervitin (crystal methamphetamine). When the Fallschirmjäger jumped on Crete, they were on their third issue of Pervitin and some had not slept in 48 hours, being required to load and unload aircraft etc. Far from getting a good night’s sleep or being hungover, their brain chemistry was seriously altered. JAMES PATTERSON

CRET E

n May 1941, Austr alians were involved in an important battle for the possession of Crete. This controlled the island eastern Medit erranean and could play an impor tant offensively role or defensively for both sides. Alongside comrades from Britain, New Great Zealand and Greece, the Australians would face the might German war of the machine, led by their elite force of paratr oopers While the ten-da ( Fallschirmjäger). y battle would in defeat for end the Allies, the German victory hung by a thread during the first 48 hours . The story of the muchvaunted Fallsc hirmjäger could have ended there easily and then. The developmen t of airborne came in the afterm forces ath of the First War. Seeking World to avoid the stalem trench warfa ate of re, the idea of dropping troops behin d enemy lines in concert with a conve ntional break through battle, now with mobile armoured forces and direct air support, had appeal. Durin much g the most major power 1920s and 1930s, s experimente airborne troops d with , both gliderborne and parachute. As with tanks and support aircra closeft, it was Nazi Germany that had such a force ready to go by 1939. Combined, these forces spearhead Germa would ny’s Bewegungsk (war of move rieg ment) – often simply referred to as Blitzkrieg. Germany’s Fallsch irmjäger belong to the Luftw ed affe (air force) . Formed in 1935, they starte traini ng, honin d organising and g their techn and tactic s. iques With their ranks by volunteers, filled in 1938 they expanded to form 7th Flieger Divisi on. These highly traine d and motiv ated troops were ready for war. In 1940, the Fallsc hirmj spearheaded äger Nazi Germany’s invasions of Norway, Franc e had some stunn and Holland, and ing early succe On the back sses. of those victor ies the paras were touted Germ an Wehrm as the elite of the acht. Their leade r Generalleutnant Kurt Student’s was rising and star he was lookin new operations g for that would let his men shine. An unexpected diversion to secure the Balkans would provide such an oppor tunity. As the Germans promptly booted an ill-equipped undermanne and d Allied force out of Greece in April 1941, the Fallschirmj most ambitious ägers’ and daring operat became appar ion ent. To comp lete the conquest of the Balkans and Greece,

Corporal Neal Fischer (left) and Private Brychan Hawker at the 2013 Mardi Gras parade. Photograph: Vick Gwyn. AWM P10978.004

Paratr pers n Crete 50 | WARTI

50-57 WT103

For the German s, the invasion beg an disastrously. BY CRAIG TIBBIT

Vernon Jones, The Battle of Retimo (1972, oil on canvas , 152 x 244 cm) AWM ART27 776 The Parachutist Badge

ME ISSUE 103

TIBBITS_V1.indd

(Fallschirmschü tzenabzeichen ) was awarded to qualified parachutists who comple ted six jumps. Wikipe dia.

16/6/2023 11:36 am

TIBBITS_V1.indd

Editor: The author is aware of the Wehrmacht’s use of Pervitin generally, but has not seen reliable evidence of its use for the Crete operation. ABOUT WARTIME The opinions expressed in Wartime are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian War Memorial or Hardie Grant Media. It is not the intention of the publisher to sensationalise human tragedy that is the result of war, nor to promote militaristic or chauvinistic sentiment, but to offer truthful, readable and

In our next issue

The next edition of Wartime, #106, out in April 2024, focuses on the events of 1944. WARTIME ISSUE

50-57 WT103

entertaining stories that reflect the Australian experience of war. © All material appearing in Wartime is copyright. Reproduction in whole or part must be approved by the publisher. Every effort has been made to determine and contact holders of copyright for materials used in Wartime. The Memorial welcomes advice concerning omissions.

103 | 51

16/6/2023 11:36 am

Indigenous readers are advised that this magazine contains stories and images of deceased people. The Australian War Memorial acknowledges the traditional custodians of Country throughout Australia. We recognise their continuing connection to land, sea and waters. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.

WARTIME ISSUE 105 | 03

COLLECTION

INSIGHTS

Sydney woman Olive King joined the Serbian Army in 1916 as a volunteer ambulance driver. For the next two and a half years, driving her own ambulance, nicknamed Ella, King worked tirelessly, frequently taking men to the front and recovering wounded. Later, supported by funds raised by her father in Sydney, she established a string of canteens to help displaced Serbian families and soldiers. The last of these closed in 1920. AMANDA NEW CURATOR, MILITARY HERALDRY & TECHNOLOGY

Although not a pair, these Serbian Army driver collar badges were worn by King. The badge features a winged wheel and steering column. One badge is pressed metal, and the other is cast. REL/18760

King’s Serbian identity bracelet, engraved in Cyrillic on one side with a picture of Ella (short for ‘elephant’), her three-litre French Alda lorry, which King had converted into an ambulance. The nickname refers to the way the heavy ambulance bodywork slowed the Alda down. REL/18756

Towards the end of 1916, King contracted malaria and one of her frequent visitors was Captain Milan Yovitchitch, the Serbian Liaison Officer with the British Army in Salonika. When he was posted to London the following year, Yovitchitch gave King this sterling silver cigarette case as a memento. REL/18757

Sweetheart bracelet with a central disc bearing the Serbian coat of arms. The top of the disc has been painted in red, white and blue, the Serbian national colours. Three links are engraved ‘Olive Kelso King.’ REL/18765

04 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

King was awarded the Serbian Bravery Medal (commonly known as the Milosh Obilich Medal) for her tireless efforts in evacuating civilians and medical stores during the great fire of Salonika in August 1917 which destroyed two-thirds of the city. REL/18754.004

IN 1914, MORE THAN 41,000 AUSTRALIANS AND NEW ZEALANDERS DEPARTED ALBANY, BOUND FOR THE FIRST WORLD WAR.

THIS IS THEIR STORY.

The National Anzac Centre is Australia’s foremost museum dedicated to honouring the ANZACs of the First World War.

Follow the real life experience of one of 32 ANZAC characters using multimedia, unique artefacts, rare images and film, and audio commentary.

Albany, Western Australia | www.nationalanzaccentre.com.au

IN THE

PICTURE

T WHEELS to the front line O During the First World War the bicycle was a significant item of military equipment, yet it is often overlooked by historians. On 10 March 1916, Australian Imperial Force Headquarters in Cairo issued ‘AIF Circular Memorandum No. 32’ to establish the Cyclist Companies. The key details of the memo were: 1. Approval is given for the organisation of a Cyclist Company in each Australian Division. The Company will be of the establishment laid down in Part VII War Establishment 1915. 2. The Company will form a distinct organisation, but Officers 06 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

appointed to it will be seconded from units, and their promotion will be regulated accordingly. The Cyclist Companies were deployed to the front line as well as undertaking cable burying, traffic control and reconnaissance work. They were used in many major battles, including Messines in June 1917 and Passchendaele July 1917. However, before the official formation of Cycling Companies, bicycles were being used for transportation and other military needs, as can be seen by this photograph taken in Serapeum, Egypt c. 1915. [H16429] Here the Signal Section

of the 13th Battalion, AIF, is ready to march off to a ceremonial parade with their bicycles and signal equipment. The standard issue Army bicycle during the First World War was the BSA, made by the Birmingham Smalls Arms Company, a major British arms and ammunition manufacturer since the Crimean War and a builder of bicycles since the early 1880s. The British Army in 1901 adopted the BSA Mark 1 as standard issue, and over the next decade a number of improvements and modifications were made. By 1911, the Mark IV model was in production, fitted with a “coaster” rear

