IKINS DOWN UNDER: The Australians show us how it should be done: the Battle of Fromelles, July 19-20 1916

This past Monday, July 19th, 2010 was the 94th Anniversary of the Battle of Fromelles - a disaster for Australia.

Here is what the badge above looks like after 94 years in the ground:

I will apologize now - there are a lot of links and information here; but this is such a moving event that I think it's important to have it all in one place, especially for Americans. These are the kinds of things that were happening in France before we ever got there in 1917. It's because of events like this that General Pershing, the Commander of the American Expeditionary Force, refused to allow Americans, except for one or two isolated occasions (such as the battled of Hamel where we first fought side-by-side with the Australians) to be placed under foreign command. This was against British wishes, who saw us as simply a manpower pool. Read the following from Wikipedia and you'll see why Pershing objected:

The Battle of Fromelles, sometimes known as the Action at Fromelles or the Battle of Fleurbaix, occurred in France on July 19-20, 1916, during World War I. The action was intended partly as a diversion to the Battle of the Somme that was taking place about 80 kilometres (50 mi) to the south. The operation sought to retake a salient just north of the German-occupied village of Fromelles, 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) from the city of Lille.

Fromelles was a combined operation between British troops and the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). It would be the first occasion that the AIF saw action on the Western Front.

After a night and a day of fighting, 1,500 British and 5,533 Australian soldiers were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. The Australian War Memorial describes the battle as "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history."^[1]

It is believed that Adolf Hitler, then a 27-year-old corporal and a message runner in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment, took part in the battle.^[4] Hitler served on the Aubers-Fromelles sector from March 1915 until September 1916.

[COMMENT: one Australian journalist here wondered what the 20th century's history would have been if a 27-year-old AH had caught a "stray Australian bullet." ]

The bodies of Allied soldiers killed in the area re-taken by the Germans were buried in mass graves shortly after the battle. They were transported to sites behind German lines and buried in pits. Most of these were discovered and the remains transferred to what would become official cemeteries.

There was speculation for many years regarding the existence of an unmarked and forgotten mass grave near Fromelles, containing the remains of Allied soldiers killed during the battle and subsequently buried by the Germans.

Research by an Australian amateur historian, Lambis Englezos, identified a site at

50°36′36.36″N 2°51′17.10″E / 50.6101°N 2.85475°E, in a field at the edge of Bois Faisan ("Pheasant Wood"), on the outskirts of Fromelles. Bodies were transported there by German soldiers on a narrow gauge trench railway on July 22, 1916, before being buried in eight pits measuring approximately 10 metres long, 2.2 metres wide and five metres deep. Englezos believed that these grave pits had not been discovered during the official post-war burial campaigns. In 2007, a non-invasive geophysical survey, commissioned by the Australian government, was conducted by Glasgow University Archaeological Research Department (GUARD).^[5]^[6] The survey gave readings consistent with pits containing the remains of hundreds of soldiers. A subsequent metal detector survey led to the discovery of Australian Army artifacts at the site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fromelles

The Australians put on a massive effort. They hired a contractor, set up a forensic lab, and put out a call to Australians to come forward for a DNA test if they suspected that their ancestor died at Fromelles and was among the missing. In the end, they were able to identify 96 Australians heretofore declared missing. They established a new Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, the first WWI cemetery established since the 1920s.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2958850.htm

http://fffaif.org.au/2010/03/17/fromelles-id-profiles/

The story of the two brothers really got to me.

http://www.portnews.com.au/news/local/news/general/lost-war-heroes-identified-in-mass-grave/1781383.aspx

As some of you know, I am an amateur historical researcher and have had my own battles with bureaucracy, which at times seems strangely resistant to the notion that they might have "missed" something. It took me four years to get my great-great-great uncle's name - Private Simeon Ikins, died of wounds received on July 3, 1863 - placed on a headstone on Gettysburg National Cemetery

I therefore feel a great deal of sympathy for Mr. Englezos, who pursued his research for years and was frequently dismissed as something of a zealot (to be charitable)by those in authority as well as in the media. I know, I was treated the same way. Those same people are now honoring him for that very same determination (he was just awarded the Order of Australia Medal). Those Diggers would still be lying out there in the woods if not for him. Many families now have the closure that they sought for decades:

http://www.theherald.com.au/news/local/news/general/hunter-family-closes-chapter-with-fromelles-ceremony/1889456.aspx

He's an example for us all not to give up when you know you're right.