Clockwise from left: H16429 RELAWM13307_031--1 P01802.001

hub that enabled the rider to “coast” and also to back-pedal to slow the bicycle. But the Australian cyclists in Egypt had to persevere with a variety of BSA bicycles, ranging from the Mark I to the Mark IV models. It was not until July 1915 that the Mark IV was introduced, now fitted with hand-operated rear brakes, plus a free-wheeling hub in place of the coaster hub. Shortly after the Australian cyclists had reached France, this bicycle became the standard issue. Both the Light Horse and the Cyclist Companies were issued with the Short Magazine Lee–Enfield .303 calibre rifles. Troops in the Cyclist Companies had two options for carrying the rifle. It could be slung over their shoulders, as worn by 827 Private Jack Bambury and 830 Private Herbert Davis at Henencourt, 12 May 1917. [P01802.001]

Alternatively, the soldier could use the carrying clips which would enable the rifle to be attached to the down-tube of the bike (the diagonal tube just behind the front wheel). All cycling units had colour patches and badges. The colour patches were square with a white background and a superimposed red middle square. These were positioned at the top of each sleeve of the tunic. These patches can just be seen in this photograph too. The AIF Cycling Companies have often been forgotten in military history, but the humble bicycle played a very important role in the logistics of warfare. ALLY ROCHE Assistant Curator , Photographs Film & Sound

WARTIME ISSUE 105 | 07

BRIEFING

UNIFORMS OF The Australian War Memorial was always intended as a place to tell the story of Australia’s involvement in the First World War. However, it was still envisioned that objects associated with the wider war would be needed to give visitors an accurate picture of the global nature of the conflict. The then Australian War Records Section (AWRS) decided that the best way to do this was by displaying uniforms. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the AWRS sent letters to all the major allies, requesting that a complete set of uniforms and equipment used by that nation’s army and navy be sent to Australia for inclusion in the growing National Collection. The letters had some immediate success, as a number of countries dutifully forwarded uniforms and equipment. These were usually taken from that nation’s quartermaster stores and had no signs of ever being used in combat. Many of the uniforms added to the story of the Western Front, demonstrating the large number of nations that had fought in that theatre. The AWRS received uniforms from Britain and the other Dominions, as well as the United States, France, Belgium and Portugal. A uniform from Italy meant that the story of the bloody fighting in the Alps and along the Isonzo River could be told. 08 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

AWM XS 0366

THE WAR The addition of uniforms from Serbia and Greece helped to tell the story of the Serbian and Salonika fronts. The uniform of a Japanese infantryman meant the siege of Tsingtao could be represented. It was harder to get uniforms for the Eastern Front. The political situation in Eastern Europe after the war meant that the AWRS and, later, the Australian War Memorial were unable to acquire a uniform from Romania. Letters seeking the uniforms of Germany’s allies were never sent to Austria or Bulgaria. The Russian Civil War, and Australia’s reluctance to open diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, made acquiring Russian uniforms difficult, though eventually the Memorial obtained several through the Australian Trade Commissioner in China in the 1930s. When the Memorial finally opened in 1941, most of these uniforms were put on display. Two large displays, one for the Western Front and one for the Eastern theatres, showcased the army uniforms, with a separate display for the navy uniforms. Most of the uniforms were kept on display until the 1980s. They are now safely cared for at the Memorial’s annex and available to the public on request. CAMERON ROSS Curator, Military History & Technology WARTIME ISSUE 105 | 09

RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR

10 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

SENSELESS AND

MERCILESS Extreme violence was the norm after the Russian Civil War. BY ANTONY BEEVOR

t would be a gross misunderstanding to regard the ‘Russian’ Civil War which lasted from 1917 to 1921 as a local affair. Not only did this conflict extend across the whole of the Eurasian landmass from Central Europe to the Far East – more than a sixth of the earth’s surface, as Soviet propaganda later emphasised – it involved countless nations in a form of proxy world war. Far from being merely an internal conflict between Reds and Whites, it had immense geo -political ramifications with many countries and foreign troops – those of Britain, France, the United States, Japan, Italy, Serbia and Roumania. It affected all the former parts of the Russian Empire: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Georgia. And the Bolsheviks’ Red Army included many units of ‘internationalist’ volunteers – former prisoners of war from the German, Austrian, Hungarian and Bulgarian armies – as well as regiments raised from Chinese labourers. The death toll of around eight million civilians and soldiers, perhaps as many as twelve million if you include death from starvation and disease, had major international consequences. Accounts of the horrors and destruction triggered a frantic terror of either Bolshevism or White vengeance right across the world. The impersonal cruelty of political ideology, and the frenzied violence of the enraged mob, created a vicious circle of fear and loathing which led eventually to the Spanish Civil War and then the

Above: Vladimir Lenin. Photograph: Grigory Goldstein, 1 May 1919. Courtesy of Wikicommons. Left: “Bolshevik freedom”. A Polish view of Trotsky during the Polish-Russian War. Courtesy of Wikicommons.

Second World War. So, although most historians recognise the First World War as the ‘original catastrophe’ of the 20th century, it was its aftermath, the Russian Civil War, which turned into the most influential conflict of the age. And it still has its echoes today, as we are seeing in Ukraine. Fratricidal wars are bound to be cruel because of their lack of definable front lines, because of their instant extension into civilian life, and because of the terrible hatreds and suspicions which they engender. Yet the brutality of the Russian onslaught which we have seen in Ukraine has raised a debate about its origins. For example, David Aaronovitch in The Times wrote about what he called ‘the casual savagery’ of Russian troops. Of course, one can never generalise about a whole nation, especially not Russia, with all its different component nationalities and its historic split between Slavophiles and Westerners going back to Peter the Great. And above all, there can be no such thing as a DNA-based national character. Yet at the same time, most countries are often influenced, at least sub-consciously, by a certain self-image. Perhaps ever since the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, the Russian attitude has been conditioned to the idea that conspicuous violence and cruelty is a natural weapon of war: fire and sword, terror, rape and looting. This was true in 1945 as revenge for the barbarous Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, just as it was in the Civil War. WARTIME ISSUE 105 | 11

Petrograd 1917

Monday 27 February 1917 was the first day of real revolutionary clashes in Petrograd. That evening, the writer Maxim Gorky and the Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov inspected the burned out remains of the headquarters of the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police. Gorky, who knew the lives of the oppressed poor in Russia better than any Bolshevik, predicted that the revolution would lead to “Asiatic savagery”. This remark reflected that idea of the country’s heritage of cruelty dating back to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. By the autumn of 1917, “the misty romanticism” of the overthrow of the Tsarist regime and the “belief in universal happiness” had evaporated. The young writer Konstantin Paustovsky and his idealistic colleagues were warned by a grizzled journalist: “I know the Russian people. And they’ll show you yet where lobsters spend the winters!”

“Massacring all the wounded who fought against you – that is a law of civil war.” Embittered deserters from the Western Front facing the German and Austro-Hungarian armies were a major factor in the chaos and violence. This “grey mass” of peasant conscripts had endured appalling conditions and inhumane treatment from their officers. The superstition and resentment which had accumulated over the centuries finally boiled over. There had been occasional outbursts before, such as the great insurrection of 1773 led by the Cossack peasant Yemelyan Pugachev, which prompted Aleksandr Pushkin to write of “Russian revolt, senseless and merciless”. It is one thing to want to exterminate your enemies out of fear-induced anger, but 12 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

that does not explain the bewildering degree of even outright sadism which was generated in the Russian civil war. Europ e had not s een such conspicuous cruelty used as a weapon of terror since the wars of religion. This raises the question whether its modern counterpart, the political civil war, was a predictable development.

On 23 August 1918, even before Fanya Kaplan’s attempt on Lenin’s life, the Cheka leader Martin Latsis published an article in Izvestia stating that the “established customs of war” were irrelevant. “Massacring all the wounded who fought against you – that is a law of civil war.” The winning side in a civil war is

RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR

Revenge

almost bound to kill more people in the end than the losing side, especially when they feel they still have only minority support in certain areas. This was also true later of the Spanish Civil War, as a number of historians have emphasised when discussing the suppression of the Left by General Franco’s Nationalists.

Above: Bolshevik propaganda: the flag says “Long live Soviet Poland!” Courtesy of Wikicommons.

In the inevitable argument over the origins of the conflict across the former Russian empire and responsibility for its cruelty, the Communists claimed they had no choice. Red Terror was forced upon them. They blamed it on counter-revolution, which by their own definition meant anybody who did not support them. Yet in civil wars, a policy of terror is almost always the response of those most conscious of the fact that they are in a minority. It starts as a knee-jerk reaction, yet the regime holds on to it even when the threat has been defeated. In Lenin’s case, the mindset was there from the start. He set up his own secret police, the Cheka, under Feliks Dzerzhinsky in December 1917, even before the civil war began. The Cheka was given the right to torture and execute without any reference to judicial authorities. Communist coercion through terror was thus a pre-emptive measure. On Friday 30 August 1918 two attacks on Communist leaders on the same day triggered an explosive escalation of violence. In Petrograd, a former cadet of the Mikhailovsky artillery school ambushed and shot through the back of the head Moisei Uritsky, the head of the Petrograd Cheka. Lenin, who normally was acutely aware of the threat to his person, ignored the warnings of his wife and sister, and carried on to a meeting in a factory, even though news of Uritsky’s assassination had just reached Moscow. As he emerged, Fanya Kaplan, an Anarchist who had joined the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, fired three shots at him. One hit him in the neck. He was driven at speed back to the Kremlin, where doctors fought to save his life. Lenin’s survival was portrayed as a secular miracle, which soon turned into a personality cult of religious intensity. But the first reaction was a Bolshevik cry for revenge. At Uritsky’s funeral, Bolsheviks carried placards with slogans such as “Thousands of your heads for each one of our leaders”; “A bullet through the chest of each enemy of the working class”; and “Death to the mercenaries of Anglo-French capital”. These threats were not idle. In Petrograd, 500 hostages were shot straight off by the Cheka in blind vengeance for their chief ’s murder. Hostages were packed onto two barges which were towed out into the Gulf WARTIME ISSUE 105 | 13

Red propaganda was very effective through its constant repetition of simple hate messages without any explanation or rationale.

Left to right: Soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force Siberia march through Vladivostok soon after arriving in Russia, c. August 1918. HD-SN-99-0201. Courtesy of Wikicommons

of Finland and sunk. The hands of the bodies washed up on the shore later had been bound with barbed wire. Some claim that with the killings in and around Petrograd, the reprisals accounted for 1,300 lives, with another 6,229 arrested as hostages. It was not long before even poor peasants became victims too. A former artillery officer, Aleksandr Makhonin, received a letter from his soldier orderly who had returned home to his smallholding. The orderly recounted in this letter how a group of Bolsheviks had turned up and demanded that he surrender his only cow. “I told them,” he wrote to Makhonin, “that the cow was all I had left and that my youngest child needed milk, so that I could not give her to them. ‘Very well,’ they answered, ‘we will see to it that your brat does not need milk anymore.’ And in spite of my struggles, they tore my youngest child out of my arms and bashed her head in against a wall, then they took my cow and left me with my dead baby.”

Bolshevik enemies, their propaganda was almost non-existent and useless.

14 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

Some of the worst atrocities were carried out far from the capital by local Chekas, over which Feliks Dzerzhinsky, their chief, had little control. Even so, it is still hard to comprehend the unbelievable degree of cruelty which emerges from accounts of the Russian Civil War. Where did the extremes of sadism come from – the hacking with sabres, the cutting with knives, the boiling and burning, the scalping alive, the nailing of epaulettes to shoulders, the gouging of eyes, the soaking of victims in winter tied to trees to freeze them to death, castration, evisceration, amputation? Was all this just an atavistic part of Pushkin’s “senseless and merciless” depiction of Russian revolt? Or had the frenzy of vengeance been intensified to another level by the rhetoric of political hatred? Red propaganda was very effective through its constant repetition of simple hate messages without any explanation or rationale. Meanwhile, although the Whites also dehumanised their

“For a united Russia”: a White Russian propaganda poster shows a crusading white knight attacking the Bolsheviks, shown as a red dragon. Courtesy of Wikicommons.

Anti-Semitism

White terror could be just as mindless and merciless as its Red counterpart, but it followed different patterns in different places. In Siberia, Cossack ataman (leaders) such as Ivan Kalmykov, Boris Annenkov, and the psychotic Baron von Ungern-Sternberg would terrorise a whole area, burning villages and massacring innocent inhabitants, in their counterproductive attempts to fight Red partisans. Their antiSemitism was exceeded only by that of the Red ataman Nikifor Grigoriev across southern Ukraine when he captured Kherson and Odessa, expelling the French anti-Bolshevik expeditionary force, before switching sides. It is estimated that there were some 1,300 anti-Semitic pogroms in Ukraine during the civil war, with some 50,000 to 60,000 Jews killed by both sides. There were pogroms in Belarus

RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR as well, but they were not nearly as murderous. In total, a Soviet report of 1920 mentions 150,000 dead and as many again badly injured. While the Cossack hosts fighting alongside the Tsarist Whites of the Volunteer Army would loot, rape and kill Jewish victims almost on sight, the Greater Russia reactionaries in the armies of General Anton Denikin in the south, and Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak in Siberia, tended to commit their antiSemitic atrocities out of bitterness when forced to abandon a city or town. (The Reds, on the other hand, would kill any prisoners or hostages when they retreated). Some 2,200 Jews are said to have been killed in Ekaterinburg in July 1919 as the Red Army advanced suddenly in the Urals. This atrocity was largely fired by the vengeance myth of the extreme right that every Jew must be a Bolshevik, when in fact many impoverished Jewish traders were attacked and robbed as “bourgeois exploiters” by Red Army soldiers. A similar pattern of anti-Semitism in defeat emerged that autumn in Ukraine and southern Russia as Denikin’s March on Moscow collapsed at Orel. This was when the Red Army’s great counterattack began, to Winston Churchill’s dismay and disbelief. Churchill, the Whites’ most active supporter in the West as Secretary of State for the Army, had written to Major General Holman, the head of the British Military Mission with Denikin’s forces: “It is of the very highest consequence that General Denikin should not only do everything in his power to prevent massacres of the Jews in the liberated districts but should issue a proclamation against anti-Semitism ... The Jews are very powerful in England and if it could be shown that Denikin was protecting them it would make my task easier.” Denikin had issued a number of edicts against anti-Semitic attacks, but since some most of his generals refused to comply and even encouraged pogroms, he did little to ensure that his orders were followed.