They buried all but one of the 250 soldiers, both Australian and British, known and unknown, back in January and February. And individual grave service was held for every man. They saved the last unknown Australian for a very moving ceremony attended by the Prince of Wales and the Governor General of Australia this past Monday:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/politics/greathearted-men-in-tragedy-at-fromelles-20100719-10hp3.html

On Monday I was at the Australian War Memorial conducting some research. They chased us out of the Resources Room a little early because for the normal 5 PM closing ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown - usually a bugler playing the "Last Post" (the Australian Taps) or a bagpiper playing a lament - there was going to be a special addition. Because this was the anniversary of the battle, and the ceremony would soon be taking place in France, the Chief Historian was to speak.

The Memorial was full of kids, like it usually is. They do a great job of getting the cost of war across to Australian kids with special exhibits and tours. Well, there must have been about 2-300 kids aged maybe 8 though 16 running around and, as usual, just being kids and not realizing what these exhibits and the names on bronze plaques represent. They know about ANZAC Day, but I don't think they were connecting the dots.

The historian then read a long account of the battle. He read from the diaries of those killed. He described the machine gun fire and whole files of men going down like teeth being knocked out of a comb. The carnage was so great that when it was over in some places informal truces allowed the Australians and British to clear the dead. In one case, two German soldiers crossed over and carried a wounded man to the Australian lines, placed him on the parapet, saluted and started to walk back to their lines when they were mistakenly shot down by men farther down the trench who had not see what that had done.

[Comment: They ought to put a memorial to those two unknown Germans somewhere out there at Fromelles.]

There has also been some implying that the Germans were brutal in the treatment of the bodies. I'm not sure that was the case. While I have see photos of the bodies piled on top of each other on small railway cars, I don't think that is indicative of any disrespect. They were placed in mass graves - it was the only thing you could do. According those who exhumed the graves, the bodies had been treated with respect by their enemies, and it's described here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1293660/First-World-War-heroes-set-laid-rest.html

Back to the ceremony at the memorial. Well, you can guess what happened. The chatter and the giggling died down as the story was told. At the end you could have heard a pin drop. I think it sank into the older ones that these were the great-grandfathers, great-uncles and distant cousins who had never come back but were talked about from time to time at family get-togethers. The guy in the funny uniform in the old photograph on the mantle at grandma's house. I related to that: I was always told as a child that someone in the family had died at Gettysburg but there wasn't any more information than that. It took until 2002 to find his real identity and and where he was buried - under the wrong name since 1863, the name of a man who did not exist. But we got that fixed.

So now Fromelles is "fixed." However, I saw a short blurb the other day that they may have found another mass grave. Maybe some more Diggers and Tommies will get their identities back.

The bronze plaque here was sent to the next of kin of those KIA
and became known as the "Dead Man's Penny."

One last thing. There has been a lot of melodramatic writing here about how these soldiers got their "dignity" back because they were found and given a proper funeral. They never lost their dignity - they died in the service of their nation and they laid with their friends and - in some cases literally - their family. It doens't matter whether we knew where they were or not.

At the dedication of another new cemetery in November 1863, Abraham Lincoln said it best:

"...Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. "

Now it may seem melodramatic, but anything that was said last Monday at Fromelles was simply icing on the cake. Nothing that governments nor politicians can say has any meaning when it comes to "dignity."

They always had dignity; now we simply know for certain where at least some of them lie.