as the knock-on theory of oppression, a major element in the mass rapes by the Red Army in 1945. It may also be linked to the phenomenon of Russian soldiers castrating male captives, which has recently been reported in the Ukraine war. Martin Alp, a young Latvian cavalry officer forcibly recruited by White Don Cossacks, wrote a brief account of his experiences in 1919 during General Mamontov’s great raid behind Red lines. “We caught members of local Soviets unawares in their villages. Commissars and communists were shot straight away or hung on the winding gear of the wells. As for women, their lives were normally spared, but all the young ones were raped.” During their brief rest period after the raid, Alp was billeted together with

several young Don Cossack officers, who kept reproaching him for his refusal to join them. “I was not able to change their behaviour,” Alp explained, “but I resisted drinking with them and taking part in their orgies with women, especially with the arrested female communists among whom there were some principled, good Russian women, even though they were communists. I felt a great pity for them when they were in the hands of those male dogs. Soon I could no longer stand it.” He managed to transfer to an infantry regiment. An example of humiliation inflicted by victorious Bolsheviks is the account by Anna Ivanovna Egorova, a White Russian nurse in the Crimea, who returned to her field hospital which had been taken by troopers from Semyon Budyonny’s Red 1st Cavalry Army.

Rape

Whether or not a deliberate weapon of war, rape came from a mixture of opportunism, resentment and bitterness in defeat, revenge for the past, and an urge to inflict humiliation on their victims – the rapists having been humiliated themselves by their own superiors. This could be described WARTIME ISSUE 105 | 15

RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR Left: A banner reading “Death to the bourgeois and their lap dogs. Long live the Red Terror” is held above the grave of Moisei Uritsky in Petrograd at the start of the Red Terror. Courtesy of Wikicommons.

According to the writer Isaac Babel, who rode with them, the majority were riddled with syphilis. “The nurses had been raped, their faces were scarlet from being beaten up. It was done by Budyonny’s cavalry,” Egorova recorded. “The doctors were crying. And they killed Lida, the pharmacist’s wife. They cut her in two halves, as well as the baby that she was expecting. I did not go to look at Lida … All the nurses’ clothes were in rags. Their faces were red, they had cried while they were being raped. The cavalrymen had hit them in the face, demanding that they laugh … All the doctors turned away while the nurses were being raped. One of Budyonny’s men approached a doctor who had turned away and slapped his face. ‘You should be happy to see us here. Do you have any idea of who Budyonny is?’” The Reds glossed over any question of war crimes by invoking their great mission of creating a brave new future for humanity. On 3 July 1920, the eve of Tukhachevsky’s advance on Warsaw, Red Army troops were read Direktivy No. 643. “The fate of World Revolution is being decided. Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to World Conflagration. On our bayonets we will bring happiness and peace to the toiling masses of mankind.”

Victory

Lenin had justified the use of terror as a necessary weapon to achieve power in the civil war, yet its worst manifestation followed the hour of absolute victory in November 1920. Once the Red Army 16 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

under Mikhail Frunze broke into the Crimea, General Wrangel ordered his forces to evacuate the peninsula. Those who had been too sick to board the ships were dragged from the hospitals in Yalta, Alupka and Sevastopol and killed. Apparently seventeen Sisters of Charity nursing them were also murdered. Refugees with even the most tenuous connection to the Volunteer Army were executed along with dockers who had continued to work during the evacuation. In a deliberately conspicuous display of vengeance, any officers were hanged from lampposts in the city, wearing their uniforms with shoulder boards. The killing began on the very first night. Estimates of the total number of victims range from 15,000 up to many more than 100,000. When figures from individual locations are added together, they point to the higher estimate. The worst massacres took place in Sevastopol itself and outside at Balaklava, where a total of 29,000 died. More than 8,000 of them were killed in the first week. In a foretaste of SS Einsatzgruppen practices during the invasion of the Soviet Union twenty years later, some victims were forced not only to dig mass graves, but then undress and lie in the pit to be shot. The next batch were made to lie on the dead ready to be killed in their turn. Himmler’s SS groups learned a great deal from the methods of the Cheka. Politics imposed from the barrel of a gun or a bayonet was a distinctly Bolshevik version of Clausewitz’s dictum. It proved remarkably enduring

in the Kremlin mind. Dehumanisation of the class enemy, which in 1933 under Stalin became the death sentence by famine for four million Ukrainian kulaks, has today morphed into the dehumanisation of Ukrainian “Nazis”. The Red Army, the Soviet Army and its successor under Putin have brought little “happiness and peace”, whether on bayonets or tank tracks across Central Europe, or with heavy artillery in Chechnya and even chemical weapons in Syria. The Russian version of regime change is ruthlessly absolute, however grotesque the logic. According to Putin and his ideologues, such as Vladimir Medinsky, if their “brothers and sisters” in Ukraine do not want this form of liberation, then they have to be depicted as Nazis or NATO stooges to be eliminated or re-educated and their country wiped from the map, just as Poland was in the double invasion of September 1939. Yet we must never overlook the double tragedy: that Russians themselves are blindfold victims as well as the angry prisoners of their own past. •

ABOUT THE

AUTHOR

Antony Beevor is the author of many histories of the Second World War, and most recently Russia – Revolution and Civil War 1917–1921.

H A L L I DAY TA S T I N G N O T E S F O R 1 0 0 N E W A U S T R A L I A N W I N E S

Halliday Wine Club Are you an Explorer, Enthusiast or Collector? Receive two highly rated wines every month on the plan that’s right for you. No sign-up fees, free shipping, and no lock-in contract. • Wine Club Explorer (from $89/month) • Wine Club Enthusiast (from $139/month) • Wine Club Collector ($300–400/month)

Join now to continue your wine 68 winecompanion.com.au journey with us.

For more information visit winecompanion.com.au/wine-club or scan the QR code.

WAR IN THE

MOUNTAINS

“The war of ’18 left us only wretchedness, we conquered some useless mountains and a pile of bloody rocks.” - Italian peasant veteran, interviewed in the 1970s

18 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

Italian soldiers at Forcella del Montozzo, in the Tonale Pass area. AWM H04391

In 1915–18, Italy fought a territorial war in the Alps against its former allies. BY VANDA WILCOX

ar from the flat mudscapes of Flanders or the rolling farmland of northern France, the Italian soldiers of the First World War, along with their Austro-Hungarian enemies, faced a very different set of challenges. There was still mud, certainly, but unlike the Western Front, there were also avalanches to contend with. When Italy declared war on its neighbour in May 1915, it launched a conflict partly fought in one of Europe’s most inhospitable landscapes for war. The front alternated between Alpine peaks and undulating plateaus, but was universally rocky, uneven and hard to dig into. Though the Italian theatre of war is relatively less well known, it was hugely important: more than 600,000 Italians were killed, and though Italy was victorious, the war

– refusing to support its long-term allies on the grounds that the Triple Alliance only applied to defensive wars, not aggressive ones. Instead, after nine months of fierce political disputes, the Italian government decided to declare war against its former ally. The war seemed to offer Italy’s best chance to claim the long-desired borderlands, while Austria–Hungary was engaged in its bitter struggle with Russia and Serbia. The border between the two countries runs through the high Alps and Dolomites, at heights from 2000 metres above sea level up to nearly 4000 metres at its peak, before making its way via plateaus, hills and highlands down to the sea. To conquer the “unredeemed lands”, Italy would have to go on the offensive, but the

The war seemed to offer Italy’s best chance to claim the long-desired borderlands, while Austria– Hungary was engaged in its bitter struggle with Russia and Serbia. left a devastating legacy of social and political division which helped to bring about the rise of fascism. For some decades before 1914, a war between Italy and Austria– Hungary had seemed unlikely. The two countries, together with Germany, had signed a defensive alliance in 1882. This Triple Alliance was regularly renewed, and the three countries had plans for mutual support in any future war. However, this alliance concealed deep-seated tensions between Italy and its neighbouring empire: Austria still ruled the Italian-majority cities of Trieste on the coast and Trento near the Alps, along with their surrounding hinterlands. Italian nationalists hoped that these provinces could be detached from Austria and joined to the kingdom of Italy, believing that this “redemption” was essential to finally complete national unification (mostly achieved in 1861). When the First World War began in August 1914, Italy declared its neutrality 20 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

terrain left few options to the chief of general staff, Luigi Cadorna. The most promising possibilities seemed to lie on the eastern border (with modern-day Slovenia) along the river Isonzo – today known as the Soča. It was here that Cadorna would order major offensives every spring and summer in 1915, 1916 and 1917. The hilly, rocky Isonzo region became Italy’s main front. But throughout the war, fighting was also taking place in the high mountains along the full length of the pre-war border, in what became known as the Alpine front. Here soldiers faced not only the enemy but also terrifying landslides and avalanches, extreme cold, deep snow and even altitude sickness. It was also very hard for Italian soldiers to understand why their leaders wanted to conquer this terrain in the first place. Italy’s mountain war – sometimes nicknamed the “White War” or the “vertical war” – was a deadly and dramatic conflict which stretched both armies to the limits of their endurance.

Fighting at altitude

Right on the pre-war border, one of Europe’s best known mountain peaks, the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, stands at 2999 metres; from 1915 it was directly in the front line. This was only the most spectacular of the many peaks which became part of the war zone and which to this day retain a jumble of wartime fortifications, tunnels, galleries, barbed wire and rusting shells – even cannons. Although the fighting at Lavaredo was not of great strategic importance, elsewhere along the line significant operations took place at great altitudes, such as on the Col di Lana, the Presena and Marmolada glaciers or the Adamello group. The highest battle of all took place in the Ortles sector, on Punta San Matteo; at 3,678 metres, the battle of San Matteo in August 1918 was one of the very highest in recorded history. Recognising the difficulty of mountain war, the Italian army had developed specialised mountain troops, known as the Alpini, formed in 1872. Recruits were drawn exclusively from the Alpine regions, so that they were already experienced with the climate and landscape even before beginning their military training; Alpini officers were recruited, where possible, from among experienced mountaineers. Their opponents took a very similar approach. The Kaiserschützen (imperial riflemen) were dedicated mountain infantry recruited from the mountainous Tyrol region of Austria; they wore an edelweiss flower on

THE ITALIAN ALPS

From top: Precariously perched, this Italian position formed part of the defences at Zona Tonale. AWM H04999 Constructing defensive positions was a battle against inhospitable terrain and weather. AWM H04941

their collar, to distinguish them from other units. These mountain forces received dedicated training on how to operate and fight at altitude, and most importantly were issued special equipment: high, insulated boots, woollen jackets and waterproof cloaks and, for the Alpini, the famous feathered hat. Starting in 1896–97, skiing was added to Alpini training, with Swiss and Norwegian trainers brought in and a systematic investment in skis and boots. During the war, white camouflage outfits were introduced for use on glaciers and snowfields, and snowshoes were also vital. However, the incessant demand for more men at the front meant that it became impossible to use only specialist mountain troops at altitude: many soldiers who ended up serving in the Alps had no special training or prior knowledge of mountain life at all. Even more difficult than infantry fighting was the deployment of artillery at altitude. Both armies developed dedicated mountain artillery units alongside their specialist infantry, but

the challenges were enormous: simply transporting the guns and munitions up to the front line was incredibly hard, as was developing any kind of accuracy in firing them in such surroundings.

A deadly landscape

The mountains themselves could be a deadly foe. Men built trenches in the snow to conceal themselves from human enemies, but these could not protect them against the climate. Winter temperatures in many parts of the Dolomites and Alps averaged around -5°C by day, while by night lows of -25°C were not uncommon. Snow might fall one day in every three from November to March each year; even in May and June, the temperature generally dropped below zero at night. Warm accommodation was therefore absolutely vital. In some cases, units built barrack huts, usually wooden constructions perched precariously on the mountainsides. In other places, galleries and tunnels were dug or blasted out of the rock. On the Marmolada, Austrian forces carved a “city in the ice” inside the glacier itself. However

THE ITALIAN ALPS hard both sides sought to keep their men warm, exposure and frostbite were common. Soldiers improvised solutions like straw over-boots, or knitted helmetliners sent by their mothers. Francesco Ferruccio Zattini, a bersagliere (specialist rifleman) born near Rome in 1892, served on Mount Jôf di Montasio, a peak which reaches 2,750 metres. Surrounded by deep snow, he supplemented his official winter uniform with his own additions: I am wearing two cycling jerseys, a knitted shirt, fur waistcoat and jacket. Two pairs of underwear, trousers, two pairs of socks and shoes. That’s all that’s left of my personal kit, and I’ve been wearing them for twenty days without shifting a stitch. Climbing, working and fighting in extreme cold requires the consumption of extra calories to stay healthy – modern mountaineers recommend 3,500 to 4000 a day. Unfortunately very few men received anything like this much, owing to the difficulty of cooking and resupplying these forward positions. In theory, soldiers received 600 grams of bread and 250 grams of meat or salt cod each day, along with cheese, jam or fruit and biscuits, as well as coffee and wine, but in practice it was often less. As one official report noted in November 1915, “Attempts to bring hot food and cooking facilities [up to the lines] have resulted in the wounding or death of the bearers.” Some Italians complained that their pasta was frozen solid by the time they received it, and men often went hungry. The extremes of the mountain climate were not the only danger. It is estimated that tens of thousands

of Italian and Austro-Hungarian soldiers were killed during the war by avalanches. Some were precipitated by artillery shells or by the two armies’ tunnelling and mining activities; others occurred naturally. The winter of 1916– 17 saw exceptionally heavy snowfall, which prompted more avalanches than usual. In early December 1916 it snowed continuously for nine days. On 13 December, a series of avalanches across the southern Alpine front brought the terrible “white death” to an estimated 3000 to 4000 men in around 24 hours. Widely ignored by the media, it was in fact one of Europe’s most lethal meteorological disasters ever. Avalanches were a common feature of mountain war, as Zattini described in his diary: I was writing yesterday when the avalanche came ... “Out! Out!” shouted the Bersaglieri. In the gorge immediately behind our barracks, the avalanche ran ... Pale as rags, some climbed trees, some ran in the opposite direction as we waited for the terrible enemy to pass. The noise, or rather, the bellowing of the avalanche was followed by cries for help. A Bersagliere from the machine-gun section had been swept away. I could see something moving in the snow … I put on my snowshoes, grab a shovel and run. I didn’t look at the snow that was threatening to fall again, I didn’t look, otherwise I wouldn’t have gone. My only thought was to help the man in danger ... we managed at last to extract this poor comrade, battered but alive. But not even an hour later a running Bersagliere arrived, so

Italian civilians assisted their soldiers in their war effort; here men and women collect rocks for use in road making at the front. AWM H10213

exhausted he could hardly speak, so that we could barely understand that another avalanche had fallen and completely buried Barrack No. 4 with all 12 Bersaglieri, the corporal and the sergeant all inside. For the first time, I saw the major turn pale; the snow was killing too many of us now.

Animals and manual labour

Simply to survive in such conditions, let alone to fight, was a challenge. The Alpine front demanded almost superhuman efforts in logistics. Central to mountain warfare was the humble mule: resilient, sure-footed and hardy, it was uniquely suited to coping with the harsh terrain. Mules transported vital elements of survival such as food, medicines and clean drinking water up into the highest and most challenging areas, as well as the munitions, ice-picks, barbed wire and similar equipment needed to fight at altitude. From 1916 the Italian army experimented with the use of sled dogs on the Adamello glacier, with some success: organised into teams of three and harnessed to lightweight wooden sleds, the dogs were trained to pull loads of 60 to 100 kilograms over the snow for as far as 20 kilometres a day. They transported essential supplies and even helped with evacuating the wounded. Alpine rescue dogs were also used by both armies to help retrieve men who had been swept away by avalanches. But where animals could not help, it was the back-breaking labour of men and women which made the war in the

The Italian army engineers set up specialised units which quickly became experts in building and operating the machinery, and by the end of the war more than 2,000 teleferiche were in operation on the Italian side; considerable numbers were also used by the Austrians. One machine could do the work of more than 1,000 mules but, even in 1918, animal and human labour remained vital.

Italy in the Entente

high mountains possible. Labourers were conscripted to build roads and to haul materials up to the lines. In the Carnic Alps, local civilian women were hired directly by the army as porters too. In peacetime, these women used a large wicker basket, worn on the back, to transport firewood, hay, forage, fruit and vegetables up and down the mountains each day between village, pasture and market. Still wearing long skirts, aprons, shawls and hob-nailed boots, they now filled their baskets with rations, medicines, munitions and grenades. Some 1400 women were employed to carry loads of 30 or 40 kilograms up paths which climbed more than 1000m to the front each morning at dawn. Often they were then asked to help carry the wounded back down the mountain. This was not only strenuous but dangerous: several women were badly wounded and one killed by enemy fire while working. Given the difficulties and dangers of human and animal labour, both armies increasingly turned to technology. They developed a system of teleferiche or aerial ropeways, modelled on the systems used by mining companies, to transport large quantities of heavy materials. These motorised aerial funiculars (cable cars) could be rapidly installed and, once built, could transport even heavy guns up to places where they could never have been brought over the ground. They also offered a supposedly smoother, more comfortable way to evacuate the wounded – though as a British officer noted at the time, it was “not a comfortable means of transport”.

As a member of the Entente, Italy was a partner in a coalition war effort. Italian troops served alongside their allies in Macedonia, in France, in Russia and in the Middle East; the Italian navy cooperated with the French and British fleets in the Mediterranean. The allies also contributed to the war in Italy. In October 1917 a joint German–Austrian attack inflicted a catastrophic defeat on Italy at the battle of Caporetto; British and French troops were quickly sent to help support the Italians as they stabilised their new positions. These experienced soldiers were initially rather condescending towards their Italian ally – but they soon found that fighting in Italy posed some unfamiliar challenges compared with the combat they were used to in France and Flanders. Mapping and orientation, artillery range-finding and all forms of logistics required adapting and developing new approaches – and the air force also found that flying missions over the mountains was a new experience. No Australian terrestrial units were deployed to Italy in the First World War, but the Australian Destroyer Flotilla was sent to join an international French– British–Italian force patrolling the lower Adriatic. This flotilla, consisting of six River Class torpedo destroyers, was despatched in 1917. They passed through Port Said in August and after a refit in Malta arrived at their new base, the southern Italian port of Taranto, in October 1917. Their task was to search for Austrian submarines based in the Adriatic that sought to head out into the Mediterranean, where they attacked troop ships and merchant convoys. An accidental collision between two of the Australian vessels led to their being sent to the port of Genoa for repairs in 1918, where most unluckily a number of the crew caught the Spanish flu: five men from the HMS Huon died. They lie buried alongside another

Left to right: An Italian outpost. AWM H18204 Royal Australian Navy ships from the Australian destroyer flotilla, based at Brindisi, Italy, took part in the Allied blockade of the Adriatic Sea. AWM EN0421

336 Commonwealth servicemen in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission section of the Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa. At least their final resting place is known and preserved; many who died up in the high Alps were less fortunate. Soldiers killed in the fighting or by avalanches or rockfalls often remained where they fell. But this too is beginning to change. With climate change disproportionately affecting the Alpine region, the glaciers have begun to recede. In the last twenty-five years, dozens of First World War soldiers’ bodies have been recovered as the ice melts around old burials. Each year the ice slowly reveals more secrets of this devastating mountain war. •

ABOUT THE

AUTHOR

Dr Vanda Wilcox was born in the UK and now lives in Milan. She teaches modern European history at John Cabot University, Rome. Her books include Morale and the Italian Army in the First World War (2016) and The Italian Empire and the Great War (2021). WARTIME ISSUE 105 | 23

A VC on any other day Lieutenant Alexander MacNeil’s exploits at Bullecourt placed him among the bravest Australians of the First AIF. BY MICHAEL KELLY

24 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

LIEUTENANT MACNEIL

Opposite left: A fresh-faced Corporal Alexander MacNeil c. 1915. Image courtesy of: State Records of South Australia GRG26/5/4 Administration

Opposite Right: Alexander MacNeil’s medal group, with his Distinguished Service Order (left) and MiD (sewn to the Victory Medal ribbon). AWM RELAM16491.001-.005

Below: Soldiers of the 10th Battalion take a break during an exercise near Mena. AWM A02135

he Minenwerfer shell described a graceful arc as it headed towards the Australian front line. Directly in the shell’s path were two men who had been sending greetings in the form of rifle grenades to the Germans opposite. One man who saw the shell yelled a warning, but it was too late for anyone to do more than duck their heads. The shell landed and detonated with a thunderous explosion. One of those men on top of the dugout was Lieutenant Alexander MacNeil of the 10th Battalion. MacNeil, a native of Inverness, Scotland, had arrived in Australia at the start of 1913 and was working as a boilermaker’s assistant in the Port Adelaide shipyards when the First World War began. He joined the 10th Battalion at Morphettville Racecourse, near Adelaide, on 29 August 1914 and – with three years’ prior service with 4th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders (Territorial Army) – soon found himself promoted to lance corporal. MacNeil and the 10th Battalion went ashore at Gallipoli as part of the first wave in the pre-dawn hours of 25 April. Weeks of heavy fighting ensued as the invaders fought for a toehold on Gallipoli. Like so many others, MacNeil developed dysentery from the poor diet and hygiene. He refused to be evacuated and remained with the battalion throughout its time on the peninsula. By August MacNeil, now a sergeant, had been introduced to a weapon that would play a major part in his life over the next three years: the mortar. One of the first mortars seen and used by the AIF was the Garland trench mortar, which featured a smooth-bore barrel fixed at a 45 degree angle and was fired by a powder charge. By October there were 7 Garland mortars with the Australians on Gallipoli, one of which was with the 10th Battalion. But it would be on the Western Front, with a mortar far superior to the Garland, that MacNeil would really come into his own. From the earliest days at Morphettville and throughout the Gallipoli campaign MacNeil had gained a reputation as being earnest, selfeffacing, a deep thinker and decisive in action. He was popular with officers and men alike and it was no surprise to many, except maybe MacNeil himself, when he was commissioned as a second lieutenant on 16 March.

WARTIME ISSUE 105 | 25

To the Western Front and a close call

The 10th Battalion sailed to France at the end of March and by mid-April had arrived in the Nursery Sector. At this time the 10th’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Price Weir, formed the Scouting, Intelligence and Sniping Platoon. In command was Lieutenant William McCann, another original member of the battalion, with MacNeil as his second in charge. All 40 members of the platoon were handpicked and proven veterans. McCann, MacNeil and their platoon trained hard, making several forays into the front line and no man’s land to hone their craft. The 10th Battalion entered the front line in the Pétillon Sector in June, occupying positions on the right of the 3rd Brigade’s line. The Germans gave the newcomers an unwelcome introduction to the Western Front, subjecting the Australians to a nearconstant barrage of artillery and mortar fire. On 13 June MacNeil had a brush with the Reaper’s scythe when he was hit in the chest by two

chunks of shrapnel during one such bombardment. His pay book and platoon nominal roll book, kept in his right breast pocket, deflected the shrapnel pieces downwards, filleting his skin, but not penetrating his abdominal cavity. He was evacuated to England and the shrapnel was removed in the 3rd London General Hospital at Wandsworth. After his operation, the surgeon presented him with the two pieces of shrapnel, which he kept. He would also have also learned of his promotion to lieutenant, which had taken effect while in transit to England. After convalescing and being declared fit, MacNeil returned to the 10th Battalion in mid-August. The battalion, then located at the brick fields near Albert, was in the process of returning to the front line for an attack near Mouquet Farm. The 10th had already been battered at Pozières the previous month and suffered further heavy casualties in its attack near Mouquet Farm, though MacNeil remained unscathed.

His pay book and platoon nominal roll book, kept in his right breast pocket, deflected the shrapnel pieces downwards, filleting his skin, but not penetrating his abdominal cavity. Clockwise from left: MacNeil’s pocket books saved his life in June 1916. The shrapnel pieces were removed from between his skin and abdominal wall near his navel. AWM RELAWM16493 MacNeil became acquainted with mortars, in this case the Garland Trench Mortar on Gallipoli. c. September 1915. AWM A02166 The Garland Trench Mortar was MacNeil’s introduction to indirect fire weaponry. AWM RELAWM00373.001

26 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

LIEUTENANT MACNEIL

Tempting fate in the Ypres Salient

The battered 10th Battalion was sent to positions around Hill 60 in the Ypres Sector in September. At this stage, Ypres was a quiet sector, but MacNeil was one of many still keen to take the fight to the Germans. On the 27th of September MacNeil and Sergeant George Guthrie, another original member of the battalion, sat on top of a dugout conducting their own private war with the Germans by firing numerous rifle grenades across no man’s land. Company Sergeant Major Joe Watson, who was nearby, described what happened next in a letter to his mother: I happened to look up and saw an aerial torpedo coming down and I shouted out, but it was too late to jump down so we just ducked our heads and it landed four yards either side of us with a terrible explosion. The only damage it did was a piece of splinter, which hit Sergeant Guthrie in the shoulder. We had just got over that when another came and we jumped down and got into the tunnel and it landed right into the hole, blew the rifles and grenades to pieces and we, being in the tunnel, escaped all injuries.

Watson, a well-known Australian Rules football identity in South Australia had played in the Port Adelaide Magpies 1914 premiershipwinning game in September 1914, only weeks after joining the 10th Battalion. The battalion’s war diary entry for 27/28 September reported that “we annoyed the Boche during the night with rifle grenades. He retaliated but did no damage.” Sergeant Guthrie, despite the shrapnel hit to his shoulder, remained on duty. He would be badly wounded, and Watson mortally wounded, at Bullecourt the following May. MacNeil and the 10th Battalion returned to the Somme in October and endured the bitter winter of 1916–17 around Gueudecourt. In January he was seconded to the 3rd Australian Light Trench Mortar Battery, becoming the unit’s second in command. His commanding officer was an old friend from the 10th Battalion, Captain Alan Newland. The battery was equipped with the then-new and still very secret 3-inch Stokes mortar. It had a smoothbore tube with a firing pin at its base. It was kept in place by a bipod which had rudimentary sights attached and a baseplate to absorb recoil. It was capable of firing bombs up to 800 yards and was served by a crew of two or three men. When the German Army began its withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line in February, MacNeil went into action with his new unit for the first time at Eaucourt l’Abbeye, where despite an initial lack of front-line ammunition, the unit performed well after being resupplied. A further action followed soon after at Bazentin, where the mortarmen again performed well.

Burnout before Bullecourt

March saw the 3rd Light Trench Mortar Battery training behind the lines before returning to action in April. MacNeil was in charge of the reserve guns on 15 April during the German attack at Lagnicourt which, after a stiff fight, was driven back with heavy losses. The remainder of the month was taken up with training exercises and recreation. On 4 May the battery received orders to move to Noreuil in preparation to support operations against the Hindenburg Line. By the following evening, the battery were in their positions in part of the Hindenburg Line that had been captured the day before. They were soon in action, providing WARTIME ISSUE 105 | 27

Clockwise from left: Australian soldiers receive instruction in the use of the 3 inch Stokes mortar, c. December 1916. AWM E00066 Men of the 3rd Light Trench Mortar Battery in February 1918. Corporal Julian North DCM and Captain Alan Newland MC are in the front row sixth and tenth from the left. AWM E01761 Alexander MacNeil (centre front) attended a mortar instructors’ course at Lyndhurst in November 1917. His DSO ribbon is above his left breast pocket. AWM P11126.001

“The fact is, sir, I’m done. My nerves are gone. I feel I can’t stand it any longer. Could you arrange for me to have a few months rest …”

fire support against enemy positions, while being subjected to lively and constant German artillery fire. Brigadier General Gordon Bennett, who was in command of the 3rd Infantry Brigade at the time, wrote an article for Smith’s Weekly for the anniversary of Bullecourt in 1930. He recalled that MacNeil had visited him at 3rd Brigade Headquarters. Clearly nervous and after a considered pause, MacNeil began, “The fact is, sir, I’m done. My nerves are gone. I feel I can’t stand it any longer. Could you arrange for me to have a few months rest at the Training Camp in England?” Bennett, who well knew this officer’s fighting qualities and reputation as a leader in battle, promised that “immediately we come out of the line you will be sent to England for a long rest. In the meantime I know you will do your best.” MacNeil, both clearly relieved and embarrassed in equal measure, replied, “Thank you sir. I will, and er-er- I’m sorry I feel as I do.” The meeting over, he saluted and left Bennett’s dugout.

A VC on any other day

In the early hours of 6 May after an 18-hour bombardment, the Germans launched an attack in great strength. Where the attack fell against Bennett’s 3rd Brigade, the Australians were 28 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

forced in places to conduct a fighting withdrawal, while others held on at makeshift bomb stops (defensive barriers built across their own trenches). MacNeil had been in charge of a bomb stop in the O.G.1 trench during the night, where he and his men kept the Germans at bay in a fierce bombing duel. When Captain Newland was wounded early in the morning, MacNeil took charge of the battery. His four mortars were sited to defend the Australian gains at the O.G.1 trench, and as the German infantry and bombers began a flanking attack, the mortars were soon spitting their hail of death. The German advance was such that MacNeil’s mortar crews were unable to continue shortening their range, for fear of hitting their own men; but they kept firing, attempting to slow the German advance. Another German attack led by two flame-throwers advanced down O.G.1 and reached the bomb stop that MacNeil and his men had been defending. The closest mortar crew to the German attack, led by Corporal Julian North, was ordered to withdraw: by this stage the nearest German soldier was some 10 yards from his position. While several men carried their mortar out of danger, North and others threw Stokes shells and bombs to keep the

Germans at bay before withdrawing themselves. North would later be awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal for his courage and leadership during the battle. The German advance was relentless; one man with a flame-thrower led the attack along O.G.1, with German bombers close behind. A second flamethrower brought up the rear of the assault. MacNeil, not wishing to lose any of his men or mortars, ordered his remaining crews back. Now alone in the trench and armed only with his service revolver and several bombs, he had moved to a position that Charles Bean, the official historian, described as a ‘crevice’ when the first German armed with a flame-thrower rounded the corner. As a jet of flame roared past him, MacNeil threw a bomb, killing the German. Despite the presence of the second flame-thrower, MacNeil fought on alone for a short time before being joined by Captain Jim Newland VC and some of his men from the 12th Battalion. The makeshift Australian section had brought with them a box of bombs, and with these they held the second flame-thrower back from their position. MacNeil had left the safety of the trench and was bombing from a shell hole when Newland was wounded in the arm and chest. With their officer wounded, the position began to give way and the German attack was renewed. Seizing the initiative, MacNeil picked up a Lewis gun and moved from shell hole to shell hole towards the second German carrying a flamethrower. As the man advanced past him down the trench, MacNeil stood: firing from the hip, he emptied the Lewis gun’s magazine into the soldier with the flamethrower and those around him. As he fell, the flamethrower’s nozzle was turned back towards other

LIEUTENANT MACNEIL

German soldiers, immolating several more. The German attack faltered and the survivors began to withdraw. Not yet done, MacNeil, seeing the Germans’ confusion, ran back to his original position and picked up six tenpound mortar shells. After climbing back on top of the parapet, he ran along it, dropping a mortar shell into each traverse still occupied by the Germans as he went past. In this manner, he cleared 50 to 60 yards of trench that had been captured by the enemy. Still

reeling from the psychological effects of the flame-throwers, the Australians were slow to react; but MacNeil rallied as many men as he could and led a counter-attack, regaining all of the lost ground and a further 50 yards of trench line. Here, he erected another bomb stop and held on against all further attacks. As dawn broke, and the desperation of the situation was realised, a company from the 10th Battalion was despatched to relieve MacNeil

and the other survivors of this allnight battle. As the fresh troops entered the trench, it was a charnel house, lined with dead and wounded Australians and Germans. MacNeil was described as being “white as a sheet, blood streaming down his face from a head wound, and hardly able to stand.” He threw his arms around the relieving officer’s neck saying, “Thank Christ you’ve come, old man. We’re all in.” Only six other exhausted men remained on their feet.

WARTIME ISSUE 105 | 29

MacNeil carried these maps in this waterproof carrier during his last actions near Harbonnières in August 1918. AWM RELAWM16492

To England and new beginnings

Bennett recommended MacNeil for the award of the Victoria Cross. Most thoroughly deserved as that award would have been for this action, MacNeil ultimately received the Distinguished Service Order. The 3rd Brigade was relieved on 10 May, and by the end of the month was in rest positions well behind the lines. Bennett remained true to his word and in late June sent his exhausted young officer to England; after attending a medical board he was graded as unfit for service. During his recovery he met his future wife, Mary Rose, a staffer at the hospital where he was being treated. At the end of July he reported as an instructor to the 3rd Training Battalion; it was here he learned of his award of the DSO. MacNeil was posted to the Southern Command Bombing and Gunnery School at Lyndhurst in early November. The school, which opened in 1915, had been originally set up to train soldiers from all over the British Empire in the use of grenades in combat. By 1917 an artillery range had been added to train soldiers in the use of mortars. MacNeil joined the 51st Course for mortar instructors, passing with distinction. He was further rewarded for his service when he was mentioned in General Sir Douglas Haig’s despatch of 7 November 1917 for “distinguished and gallant service and devotion to duty in the field during the period 26.2.17 and 20.9.17.” MacNeil and Mary were married on 9 February 1918 at All Souls Church in London and enjoyed several months together while he continued to serve as an instructor. 30 | WARTIME ISSUE 105

In June he returned to France and rejoined the 3rd Light Trench Mortar Battery. He took part in the 10th Battalion’s successful capture of Merris in July, where he was again commended, this time by the 10th Battalion’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Maurice WilderNeligan, for his work keeping seven mortars in action and providing vital fire support throughout the battle. When the allies launched their major offensive on 8 August, MacNeil and his comrades were once again in action, supporting the 3rd Brigade as it advanced. On 15 August MacNeil was slightly gassed, but remained in action. His last action of the war took place on 25 August 1918 at Madame Wood near Harbonnières. During the attack MacNeil and his men captured a German 77mm field gun, turned the gun on its former owners and began firing over open sights. The action continued for several hours; every available man was put to work ferrying ammunition to the gun, which attracted ever-increasing fire from the Germans. When MacNeil finally ceased fire, he had fired 100 artillery rounds. Only days later the unit was relieved from the front line. An exhausted MacNeil was forcibly evacuated to England where he again fronted a medical board. He was found to be still suffering from being gassed, compounded by an ever-worsening stomach complaint that stemmed from having had untreated dysentery on Gallipoli. He remained in England and took his discharge from the Australian Imperial

Force in London on 3 February 1919. His first daughter Sarah was born the same year. MacNeil returned to the ship repairing trade until July 1922, when he and his family emigrated to Australia and settled in Sydney. A second daughter, Rosemary, was born in 1924. Little has been found so far of his later life in Australia, but in the late 1960s he donated his medals and many of his souvenirs, including the shrapnel removed from his body. He passed away on 30 November 1972, aged 79. Alexander MacNeil had served with great courage and distinction from Gallipoli to the Western Front, yet when he returned to his adopted country in 1922, it was to a life of anonymity, unless he was reunited with old comrades, among whom his story lived large. Certainly his former brigade commander never forgot the young officer who had the courage to face his fears, despite being near to breakdown, and who went on to perform the deeds that restored a dire situation and would have certainly been a VC on any other day. •

ABOUT THE

AUTHOR

Michael Kelly is a historian and the manager of Wartime. He has research interests in the First and Second World Wars and Australia’s Cold War conflicts. He is co-editor of In from the Cold: Reflections on Australia’s Korean War.